Trip Report "It's so dark and my bum goes up!" - A Day in DL/DCA With a 3 Year Old

Hello all! This is just a one day trip report for a day we spent in Disneyland and Disney California Adventure on March 4. It’ll be short and sweet, feel free to read in between cliffhangers in @Tuvalu and @amjt660 trip reports :hilarious::bookworm:

Who: Me and my husband Lukas and our daughter Kinley (3.5 years old)

Wait a minute,” you might say, “I read your last trip report and don’t you have 2 children?!?

Why yes, yes I do. We were spending a week in Palm Springs with my in-laws, and of course I had to do a day in Disney because it is thisclose. Because we only had one day and our son is a very busy 18 month old who has never been as good of a stroller rider/napper as our daughter, we decided to let him have a day with Oma and Opa at the house in Palm Springs while we ripped through Disneyland with our 3.5 year old. Trust me, he didn’t know the difference, and he was quite happy spending the day here:

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Where: Disneyland and Disney California Adventure. After hours and hours of research (ie. reading @lostpro9het, @ajrwdwgirl, @Doc Disney and many others trip reports), I decided we could “do it all” and booked us a one day park hopper with Maxpass.

DCA had EMH 8-9am and DL was open 9am-10pm. I decided to go to Disneyland first and book our Maxpasses for the afternoon at DCA. According to Google Maps, the house we were staying at was 2 hours from Disneyland so we decided to leave at 6am, hoping to arrive at DL at 8am (positive thinkers, we are). We stopped at Cabazon for Starbucks and gas and were on our way.

Boy oh boy, did I underestimate California traffic. People, I am a simple Canadian girl from the Prairies and this traffic was terrifying. What felt like countless lanes in both directions, carpool lanes (which we did take advantage of), fasttrak lanes, motorcycles just riding the lines between the lanes, and the ever-wonderful coming to a gridlock for no apparent reason.

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So, thanks to this wonderful traffic, we arrived at the Disneyland parking lot at 8:40am, and I knew we weren’t making rope drop. The plus side to this was that we didn’t have any major rope drop plans. The main option for rope drop at DL would be Peter Pan which is a hard pass for me. I don’t get the appeal to that ride, it's fine but it does not make sense that the line is always so long. Kinley did just watch Peter Pan for the first time a couple weeks ago and did have hopes of meeting "peter man", but OH MY GOODNESS how racist is that movie?!? I hadn’t seen it in years and it shocked me. I seriously considered just pitching it but I am trying to see the magic instead of just the blatant racism, but it’s difficult. I imagine the second option for rope drop would be Indiana Jones, but Kinley isn’t tall enough for that ride and I knew we could do it single rider later.

Noticed this on our way in. Just gonna leave this here. It has a sunroof, guys.

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So we made it through the gates by 9:20 and were at our “rope-drop” attraction by 9:27. (75% battery, I know, I was already panicking)

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I HATE the queues for character meet and greets, they move soo slow and are terribly boring, so we headed first to Royal Hall. Now, checking the app before arriving it looked like Aurora would meet at Snow White’s Wishing Well a few times throughout the day and we knew we wanted to see her. We were expecting Cinderella, Snow White, and Ariel at the Royal Hall and Kinley was on a huge Cinderella kick this week (it changes week to week) so that was going to be good. So weren’t we surprised when we walked through the door (after about a 15 minute as-posted wait) and saw..

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Aurora! I was happy, but somewhat worried because I knew we also HAD to meet Cinderella, and Snow White and Ariel so I didn’t know who we would miss by having Aurora here.

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A side note on the wand you will notice in most of Kinley’s pictures. The day before this we went to Costco (I LOVE Costco and like to visit in other cities as the selection is different everywhere but prices remain amazing - no alcohol at the Costco in Winnipeg either so that’s a big highlight in the USA Costcos). Anyways, we found this Frozen book that came with this wand and if you hold the wand over different pages in the book it makes different sounds. Kinley became very attached to this wand and had to be holding it constantly in DL. The plus of this was that it gave every princess something to talk to her about because she is a VERY talkative 3 year old, but clams right up as soon as she gets to a princess. They also loved to mention her Mickey “jewel” bracelet that I bought her on our trip to WDW when she was 18 months and she just recently started loving and wearing it every day.

At Royal Hall we ended up also meeting…
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Snow White! Who loved Kinley’s “jewels” - “Did your dwarves get those for you?” :hilarious:

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And..
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Ariel! Who Kinley also loves.


We had them sign a picture frame. I got the idea from @blgauger back in the day when she couldn’t just pop in to say hi to characters whenever she pleased (lots of name dropping in this report, I have no shame:happy:). I also brought her “Junior Encyclopedia of Animated Characters” that we had the characters sign on our last trip, but Aurora was our only “new” M&G so she was the only one who had to sign both.
 

krause

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
We decided to just hit the corndog cart on our way out - DL classic right? Lukas was going to stand in line while I found a bathroom with Kinley. Looked at restrooms on the app:

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Perfect! One RIGHT beside the corn dog cart. Okay, it does not exist. It is nowhere. It is the baby care center where they have potties for children under 42”. Well, at least Kinley can pee. I was tempted to use it too but the door was only 3' high and didn't close 😅

Got our corn dogs (don’t worry healthy Moms, she only ate like 4 bites), and headed out of the park.

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Heard the Main Street band coming and remembered from @ajrwdwgirl report that sometimes Belle dances with them! Kinley LOVES Belle and I thought this might be her only chance to see her, so we rushed to see, but no Belle 😕

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Made our way across to DCA. We were crossing our fingers Kinley would nap during our walk from DL to RSR. However, Lukas decided that he needed a sweater so we entered a gift shop and do you think a 3 year old is going to sleep once you walk in a shop?


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She JUMPED out of the stroller and her eyes were as big as dinner plates as she went from display to display and I followed her while Lukas found a sweater. She really wanted one of the stuffy princess babies. I knew she really wanted Cinderella (was on a Cinderella kick, remember?) and Cinderella wasn’t in this store so I convinced Kin to wait until the next store.

With no hope of a nap, we hustled on to RSR as our Maxpass time had started. It was posted at 135 minute wait, I think we waited about 15.

I hadn’t been on this ride before either (thanks a lot, pregnancy), and I thought it was great!. Great animatronics and fun ride in general. Kinley’s not a huge Cars fan, but she loves the speed.

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We lost though ☹
 

krause

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Okay, attempt #2 at a stroller nap. Plan was to walk in the general direction of Little Mermaid and see what happened. Well, as soon as we were able to see the Little Mermaid sign she JUMPED out of the stroller, and nap attempt ended. We went to park the stroller and, WOAH! Nick and Judy surprise meet and greet! This wasn’t listed on the app and I was stoked. Kinley LOVES Zootopia. We jumped in the line to meet Nick and “topia” and didn’t wait long! Unfortunately they don’t do signatures.

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Stand by for Little Mermaid was 10 minutes. It was a long line but fast-moving, boring compared to the one at MK as other people have mentioned. Same as MK but I love the Under the Sea segment and Kinley loves Ariel, so worth it. I got her to do the @Woodywrkr wave to Ariel and Eric at the end :happy:

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Okay. Time for attempt #3 at stroller nap. There were DCA Food & Wine booths all around and they. smelled. good :hungry:Ummm… GARLIC KISSED!? I don’t know what they’re selling, but yes please! I got the Creamy Mac & Cheese with Garlic Bread Crumble.

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Yep. Yep. Yep. Nothing wrong with that.

Next door was Off the Cob which just happened to be selling the closest thing to beer that I'll drink

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So hooked myself up with one of those.

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Bet you don’t think of the cup holder when you hate on strollers eh??

Lukas thought he wanted a whiskey and Coke, I told him good luck he should just find a beer he likes, but he insisted on checking every booth. But no problem because she was asleep!

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This was at 2:45pm and we didn’t have our next MP until 4:30pm so we had some time for his (impossible) whiskey hunt.

We headed in the direction of the Anna & Elsa M&G as that was the only thing we really wanted to get done before our next MP.

Well, after 2 passes of all the F&W booths, and nothing other than beer or margaritas (surprised, I was not). We were across from A&E and I am sad to admit it to you beer lovers but Lukas settled on some kind of a berry cider from Hollywood Lounge. He downed it, said it tasted like Koolaid, and we moved on :depressed:

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While sitting, we got to watch a security guard tell off some teenagers, telling them to put their “vapers” away or they would be asked to leave the park. Such a thrill.
 

krause

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Not that it helps you now but Belle is usually at the 11:40 am show in front of the castle with the band. But it looks like you saw Mickey, so not a total loss. :)

Oh man we probably could have made that work too! Oh well, it’s not quite as memorable for a 3 year old without a picture or autograph 😊

Wow your daugther is adorable! Thanks for sharing! Following along!!

Thanks for reading! She’s pretty special :inlove:

Following along! I hope to make it to DL one day so I love experiencing it through other's trip reports :)

Thanks for reading! Trip reports definitely help to highlight the good and bad of the parks when you’re planning your own trip!

Don’t ever let Malcolm see that you called this a Family Pic 😂

:oops: Whoops!

Loving the report so far! And now I am craving a corn dog...

Thanks for reading!! It was so good 😋 at one point I put it down on top of the stroller so I could do something, and now there is a permanent grease stain on the stroller canopy :hilarious: I can’t wait to read your first trip report with your sweet girl!
 

krause

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I went into the building where the Anna and Elsa M&G was to check on the line. It was 45-60 minutes. Well, let’s get a move on. I knew this wasn’t an optional thing, it was a must-do. So we woke up our 3 year old and got in the line. It's not the worst room to have to wait in, dark and air conditioned. Disney music and videos playing all around you.

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We ended up only waiting about 45 minutes and it went fast. The lady in front of us had let her family go off to do other activities while she waited (I had briefly considered taking Kinley to Turtle Talk while Lukas held our place in line, but decided it wasn’t worth the risk). She had to wait across from the entrance to the M&G until her family was back. We crossed over to the main M&G area with about 3 families ahead of us.

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We had been told when we got in line that Anna was off with Kristoff and not meeting today (the app said she was, and even said Olaf might be there). So that was disappointing, but the Queen is worth it, and meet her we did!

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Man that wig is horrible, gets me every time. I think her dress is better than WDW Elsa though? Super disappointing that they don't have a photopass photographer in there.

We were out of there around 3:55pm, still early for our 4:30pm MP. Turtle Talk with Crush ran every 30 minutes so we went in there and got into the 4pm show. Cute show, same as WDW I believe and always adorable.
 

krause

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Wordy post but worth it:

Then was the big one. The one I had been waiting for. Unpopular opinion time - Me and Lukas LOVE Guardians of the Galaxy. It is the only Marvel movie that you can get me to watch. It’s hilarious. And I mean, Chris Pratt, come on. I love Tower of Terror, but zero connection to the theme - I don’t know the show (It’s a show right?) and it’s the only ride I truly feel like it’s just going to break and I’m going to die so it kind of terrifies me in a not-good way. So, I hate to admit it here, but I loved the idea of a GotG makeover.

We checked in at 4:25pm with no problem. If you ever thought that you had been judged by anyone in your life, imagine being the person carrying your 3 year old in her twirly princess dress, clearly overtired having been woken up from her nap to meet Elsa, through a long dark loud queue to get on a ride that is obviously designed for adults :cautious:

She meets the height requirement. She LOVES watching videos of baby Groot. But none of that matters when you see a 3 year old getting into the same ride as you, a grown adult. I’m sure everyone on our elevator assumed that she was going to cry and scream and ruin the ride.

But she didn’t. She loved it. One little monster scene where I covered her eyes, but other than that it was pure joy the whole time. She laughed and was so happy when it ended, all the judgers said to us “I can’t believe she liked it, she’s so brave!”. Muahahaha (okay I was terrified she would hate it too, but I was pretty sure she would love it). This joy created the line of the trip: “It’s so dark and my bum goes up!”. She absolutely loved it.

Note: There was a girl younger than Kinley behind us in line wearing a Rapunzel dress who had been on the ride before and loved it. She was wearing rubber boots which her mother told us was to make her tall enough to be able to get on. This made me feel better that Kinley would be fine.

Ugh, I know @amjt660 will ask, so let me look it up quick. Oh no, I don’t remember. I think it was probably “Give Up the Funk” by Parliament.

Here's the photo evidence that we weren't concerned at all about her 😳

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On our way out we saw grown up size Groot heading for his M&G and my only regret of the whole day is not getting in line to meet him because seeing him is the #1 thing Kinley remembers from the trip.
 

krause

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
It was 5pm by this time and getting COLD. I had made a MP earlier for TSMM which was at this time, but it was SO far away. As much as I love kicking my husbands butt at that game, I knew Kinley wouldn’t love it, it was a long walk, and we still had a lot we could do in DL. So I dropped that MP (well tried at least, I couldn’t actually figure out how to delete it 🤦), and we headed back to DL.

At some point I had made a MP for BTMRR starting at 5:15 pm so we headed there after grabbing some ice cream. Kinley had done Splash, RSR, and GotG, surely she could handle this. We could all sit in the same seat together which was nice (3rd from the back).

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And, yep! She did great! “Train that goes round and round” she calls it now.

I asked her while in line for BTMRR if she wanted to do Splash Mountain again or a ghost ride. “Ghosts!” she said. So I grabbed a MP for Haunted Mansion and we headed there next.

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I covered her eyes for a couple of the creepy guys jumping out of graves but other than that she was good and still brags about how she went on the “ghost” ride.

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krause

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
It was getting late and was time to start checking off the final must-dos on our list.

#1 - Where in the world (land?) is Cinderella?!

Okay. App says she is at Royal Hall now. Headed over there, 15 minute wait. Worth it? Yes. Confirmed with the CM that Cinderella would be “in there”. Got in line.

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Okay, 20 minutes into the 15 minute line I think we finally got in.. and who do we see but…
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Ariel. Okay. That’s fine. We like Ariel.

Moving right along, and we see……
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Snow White. Okay. No problem, we like Snow White too. Snow White talks to Kinley for a. long. time. Like too long. I was like, okay we’re really here to see Cinderella so if we could just carry on…

So we finally got to the third room and it was…. Cinderella! Yes! But then I realized why Snow White was talking so long. Because Cinderella was slow. Spending lots of time with everyone. Which is nice.

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Un-magical Side note: I always wonder if the other princesses are like “ugh, so-and-so spends way too much time with each kid”, because I know I work with some people that are slower than I would like so maybe it’s the same with princesses??

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But I digress. Kinley had a great interaction, we got our signature and our “portrait” and I reminded Kinley that she wanted to ask Cinderella to see her glass slippers (as she won’t say anything herself to the princesses once she gets up to them). And it was lovely. Worth the wait.
 

NessNewt

Well-Known Member
Wordy post but worth it:

Then was the big one. The one I had been waiting for. Unpopular opinion time - Me and Lukas LOVE Guardians of the Galaxy. It is the only Marvel movie that you can get me to watch. It’s hilarious. And I mean, Chris Pratt, come on. I love Tower of Terror, but zero connection to the theme - I don’t know the show (It’s a show right?) and it’s the only ride I truly feel like it’s just going to break and I’m going to die so it kind of terrifies me in a not-good way. So, I hate to admit it here, but I loved the idea of a GotG makeover.

We checked in at 4:25pm with no problem. If you ever thought that you had been judged by anyone in your life, imagine being the person carrying your 3 year old in her twirly princess dress, clearly overtired having been woken up from her nap to meet Elsa, through a long dark loud queue to get on a ride that is obviously designed for adults :cautious:

She meets the height requirement. She LOVES watching videos of baby Groot. But none of that matters when you see a 3 year old getting into the same ride as you, a grown adult. I’m sure everyone on our elevator assumed that she was going to cry and scream and ruin the ride.

But she didn’t. She loved it. One little monster scene where I covered her eyes, but other than that it was pure joy the whole time. She laughed and was so happy when it ended, all the judgers said to us “I can’t believe she liked it, she’s so brave!”. Muahahaha (okay I was terrified she would hate it too, but I was pretty sure she would love it). This joy created the line of the trip: “It’s so dark and my bum goes up!”. She absolutely loved it.

Note: There was a girl younger than Kinley behind us in line wearing a Rapunzel dress who had been on the ride before and loved it. She was wearing rubber boots which her mother told us was to make her tall enough to be able to get on. This made me feel better that Kinley would be fine.

Ugh, I know @amjt660 will ask, so let me look it up quick. Oh no, I don’t remember. I think it was probably “Give Up the Funk” by Parliament.

Here's the photo evidence that we weren't concerned at all about her 😳

View attachment 357286


On our way out we saw grown up size Groot heading for his M&G and my only regret of the whole day is not getting in line to meet him because seeing him is the #1 thing Kinley remembers from the trip.

I'm not a Tower of Terror person, but I would love to try the guardians of the Galaxy version someday! It just seems FUN!
 

amjt660

Premium Member
GOG Misson Breakout rocks!!
IMHO they created a “new” ride with the makeover
( similar to how Dinosaur and Indy share a ride system but are very different)
It is fun, exhilarating and plays great music!
TOT is also a great ride for an obviously different reason

And the Animation building is not just a holding pen for Frozen lovers
It is an amazing rest stop on a hot day to soak in Disney art and music as you chill on the couches
It is a must do for me

Max
 

lostpro9het

Well-Known Member
Wordy post but worth it:

Then was the big one. The one I had been waiting for. Unpopular opinion time - Me and Lukas LOVE Guardians of the Galaxy. It is the only Marvel movie that you can get me to watch. It’s hilarious. And I mean, Chris Pratt, come on. I love Tower of Terror, but zero connection to the theme - I don’t know the show (It’s a show right?) and it’s the only ride I truly feel like it’s just going to break and I’m going to die so it kind of terrifies me in a not-good way. So, I hate to admit it here, but I loved the idea of a GotG makeover.

We checked in at 4:25pm with no problem. If you ever thought that you had been judged by anyone in your life, imagine being the person carrying your 3 year old in her twirly princess dress, clearly overtired having been woken up from her nap to meet Elsa, through a long dark loud queue to get on a ride that is obviously designed for adults :cautious:

She meets the height requirement. She LOVES watching videos of baby Groot. But none of that matters when you see a 3 year old getting into the same ride as you, a grown adult. I’m sure everyone on our elevator assumed that she was going to cry and scream and ruin the ride.

But she didn’t. She loved it. One little monster scene where I covered her eyes, but other than that it was pure joy the whole time. She laughed and was so happy when it ended, all the judgers said to us “I can’t believe she liked it, she’s so brave!”. Muahahaha (okay I was terrified she would hate it too, but I was pretty sure she would love it). This joy created the line of the trip: “It’s so dark and my bum goes up!”. She absolutely loved it.

Note: There was a girl younger than Kinley behind us in line wearing a Rapunzel dress who had been on the ride before and loved it. She was wearing rubber boots which her mother told us was to make her tall enough to be able to get on. This made me feel better that Kinley would be fine.

Ugh, I know @amjt660 will ask, so let me look it up quick. Oh no, I don’t remember. I think it was probably “Give Up the Funk” by Parliament.

Here's the photo evidence that we weren't concerned at all about her 😳

View attachment 357286


On our way out we saw grown up size Groot heading for his M&G and my only regret of the whole day is not getting in line to meet him because seeing him is the #1 thing Kinley remembers from the trip.

Just another DL fact, GOTG>TOT!

How did she take to Rocket in the collector's room?
 

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