Mommy Daughter Date to Disneyland

While living here in Los Angeles I had a mental bucket list going on for things I wanted to do while we lived here. And we did get to do a lot except for one thing: Disneyland. I was actually hesitant about it as there have been less than savory changes made since it opened after the pandemic. Like getting rid of fast passes, upping the prices of things, always insanely crowded, etc. Our kids are also not super into Disney so it felt like we would be paying a lot for something our kids were neutral about. The only child that was into any Disney things was Eden (she loved Minnie when she was younger and her favorite movie is Raya and the Last Dragon). Add Joseph who hates rides, Sam who doesn't like theme parks too much, and Noah who is super young, and I was leaning toward not going. Then Sam had an idea. A mommy-daughter date to Disneyland! And it sounded like the perfect solution! Sam coincidentally had no surgeries scheduled on February 21st so he could handle all the at-home duties. 

I told Eden we would be going on a special mommy-daughter date and she immediately thought we would be going to Target and eating at Chick-Fil-A. I kept saying we were going somewhere better but her little heart was set on buying a new puppycorn. The day of we woke up super early to drive to Anaheim so we could take a shuttle into Disneyland. It actually worked out great! They checked our bags before the shuttle so we skipped the insanely long line at the gates. I bought tickets from the military ITT office for a little discount, but the prices were still higher than the "at-the-gate prices" I saw seven years ago. Oh well. Another thing I paid for was the Genie +, since fast passes were a thing of the past. It was expensive, but maybe worth it? I didn't know how it worked so I was fiddling around and didn't quite understand that we could only book one ride at a time. I booked the first ride I saw which happened to be It's a Small World. So I wasted one of our "fast passes" by doing a not-so-highly-sought-out ride. But that's okay! I went in with no major expectations and wanted to follow Eden's lead. 

Pretty girl sporting the ears I bought her. 

 

Instead of waiting to have our picture taken I quickly snapped these to get to our "It's a Small World" ride. 

Also a quick snap in front of the Sleeping Beauty castle before running to the very back of the park...where no one is so the Genie + pass I booked didn't even get used.

 

This was a magical moment right here.

Pass the Pinocchio ride!

As much as people make fun of this ride, it is so visually appealing!

I think Eden enjoyed it?

I loved being able to point out the different cultures represented,
so it was fun for me at least!

Here is Eden's favorite ride! I heard it was Walt Disney's favorite too.

 

Here are instances of us in line. The first one is for the Pinocchio ride, and the second was for Peter Pan. Something I didn't understand was how busy the Peter Pan ride was. The line was insane from the get-go so I thought it must be a very desired ride. Very underwhelming for the 40-minute wait. But I did enjoy this cute girl in the meantime!

Eden showing off her Puppycorn, and asking me to go to Target to get another one.

We did spot Genie!

The one semi-decent picture I got.

When leaving the castle we came across a band that played amazing songs,
and they definitely didn't talk about Bruno.

Eden spotted the double-decker bus and immediately asked to ride it. It took us to the very front of the park, so we rode it twice to get us back to where we were.  We took the top the first time!

Passing the band again.

 

Passing Tomorrowland and the Matterhorn. We did not ride the Matterhorn, but I always found it beautiful.

Horse #1

Horse #2

 

We had to get off and get right back on so we took the bottom and ate some snacks.

 

We then headed to Tomorrowland to use our next Genie + pass at Space Mountain. As we were a little early we rode a rocket ride in the meantime. 

Ready to go!

 

Getting ready to ride Space Mountain! So happy Eden was tall enough to ride the big rides here.

But not tall enough to show up in the photo!

Next on the agenda was lunch, but the new thing was ordering food on the app and waiting until it was ready. Eden wanted a $15 corndog and for some reason, we had to wait an hour before we could get one. So I thought why not have a Dole Whip in the meantime! Eden saw the Tiki Room was open and asked to go in. It was a super cute room with singing birds and plants.

Jose the emcee.

All the singing birds.

 

Fountain and a bird chandelier.

Eden's first dole whip. Just as good as I remembered it!

 

Here is Eden's gourmet hot dog. I paid almost an extra $2 for this honey mustard sauce (her favorite) but she didn't like it and used ketchup packets instead. Oh well.

Mickey showed up while we were having lunch!

 

Time for the Autotopia ride! For some reason, we were held up for a while so we sat in this care for quite a long time. 

At least I could hang out with this cutie.

 

Our next ride was Finding Nemo, and this was possibly the longest line. Time to take photos while we wait!

 

Now we're in!

Our initial view out of the submarine.

 

 

 

Overall a really cute ride!

A picture of us both this time!

Jungle cruise time!

 

The conductor for the Jungle Cruise was super funny, and yet still had a tone in her voice that she's been doing this all day. But the animatronic animals were really cool to see.

Sharing a funnel cake! It was way too much though.

Something to note: I heard at the beginning of the year that they closed Splash Mountain for major renovations and turn it into a Princess and the Frog ride. So it surprised me that I found it on our Genie+ app. We walked over there and sure enough, it was still open! When we were getting in line a family gave us some ponchos as they were passed onto them from a previous family. They were rather torn at this point but we took them. This is where I found out that Eden absolutely hates big drops in rides, poor thing.

Once again, Eden was nowhere to be found in the photo!

Spotted Winnie the Pooh.

And Captain Jack Sparrow!

The longest line in terms of the actual length was the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, but the line moved quickly so it wasn't too long in terms of time. This was the last ride as Eden and I were getting a little tired and I finally promised her we would go to Target right afterward.

Spotted Captain Jack Sparrow again!

For a Tuesday in the middle of February, this place was so packed!

We finally got our photos in the front!

Our "we are pretty done" faces.

Back to the parking lot after taking a shuttle.

Overall a super fun trip with my girl. I kept thinking Eli would have loved coming and thought about convincing Sam to take Eli to California Adventure Land across the way, but it's not going to happen. I also thought the boys would be jealous, but hilariously Eden only talked about going to Target to get a Puppycorn and didn't mention anything about Disneyland when we got home. Funny girl! It was probably more for me anyway but she was a little trooper and I think she had fun. Disneyland, check.