Disneyland review: Parks and Rides

Our recent trip to Disneyland and Southern California was truly a trip of a lifetime. Not just because we checked off so many destinations on our bucket list but also because our children will never be 5 and 9 again.  
Swimming in the Pacific Ocean, watching surfers seek the best waves, soaking up the sun and experiencing the incredible nature California has to offer meant we already want to go back. Disneyland was the reason we first decided to make the four-hour flight and the original Disney park was better than we remember from our trip 11 years ago.
Disneyland is actually divided into two parks with three onsite hotel resorts and it is certainly much smaller than the Disney World property in Florida where there are four parks, two water parks and many on-site resorts. The two California theme parks, Disneyland and California Adventure Park are each smaller than Magic Kingdom. However, they are right beside each other, which makes park hopping much easier. There is a lot of nostalgia built in here; the people that made Disneyland knew Walt himself and they had a different understanding of his vision.

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Pixar Pier, California Adventure

Sleeping Beauty's Castle

rides

Many of the same rides are located in Florida and California (Slash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Tea Cups & Small World, and more). The fun thing about Disneyland is that many of these duplicates have subtle differences. For example, there are celebrity dolls in Small World, different animatronics in Splash Mountain, explosions on Thunder Mountain and a longer ride for Pirates of the Caribbean.
Then there are the rides that are exclusive to the Land and we think some of these are the best rides and attractions on either coast – World or Land.
The Guardians of the Galaxy (formerly Tower of Terror) was expertly refurbished. We loved walking through the Collector’s Fortress to see his oddities and that an animatronic Rocket came down to say Hi. The views of the park were incredible from the top and even our five year old survived the drops. There are six different random experiences that you can get each time you ride, complete with music from the movie, plus hidden homages like Rocket stealing the famous Walkman.
Another favorite ride was the Incredicoaster. We thought this was a fantastic coaster when we rode it in 2007 and the recent refurbishment to fit with the Incredibles movie was really well done. From the cookie smell pumped in, to the featured moments for each character, this would have been great to ride multiple times to see all the nuances

Flo's V8 Café in Cars Land

Real- life Radiator Springs

Cars Land might be our family’s top choice. Starting when our oldest was 2 years old, he made us watch Cars the movie hundreds and hundreds of times. He would even fall asleep with a Mater in one hand and a Lightning McQueen in the other. Since then, it has been on our bucket list to check out Cars Land, and as we have already gushed about on our Facebook page, it did not disappoint. Cars Land is so well done, from the Stanley statue, to the Cozy Cone Motel, everything was spot on. We loved the Radiator Springs Racers ride (perhaps one of Disney's top 5 rides). It combined a tour through Radiator Springs to see all your favourite characters with a fast race at the end. Luigi’s Rollickin Roadsters is so clever (your car participates in a line dancing routine). The shops, food and character interactions were all perfectly themed. This area is so amazing that after many years watching the movie, we felt like we were characters in it.
A few more honorable mentions include, the Indiana Jones ride, which lived up to our son’s high expectations with its daring and scary animatronics. We also loved the sweet little Storybook Land Canal Boats that glide by miniature replicas of familiar fairytale lands.  
Both Snow White’s Scary Adventures and Pinocchio’s Daring Journey were pretty scary and dark - I’m not sure what preschooler you should take on these two rides. We’d love to see Disney come out with modern remakes of these classics and update the rides to be a little happier even if that makes the Disneyland purists upset.

Mad Hatter Tea Party at night

King Arthur Carrousel

​MaxPass is Disneyland’s version of the "Fastpass” system. We think this ride booking system is simply superior. If you want to take advantage of it, you pay $10 per person per day. It allows you to pre-book a ride pass one at a time, but as soon as your first pass opens, you can book a second pass for the next ride. We were able to ride everything we wanted multiple times. One downside is you will be on your phone a lot, trying to score the next ride and that will use up your battery power, but it felt like we made it on many more rides because of this system. The MaxPass also includes the PhotoPass (which costs $169 per week in Orlando). If you are only visiting for a few days but still want the photo pass, the "Land" allows you a much better option.

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Most out of town guests only visit the “Land” once or twice in their lifetime so the California park relies on its neighbors to visit frequently. This means they do more unique things to bring people in, such as new food items, ride updates and loads of character interactions. These extras are often rated better than those that the “World” has to offer. Overall, we think Disneyland California is worth a trip at least once, especially when paired with a Southern California tour.

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