March 1, 2012

Notes on Visiting Disney with a Preschooler ³

by Wendy • featured, Traveling Bites

I’m not a hardcore Disney fan but I grew up in the same state as Disneyland, so I frequented the park several times growing up and as a young adult.  The fluffy, fuzzy, warm memories of the park have always held a place near and dear to my heart.  When John came to California to move me out to Texas, we drove through the night for a quick visit.  He needed to see the happiest place on earth!  Now mind you, I have never been to Disney World, so Disneyland was tops on my list when it came to Disney theme parks.  I have secretly desired taking the Disney cruise at some point but I knew that as soon as we had Catherine that one day we would have to make the trek back to that little piece of Anaheim heaven.  I just didn’t realize that it would be sooner rather than later.

We usually take a trip sometime in late January or early February.  We like to try and time our trips to our tax returns…money back certainly helps the cost factor on such trips.  Most of our travel involves either something related to my work or seeing family.  I am not complaining about either of those at all, so don’t get me wrong, but John and I wanted to have some sort of family vacation that was just 3 of us and did not involve me attending a meeting, conference, class, memorial, etc.  We knew that we were going to be visiting my parents for Chinese New Year, so California was our destination for our little family vacation.  Since it happened to coincide with our anniversary and our referalversary, we decided to make the trip sentimental by going to a ski resort in South Lake Tahoe (John and I honeymooned there).    As the trip drew closer, we noticed with dismay that the ski parks did not have very much snow.  Thanks to a dry winter, the mountains at the time did not have enough snow to enjoy.  We had to think of a quick Plan B…Disneyland.  After we chose that as our next destination, I quickly cheered up.  We would have loads of fun!

One of my biggest concerns about going to Disney was how to deal with Catherine’s slight sensory issues.  I wasn’t sure how she would manage the the sensory onslaught of the park but she has done well in some other situations that involved lots of people, colors, and noise so I was hopeful.  Besides, we were hoping that since we were going during the off season, it would be better on all of us.

We purchased a package that included the hotel, meals and park hopper passes.  The park hopper passes ended up being the best part of the deal for us.  We chose to go to California Adventure on the first day and then planned on visiting Disneyland the last two days but quickly found out that California Adventure was going to be our park of choice.  I had heard so many bad things about CA that I was somewhat concerned about whether or not the park hopper would be a good choice, especially if we didn’t enjoy the park.  We ended up loving the park and Catherine had a much better time there than at Disneyland.  CA is more on the likes of a seaside carnival with all of their outdoor rides but for Catherine that was perfect.  I had forgotten how many of the rides at Disneyland were dark and had somewhat of a scary element to them, so for our anxious girl those rides tended to be too much for her.  She like the rides that were outdoors and she could see what was coming next.  CA seems to have more of those type of rides than Disneyland.  She did however love Dumbo and the boat rides.

Now Disney is quite the corporate machine.  It’s hard not to be sucked into the atmosphere without coming through on the other side with an intact wallet.  There is so much to see and do, a lot of those things comes with a price tag.  We read our books and talked to our friends who had been to get their suggestions on what we should do for souvenirs.  Of course everyone has a different opinion but we went in thinking that Catherine would like one thing and she ended up liking something else.  The one thing we did choose for her was a session at the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique where she would be turned into a princess.  I am not a huge fan of the princess thing but I knew that she would enjoy it and since we were officially at the castle, I gave up my dislike to see her happy.  She loved it!  It’s expensive but it was priceless to see John’s face and watch Catherine get transformed into Jasmine.

The other thing that she absolutely loved was pin trading.  We got a free lanyard and pin to wear since we bought the vacation package.  When you are at the parks you can buy pins and then trade them with park employees who happen to be wearing lanyards.  Let me just say that Disney is a marketing genius with these things.   You can spend a small…or large fortune on pins because once you get into the groove of pin trading, it’s addicting.  Catherine found that out quickly.  We were thinking that the pin trading would be too old for her but holy moly, it made her grin from ear to ear to trade out her pins and get new ones.  She is pretty proud of those things!

Catherine did pretty well with walking all over the parks and in between the hotels and the parks, although at the end of the evening John and I did have to give her piggy back rides.  The only time we really needed a stroller would have been for that long, long walk back to the hotel at the end of the night.  We had enough little breaks with the rides, meals, and shows to give us a break with all of the walking.

Catherine also did very well staying up late.  We spent the first evening at a water show at the CA park.  It was our first official day at the parks, so she was pretty hopped on adrenaline, stimulation and pure sugar from cotton candy.  Even though she managed to get through that day without a nap, she wouldn’t crash very easily once we were at the hotel.  It definitely took her some time to unwind.  Our last day at the park was on Friday, and during the off-peak season, a night that they do fireworks.  Because the fireworks were supposed to happen later at night, we took Catherine back to the hotel during the middle of the day for a mandatory nap.  That was a big mistake.  Apparently Disneyland is notorious for not always having fireworks.  It was a HUGE disappointment and a big headache for us to get her to nap and then to keep her going well after her bedtime only to have the fireworks display cancelled.  Even though the guides say that the fireworks can be cancelled without warning and for any reason, I really wish there would have been some sort of communication set up for the park guests when these types of shows are cancelled.  For those of lugging little ones around, this is definitely useful information.  We had caught wind of the cancellation from the hotel gift shop employee, however when we called the hotel concierge, they were unaware and said that Disney usually contacted them in the event of a cancellation.  We stayed up late holding out hope only ending up with a very tired and disappointed Catherine, and very tired and disappointed mom and dad.  So my suggestion is to not keep your little ones up late at night for the fireworks unless you are there during their peak season when there is more opportunities to view the show.

All in all we had a great trip.  I was a little bit disappointed with Disneyland as it seemed old and somewhat run-down.  I can’t really pin-point in particular reason why I felt that way.  Maybe because CA is a much newer park and therefore the rides and decor are updated.  Disney definitely has that 50′s , kitschy feel to it.  I would eventually like to make our way over to Disney World to do a comparison but we will most likely wait until Catherine is at least 8 or 9 and can tolerate the walking and the late nights.   4 & 5 is a great age for the imagination end of the spectrum and I wouldn’t hesitate to tell a parent that but I am glad we started with the smaller park and went during the off season.  I definitely don’t regret that we ended up at Disneyland instead of the ski resort, although we are trying to figure out when we get to one ASAP.