Trip was myself, my 13 yr old DD and 12 yr old DS. from Feb 24-29th. I learn a lot from these reports so wanted to post bits of our adventure. We arrived on Sunday evening and checked into the Park Vue. We stayed at the Disneyland Hotel last time (2 years ago) for our first visit to DL and loved it but couldn’t justify the extra cost this time. The hotel was a clean place to sleep and they were super nice and accomodating. The close location to the park entrance was a real plus. The pool didn’t look too exciting after playing in the disney pools but they had a fridge and a microwave. For the price and convenience, I’d stay there again.

I give the kids the park maps and let them plan out the days. At this age, they were capable of going non-stop from park open to park end with a few monorail and train rides during the afternoon for some sit down time. I know this type of a plan may sound crazy to those of you who plan out meal reservations and agendas but it makes for a funner and more relaxing trip for us. I let them know if there is something I want to see and where it is and we fit it in. They understand fast passes and avoiding crowds/lines.

We have breakfast in the hotel and grab lunch in the park whenever we get hungry. One day we were waiting for turtle talk with Crush and were hungry but didn’t have time to go get lunch before the next show. Our solution was to have ice cream for lunch and get lunch for our afternoon snack. Those mickey bars are good any time of day! We love to grab something for dinner and take it out to a bench about an hour or so before the parade. On Wed, they decided that it would be nice to go out for a real breakfast. I call to see about getting in to Chef Mickeys and then discover there is a Lilo and Stitch breakfast. DS is a stitch fan so that made it a very cool place to go have breakfast. They had mickey waffles and I had salmon. Yummy!

Monday morning we started with our favorite ride, Space Mountain, a few times and then headed over to Buzz, Star Tours, Pirates and Splash. Crowds were light so we hit all the favorites before heading to California Adventure for my DSs favorite ride, California Screaming. Last trip, we rode 9 times in a row and had to beat that goal. We did 11 times in a row one day with a total of 24 rides on just California Screaming. Towards the end my DD could mouth the whole announcement much to the entertainment of those watching.

My favorite magical moments on this trip.
DS was selected for the Jedi training academy. Getting to fight Darth Vader. Very cool.
Groups of Japanese tourists fascinated by our pins. DD felt like a celebrity.
CMs who were extremely entertaining and made any waiting we had to do fun. The TOT and Finding Nemo CMs were the best.
Watching Mickey and Minne walk by and suddenly stop with a CM pointing to us and stating the picture line starts here. Having my camera set to take a movie rather than a picture and Mickey being silly about that.
Captain Jack Sparrow took some extra time to look at DD’s treasure pin.
Watching DS dance with Stitch at the Paradise Pier Character breakfast. We enjoyed this tons more than Goofy’s kitchen.
Video phone call with Stitch in innovations.
Getting to ride next to the driver of the bus on main street.
Finally finding the perfect spot to sit during the parade so we could see the Lion King and the Hippo perform on our last evening.
Smelling the oranges on Soaring and then finding a real orange tree in DL.
Finding the talking garbage can in CA which walked along the path chatting with DS about his very cool stitch hat.
Best of all was hearing my DD saying more than once, “Wow, that made today really special!”

Great Trip Report!! Thank you so much for sharing! It sounds like you've got great kids.

I love all the little things that happen that can make a trip special, and it sounds like you had a lot of them!

Glad you had such a good time.

It sounds like a wonderful trip! I hope my next trip will be just as magical as yours!

Thanks, they are great kids and tons of fun to travel with. It doesn't happen often so when we get to go its special. My husband thought we might get this disney bug out of our systems, but this trip just made us want to save up and come back again in a few years!

One more thing to share:
The one night we didn't watch the parade it was because a group of rude kids pushed in around where we were sitting on the curb. I could have handled that but when I felt my rear-end getting wet I looked and one of the girls had spilled a cup of lemonade which was seeping into my jeans. I looked at their parents and asked for napkins from anyone and the parents just looked at me and didn't even try to clean it up or jump up and help.
We decided to move as we didn't want to stay by them and decided to go try Nemo instead. It was only a 20 minute wait. Disney magic at work againn. Yeah!

The cool thing after the lemonade butt night was my DD found and sat on a bench early for the parade. When it would get close, we would look for an elderly person or a nice family and then offer to share as we really didn't need a whole bench. That meant we got to sit by some real sweet 3 yr olds - the ones who are totally amazed by the parade and fun to watch and got to help some grandparents sit on a real bench rather than standing. Their appreciation totally made up for earlier in the week and it felt good to be part of the magic.

We also flew in to Vegas on Allegiant Airlines and rented a car to drive to Anaheim. The fares were so good that it was almost cheaper then the 14 hour one-way drive we were facing since odds were I wouldn't be able to drive straight thru both ways.

Also, Friday was a bit too busy for us. I checked the public school schedule before picking dates. I realized later that the Catholic schools were out that day which seemed to make it much busier. Now, I know to check the public and the major private school schedules.

Nice trip report, I can't believe you guys went on Screamin' 11 times in a row, that's awesome!