The Happiest Place on Earth

It’s Monday of a holiday week! #nevermadaboutthat  Today I am sharing our weekend trip to Anaheim, California.  Anaheim=Disneyland!! For my birthday present Grant & Grayson surprised me with a trip to Disneyland Park.  The gift they gave me was this… #ibetterstepupmygiftcreativity 😉

For those of you who don’t know my family, we LOVE Disney World–Magic Kingdom, especially!! I mean love-love-love it!  I have been to Disney World (The Most Magical Place on Earth) more times than I can count, just to give you an idea.  It wasn’t just a place to go as kids, but we still crave going there now that we are grown. My sister Jessica even worked there for a summer, doesn’t get anymore dedicated than that!   So with living in California, I thought at some point it would be fun to go to Disneyland and see how the two compare! I had heard that Disneyland was smaller and had an older feel (since it was the Original).  I didn’t care what people said, I just wanted to check it out for myself.  So we did!

We stayed a couple of miles from Disneyland, here.  This was a really nice place and a great location! We took the shuttle in the morning and walked back in the evening.  After shuttling about 3 miles from our hotel to the Disney entrance we hopped off and walked to the entrance for Disneyland park vs going to Disney California Adventure (since they are both right there).

I had expected the entrance to be similar to that of Disney World–wide open spaces with lots of parking and shuttles taking you from the parking lot to the entrance; also like many other theme parks I have visited. Nope, Disneyland is in the middle of town, just off of a street, right in the middle of hotels and restaurants!  Disneyland is about 500 acres whereas Disney World is 40 square miles (similar to the size of San Francisco)! #woof 
That alone should have reminded me not to expect Disneyland to be the same as Disney World but I continued with Disney World as the precedence for the day—never disappointed, just had it in mind!  A good overall description of Disneyland compared to Disney World would be miniature.  The rides are full size, don’t let that fool you😂 but everything at Disneyland is compact.   There are about 20 rides that are the same between the two parks, of course they have some variations but overall the same feel— a couple of well-known ones being Space Mountain, It’s a Small World, and Pirates of the Caribbean.

The castle–Sleeping Beauty’s was what really threw me off! Walking through the entrance I was anticipating the same feel as that of Cinderella’s Castle–Magic Kingdom. Wrong again! Sleeping Beauty’s castle stands 77 ft tall whereas Cinderella’s is 189 ft tall!  Thanks to this random pic I found you can see the difference!

Then the sun came out and it was a much Happier Place😉

After getting past the initial shocker of the castle, I realized they were two completely different places and I went on with the day enjoying The Happiest Place on Earth with my 2 favorite people!  #oneisasleepinthestroller

If you ever go with little ones and need to take turns, check out the ride sharing–it’s free! Long story short, the person that stays with the kids gets a pass (for up to 3 people) to re-enter the ride through the exit or fast pass lane right after the other one gets off of the ride.  Between the ride sharing and fast passes, we rode quite a few larger rides with our longest wait time being approximately 15 minutes! #notmadaboutit

When Grayson woke up we decided to try him out on his first ride–so we ventured to the Haunted Mansion.  Since it had no height restrictions we thought we would try it out with him on board! Let’s just say that this isn’t a baby friendly attraction. The elevator that takes you to the ride was enough for Grayson.  If you aren’t familiar with it, the lights in the elevator go out and cracks of thunder and lightning fill the darkness.  The moment the lights went out and the thunder and lightning began, Grayson let out a screech!  Needless to say, we quickly found the exit, and a more suitable ride. 😜

We enjoyed the rest of our day riding rides that we could all enjoy together and indulging in some sweet treats!

We even found Mickey Mouse!! This was such a magical experience, getting my picture with him!😉 #ifeltlikeakid 
The experience was also entertaining as Mickey tried to get Grayson to smile. #fail Instead Grayson licked Mickey’s nose. 😂 (See video below)

At the end of the evening we watched the Main Street Electrical Parade and then walked to Downtown Disney for dinner. We ate dinner here! It was a fun, New Orleans atmosphere with delectable dishes.  For a Happy Birthday treat, they brought their specialty beignets–french donuts. #onpoint👌🏼

We completed the evening with a walk back to the hotel.  Like I mentioned earlier, the location was only a couple of miles away, so definitely a doable walk–just be sure to get on the non-sketchy path😳  Don’t worry we made it safe and sound, but as always had a fun adventure throughout!

Hands down, it was the Happiest Birthday ever!🙌🏼  Thanks G and little g for the magical gift of Disney!