Living it up in LA: Day 4 Disneyland

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Since it's their birthday, my twins got in free at Disneyland today. We planned to spend the whole day there so we woke up early to get ready to go. I wanted to pack a lunch in our cooler to take with us, but I ran into a snafu at the house. The food we were going to take with us was unavailable on the morning of our trip, so we had to leave without a lunch. That meant our Disney budget was blown right from the beginning. Food is incredibly expensive in the parks. Although the official word is you're not allowed to bring your own into the parks, I've taken a soft sided cooler many times. Security pokes around in it and waves you on.

We left the house at 6:00am and by 7:00am I was standing at the ticket window. You need to show birth certificates for children on their birthdays. I'm glad I padded some extra time into our day because it took more than 20 minutes for the cast member to figure out how to print free tickets for twins.

Saturday was a Magic Morning at Disneyland, which means people with 3 day tickets and people staying at Disney hotels got into the park an hour early (7am) through the Magic Morning entrance. By the time I got my tickets, lines were already building in front of the regular entrance waiting for the 8am opening. What many of those people didn't know is the Magic Morning entrances turn into regular entrances the closer you get to opening. I stood near a Magic Morning entrance and when it changed over, we were first in line to get in the park.

The park opened and we went straight to Fantasyland. Fantasyland had been open for an hour during Magic Morning, but all the rides except Peter Pan were still walk ons, no lines at all. We rode Mr. Toad, Alice, Dumbo, Pinnochio, and Snow White all before 8:30am then moved over to Winnie the Pooh and the Jungle Cruise.

My husband was in charge of collecting fast passes during the day. Another secret at Disneyland is you do not need to use your fastpast during the assigned window. You can come back as long after the start time as you feel like. So although we collected fast passes all morning, we didn't actually use any of them until after lunch when the lines were really long.

A highlight of our trip was the Jedi Training Academy show. Children are chosen from the audience to come on stage and learn how to fight like a Jedi. They are then paired with either Darth Vader or Darth Maul to test their skills. My kids really wanted to get picked, so I put a little planning into it. They wore their Star Wars shirts to the show and I made colorful signs that they could hold up that said, "Pick Me!" For added measure they brought their own light sabers from home and held then up. My kids were the very first ones picked for the show. The signs, light sabers and t-shirts worked like a charm.

We originally planned to leave the park for either lunch or dinner and eat at McDonald's across the street from Disneyland, but by lunch and dinner times, we were so tired, I was afraid if we left the park, we wouldn't bother coming back. Knowing this was our only day there, we ate in Disneyland trying to split meals whenever possible. Still, by the end of the day we'd spent about $75 in food and snacks for the five of us.

In all, we rode 20 rides and saw The Jedi Training Academy show, the parade, Fantasmic and the Fireworks. We left exhausted and over budget but with smiles on our faces.

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