Kathleen Rear

We are big Disneyland fans. Huge! We’ve been taking the kids since they were very little. This trip differed because they are no longer little.

How to have a fun family vacation that includes a big dose of “cheesy” without all the eye rolling? We who have teens, run into this often.

Fortunately my kids were raised on “cheesy” so it was easy to get them on board. Plus, ditch school for 2 days? Sure, no problem Mom!

We stay at The Grand Californian Hotel. Can I just say, it’s worth the extra money to stay right in the park. Plus, the pool, restaurants and amenities are awesome.

(No this isn’t a sponsored post. But hey Mickey, call me!)

Photo courtesy of Grand Californian.

This time around, instead of bunk beds, we got king/double-double adjoining rooms. That way everyone can have their space when inevitably, we all get a little sick of each other.

We purchased our 5 day Park Hopper passes online. It’s a big time saver, I can’t recommend the practice more! Disneyland is famous for its looong lines, ticket lines being the longest.

As we were staying in the hotel, we started our days at The Storytellers Cafe. Like all the restaurants in the resort hotels it’s a “character breakfast”. I was curious as to whether or not the boys would be into interacting with the characters this time around. It was really fun when they goofed around and posed for pictures between bites of Mickey shaped waffles, just like the younger kids.

I’m sure you’ve heard that a “Disney strategy” must be employed in order to escape a “meltdown” by your youngster. Things were a little different this time. We’ve reached that “Mom and Dad, who…?” stage, in which Jef and I get ditched. I did tell them that I’d like it if we could all go on at least one ride a day together.

My kids are pretty good at humoring me.

We met back up for lunch at old favorites like Taste Pilots Grill and there were a few new places in Frontier Land, Downtown Disney, and California Adventure Park that are now on the list of favorites.

Our dining splurge was for dinner the second night, when we ate at Napa Rose. We avoided the nice restaurants on past trips but, as the boys don’t smear everything within a three-foot perimeter of the table anymore, we thought we’d check it out. I’m glad we did, it was a very nice meal.

We had a great time on our cheesy Disney trip! It’s probably the last time we’ll go to Disneyland, just the four of us, so it was particularly meaningful.

If you have any questions about our trip leave them in the comments!