Last week was not only our first time attending the D23 Expo but also our first time in Disneyland! I thought I would share our observations and how it went for us Disney World natives out in California. We truly had a magical trip and while D23 was exciting and super fun, the parks were the highlight for us. Let’s dive in!
Disneyland
We arrived in California at around noon and ended up in the park around 4pm. The great thing was that we could just walk right to the park from our hotel. We stayed in the Grand California which was absolutely beautiful and very convenient to everything. I know the joke is always about how small Disneylands castle is but it really is a very cozy and sweet park. I loved the castle walk through of Sleeping Beauty and I wish we had that in our Magic Kingdom. We hopped on Snow White and Pirates before grabbing a spot for fireworks. It was really cool to me to ride Snow White again, it’s been a really long time and I am a sucker for a dark ride. I feel like you can feel Walt in Fantasyland and how much he must have loved seeing kids and parents having fun together.
We watched fireworks before heading back to the hotel and this is the only thing I will say was a little lacking for me. Maybe this is because I love Happily Ever After so very much. It just didn’t hit me in my feels the way I wanted it to and I was expecting the Up house or Buzz Lightyear to go flying by and neither happened so that was kind of disappointing. We headed back to get some sleep before a long park day after fireworks and I cannot stress enough how nice it was to just be able to walk there without waiting in line for transportation or walk miles to get there.
The next day was the first ever D23 Day in Disneyland so it was very busy but still pretty manageable. We had early entry which got a little confusing because there wasn’t really signage once you got in the park to let you know where to go for that and they had let everyone in up to the hub so we lost a little time there. Once we figured it out we rope dropped the Matterhorn which was super fun but ouch! Hahaha! We worked our way through some more classic dark rides including Mr Toads Wild Ride. This almost had me in tears because I loved this ride as a kid and it is my dads favorite.
We also rode Indiana Jones and loved that, I can’t wait for ours to open in Animal Kingdom! We were lucky enough to get a virtual queue for the Haunted Mansion Holiday, this was such a nice surprise since we thought Haunted Mansion was going to be closed the whole time we were there and then they announced that it was opening early AND opening with the holiday overlay! This was incredibly cool for us since we have only ever watched videos of it online and it’s combining two of our favorites, Haunted Mansion and Nightmare Before Christmas.
We had to get on It’s A Small World to see the little differences plus we love the Tomorrowland movie and felt like we were in it on the ride. If you have not watched that go do it, it’s awesome! We made our way into Toon Town, I miss having this in Disney World so much. The boys had never seen Toon Town so it was cool to watch them look around and they both agreed that we should still have a Toon Town here in Florida. We hopped on Roger Rabbit which is now one of my favorite rides….can we start a petition to bring that to Florida??
All in all we loved Disneyland, it’s so nostalgic and feels very chill. It is just really something to think about how Walt walked through there checking on guests and Cast Members. That is something we can’t say in Florida. We came back on Monday afternoon for a little while to finish up the rest of Fantasyland dark rides. The boys didn’t necessarily appreciate all of these but I loved them all!
Disney’s California Adventure
We decided this park feels a little bit like Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom had a baby park with no animals. There are a lot of similarities but it’s also so different at the same time. We hopped over to this park on D23 Day to check it out and get a feel for where everything was that we wanted to do. We rode Incredicoaster which we all LOVED, just wow, what a fun ride! We also rode Monsters, Inc (I can’t wait for a door coaster in Hollywood Studios) and we ate all the things from all the Cozy Cones.
Dill popcorn, bacon Mac & Cheese cone, yummy lemonades, root beer float and a churro! Walking into Radiator Springs was such a cool moment and Sawyer was so excited. We had a VERY early morning the next day so we did call it a night a little earlier than we had planned. I still watched World of Color from the 6th floor balcony at the hotel and it was incredible. It is definitely right behind Happily Ever After for me, I loved it.
We had early entry to California Adventure on Monday and once again I have to say that it is just so nice to be able to walk everywhere. The back side of the hotel had an entrance to California Adventure. We got in just before rope drop and headed straight for Radiator Springs Racers. Sawyer just grinned from ear to ear saying he had waited his whole like to ride that ride. It was really cute. After that it was off to Avengers Campus to try and catch some super heroes out and about or flying around and ride some more rides. We jumped on Web Slingers and Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout with very little wait time and loved both of them. Thatchers favorite was Web Slingers of course.
We got to see Black Widow, Black Panther, Iron Man, Captain America and caught Spiderman flying around too! Spiderman was awesome and came down after the show to give everyone high fives. We went int Pym’s Test Kitchen to get a pretzel and a flight to enjoy, what a cool place! I loved how it showed the shadows of food getting bigger and smaller. The pretzel was really good and the flight was awesome. We did two cocktails and two beers and all four were delicious. Plus we got to take home the flight board and cups! We did everything we wanted to do in this park except Grizzly River Run because it was down when we finally got around to going over there. All in all we loved this park and the boys left wishing they could take it with them, especially Cars Land and Avengers Campus. Such a great, chill park!
Downtown Disney
There is not really any comparing Downtown Disney to Disney Springs. They are really just too different. Disney Springs is enormous compared to Downtown Disney! But, I kind of enjoyed the smallness of Downtown Disney. It felt more like a local downtown than a big shopping area. And there was so much outdoor seating at all the restaurants, it just all felt very connected. There were a lot of the same stores and even some of the same restaurants but just much closer together and connected. We enjoyed walking through Downtown Disney to get to Disneyland too, it really made it where you could enjoy it coming and going without having to set aside a whole separate time to go there. On D23 Day the lines for stuff in the parks were soooo long but a lot of the same stuff was in Downtown Disney as well with no wait at all which was nice! we ended up having a little birthday dinner for Thatcher at the Italian restaurant before we headed to the airport. He loves his Italian food!
Grand California Hotel
I plan to do a full review post on the hotel but thought I would touch on it here a little too. This resort os GORGEOUS! the lobby, the rooms, the dining and pool areas, just all of it! We said it kind of felt like the Grand Floridian and the Wilderness Lodge had a baby resort. Haha! There were so many fun details and places you could find hidden Chip and Dales along with hidden Mickey’s. The balconies all had incredible views of the resort, the theme parks or Downtown Disney. I even watched World of Color from a “secret” balcony a Cast Member told me about and it was the best view! They had a turn down service each night and one night we got dark chocolate squares, the next night we got essential oil sleep rollers from the spa, I felt like royalty Hahaha! Plus the resort is so convenient to everything, out the front to Disneyland and Downtown Disney, out the back to California Adventure and it was only about a 10 minute walk to the convention center where D23 was being held. Literally perfect! I would absolutely stay here again.
Conclusion
We had the absolute best first trip to Disneyland and did just about everything we wanted to do in the few short days we had in the parks. It’s definitely easier to do it all there than it is in Disney World, that’s next to impossible unless you are staying for a long time. I would love to go back when D23 isn’t going on to just really focus on the parks and exploring the other resorts but this was an awesome first time out there for sure! Disneyland was my favorite, it was just really special to be in Walt’s park and think about how he walked here and he rode these rides. Plus I love all the dark rides and riding Mr Toad again was just everything! The boys loved California Adventure, that was definitely their favorite. They felt like Disneyland was just “old” Magic Kingdom hahaha. Maybe when they get older they will appreciate it more. If you want o check out the recaps of each day of D23 with all the announcements and info about all the panels we attended, I will link them for you below! As always, thank you for reading along and have a magical day!