Five Steps to the Best Disneyland Family Vacation Ever
My boyfriend and I just got back from two days at Disneyland with our daughters. We planned the trip in celebration of their birthdays, which are just a few weeks apart at the beginning of the summer, thinking that rather than buy them a bunch of stuff, this year we would give them an experience they could enjoy together and maybe even remember.
That’s the funny thing about being a parent: everything sounds so awesome and doable in theory, and then reality spits up in your face. While the girls loved our Disneyland vacation, and we all had a lot of fun, it was not without its challenges. With that in mind, I present to you my five real-life, tried-and-true steps to the best Disneyland family vacation ever. You can thank me later.
1. Leave the kids at home. Seriously, they’ll be fine, and if you bring them with you they’ll just slow you down, like a lot.
2. No, but really, accept that this trip is for the kids. You did not go to Disneyland to frolic through the park and ride Space Mountain. Your Disney vacation will consist of a grueling stream of rides that move at about one mile per hour, for about two minutes total, for which you will wait in line for an hour or more. Your partner or helpful friend or family member will hopefully be along to help pass the time, unless they're sitting on a bench for an hour with the other child who doesn't want to ride the ferris wheel. Just expect to spend a lot of time waiting. Pretend you are a movie star. Or to be more realistic, a movie star’s assistant. Cuz sister, you’re not getting any special treatment at the Magic Kingdom. You’re just one of many thousands of disgruntled parents catering to their child's every want and need, and if anyone’s getting special treatment, it’s probably that mom over there with the tight, white jeans and admirable rack.
3. Bring money. A LOT of money. This one seems obvious, duh, but what will really kill you in the end is not the price of the tickets or the hotel room fees -- it’s the $4 pretzels, water bottles, and ice creams (Mickey Mouse and Olaf); the shuttle fees; the food at the park (it’s like living at the movie theater for a few days, ugh, except the kids won’t eat anything); the parking; the balloon-animal merchant that springs up out of nowhere (our guy made the girls amazing Elsa dolls and was hilarious though, so I’m not complaining on that one!) and the worst money-suck of all, the gift shops.
4. On second thought, don’t just bring money -- bring everything. Like, everything. I thought I had it covered when I brought the Disney Princess Band-Aids and the girls’ hair detangler spray, but I was clearly just a naive young (young, damn it!) mother and I didn’t know. I didn’t know that fireworks are too loud and that we would need child-sized earplugs. I didn’t know that normally sunny Southern California would be blanketed in fog until mid-afternoon both days we were there. And I definitely didn’t know that the hotel shampoo would be deemed unacceptable by two very particular young girls who really are after my own heart (“this soap is no good”). Like I told the girls, we learned a lot from this first trip to Disneyland together... like never to come back again! Juuuuust kidding.
5. Which brings me to my last point. What’s the key ingredient for the best Disneyland family vacation ever? Make sure you go with a partner or friend who makes you laugh and can keep you smiling through the lines, the noise, the whining children, aching feet, and rapidly depleting checking account. My boyfriend prank-called me from the hotel lobby saying, “Ms. Brookes, your children are being too loud.” Those were the moments that made it all ok.
See, some people are the type to go to Disneyland as adults, without kids, and they love it. I’ll probably never be one of those people. I lack patience. I don’t like crowds or strangers touching me or twenty-somethings calling me ma’am. And I’m not a big fan of germs. I DO enjoy those hand-dipped corn-dogs on Main Street, but I'm usually only willing to put up with pushy throngs of hungry teenagers like the ones in that line when I'm going to In-N-Out.
But I digress. Go to Disneyland, take the kids. The Soarin' Over California ride in California Adventure is breathtakingly beautiful. It’s a Small World is as charming as ever. The girls had a wonderful time and I know we will be back soon, probably next summer. Because childhood is so short, and adulthood can be so long. So we do it for the kids.
That’s the funny thing about being a parent: everything sounds so awesome and doable in theory, and then reality spits up in your face. While the girls loved our Disneyland vacation, and we all had a lot of fun, it was not without its challenges. With that in mind, I present to you my five real-life, tried-and-true steps to the best Disneyland family vacation ever. You can thank me later.
1. Leave the kids at home. Seriously, they’ll be fine, and if you bring them with you they’ll just slow you down, like a lot.
2. No, but really, accept that this trip is for the kids. You did not go to Disneyland to frolic through the park and ride Space Mountain. Your Disney vacation will consist of a grueling stream of rides that move at about one mile per hour, for about two minutes total, for which you will wait in line for an hour or more. Your partner or helpful friend or family member will hopefully be along to help pass the time, unless they're sitting on a bench for an hour with the other child who doesn't want to ride the ferris wheel. Just expect to spend a lot of time waiting. Pretend you are a movie star. Or to be more realistic, a movie star’s assistant. Cuz sister, you’re not getting any special treatment at the Magic Kingdom. You’re just one of many thousands of disgruntled parents catering to their child's every want and need, and if anyone’s getting special treatment, it’s probably that mom over there with the tight, white jeans and admirable rack.
3. Bring money. A LOT of money. This one seems obvious, duh, but what will really kill you in the end is not the price of the tickets or the hotel room fees -- it’s the $4 pretzels, water bottles, and ice creams (Mickey Mouse and Olaf); the shuttle fees; the food at the park (it’s like living at the movie theater for a few days, ugh, except the kids won’t eat anything); the parking; the balloon-animal merchant that springs up out of nowhere (our guy made the girls amazing Elsa dolls and was hilarious though, so I’m not complaining on that one!) and the worst money-suck of all, the gift shops.
4. On second thought, don’t just bring money -- bring everything. Like, everything. I thought I had it covered when I brought the Disney Princess Band-Aids and the girls’ hair detangler spray, but I was clearly just a naive young (young, damn it!) mother and I didn’t know. I didn’t know that fireworks are too loud and that we would need child-sized earplugs. I didn’t know that normally sunny Southern California would be blanketed in fog until mid-afternoon both days we were there. And I definitely didn’t know that the hotel shampoo would be deemed unacceptable by two very particular young girls who really are after my own heart (“this soap is no good”). Like I told the girls, we learned a lot from this first trip to Disneyland together... like never to come back again! Juuuuust kidding.
5. Which brings me to my last point. What’s the key ingredient for the best Disneyland family vacation ever? Make sure you go with a partner or friend who makes you laugh and can keep you smiling through the lines, the noise, the whining children, aching feet, and rapidly depleting checking account. My boyfriend prank-called me from the hotel lobby saying, “Ms. Brookes, your children are being too loud.” Those were the moments that made it all ok.
See, some people are the type to go to Disneyland as adults, without kids, and they love it. I’ll probably never be one of those people. I lack patience. I don’t like crowds or strangers touching me or twenty-somethings calling me ma’am. And I’m not a big fan of germs. I DO enjoy those hand-dipped corn-dogs on Main Street, but I'm usually only willing to put up with pushy throngs of hungry teenagers like the ones in that line when I'm going to In-N-Out.
But I digress. Go to Disneyland, take the kids. The Soarin' Over California ride in California Adventure is breathtakingly beautiful. It’s a Small World is as charming as ever. The girls had a wonderful time and I know we will be back soon, probably next summer. Because childhood is so short, and adulthood can be so long. So we do it for the kids.
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