Gigglesandgumballs: Disneyland and California Adventure....where dreams come true!

I recently had a friend move to Riverside, California, so I thought that it would be nice to visit them and take my girls to Disneyland. We had a really good visit ...they have only been gone since April, but we sure have missed them. Emily and I had planned what our weekend would look like...what we would do, where we would go..eat...etc. I am not sure that anything turned out as we had planned, but in the end we had a really time. Lesson learned..you can only plan so much...but sometimes you just have to roll with things...

So anyways, on our 3rd day in California we visited Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure. If you are visiting the California area, I would not recommend doing both parks in one day. You will not have enough time. We had no intentions of spending a lot of time at California Adventure...it looked like a really fun park, but other attractions at Disneyland were calling our name. My girls really, really wanted to visit Ariel and the only way to do this was to go to this park. We also went on this Soaring ride...where you para-sail through California...hands down one of my favorite rides....

Tips if traveling to Disney....if you are wanting to have the "Disney" experience....and do not have a reason to go to California...I would not recommend choosing Disneyland over Disney World in Orlando, Florida. I love the resorty feel of Disney World...and there are many more Disney parks that you can go to instead of just the two in California. I have been to Disney World 4 times and now Disneyland 4 and Euro Disney...and my conclusion still remains...Disney World wins the best Disney park award. If you are thinking about a Disney vacation for your family, I would not recommend taking the whole group until all of the kids are of age to remember the experience. A good age is 4-5 years old. I still remember my first visit at age 5. Going to Disney is an extremely expensive vacation, so unless you want to go back so all of your kids can remember it, wait until they are all old enough. Disney will just keep getting better...but also may keep getting more expensive.

Another tip, would be to go on the off season...if you can, go right after Labor Day when school is back in session...and don't go during the summer or during the spring break/Christmas/Thanksgiving season. Your entire day will be filled waiting in the heat (during the summer) in extremely long lines...most of the good rides will be at least 30 to over an hour wait. We went on a Monday during off season and it was great...our longest wait was maybe 20 minutes. Most were around 10 minutes or less. I don't know about you, but who has fun when everyone is hot....waiting in long lines...listening to kids complain.

Last tip...bring your own food. It is really expensive to eat at any Disney Park. We brought quiet a few snacks, but my friend Emily spent over $20 on 3 slices of pizza...yikes. If you can swing it, I would highly recommend a character dining experience. It is a bit pricey, but something my girls will never forget. I will write more about that tomorrow.

My dream is to take the entire family to Disney World when our boys are old enough...we should probably start saving now, because it will be an expensive little trip....my husband has no desire to go there, so I might be taking them on my own. I do agree with him though, Silver Dollar City in Branson is hands down a much better set-up than at Disney Park, but I like palm trees and oceans...what can I say?

So here are a few pictures of our day at Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure! A few of the pictures are from my friend Nancy. I only had my camera phone and a really low resolution pocket camera.