Trip Report Christmastime and Thanksgiving at Disneyland 2022 (Completed)

Hello everyone, it's been awhile since I did a trip report. Actually it was August of 2022. I admit I've been lazy but I haven't been absent from the parks. My husband (Brad) and I have taken quite a few trips together to WDW. I've taken some solo WDW trips, gone to Disneyland twice (once solo and once on a girls trip) and I had intentions of doing trip reports but it never happened. Oh and on some of those trips I have been able to meet up with a few magicians have have some fun. Some magician meet ups were planned and some of you kindly spotted me in the park and said hello.

So anyway, I feel it is finally time to add to the fun trip reports on here with one of my own again. And if I start this as a pre-trip report, the rest will follow. I am a completist.

So when: I leave in a couple hours. So November 22-28

Where: Disneyland!!!

Hotel: Best Western Park Place Inn (right across the street from Disneyland and so much cheaper than a Disneyland hotel)

Leaving from: Minneapolis/St. Paul (I live in Wisconsin)

Flying into: SNA (John Wayne airport) NOT LAX because I'm not crazy.

Who: me (Amy) and my husband (Brad)

Who we have to leave behind: our beloved schnauzers Kapono (she's 11) and our new puppy (obtained in August) Baxter (named after our favorite Imagineer)

The plan for tonight: Check out Downtown Disney. Brad wants to buy a Magic Band + to do the Bounty Hunter game and maybe a beer for me at Ballast Point. Tomorrow is a Disneyland day with lunch at Cafe Orleans, drinks at Trader Sam's and Ogas. We were going to do the Main Street tour with a visit to Walt's Apartment but after hearing reviews about it I cancelled it. We have been in the apartment before.

Thanksgiving Day we will be at DCA and checking out Festival of the Holidays. On Friday will be our Holiday Tour and Fantasmic. Other fun stuff breakfast at Goofy's Kitchen, World of Color dessert party, all the holiday stuff, and Brad's first time at Avenger's Campus.

Hope you enjoy the report, I'll try to post a few things while there and add more once we have returned.

Oh and if anyone reading is in Disneyland at this time and sees us please say hello!!!

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Day One November 23

Another view from the boats

After Storybook Boats we decided to head to it's a small world holiday. This is one Christmas attraction I was most looking forward to, and doing small world in the morning means sometimes I get my own boat! When we got near we saw that there wasn't really anyone around and I was getting excited that we would indeed have our own boat, but sadly it was not running. Boo! It still looks festive though.

Well we decided to head over to Haunted Mansion but we got delayed on the way with some characters.

I had a nice conversation with Aladdin/Prince Ali and he warned me to stay away from Abu because Abu would try to get my gingerbread ears! HAHA!

So remember I just said that our destination was Haunted Mansion, well Brad was wistful as we passed the first entrance for Galaxy's Edge. So I told him we could cut through there on the way to HM. It made him a happy boy.

I was looking for my friend Kylo, but he wasn't around yet.

Oga's...we will see you later. The first time we visited Galaxy's Edge during Disneyland's previews we made Oga's our first stop, I think that was last time we had alcohol at 8 am.

And B was happy to see the falcon again.

After getting our pictures taken by the Falcon we were approached by a cast member.....(yep I'm leaving you with a cliff hanger!)

 

[coachwnh]

, I think that was last time we had alcohol at 8 am.

 

[MickeyCB]

we were approached by a cast member.....(yep I'm leaving you with a cliff hanger!)

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Day one: November 23

So I left off with us being approached by a couple cast members after we had our picture taken in front of the Falcon...they asked us if we had ridden Smuggler's Run. We said we have in the past but we hadn't yet today and planned to later. Well they asked us if we wanted to ride it right now with them. Well why not!? is what we thought. So they took us and another couple through the lightning lane and we were soon on the ride. Brad and one other person they picked to ride were pilots, that person wasn't a good pilot. I ended up being a gunner and the two cast members were engineers. It was a neat experience to be picked for a special ride.

We had a lightning lane for Haunted Mansion and the diversion to Smuggler's Run made us a tad late for it but we were able to still use our pass for it. And Haunted Mansion is awesome all the time and it is just as fun with the Nightmare Before Christmas overlay. I'm not a huge Nightmare Before Christmas fan, it is just okay but the overlay is fun to see. I wouldn't ever want it to totally replace the original Mansion but seasonally is good.

 

[Darstarr]

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Day one November 23

Our black Christmas sleigh (doombuggy) slowed down at time to get a couple halfway decent pictures during the ride. Neither B or I was able to get a decent picture of the big gingerbread house in the ballroom during this ride, but I will get an ok one on another ride through.

Next up was a trip back to Galaxy's Edge for our Rise of the Resistance lightning lane. Brad was very excited for Rise in Disneyland, even though he has ridden it a lot in Hollywood Studios he hadn't been able to ride it yet in Disneyland. Is it different than Hollywood Studios? No but he had been really looking forward to the ride when we first visited Galaxy's Edge in Disneyland that he just had to experience it. Before it opened he had read about Poe's plane being somewhere in the queue and he wanted to see it so badly (yep he's the Star Wars nerd) he even asked cast members standing outside the not operational Rise attraction if he could just sneak in to see the plane, of course it was a no.

Brad finally gets to see Disneyland's version of Poe's plane.

Two geeks have been captured by the First Order.

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

We usually wait for the booze to start at a respectable 8:30 am!

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Day One November 23

We headed back to Frontierland and to our lunch destination but we got distracted by the musical popcorn bucket, relaxing on a bench by the River, and the Disneyland band. I love when they play in Frontierland because I know they will play the Zorro theme song (great song and show, the entire series is now finally on Disney+). We also wandered into the Frontierland store and listened to the orchestrion, they switch out songs for the holiday season and only costs a quarter.
Then we checked into Cafe Orleans for lunch. Both of us got the monte cristo sandwich and pomme frittes. The pomme frittes are different than they used to be and a little less garlicky but everything was tasty and way too many carbs!

 

[brifraz]

I think that was last time we had alcohol at 8 am.

We usually wait for the booze to start at a respectable 8:30 am!

It's been at least a couple days since we started booze early... gotta have a pint during some of those early morning football (soccer) matches!! Especially since the folks at the matches in Qatar can't have a pint during the match (I'm just trying to be helpful).

 

[JenniferS]

Hey @NYwdwfan - We HAVE to go back!
Look at these fabulous pics. And characters. And food!

 

[MinnieM123]

@ajrwdwgirl --I like your holiday, gingerbread cookie "ears"!! Those are so cute!

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Hey @NYwdwfan - We HAVE to go back!
Look at these fabulous pics. And characters. And food!

Disneyland is always a great idea!

@ajrwdwgirl --I like your holiday, gingerbread cookie "ears"!! Those are so cute!

Thank you. B & I named them (because we are nerds) the gingerbread ears names are Holly and Jolly!

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Day one November 23

After lunch we headed back to Galaxy's Edge for a little bit. B wanted to see the Mandalorian and Grogu (baby Yoda) since they debuted in the land just a few days prior. He also wanted to play the Bounty Hunter game, we didn't end up seeing or doing either one but we did see Boba Fett, B was excited because as he passed him Boba put his hand on Brad's shoulder and told him thanks for visiting. We also saw Kylo and the troopers walking around.

A lightning lane was calling to us and it was for it's a small world holiday. I can't describe how wonderful I find this attraction, the overlay is just perfect. Both of us are Christmas people, our house is extremely decorated inside and out for Christmas, it is our season. I think I've told this story before but Brad is not much of a small world person he has come to appreciate it over the years but I would have to drag him on it. I always thought it was cute and fun. The first time we went on it's a small world holiday we weren't expecting it to be so amazing. When the boat pulled back into the load/unload area the first thing Brad said to me was "We have got to do this again!" So anyway, here are a few of my many pictures of the attraction. Oh, and just so you know there are some different holiday smells in the attraction like gingerbread and such and the main song is a blend of the original small world mixed with Jingle Bells & Deck the Halls.

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Day One November 23

Some more small world holiday pictures.

Notice the little Elvis bobblehead on Lilo & Stitch's surfboard!

After small world we wandered over to Main Street to just wander around. Originally we had booked the Walt's Main Street tour for about this time but after reading reviews it didn't seem like it was work the amount of money it was going to cost for the experience. The tour spends about an hour on Main Street giving some information about Walt & Disneyland and ends in Walt's apartment with a treat (a lemon cookie) on the terrace next to his apartment. A few years ago we had taken the Walk in Walt's Footsteps tour which spent quite a bit of time with information on Main Street and went into Walt's apartment, so even though it would have been nice to go into the apartment again we passed. I thought it would be neat to hang out on Walt's terrace too but I heard that there is a lot of lattice fencing up there so people can't really see in or out and the lemon cookie didn't entice us either. So instead we wandered on our own.

We were walking by the castle and a churro cart when we heard this lady say "Ugh churros, why would someone eat those vile things!" and not being churro people I chuckled and turned around to say something in agreement when I saw it was the Evil Queen from Snow White saying it! I guess I am in tune with the Evil Queen. So again it was fun to see a character just randomly walking around so we followed her to the grotto on the side of the castle and it turned out Gaston was there and it was fun to hear them interact with each other, it was a bit of a villain's show down.

Next we wandered back to the hub and to our happy surprise the Main Street vehicles were still running in the afternoon and we would see them running later at night sometimes too! That never happens at the Magic Kingdom, we consider ourselves lucky to ride a Main Street vehicle there by 9 am! So we hopped on the firetruck and I even rang the bell.

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Day one November 23

A few pictures of the castle which was all snowy and had icicles for the season.

Brad in the firetruck

Our view from the firetruck going down Main Street

Then we met a couple characters in Town Square and had pictures in front of the big tree.

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Day One November 23

After our wandering around, which by the way did not include seeing the Dapper Dans because they didn't perform on Wednesdays, it was about 30 minutes until the Christmas Fantasy parade. One great thing about Disneyland is that all the Christmas entertainment is during park hours, no extra party fee. I guess they had a Christmas party in addition to the regular stuff last year but it must not have been too popular since it wasn't back this year. There was an area in the hub that had full sun but was totally empty, it even had a great view of the castle. We asked if it was a seating area and we were assured it was so we snagged a fantastic spot. I think it was empty because it was in the full sun, but it eventually went behind some trees and the area was perfect!

The best part of any Christmas parade is the toy soldiers. At Disneyland they start off the parade so even though I enjoy the rest of the parade the best part for me was the start. As far as I'm concerned the majority of the parade could be the toy soldiers and I would be happy.

A Christmas Fantasy parade (the first of a couple viewings!)

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Day one November 23

More of the Christmas Fantasy parade

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Day One November 23

Ok I found another cool picture of the toy solidier.

And then the grand finale of the reindeer and Santa!

Next up cocktail time at Trader Sams!

 

[Wicked Sisters]

Just had to say your photos in Haunted Mansion are brilliant and so colo

 

[Wicked Sisters]

the word at the end of my last post should say colourful