Well guys, I’ve been a slacker blogger, but I’ve sure been having a lot of fun!
First off, my little sister from Connecticut has been visiting the past couple weeks. I’ve loved spending time with her and my little boys have been in heaven playing with their cousins!
I hung out with both of my sisters last night and I loved it!
We also went up to my parent’s house for dinner on Sunday and snapped this pic of my sissy and my mommy…
My other sister left before we took this picture. Boo. 🙁
We also sang Happy Birthday to me! Boo 🙁
My birthday isn’t for another 8 days, but we decided to sing while we had so many of our family members there.
My darling aunt made a tray of yummy brownies for our family, so we stuck some candles in them and called it a birthday cake!
This is a very attractive picture of me blowing out my FOUR candles. Hee hee.
I intend to party hard the next 8 days!
Well, another reason I’ve been so busy and such a slacker-y blogger is that we went to DISNEYLAND!!!! Wahoo! We’ve wanted to take our kids there foreeeeever, but for one reason or another (pregnantness, newborns, no $$, busy schedule, etc.), we’ve never taken them there!
So, since our kids are growing up so fast, we decided to make a trek to Disneyland while they’re all still young-ish and at home. I’m so glad we did!
Folks, we had SO MUCH FUN! I cannot even tell you how magical it was! The last time I’d been to Disneyland was when I was 19; Kev hadn’t been since he was 14! We did take the kids to Disney World 11 years ago, but they were so tiny and hardly remember it.
So, this trip was EPIC! I’m here to tell you that if you’ve ever pondered taking your kids to Disneyland, but for one reason or another haven’t….you should go! It is worth every single penny!
Because we have six kiddos, we tried to keep it as affordable as possible. This trip cost us around $3500 – $3700. That may sound like a lot of money, but I think we actually did AWESOME considering we’re a family of EIGHT (granted, the baby was free….but still!)
First off, we opted to drive instead of fly. Flying would have cost us around $2000, but instead it cost us about $300 in gas to drive. Cha-ching.
It’s about a 9.5 hour drive for us, which really wasn’t too bad. The drive there was a lot of fun because everyone was SOOOO excited! I snapped this pic as we drove past Vegas, which was pretty cool…
We ended up getting to our hotel right around midnight. We stayed at the Desert Inn and Suites, a recommendation from a friend, and it turned out to be the perfect place to stay!
It’s right across the street from Disney; we walked to and from the park every day. The rooms weren’t super nice, but they were clean and comfortable. We were really only in the room to sleep, so I didn’t care if the room was really nice anyway. The prices were very reasonable and we were able to get a small suite (it wasn’t fancy at all, just functional) that accommodated our whole crew. I loved it!
FYI, most (probably all) of the hotels in the area charge crazy resort fees and taxes because they’re near Disney. Super lame. But, I still felt like we got a good deal regardless. Our hotel cost us $826 (it was $646 before all the crazy fees and taxes!) for 4 nights. That’s actually a pretty good deal considering how expensive hotels are in the area and that our room was able to accommodate all of us! The location of our hotel could not be beat either!
Disneyland tickets are expensive. They just are. There are a few small discounts you can find online, but not many. We bought the 3 day Park Hopper Tickets. Regular price is $275 for adults (10+) and $264 for children. We bought them online at aRes Travel and got them for $262 for adults and $252 for kids. That’s about the cheapest price you’ll find. So, our tickets cost us $1828! Holy crap.
Still worth every penny.
Most days we ate breakfast at our hotel (free continental breakfast), we packed a lunch with us to eat at the park (PB&J, chips, fruit leathers and snacks) and then we bought dinner at the park. We spent about $70ish a day on dinner. We estimate we spent about $500 on food; meals as we were traveling to and from California, groceries that we bought before we left and the dinners and a few other snacks we bought at the park.
We had a few other miscellaneous expenses (souvenirs, etc.) so our total was $3600-ish. I’m sharing how much we spent just for information for y’all! Hopefully it will help some of you out there who are planning a trip and/or are curious how much a Disney trip might cost.
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Well, I have a zillion pictures to share, so here goes nuthin’…
The kids had a lot of fun seeing all of the characters around Disneyland! We didn’t get a lot of pictures, but if we saw a character who was available, without a long line, we took the opportunity to take some pics!
Daisy Duck…
Donald Duck…
Flynn from Bug’s Life….
My son LOVED seeing the Storm Troopers “patrolling” around Tomorrowland…
They rarely stopped for a picture, so we snapped this pic as quickly as we could. They walked around the park in full character telling people to slow down. It was funny. If people tried to get pictures with them, sometimes they would stop for a second, other times they’d say something like, “We’re on patrol and can’t stop.”
We had fun at Mickey’s Toontown…
We also enjoyed Splash Mountain….
My oldest son has never really liked big Amusement Park rides, but he really enjoyed a lot of the rides at Disney! I was really proud of him; he went of every big ride except for Tower of Terror and California Screamin’. He went on Splash Mountain (I don’t have the pic of him on it though, dang it), but he said he didn’t like that big hill and will never go on the ride again! I was happy he went on it once though.
Occasionally, he enjoyed going on smaller rides with the baby and sometimes my five year old, while the rest of us went on some of the bigger rides. It was great. My son told me that he probably went on The Little Mermaid more than any other ride! Ha ha. What a sweet brother.
We LOVED California Adventure too (another park that’s also a part of the Disneyland Resort!) We all loved California Screamin’ (the big roller coaster.) There were a few times when we noticed the line was very short (only about 5 minutes), so we went on it a few times in a row…
There were five of us who went on this ride a lot, so one of us was always a single rider. I had to laugh at the picture in the middle (you can click on the picture to enlarge it); my daughter was the single rider and the other random single rider who rode with her, posed with a drink when their picture was snapped. Too funny!
We also loved riding on the giant Ferris Wheel at Paradise Pier (California Adventure)…
We had to wait in line for about half an hour and the actual ride on the Ferris Wheel was very short, but I was glad we got to go. I snapped this pic from on top of the Ferris Wheel (you can see Tower of Terror and Cars Land)…
Beautiful!
We loved wandering around Cars Land (California Adventure.) It was magical and looked just like we’d stepped into the movie!
We also snapped a picture with the Walt Disney and Mickey statue…
And with the cool “fake street” in Hollywood Land…
There are SO MANY cool places for photo ops!
I went on a few rides with the baby while the rest of the fam went on some other fun rides. He’s such a sweetie….
We also went on The Tower of Terror (California Adventure.) Folks, I was seriously freaked out about going on this ride! In fact, before we’d left on our trip I’d decided I was NOT going to go on that ride! However, when we got there, I got caught up in all the Disney Fun and thought, “Heck, I can’t be here in Disneyland and NOT go on that ride!”
So, I mustered up my courage and went. I was so scared! I actually didn’t LOVE the ride the first time I went. But, a little while later our FIVE year old said he wanted to go on it! Soooo, I knew I had to go again since I wanted to be with him.
So, I went on that ride again…and I enjoyed it! We went on it a third time a day later and I loved it even more! It’s such a fun ride and I’m so glad I went on it!
That top pic was the first time we went on the ride (I’m thoroughly freaked out!), the other two pics you can see me coddling my sweet 5 year old. I was so worried about him!
We loved every single second of our Disneyland Trip! We watched several of the parades and watched the fireworks show one night too. Unbelievable!!! I felt myself get a little teary during the fireworks show. It was amazing and made me feel just like a kid again.
We took this pic after the firework show….
Absolutely magical.
We asked our kids what their favorite rides were and they said; California Screamin’, Tower of Terror, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, The Matterhorn, Indiana Jones and the Cars Racers. My sweet five year old said his favorite ride was The Haunted Mansion. That’s one of my all-time favorites too!
The only thing we didn’t like was The Enchanted Tiki Room! It’s a short show featuring fake singing birds. It’s not very impressive and Kev said it was the worst thing in the entire park! Ha ha. We went there shortly after the parade one night when things were crazy and there were a bazillion people everywhere! I noticed there wasn’t a wait at The Enchanted Tiki Room (now we know why!), so we decided to go. It was dumb.
But, that’s the only dumb thing in the park!
We LOVED our trip so much! We were all blown away by how amazing Disneyland was! I never wanted to leave. We took full advantage of our time there though! We arrived every morning shortly after the park opened and stayed until the park closed each night.
We kept track of how far we walked each day and it was right around 12-13 miles EVERY DAY! I couldn’t believe it! We walked to and from our hotel and then walked back and forth between the two parks several times a day. The lines were so short (January is an awesome time to go!) so we didn’t spend too much time in line and spent most of our time walking and walking and walking!
It was a good thing though because I didn’t particularly eat well on our trip. I didn’t eat mass quantities of food, but the quality just wasn’t good. It sure was fun though!
I have big plans to hit it hard (health and fitness wise) after my birthday though! I’m really looking forward to it! I’ll share more details in my next post since this post is already LONG ENOUGH!
I also just want to share a few pics from our quick trip to the beach! We drove home on Sunday, so we decided to take a detour and stop at Huntington Beach for a bit. It wasn’t particularly warm (right around 70 degrees), but it sure was beautiful! I told the kids not to get too wet or sandy because I didn’t want to bring the beach with us on our drive home.
Well, this is what my boys were up to within five minutes…the pants were rolled up and the shirts were off!
Oy! They were in heaven though!
We loved the beauty of the beach and wished we could have stayed longer.
Kev took this pic of me and I had no idea he was even taking pictures!
I laughed when I saw it because I look like I’m trying to pose! I actually look like a beach party pooper in my fleece jacket! Ha ha!
My sweet oldest son enjoyed playing with the baby…
The baby was not a fan of the sand and didn’t quite know what to think about the waves coming and going. He was quite nervous.
We only stayed at the beach for about an hour, but we were so glad we took the time to go!
I LOVE California and can’t wait until we can go again! We had such a good time and none of us wanted to go home.
Well, that’s about all I have to say tonight! Sorry this post is so long! I could’ve shared so many more things too!
I hope you all have a great night! xoxo
Wow! What a fun vacation and I Ioved all of the details and pictures. I really want to take my baby but am not sure if it’s really worth the cost yet ..he’s just 1.5 now. Based on your experience what do you think is the prime age to take the littles to Disneyland? We have been to Huntington Beach a few times and it never disappoints. What a memorable family trip. Thanks for sharing.
We really had such a fun time!!! My baby is 1.5 right now too and I know he really doesn’t care about Disney yet, lol! I’d say the “prime” age for Disneyland is 4+. I think 2 and 3 year olds would still have a great time, but they just wouldn’t really appreciate all that Disneyland has to offer. All of my kids (ages 5-17) LOVED it!!!! Kev and I also loved it. What I really love about Disneyland is that there really is something for everyone. The baby was able to enjoy so many rides even. It was great!
I think every child should visit Disneyland. Glad that you had such a lovely vacation with your family. And your cutie-pie baby! He grew a lot of hair since your last post. I guess it has been a while. Lol!
I agree, I wish every child could visit Disneyland! We had such a great time!
I’m glad you had such fun. We took our boys when they were 6 and 3 and it was kind of a bust. We went in first thing in the morning and there was no line for the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, so we got on it. The kids were both terrified and the younger one screamed in my ear the whole time. Then about halfway through, the ride got stuck for 45 minutes. In the dark. After that, the older one was too timid to ride on anything except the Winnie the Pooh ride, and both kids would poop out before the end of the day. We never stayed to see the fireworks. The really good part, though, was capturing my oldest on video in the Star Wars performance. He was picked to have a light saber fight with Darth Vadar. That kind of salvaged the whole trip for us, and its all he remembers, fortunately.
That’s too bad you guys had a crummy experience.:-( One of my son’s got freaked out on a couple of rides, but thankfully he loved plenty of the others. I’m so glad that Star Wars saved the day for you though!
Hold on a hot minute. You were in CALIFORNIA and you did not tell me this!! 😮
Ha ha Gigi, I would have LOVED to have seen you, but I’m sure you would have LOVED to have run around Disney with all my kidlets! LOL!!! It definitely makes for an adventure!
Wow, sounds and looks like you had a great time. I am sure the kids will remember that trip for the rest of their lives ! LOVE your pictures. If there is one thing Disney does perfectly, its picture opportunities!
Happy birthday !
Yes, we had a fabulous time Karen! It was even better than I thought it would be!! LOVED IT!
I have been to Disney World in Florida several times…a long time ago. I have to say the Tower of Terror is still one of my all time favorite rides…I love rides that have the element of “unexpected”. Loved your pictures…so many beautiful smiles!
I want to go to Disney World again too! I am now obsessed with all things Disney! ha ha. I was surprised how much I loved Tower of Terror! Such a fun ride!
So fun, and I would say for a family of 8 that is a pretty awesome per person vacation price.
Thanks Abby! Ya, even though it was expensive I thought it was totally worth it….especially for so many of us!
ILOVETHISPOSTSOMUCH!!!! I just love all things Disney and omgaahh this is so magical. I swooned over all your photos. Happy early birthday!! Mine is JUST after yours.
LOL, I am now a full fledged Disney addict too!! I loved it so so much and never wanted to go home!!! Thanks for the birthday wishes Britt. I hope you have a fabulous birthday too!