We ate so much good food on this trip! Here’s some pics of us enjoying the SoCal theme park treats. This isn’t ALL the food we ate, but a lot of it.
Full meals:
Not pictured, the Alien Pizza buffet in Tomorrowland and Ronto Wraps in Galaxy’s Edge :-)
Ice Cream (and dairy free for me!)
Gross tongues after.
Walking with Treats:
CHURROS CHURROS CHURROS:
As I said before, at Disneyland Resort you have the option to purchase Maxpass. I think it was completely worth it for the ride Fastpass access alone. So much easier using the app rather than paper kiosks or standby lines only. Included with the cost of Maxpass are all the photos taken by Disney photographers. That means ride photos, scenic stations around the park, and character meet and greets.
We only met one character officially (Groot) and I only stopped at the park photographers if there wasn't a line. Still, I feel like we got a great collection of photos with all four of us in them! I would definitely get Maxpass again.
Here's the photos from the rides:
(there aren't many - we did all the available ride photos except the Incredicoaster)
(I cropped in a close-up for each, if you want to scroll down for more detail)
. 
Meeting Groot!
Photos around the park:
When we last visited Disneyland I declared it my dream to stay at the Grand Californian Hotel one day. Not only is it a beautiful luxury hotel with all the Disney theming and service you expect, but it's as close as you can get to staying IN the parks.
The Grand Californian Hotel is a the ONLY hotel that actually touches the theme parks. All other hotels in both California and Florida require a shuttle/bus/train/skyliner/ferry or a walk across streets to enter the theme parks. But this GCH is has its own security check point into Downtown Disney, which leads directly to the plaza for DL and DCA parks. The GCH also has a private security AND ticketing entrance into DCA. You really can't stay any closer to the action.
So when Ben and I dreamed up this trip in the fall, we decided to take advantage of the off-season room rates and reach for the sky. We booked a premium view room at the GCH instead of our default choice of the nearest budget Marriott.
We were informed at check-in that we had a pool-view room, and that no theme-park views were available. I was bummed, since I had put in a special request for a park view. However, I was delighted that we could clearly see the tops of Pixar Pier from our balcony. Good enough for me!
This hotel delivered. Spacious and lovely with hidden Chip and Dale chipmunks all over. The lobby had a roaring fire and cartoons and a live pianist all day long. The room had lots of clever design features to make it comfortable. Friendly housekeeping gave us extra pillows and blankets and turn-down service with chocolates on the bed.
Ben took the kids swimming Sunday after we got our room. You can see them from our balcony (Ben is in green and red). He had to drag them out after an hour when they couldn't talk without chattering teeth.
But really, the access to the parks was amazing. Only on Tuesday, when every hotel guest was trying to get into the Extra Magic Morning hour at DL, did we have to wait maybe 15 minutes to get through security. Every other time we got out with practically no wait. Here, I took a screen shot of the park map and circled our room.
And here Ben is pointing it out from inside the Wilderness Trail Challenge course in DCA.
I was so happy with the location, I even took a video of the walk from room-to-park on our last day, when I made a quick stop in the room midday.
https://youtu.be/MYEXcFAEViw
And after I passed the security and ticket turnstiles I was here: 
Right?! Right?!
Planning the Trip
We flew in on Sunday, had MTW in the parks, and came home Thursday. We really packed in a lot of rides during our trip, and it never felt rushed. Three days for two parks was perfect. I planned this trip for the off season for low crowds. I think it worked, since most rides never reached 1 hour wait time, and most were 10-25 minute stand-by lines.
But there was a new ride in Galaxy’s Edge, The Rise of the Resistance, that inflated crowds a bit. Especially in the morning, because you had to be in the park at exactly opening time in order to get a boarding group for the ride. So there were massive lines to get through the turnstiles, and then roaming around Main Street prior to rope drop. I think more locals were visiting than usual, and sticking around until their boarding groups, because of the new ride. Even so, compared to the previous week and the weekend crowds, we had a relatively low crowd situation.
I also rocked the Fastpass system. In Disneyland they use kiosks to distribute paper tickets for Fastpass, or you can pay a daily fee per ticket to use the phone app called Maxpass. We took this option and we certainly got our money’s worth. We were able to practically walk on to the most popular rides, and using my phone I was able to stack up many Fastpasses as soon as we were eligible to get more. The Maxpass also lets you keep all the ride and pro-photographers shots from the park. I had fun collecting those and trying to get some good family shots.
Oh, let me add that a downside to the off-season is that they do a lot of closures for refurbishments. The biggest disappointment was that the Haunted Mansion was closed. It’s my favorite attraction and I had even talked with customer service back in November, to try to make sure it would be open when we came. It usually closes/reopens to remove the holiday overlay, and should have been open for us the last week of January. But in late December, after we booked, they announced it will stay closed until Spring for major cleaning and repairs. Dagnabbit! Other (less important) closures were the Carrousel, Snow White Scary Adventures, Grizzly River Run, the Red Trolley, the canoes and the riverboat.
Getting There
(Side note here: I was SICK. Like, seriously ill. I had had a head cold for a week, and then Friday night I got food poisoning or a virus of some kind. Saturday I had no strength. Literally, Ben had to pack for me and I could barely sit up on my bed to fold my clothes into the suitcase. It was miserable. We thought we might have to cancel the trip. I slept most of the day and worked on taking in water and simple carbs. Sunday morning I felt somewhat functional when we woke at 5 AM - meaning I could walk without feeling faint and eat/drink a little more. Still had a stuffy nose and head, but we decided we could continue our trip. So that first day I was pretty out of it still.)
(PS Ben was amazing at rallying everyone and doing double duty on the kids, plus making sure I was comfortable. He’s the best!)
We toured the hotel and then Downtown Disney. Our vacation package included a free pin and lanyard from the Pin Trader’s shop. We collected our freebies and thus sparked a collecting quest for Jack (more on that later). We got burgers for lunch, picked out Mickey treats, and toured the Lego Store. Needing to sit down, we found the observation deck in the hotel and enjoyed the view until our room was ready.
The room was great (more on that later). The kids went swimming in the barely warm pool. After I had a good rest we went out for dinner and dessert again, then back to an early bedtime. Gotta be rested so we could hit the park early!
The next three days were all park days. We had park hopper tickets, so we could go back and forth as we pleased :-D Here’s a rundown of all the attractions we saw:
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
So that was a lot!
Last time we came it was for two days. It felt very luxurious to have three days. No frantic planning to try to get it all in quickly, no stress when we came upon an extra long wait, we could come back later!
By the end of the first day I felt fully recovered with just that lingering stuffy nose and cough. Good thing too, for all the walking and crazy rides we did!
Thursday we slept in and got breakfast at the hotel Craftsman Grill. We did some last minute souvenir shopping in Downtown Disney, then left for the airport as late as possible. The flight choices were either early morning or mid-afternoon. So we got to the airport with no security lines to fight, and hours to rest, have lunch, etc.
A straightforward flight home took us from the land of warm palm trees to an icy snowfall. Ben said he felt ready to go home, but me and the boys were sad to see it end. It was really a top notch vacation. Jack and Sam are already talking about what they want to do on their next Disney trip :-)
I have hundreds of photos from the trip. As I said, I'm going to post it bit by bit. First coming up in a minute will be a post about the rides and trip overall. Later this weekend (hopefully) I will post smaller entries about the details.
If you want a preview cause you just can't wait to see it all, here's a link to our photo album.
We're back! We had a magical, merry trip to Disneyland Resort this week.
It was a slam dunk fantastic vacation! We got to do everything we wanted at least once, and often twice. We ate churros every day. We stayed at my dream hotel, the Grand Californian, right in the park.
I have so much to share and journal, with over 300 photos - not counting any from Ben. I'll probably post in pieces.
For now, I'll share our first and last photos in the parks.
Finished them
We enjoyed a quiet day at home for Ben's birthday. He opened presents after breakfast per tradition.
For lunch we all went to the Westminster Alamo to see Spies in Disguise. You know what, that movie was actually really good! I mean, for a kids film. I don't blindly recommend it. But the animation was smart, it had great voice acting, the plot was predictable but tight, and had a lot of great jokes and fun set pieces.
Ben indulged in a hearty root stew for dinner. He made it with dashi and miso, ingredients that the other humans in our house don't light. The cats on the other hand...
Then we had ice cream cake from DQ and played card games.
Happy Birthday, Ben!