For the love of Disney (and all their recent updates!)

 Traveling is one of our favorite things to do.  It energizes us, exhausts us (in a really, good way!), and gives us time together.  Whether its traveling to a big city full of historical landmarks and tall buildings, hiking a trail by the beach, or making our way from ride to ride at Disneyland, I love it.  It’s one of the reasons I fell in love with my husband and our kids have caught the bug.  Funny Story:  Remember back in 2020 when everything shut down?  We had just picked our kids up from school right as our school district announcement that school would close for 2 weeks (ha ha!) and Ethan runs in and is like, “where could we go?” He was 100 percent ready to use that time to travel. . . Forgetting that it was a pandemic!  I’m so thankful that year we were able to fit in our annual disney trip before everything shut down.

Disneyland is one of my favorite places. We took our kids there for the first time when they were 4 ½ and 2 and fell in love with the park even more!  We try to go once a year and it’s a time that we all cherish.  The kids are getting older and are loving the roller coasters and I think it make the husband so happy he has people to join him on Guardians of the Galaxy. . . No sudden drops for me! (I am a total wimp and am okay with that!)

 This year we postponed our annual trip a few weeks so in coincided with our kitchen demo. . . If we were going to be eating out, we might as well be at Disneyland and did we really want to be home with all that banging and dust?  No thank you. The timing worked out and it was fabulous.  Plus, Jon put a ring camera in the kitchen so we could watch the destruction in real time.   

 Recently Disney made some new changes to how the parks work and if you haven’t been since before 2020, you might be in for a surprise on how things are different.  I think that a lot of the changes are great. . . Some not so much, but not enough to keep me from going.  Here’s kind of the rundown of our experience

Tickets:

We purchased a 1 day California Adventure ticket and a 1 day Disneyland ticket.   No park hoppers.  We don’t think park hopping is worth it because you spend a lot of time walking back and forth.  Also, if you can’t even start park hopping until 1pm.  All tickets have to be purchased in advance with a reservation.  Gone are the days of spontaneous Disneyland trips because in many cases they sell out quick.  On the plus side, they haven’t been opening as many tickets as they used to for one day.  Yes, it gets crowded, but not hoards of people you can’t even walk crowded (we’ve done that.. . It’s not ideal). 

 Genie Plus:

Fast Passes are now a thing of the past.  There’s no longer little kiosks around to get paper tickets, it’s all done via the Disneyland App.  It does cost an extra $20 per day per ticket.  We decided to try it out since we were going at a busier time.  It was 100 percent worth it, because we got to ride so many rides.  You can schedule your lightning lane pass on the app and then you use the generated bar code on your app to redeem your lightning lane ticket.  Very much like the way fast passes worked, except digital.  You can only have one scheduled at a time, but you can start scheduling the next one as you are walking through the line of the one you just redeemed.  My favorite thing about this was that there were so many more rides that now have the lightning lane capabilities! The draw back is that rides like Radiator Springs Racers and The Rise of the Resistance rides require an extra fee to ride.  We did not partake in the extra fees because we think it’s a little ridiculous.  We chose to wait in line for the rides, except for Resistance. . . We’ve ridden it and it’s amazing, but it was a really long line and it was constantly breaking down that day.  To us, it wasn’t worth our time when there are so many other things to do. 

A huge perk to the genie pass is that if you use your lightning pass for a particular ride and it breaks down during your scheduled hour block, they will send you a free pass to ride another ride during this time.  This does not take away from your regularly assigned 1 lightning pass per ride per genie plus.  So. . . Let me break that down for you.  We had lightning lane passes for the Matterhorn, but it broke down when we were supposed to redeem them.  The app let us know and suggested some other options for us.  We used it on Autopia and then we were able to use our regularly assigned lightning lane pass for the ride later in the day.  It’s like Disney saying, don’t feel like you wasted your lightning lane opportunity. . . We’ve got you.  I really appreciated that.  

 Another perk of the genie+ pass is that it covers all your pictures you have taken on your Disney adventure.  They scan a qr code on your phone and after a small amount of time, your ride pictures and photo pictures all show up on your phone and are super easy to download.  This is makes it pretty easy to make sure you get that great family photo in front of the castle.  

Disneyland App: 

We absolutely love the app.  We’ve always used it to track the status of rides and such, but they have made it way more usable.  First of all, your tickets are stored on the app, so when you arrive in the morning, you just scan the app.  They still give you paper tickets just in case you want to split up and go different directions/different parks.  Second, this is where you access your lightning lane status, if you paid for the genie+ feature (and where you can add on the bonus lightning lanes for the highly desirable rides.  Lastly, the Disneyland app is also where can order food from the majority of eateries around the parks.  You just schedule it for the time that you want and let them know (via the app) that you are on your way to pick up and they will start preparing it.  There were a few restaurants where this wasn’t available, but places like outside the Tiki Room, where you order Dole Whips, you can only order through the app. 

 

Right now, that’s pretty much all the changes that were made (that I know of)  Just after we left, Disney lowered their masking policy, so if you go now,  you don’t have to wear a mask on indoor rides (which is a huge relief of on rides like Space Mountain. . . That was hard!).  There are some places that are undergoing construction. . .like in downtown Disney between the majority of the shops and the Disneyland hotel and I believe Toon Town is getting a face lift soon (and a new ride is being built as we speak!). 

 Food Allergies:

 

As a family that has food allergy issues, it is always a relief at Disneyland with how open they are about their ingredients and how flexible they are.  You can always ask for an allergy friendly menu from most of the restaurants, even in Downtown Disney.  This trip, we were surprised to see vegan friendly cheese available at Pizza Planet in Tomorrowland.  We also found that the app ordering made it super easy to find what accommodations could be made for food allergies.  Not every food place is as easy, though. . . the chicken sandwiches by Autopia must be ordered as is. . . so if you don't like mayo, don't eat there.  Other than that one restaurant, we have always found food allergies to be embraced and not something that has to be a hassle. 

I know there’s a lot of controversy over how expensive it is to go to Disneyland, but there are so many new rides and updates each year, it is fun (albeit expensive) to watch and experience the magic. . . Because it really is magical! 

 

And now, I will let you get on with your weekend and I am going to resume dreaming of the carne asada fries and beignets.