Spring Break 2019

Spring Break 2019

With spring break ending a few months ago, it’s safe to say we have recovered from our trip to Disneyland. After all was said and done, we would say it was mostly a success, with a couple rather substantial bumps along the way. We end most trips with so many fantastic new memories and adventures, and reminding ourselves that travel is unpredictable, educational, eye-opening and a mostly positive overall experience with each other and our kids. It’s also humbling and a great reminder that we are not♡ in control. This year’s spring break getaway was no exception. 

Getting There

Southwest is one of our go to airlines.
April 2019

Every time we plan to sneak away to any part of Southern California, we have the discussion of how we want to get there. We are coming from Northern California, east of Sacramento.... so, driving and flying are the most common ways to get there from our neck of the woods. There are benefits to both, but we do love to fly and that’s what we usually chose if we can find a good deal to do so. Flying is helpful when time is limited. If we are trying to do a quick trip over a long weekend, it really does make a difference. This particular trip was over spring break, so we weren’t holding our breath on hoping for a good flight deal, and we also did have more time to play with than usual, so we were not against making the 8-hour drive. Then in February, Southwest

The Crew | 2019

had one of their great sales and our spring break dates were included. Moral of the story.... always check the flight deals! Southwest puts most of their deals out between Tuesday and Thursday each week, so keep an eye out for that! Also, there are many airports serving the Los Angeles area. Orange County (also sometimes called John Wayne airport) is the closest and our favorite. That said, sometimes the other nearby airports are the ones that might offer a better deal. These include Ontario, Long Beach, LAX, and Burbank. The last two are the farthest from Disneyland, but we have used those airports occasionally if the flight times or prices were significantly better. 

Travel To and From the Hotel

We are still working on this! There’s lots of ways to do this. Here’s what we know: there is the Disneyland Express Shuttle that offers rides from Orange County Airport and LAX to the Disneyland Resort area. This can be a good

Jen & Her Boys
 Disneyland | 2019

option. Here’s why: It’s reliable and It’s also a full-size bus, which means car seats are not needed. For us, not packing car seats was a huge benefit when our kids were small and all we needed was to get back and forth from the airport and the Disneyland area. The downside is that there is some wait time and you need to make sure you are coordinating times and pick up locations, not hard at all but when these details are not made a priority, it can add extra stress/frustration. Also, these buses are not owned and operated by Disney. This detail is not important, just good to know.

Super Shuttle is another option. We’ve had both good and terrible experiences with Super Shuttle. It is definitely an option. We will leave it at that.

Ride Share. For this trip, we made the choice to try out Lyft and Uber. We are clearly behind the times on this, but after hearing so many good things, we decided to devote this trip away together to try these services out and see for ourselves. We’ve both had some experience using Lyft and Uber with friend and family, but neither of us had ever solely relied on these services or been the one responsible for scheduling and paying. Our week went so great, we Ubered and Lyfted all over the place, as a party of 6 and when we broke down into smaller groups. It all was fantastic, until our last ride, which was leaving and going to the airport.You can look forward to a separate post about this hot mess later.

Hotel

We love trying new places! We also love the process of finding somewhere new... the research and excitement of shopping around to find the place we want to try each time we go out of town. Even though we’ve had many trips to Disneyland, we don’t stay at the same place each time. In fact, we haven’t stayed at any particular place on a regular basis. For our spring break trip this year, we ended up at the Doubletree near the Anaheim convention center.

Shopping Downtown Disney

It was by far a better price than many of the other nearby hotels. It’s important to note that when we take our kids and go as a group together, we are a party of six. This is a challenge from the start. Unless we want to pay an outrageous amount for a hotel (which we usually don’t want to), it does take some work to find a suite that can accommodate our party and also not break the bank. The Doubletree was a great find; it had everything we needed which included a nice pool and hot tub area, a room with a refrigerator and microwave that was large enough for us all to fit comfortably, and beds for everybody. The staff was very friendly and helpful, and the entire property was neat and clean. The only things that this hotel did not offer, that we would also prefer, are free parking (we didn’t have a car for this trip, so that did not matter this time), a continental breakfast, and bunk beds. These things are not must-haves, but we do appreciate them. Overall, we really enjoyed our time at this property, and I think we both would agree that we would happily stay there again!

Downtown Disney

Our first night in town, we packed everyone up and went to Downtown Disney for dinner and some time to wander around. We put our name in at Ballast Point, which is a new brewery that opened this winter. After hearing good things, of course we wanted to see what this was about. The wait was about an hour, so we put our name in as soon as we arrived in Downtown Disney and then we walked around, ending up at the LEGO store, where our kids built and raced Lego vehicles for a majority of the time we waited. It was a beautiful evening and perfect way to wait for dinner. This activity is always a favorite of our kids and it was nice for us moms to sit and chat while our people played. When we made it back to Ballast Point, we found ourselves in a fun atmosphere with delicious drinks and food. We all had a great time together

Ballast Point | April 2019

A few days after we arrived, we enjoyed m another delicious meal at Ralph Brennan’s Jazz Kitchen when we met Tara’s brother and sister-in-law for dinner. This restaurant provides a fun ambiance, good high-end food, and we topped it off by sitting at a table outside, which allowed us to enjoy the beautiful spring evening. We had been inside Disneyland until our reservation took place, so we hopped on the monorail to get easy access into Downtown Disney. When we were finished with our dinner plans, we jumped back onto the monorail and found ourselves quickly back in Tomorrowland where we finished off our night by closing down the park. 

Disneyland

Tara & Her Kids
Disneyland | 2019

We love the Disneyland park. It’s beautiful, it’s nostalgic, it was built by Walt which gives it a special touch of magic, and for all of these reasons it is our favorite park. One thing that has been fun for us, is that every time we take our kids, there’s so many things geared toward their current ages. There really is no perfect age for taking young ones to enjoy Disneyland, because there are so many things that accommodate every possible age group. 

Ca Adventure

This adventure was a unique one. Tara was sick on our day we had set aside for California Adventure. Jen packed up all four of our kids and hit the park head-

Jen & The Kids 

on, accomplishing so much! The kids all shared a lunch card for the food and wine festival. It was great, they had fun sampling different foods and wandering the park.

Fantasmic

We tried a Fantasmic! On-the-go dining package during one of our days at Disneyland. This was our first time doing any of the Fantasmic dining packages and we learned a lot and also really enjoyed it! This is a package offered that gives you dinner at one of three restaurants and then also includes a reserved viewing area for the Fantasmic show. The restaurants you can chose from are Hungry Bear Restaurant, River Belle Terrace, and the Blue Bayou Restaurant inside the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction. The one lesson we took away that was most valuable, was that when we showed up at Hungry Bear Restaurant, we were led to a separate line (and separate menu) because we were

Our Seats for Fantasmic 

participating in the dining package. The menu options were a bbq chicken platter, a fish option, or a vegetarian option. What we learned was upon our request, we were able to order hamburgers and chicken nuggets. Although these may not have been the best options for the cost of the package, these options made our group most happy and we were just glad to have it available. Depending on what time your dinner reservation is, the early or late show (if there are two shows that night) will be assigned. When we got to the viewing area, we truly enjoyed the show. Everyone in the reserved areas are asked to stay seated during the show, so there was nothing to get in the way of the great view. Overall, we loved this and will definitely do it again!

Challenges

Our week had it’s fair share of bumps. One of these was that Tara came down with a stomach bug in the middle of the night after our first day at Disneyland. This obviously was a big disappointment. She stayed at the hotel the next day while Jen went to California

Adventure with all of the kids. By the following day, our whole group managed to make our way back to Disneyland for our third and final day at the parks. This “bump” was worsened

Jake sick waiting for our
ride to the airport.

by Jake coming down with the same stomach bug the following night and Brysen one day later. At that point, we were just all glad to have survived and made it home. 



Overall, we were able to enjoy most of our time away at Disneyland during spring break. We did leave feeling like we need a re-do trip at some point soon, both because of the sickness that wiped half of our party out and also our Lyft problem that we will share soon. We still love our mom-kid trips and are still thankful we were able to have this time together to enjoy our friendship and our kids. That said, if you see us attempting Disneyland again soon, you can know it’s because we are attempting a do-over!!

♡ Jen & Tara