GETAWAY SERIES: Happiest Place on Earth

Anybody that knows me or my family knows that Disneyland holds an incredibly special place in our hearts. We’ve spent many vacations walking down Main Street, screaming on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and laughing on Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree. It’s been our special place, and my special place, for so long.

When Andrew and I tossed around the idea of taking a trip to Anaheim in mid-September, I was overjoyed. It’s been two years since I’ve been to Disneyland, which seems like an eternity in my magical fandom. So we did it - booked the flights, reserved a hotel room, and bought park passes. As the days got closer, my excitement was building.

It’s safe to say our trip got off to an incredibly rocky start. We got stuck on the light rail in the tunnel between Pioneer Square and the International District Stations. We then caught a Lyft, that was able to get us to the airport with plenty of time for my worries and anxiety to somewhat subside. As our plane was getting ready to taxi, a light came on that forced us to return to our gate while maintenance took a look at the problem. They deemed it serious enough that we had to de-plane, which unfortunately pushed our flight back enough that we were past the curfew set by our Orange County airport, so we were being rerouted to LAX. We finally got on our new plane, waited a while for catering to get onboard (seriously, who needs catering that late in the evening??), and finally left Seattle around 10:45pm, over three hours after we were originally supposed to leave. We landed in California shortly before 1:00pm and decided against taking the buses Alaska Airlines had for us passengers to ensure we could start our nearly 40-mile ride to our hotel quicker. After mild fears our hotel was not going to be open, we were able to officially check in around 2:00am and quickly went to sleep. So yeah, it was a rough start.

But the rest of the trip was an absolute dream. We hopped from ride to ride, enjoying our time with each other. We started our first day off in Disneyland, checking out the new Galaxy’s Edge area, getting competitive on Buzz Lightyear Astro Blaster, and enjoying the Electrical Parade. We lucked out with light crowds and we were able to get Fast Passes for many rides, easily utilizing Disney’s MaxPass feature. I especially love being in Disneyland around the holidays, because of the extra sprinkle of magic that seems to take over the park.

Day two was spent at California Adventure. Again, we utilized our MaxPasses so that we could squeeze in as many rides as possible. I’m used to constantly being on the go while I’m in the parks, and thankfully Andrew was game for it. We hit almost every ride, even going back for a second and third ride on a few. I especially loved how decked out Cars Land was, really embracing the spooky season and getting creative with their decorations. We consumed many churros throughout the day and ended our evening by watching World of Color.

Our third and last day was bittersweet. I was so excited to spend another day in the park, but I didn’t want the fun to end. Andrew and I kicked off our third day with a Magic Morning at Disneyland, getting to the park an hour earlier than when the gates open, in our matching t-shirts. In the past, my family and I would spend our last day bouncing back and forth from Disneyland and California Adventure, but Andrew and I decided just to stick to Disneyland on our third day. Since it was a Saturday, we noticed a visible increase in the crowd size, so we just took our time with a no stress approach, getting Fast Passes when we could, hitting any ride we missed or wanted to repeat, and taking a quick sit down break to escape the heat. It was a fun last day, but I was still incredibly sad to leave.

We left the park around late afternoon and arrived to our airport gate fairly early. We got incredibly lucky that a flight to Everett was going out of our gate before us and we were able to hop on that flight and land a few hours earlier than expected. Compared to our trip down, going home was a complete 180!

Overall, our Disney getaway was the perfect way to end the summer. Now to plan our next trip!