Disneyland: Still Wonder-Filled After All These Years

“Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world.”

~Walt Disney

Disneyland 1.0: The Child

If there’s a travel destination that has had a constant presence in my life it would have to be Disneyland. Years may have gone by between visits – decades, even – but the self-proclaimed Happiest Place on Earth has stayed with me ever since I first set foot on Main Street in the summer of 1964.

The park was nine years old, and I was turning ten. I was convinced that we were destined to be forever friends. I remember spinning as fast as I possibly could in my Mad Tea Party teacup; feeling oh-so grown-up driving my very own car on the streets of the Autopia; and imagining that the boat I was riding on the Jungle Cruise was a real boat in a real jungle.

But mostly I remember the dizzying feeling that life couldn’t possibly get much better than this.

Disneyland 2.0: The Mother

It was that inner stirring of imagination and possibility that I wanted to share with my own children when our family headed to Disneyland in 1989. The park had expanded with new rides and themed lands, but the original rides were still there, as if no time had passed. We returned every other year throughout the ’90s, driving from the Bay Area during winter school breaks, a touchstone for those early years of family travel.

In 2002, we said our final farewell to Disneyland and paid homage to the brick paver we’d purchased for the esplanade between Disneyland and the newly built park called California Adventure. We needed a map to locate our brick among the thousands lining the esplanade, and when we found it, I don’t think any of us knew quite what to say. It was a bittersweet moment and the end of an era that had watched our family grow up.

For me, our brick felt like a thank-you note.

Disneyland 3.0: The Grandmother

This past Christmas, Herb and I gave Emily and her family the gift of a Disneyland trip – with the caveat that we wanted to go with them! My dream was that our two little grandsons would experience Disneyland with the same wonder and joy that had enchanted our children and my younger self all those years ago. We decided on a late April visit, timing our trip with charts we found online indicating crowd size by day and time of year.

Those charts should have been my first clue that when it comes to planning a trip to Disneyland, things have changed a bit over the past 20 years.

Lost In Translation

As I began researching tickets, I found myself lost in a complex new world with a language all its own… rope drop, lightning lane, rider switch. Did we want to be park hoppers or spend each day at one park only? I read blogs and watched YouTube videos posted by parents, grandparents and Disney fans who had “cracked the code” on how to get through the park without waiting in long lines.

As Emily’s friend Alex so perfectly put it after planning her family’s vacation: “When did Disney become a competitive sport?”

Booking a hotel on property offered its own set of challenges. There are now three hotels within the park, each with a host of room options and floor selections. After spending way too much time trying to figure out how to book two rooms near each other at the Disneyland Hotel, Herb and I phoned Guest Services. An extremely friendly woman took our reservation, explained that securing adjoining rooms was possible – although not guaranteed – and wished us a day filled with pixie dust.

A couple of weeks after we’d made our reservations, Herb happened upon a spring promotion offering a two-bedroom, two-bathroom suite with a living room for the same price as our two regular rooms. Back on the phone to Guest Services he went, where another friendly woman confirmed the promotion, changed our reservation and sent him off with a pixie dust wish.

It’s All About the App

The key to this new-to-me Disneyland planning experience is the phone app. All reservations – tickets, hotels, restaurants – must be logged onto your Disneyland app. If you’re traveling with a group, everyone’s apps must be linked with the entire group’s information. And if your ticket includes the lightning lane option for shorter wait times, you must book those rides on the app after you’ve entered the park.

If you’re visiting for more than one day, you must choose which park you want to explore on which day, unless you are hopping between parks. A perk for staying at one of the on-site hotels is early entry access to both Disneyland and California Adventure. However, only one park opens early each day. The schedule on our visit was Disneyland on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, and California Adventure on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. I learned this after we’d selected our park days and breathed a huge sigh of relief when I saw that our selections matched the early entry schedule.

The Main Event

My final task was putting together a flexible itinerary of rides and attractions. In addition to the familiar Fantasyland rides forever imprinted on my memory, new attractions with characters from recent Disney movies required some research. Emily had a good idea of rides her family would love. And to avoid disappointment for our youngest Disney-goers, we checked ride descriptions for height requirements as well as the “scary factor.”

I wasn’t sure how our plans and preparations would play out, but I was glad I’d done my homework. The only thing I knew for sure was that I was returning to Disneyland… and I couldn’t wait to experience the magic through the eyes of my grandchildren.

Reflections

It’s a funny thing about places that live in the deep recesses of our hearts. Even when you return after a very long absence, they’re waiting for you like a treasured old friend, as if no time has passed. You embrace the familiarity and marvel at the changes. You smile because you know what is waiting around the next corner. And you’re filled with the warmest desire to create new memories without disturbing the ones that came before.

Our three days immersed in the world of Disney turned out to be an extraordinary family adventure. We began with a filled-to-the-brim itinerary at Disneyland followed by an equally busy day at California Adventure. Our last day’s plan was a blank page at Disneyland that we filled with second turns on favorite rides and a few we didn’t get to the first time around.

Our little ones surprised us all, powering through the days and taking in what had to be an overwhelming dose of sights, sounds and sheer wonder. Mapping out rides ahead of time, booking restaurants as soon as reservations were available, and opting for Lightning Lane Multi Passes helped make our days as smooth as possible. But even with all our advance planning, a glitch with our tickets delayed us at the early access opening on the first day.

Coming Full Circle

The day we arrived in Anaheim, our LA-based son Andrew met us to help with airport pick-up and spend some time with everyone. After brunch at Goofy’s Kitchen – famous for its Mickey Mouse-shaped waffles and Disney characters stopping by the tables – we headed outside through Downtown Disney to the esplanade between Disneyland and California Adventure.

I told our grandsons that we were on a treasure hunt to find a brick with their mommy’s name on it. But the truth was, the search was as much for me as it was for them. Herb spotted it first, our paving stone preserved in a sea of hexagon-shaped memories. Our son-in-law captured a photo, four adults looking back on their long-ago selves.

And for just a moment, I was back at Disneyland with my two little children, making the tea cups spin as fast as we could.