So yeah.. um.. it’s been a while since I post.. like I said I am not going to go into too much detail as to why but before I knew it, it was June.. and thanks to Iona for posting that comment reminding me that I still had this (yes I saw your comment :) )
Anyway the last post I posted before my hiatus was the fact I was heading to.. DISNEYLAND..
And I gotta say what an amazing trip. We took our friend’s two kids with us (both of them 6) which was just as fun as it was interesting. Actually the girls were very much behaved for us. We had a couple of moments of 6 year old tantrums BUT for the most part the girls were excellent and we made the trip as fun as we could for them. I did a lot of research on Pinteret before leaving (thank heavens for Pinterest) and the girls woke up every day to a present from Tinkerbell or a Disney Princess that left them presents for being such good kids the day before.. most of the stuff we got was from the dollar store before we left but the girls didn’t care.. they got presents..
The day we arrived we took a cab up to Walmart ($20 cab ride away) and stacked up on breakfast foods and snacks for the room. With the $60.00 we spent at Walmart, I estimate we save hundreds of dollars on food by not buying all our meals at the parks. We had breakfast every day before we left. I packed sandwiches, carrots and goldfish crackers which helped wonders when the girls were hungry at the park. We bought a couple of meals and snacks at the park which was fun and for Dinner there was an Ihop across the road from our hotel. We had dinner there most nights.
The big thing for the girls was the princess lunch we booked at Ariel’s Grotto.. the girls were super excited about that and each got to meet their favourite princess, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. That was the priciest lunch I have ever had (costing little over $200 for four of us) but to see the girls faces when a princess showed up at the table was worth it and we knew from the start it would be $$. And when I surprised the girls by telling them I had managed to score fastpasses to visit Anna and Elsa from Frozen.. that was it.. I am now officially the best person in the world. The lines up to meet them was at some times 3 hours PLUS.. but I managed to score fastpasses (lucky to be in the right place at the right time) and we waited in line for 10 minutes.. they girls were very happy.
Speaking of fastpasses.. the BF was very good at researching the fastpass system before we left and was great at getting those during the day. Basically the fast pass system works not like a front of the line pass but a spot saver. You get the pass and you come back during the time listed on the pass and go on the ride. The busiest ride, like Cars or Space Mountain we got passes for them at the start of the day (The Cars ride would often be out of fastpasses before 11am and lines up were 2-3 hours long) and others like Tower of Terror (yep the girls when on that a few times) we walked past to see the lineup and if quiet went on and got passes for later. The girls were very quick learners when it came to the fastpasses and were even trying to help us obtain them :)
As I mentioned before we saved a bit of money getting food at Walmart. We had about $1750.00 saved money and even came back with money (about $400) which I was impressed with. The girl’s mother and step dad gave us $300.00 to spend on the girls which is what we did on the last day we were there, using that money so they could buy souvenirs.. we told them about the money and I even gave them a talk about budgets and money and the girls seemed to take to it very well. Every night they wanted to count the left over money and see what we had left and how much money we could spend the following day. I really hope I taught them something.
Over all the trip was amazing. We had so much fun with the girls. We unfortunately didn’t get to do all the things we wanted to do (cause lines up were too much at times and waiting in line with two six year olds was painful) but overall we did most things, the girls experienced the trip of a life time and we ALL had so much fun. We met a lot of characters, got autographs from them, rode a lot of rides and generally was being silly for the trip… what Disneyland is all about.
We managed to do the whole thing, including flight, hotel, passes, food, transport AND spending money for little under $5,000.00. And for four people (two adults and two children) that’s pretty good. Just one final thing though.. If anyone who is reading this has ever travelled with small children.. I salute you.. LOL
In my next post ill post some tips that I read or picked up that helped us so much during the trip.