My first After Dark event at Disneyland!

How it works? What it offers! Is it worth it?!

You can keep an eye out for these special event announcements via social media, i.e. Instagram, Disney Parks Blog or Facebook, etc. You can purchase these tickets on Disneyland.com. Ticket prices were $99 per person for this specific After Dark event. Event time starts from 9pm - 1am but ticket holders are allowed into the parks beginning at 6pm with the park closing at 8pm. This gives regular guests time to weave out of the park and allow event guests to have the park to themselves.

Event guests lined up at the ticket entrance to Disneyland and upon entrance we were given our special tickets, lanyards and event guide. AP Holders were also given a complimentary button which could be found at Starcade in Tomorrowland.

Although most Restaurants were closed starting at 9pm, you could still get the opportunity to dine at them when you entered at 6pm. All snack/churro carts were open during the event including Red Rose Taverne, Gibson Girl Ice Cream Parlor, Jolly Holliday, Mint Julep Bar, Royal Street Veranda, Alien Pizza Planet, Galactic Grill and Tropical Hideaway.

Entertainment offerings including Dueling Pianos in Frontierland, Moonlight Cruise on the Mark Twain Riverboat, The Royal Princess Ball in front of "it's a small world," Steel Drum Band in the Tropical Hideaway, "Get Your Ears On" Celebration Dance Party inside Tomorrowland Terrace and Mickey's Mix Magic firework Spectacular.

It was so much fun to spot Characters so easily and to be able to interact with them!

Photo opportunities were provided at specific locations throughout the park. Those included Toy Story, Up, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, Sleeping Beauty, Tangled, Lady and the Tramp and a Sweethearts' Nite themed backdrop.

How cute is Carl & Ellie?!

We ended up Disneybounding as one of our favorite couples, Wall-E + Eve!

Pros for the event included:

Little to no wait times for rides
Specific event merchandise
Rare character meet + greets
Movie themed photo ops
Beautiful themed decor + lighting
Special Entertainment & food offerings

Cons, I thought, for the event:

Super long wait times for photo ops
Limited Restaurant options
Weather (Now, this is something Disney cannot control but I should warn you to be overly prepared because the only downfall was that it was really cold.)

Is it worth it? I would say, it’s definitely worth it! Our main goal was to ride rides and we were literally breezing past all the queues and getting right onto the rides. To be able to walk the park so late at night with no crowds and no strollers was pretty amazing. It’s probably the closest we will ever feel to renting out the park.

This was our first After Dark event and I would say we will definitely be going to more in the future!

I hope this post was helpful + as always, thanks so much for stopping by! Xoxo~

I have to first start off by saying that I absolutely love Halloweentime at Disneyland but there is nothing more magical then the Holidays here at the Disneyland Resort. The last time we went was December 2015 and Harlen was only 6 months old. This was his first time ever to the parks and it literally changed the whole meaning of magical for us as parents. It has been 3 years since we experienced Christmas at Disney and I wanted to fill the gap in from now to our Aulani vacation. What better time to go than December for the holidays?!

"it's a small world" Holiday

The holidays begin at Disneyland resort from November 9th through January 6th 2019. Each year the official dates change but it's pretty typical for Disney Holidays to last from early to November to early January. The best times to go is the week after Thanksgiving to the first week of December. After that the crowds get big and the parks are packed. If you can go during the week vs. the weekends that’s even better as well.

Disney always decorates to the max for every holiday and season. I especially heard that The Grand Californian really dresses up their lobby for this occasion, so what better way to add that extra ounce of pixie dust to our trip than to finally be able to stay there?! This is the hotel you always walk by and wish you can experience. Not only is it the most expensive of the three but it’s the most newly renovated as well. This is the only hotel on property that has access to one of the parks.

The Grand lobby

For this trip, I ended up booking it through Costco Travel. The Disneyland Vacation Package included a total discount on your hotel/ticket package, Premium Character dining, up to $100 Disney gift card + other magical amenities in the Vacation Package! Unfortunately, to book through them you have to be a Costco member to be able to have access to their vacation offers. If you are a Costco member all you need is to create an account and link your Costco membership card and you're all set! What's great about this is as soon as you book, you can access your vacation through Disneyland's website and handle the rest of your stay directly with Disney! So if you have any room requests, celebrations, etc. you can phone Disneyland directly here. Be sure to mention you booked directly with Costco Travel and they will direct you to the right Cast Member to assist you!

We drove up Wednesday morning to check in and unwind in our room. Later in the evening it started to rain and get colder. For this trip were were super prepared for it to pour rain on us for the first 2 days we were there. This did not put a damper on us at all! I packed the boys' rain boots, heaving jackets and beanies and also bought this amazing stroller cover! I have to say this was THE best purchase of 2018 - haha.

After check in we headed to our room. We ended up booking a premium view room and they gave us one that faced directly in view with Pixar Pier! Although some trees blocked a little bit of our view, we still saw a lot of the rides, heard the sounds and felt like we were right in the middle of the park.

Side note: Now that we have stayed at all 3 Disney Hotels on Disneyland's property I have to give my honest opinion of our favorite hotel! Paradise Pier has the best park view hands down! The most magical of the hotels is for sure the Disneyland Hotel. And the most sociable and family accommodated Hotel and our personal favorite is the Grand Californian. Paradise Pier is fun to start out at. It's definitely the furthest of the Hotels on property but it's still very much in walking distance to the park. There is nothing much to the lobby other than the check in desk and some beautiful art work and an adorable Goofy statue holding a surf board. The hotel and rooms are beach themed and if you choose the premium park view your have an entire window top to bottom with a view of Disney California Adventure. I will get into more detail in another blog post of our January (off-season) trip where we were able to watch World of Color directly from our room! The Disneyland Hotel gets bigger, this is the second closest hotel to the park. This Hotel provides a lot of Disney magic, from the Teacup seating area in the lobby, nostalgic artwork, beautiful carpets and an awesome water slide & pool. The rooms are even more magical with a light up head board of Sleeping Beauty's Castle with fireworks that light up and sing. There is also a lot more Mickey Mouse touches in the room including the bed comforter, light fixtures and hardware in the bathroom. You can also spot hidden Mickey's in the carpet. At The Grand, this hotel is much more cozy. Their lobby is a place you want to hang out and that is what a lot of people did. It made the hotel feel so warm and sociable with so many people just enjoying what it had to offer. They had fireplace seating around every corner, even outside in the gardens. They also had a cute sitting area for the kiddos to watch cartoons and recline while the parents checked in. While it didn't have those Hidden Mickeys, etc. scattered around it still had that Disney feel. When we entered our room we were so blown away with how spacious it was! It definitely had more modern technology from the lighting down to the telephone. The beds were raised so you could store your luggage underneath. They had coat racks on the wall as you enter your room and a huge closet to hang up your clothes. The bathroom was ginormous with a huge walk in shower, bench, a rain shower head and another shower head attachment which you could lower for the kids. The theme in the rooms had Chip n' Dale throughout but if you looked hard enough there was hidden Mickeys in the bathroom on the wallpaper!

After we unpacked and changed into warmer clothes we headed to Downtown Disney for some dinner, light shopping and of course dessert! We ended up putting our name down at Naples Ristorante e Bar and they were going to text me when our table was ready. While we waited we decided to walk through the newly renovated World of Disney. Guys, I thought Disney was slacking on their merchandise game but in realty they were just saving it all! I wanted everything in this store it was so cute and the new World of Disney is so magical and filled with animated fun! It's literally my all time favorite now and I could spend all day there. After dinner, the Hubby wanted dessert so we went and checked out the new Salt & Straw ice cream shop. Hands down, they have some delicious ice cream. Our favorite was their seasonal Peppermint Bark Cocoa! It's like frozen hot chocolate with big chunks of Williams Sonoma's signature holiday Peppermint Bark and the one-of-a-kind pure peppermint oil from Oregon's Seely Mint and it was AMAZING!

The next day was one of our park days. We ended up buying two day park hoppers for this trip. Only reason was because we had that park access by staying at The Grand. We typically buy 2 day - one park per day tickets because it's so much easier with strollers and takes less time out of your day. I will also go into that more in depth in another blog post. ;) On the magic morning schedule Disneyland is set to have their magic morning on Thursdays so we lined up for our early entry with our hotel keys in hand. It was seriously the cutest thing! Castmembers chose the first family lined up to enter the park first and take photos in front of the Main Street Train Station. After that they got the rest of us involved by chanting our excitement and counting down from 5 to park entry time!

I absolutely love walking down Main Street when it's empty. It's the perfect time to snap photos and take it all in. Plus walking down while it's raining is even better. Our favorite park days are those that are rainy. I literally hoped for months we would end up with a rainy day on this trip and was so happy when we found out it was! For some reason this drives a lot of the crowds away. The wait time for rides are little to nothing, the streets are empty and there is nothing better than bundling up in warm clothes at Disneyland. There is still SO much you can do because not every ride closes while it rains. Plus you can still take advantage of indoor shows and yummy treats! The only rides/entertainment that were closed on the day it rained were Alice in Wonderland, Autopia, Gadget's Go Coaster, Golden Zephyr, Goofy's Sky School, Luigi's Roadsters, Mad Tea Party, Story Book Land Canal Boats and Tom Sawyers Island. The parade and fireworks also do get cancelled if there is heavy down pour. Do NOT let this list deter you because there is still SO much to do and see. The list of attractions and entertainment that are available when it rains is much longer! It really is just as magical when it rains there and I hope one day you get to experience it!

We had our premium character dining scheduled that morning at the Plaza Inn with Minnie & Friends. Minnie mouse was so cute all decked out in her apron and as people checked in the families got to take photos with her. We were directed to our table and kept our autograph book out for all the characters to come around sign andbtake pics with the boys. The boys met Peter Pan, Captain Hook, Eeyore, Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Max, Rafiki, Fairy Godmother, Chip n' Dale. Just fun characters you wouldn't typically spot walking around the parks.

For lunch, we checked out the new seating area at Bengal Barbecue along with some of their new food items they added to their menu. We have always loved the skewers but it's so great they added rice and cole slaw to make it more of a meal! The kids napped and Mommy & Daddy enjoyed those and also grabbed a Dole Whip for dessert. I noticed throughout the years the Dole Whip line has gotten so incredibly long that it doesn't seem worth the wait anymore. We would just end up getting them inside the Coffee Shop at the Disneyland Hotel instead. This last time they had a Cast Member with an iPad go to each guest in line, take their order along with payment and before you know it, you were collecting our treat! It was such a great/fast alternative I'm so glad Disney ended up finding a faster solution to the long wait time!

After riding as much rides as we could while braving the rain we decided to go back to the room for a bit to change into warmer/dry clothes for the rest of the evening. We finally got to go check out Pixar Pier for the first time! Our last trip we didn't get to see it because we went to Disneyland park only. I'm actually really glad we waited because they just added Bing Bong inside Bing Bong's Sweet Stuff and he's absolute perfection!

Friday, the next morning, DCA was scheduled for their magic morning. We took advantage of our Hotel park entry and got in line to meet Santa. That whole area is so cute, it's like his little wonderland. You can make cookies and other crafts, greet elves, and most importantly meet Santa and take photos with him. I even added the boys' name to his nice list. It was really magical for the boys ..except Harrison wasn't having Santa this year - haha.

After meeting Santa we went and had breakfast at Flo's V8 Cafe . I wanted to check out new experiences this trip and heard they have some delicious French toast plus the atmosphere was so fun for the boys! They also have outdoor seating where you can watch Radiator Springs Racers fly by as they race each other.

For lunch we took advantage of mobile ordering. This is new on the Disneyland app. At first, I was skeptical, like it takes away from something but after trying it out, it's truly amazing. Matt & Harlen got in line for Astro Orbitors, I went to the Disneyland app, ordered from Galactic Grill. Pushed Harrison in the stroller to pick it up as I was entering I selected "I have arrived" and sure enough in the mobile order line they were already preparing my order! It was the fastest thing I have ever experienced. No waiting in line, paying and then waiting for your food to be prepared and ready, it was just ready and that's all there was to it.

Later in the evening we waited to watch It's a Small World lighting, their holiday show and then stayed in the same exact place to wait for the Christmas parade. Since we had a good 30 min we utilized the mobile ordering at Jolly Holiday Bakery Cafe for dinner. Matt went to pick it up and brought it right back to us and we saw and enjoyed our dinner while waiting for the parade. It ended up working out perfectly and we highly recommend taking advantage of this! Here is a complete list of participating locations that accept mobile ordering inside the parks!

On our last day we slept in, enjoyed our room/park view a bit longer, got ready and packed to leave. I always hate the last days there because I wish I could be there forever. We had a bellman collect our belongings to store for us while we enjoyed Downtown Disney for the rest of our trip. We met up with some family and had breakfast at Catal, walked around + shopped a bit more.

We finally went to really check out the amazing Gingerbread house located inside The Grands lobby. This Gingerbread house 7 ½ feet high, 12 feet wide and also includes 25 hidden Mickeys.

Here’s what it took to build this masterpiece:

600 pounds of gingerbread
250 pounds of fondant
12 gallons of egg whites
3.5 gallons of lemon juice
1 pound of “pixie dust” glitter
16 bakers
6 craftsmen (carpenters and draftsmen)
2 electricians
1,225 cast member hours to design and craft
1,400 hours to bake edible elements

They also had a festive Holiday cart that offered an assortment of festive goodies and toasty beverages.

And that was it! Of course we did so-o much more including attractions and shows but I wanted to emphasize highlights and helpful information from our trip. Here are the rest of our pictures which I will hope you enjoy, + thanks for following along!

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P.S. Here is a list of the specialty Holiday food + treats we tried from Disneyland along the way!

Disney Festival of Holidays

“Hot Cocoa” Marshmallow Macaron

Shrimp and Grits with Andouille Sausage

Beef Pot Roast on a Potato Roll with Horseradish Cream

Foodie Guide to 2018 Holidays at the Disneyland Resort

Disneyland Park~

The Golden Horseshoe

Churro Sundae: Peppermint ice cream and a cajeta-filled churro garnished with chocolate brownie crumbles, chocolate sauce, and whipped cream