some people chase dreams, i just follow the road signs to {Disneyland}
After one day at home repacking from our Disney Magic Cruise, we were off yet again for our trip to California to go to Disneyland. This would be our third trip to Disneyland together, and we were most excited to see Avengers Campus.
When we got to the airport, we happened to be on the same flight with my friend Darci! We had actually gone the day before to see her at Animal Kingdom while she was visiting from Hong Kong, but we were able to swap seats with someone so we could all sit together on the 5 hour flight to LAX.
We took our Lyft to the hotel, Disney's Grand Californian, to drop our bags before we skipped off into California Adventure for lunch.
We even get a private hotel entrance into the park.
We inadvertently ended up at this park on the 25th park anniversary.
We grabbed a pull apart pizza bread, which was little soggy but the ricotta cheese inside was delicious.
We also stopped for lunch at San Fransokyo and got a quesabirria, and it was amazing. This ended up being my favorite bite of the whole trip.
We also had the Mickey cinnamon roll macaroon from the Cappuccino Cart and as not a big macaroon fan, this was also good. It tasted just like a cinnamon roll. We were off to a very strong start.
Next we went right to what we came for, Avengers Campus! We walked right into Spider-Man climbing walls and jumping from rooftops! It was quite the welcome.
We finished our Spidey verse journey by meeting Spider-Man. We had now seen him in 3 universes in just under one week.
We walked right onto the Spider-Man web slinger ride, and kicked some little spidey-bot booty(and mikes oops!). It similar to Toy Story Mania, but with motion tracking.
When we got off the ride, we ran into so many super hero’s wandering around and spending lengthy time chatting with us! We literally could have spent all day doing this, it was definitely the highlight.
We then headed back to the hotel for a little swim and hot tub because it was 81 degrees and warm out. The Superbowl was on so we had it on in the background while we hung out.
We headed back into Cali Adventure after our break for some festiveness. The Lunar New Year parade was starting and it was so fun watching Mulan and Mushu welcome us in with a dragon lion dance.
We just happened to be in the right area after the parade for the Sha-Boom moment in Cars Land, and it’s the moment at sunset when all the lights come on and it’s just really beautiful. This was the highlight of my trip in the past so I’m glad we got to do it again. We also ran into my coworker Stacey from Universal.
From here we did a little shopping and ran into my friend Cyndi because it really is a small world after all.
We decided to single rider Radiator Springers Racers in cars land before heading back to our hotel for the night.
We watched World of Color nighttime show from the upstairs hotel balcony with all the other Grand Californian guests before heading to bed.
Day 2 we started the day off early walking from our hotel through Downtown Disney to Disneyland.
Upon entry, we saw ESPN filming Super Bowl coverage from Main Street, which was super fun! We also walked into the hotel later to watch the coverage for a second and immediately saw our faces!
We then ran to rope drop Big Thunder Mountain, got straight on Pirates of the Caribbean, and Haunted Mansion.
From here we headed to Fantasyland to get some smaller rides like Snow Whites Enchanted Wish, Small World, and Storybook Canals.
It was time for a mid morning snack and if Disneyland is known for anything, it’s their corndogs!
We also tried the Star Wars version of the Korean corn dog, but was our first bust. The sauce was a little weird and there was not a lot of cheese filling.
We also tried the red ratatouille soup in the bread bowl with garlic bread, and it was warm, hearty, and delicious.
For dessert we went with the Golden Horseshoes coveted cookie butter sundae, and whoaaa buddy it was so yummy.
Also in Star Wars area we tried the Lyseed pickle popcorn. I wasn’t really getting pickle, I was getting more white cheddar and didn’t love this one either. Star Wars area is absolutely identical to the Disney World version, but as always it’s so beautifully done.
Mid day we took the monorail back to our hotel. Everything is just a smaller version of Disney World, and the monorail is no exception.
There was no day parade happening while we were here, but there was 2 different cavalcades. The first was a short one for the Super Bowl that had some of the Seahawks players on it.
The second was for the actual 70th celebration.
We saw my friends from Hong Kong Felix and Hugo during the parade too! It was really crazy how many people I kept running into that I knew.
We stopped at the castle walk through to see the beautiful Sleeping Beauty store inside.
On the way out of the park, we ran into the Queen diva herself, Cruella! The characters at these parks wander around by the selves without an attendant, and the interactions don’t feel timed or rushed.
With our hotel stay, we got a single lightning lane use, which we decided to use that evening on the Matterhorn bobsleds.
Before the night parade we did a few more small Fantasyland rides like Alice in Wonderland, Mr Toads Wild Ride, and Pinocchio.
Dinner we had Tiana’s Place Buffalo chicken beignet sandwich. It was decently spicy, but the beignets needed to be more fresh and have more powdered sugar on them, but the side of mac and cheese it came with was incredible.
We took the train back up to the front of the park to scope out a good spot for Paint the Night parade! I love this parade, ever since I first saw it open in HK. It’s so twinkly and magical and memorable.
After parade we booked it to Indiana Jones before finishing the night with a Mickey pretzel.
Day 3 our feet were pretty exhausted from walking 20k+ steps every day, but alas we were up early once again to rope drop Guardians of the Galaxy Tower of Terror at California Adventure.
Next we got in Monsters Inc, Maters Junkyard Jamboree, Incredi-Coaster, and Jumpin Jellyfish.
Later in the day we did some character greetings. We find that the app greeting times are more of suggestions, and not quite the times to actually find the characters.
Lunch we stopped by Aunt Cass Cafe in San Fransokyo for the best carb overload, Mac and cheese in a bread bowl. We also got free bread samples from the Bakery Tour.
We stopped by the Lunar New Year stop to make our new year wishes as well!
After a little hot tub break, we took the monorail back to Disneyland.
We took this time to ride Buzz Lightyear and single rider on Space Mountain.
It started to sprinkle so we jumped on the train to head to Toon Town. This train is very much an attraction with dinosaurs and bobcats and all kinds of nature exhibits.
We had a little chicken bacon ranch flop over from Daisys in Toon Town and it was warm and yummy.
Also in this area we rode Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway, which had a super cute cue line of a bunch of cartoon versions of props from Mickey shorts.
We did a quick single rider on Matterhorn during the day before taking the monorail back to the hotel to change into some warmer clothes for the evening.
Back into California Adventure for the evening, we headed to Cars for single rider, and magically ended up next to each other in the same car anyways! We found early dinner time was when wait times seemed to max out.
We spent the evening in avengers campus, trying variety of infinity stone cream puffs, chicken Shawarma, and kicking spider bot booty, on Spider-Man!
We said our goodbyes to the park just in case the next day we decided to take it easy and just hot tub and hang out instead, and it’s a good thing we did cause when we woke up on day 3, it was pouring out. We decided to go into California Adventure and rope drop Spider-Man again, but it and almost everything else was down, so we pivoted and single rider rode Cars again. This time Mike and I got to race, and I obviously won. By this point, spider man was open too! Mike absolutely destroyed me this time now that he kind of figured out the game. With this we said our goodbyes to California Adventure to head back to the hotel to pack our stuff and have one more hot tub trip.
For our final act, we headed into Disneyland for lunch. We had the garlic cheese bratwurst with pretzel bun and although the line was long, it was definitely worth it. And we ran into Fairy Godmother getting it! We did our last attraction while enjoying it, the Tom Sawyer Riverboat.
We also tried the chicken fantasy land fold over, which had a pickle, aïoli and chicken and hash brown inside. And of course we finished the visit off with a classic churro.
Oh Disneyland you were so magical and I loved getting to spend pre Valentines with my love adventuring and eating!
Now I have 4 days at home repacking for my next adventure on the open seas for several weeks.
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