Our trip to Disneyland and San Diego was one of the best! You all know I love Disney so I was so excited for this trip! We went along with some friends of ours that are also BIG Disney fans. They had been to Disney World many times, but never Disneyland. Jake's mom also came along for the ride since we can always use an extra hand and she also loves Disney! We spent Saturday through Wednesday at Disneyland and then we drove that evening to the house we rented in San Diego and stayed there through Saturday! It was the perfect mix of fun and sun!
Our flight to LAX left bright and early Saturday morning. We were all SO excited!
From LAX, we took the Disney's Magical Express bus to our resort. We stayed on property since we're Disney Vacation Club Members. Since there were 9 of us, we needed a suite and it was AMAZING!! We stayed at the Grand Californian! I loved everything about this resort. The suite was perfect for our group and it was literally right outside of the parks. Just a very short walk to each. In fact, the Grand Californian has it's own separate entrance into California Adventure Park, which is very convenient.
We got to the resort earlier than we could check-in, so we were able to leave our luggage and walk around the resort and check some things out, as well as walk around Downtown Disney and get some lunch.
We were there during Halloween Time, so the lobby of the Grand Californian had this "Nightmare Before Christmas" themed cake! It was amazing and smelled so good!
One of the things I love most about Disneyland as opposed to Disney World, is that you can walk everywhere. There are three resorts, 2 parks and the Downtown Disney area and they're all within walking distance of each other. There's never any need to get in a car or on a bus to get anywhere. It's wonderful. You just walk right outside your resort and it's all right there for you.
After walking around Downtown Disney for a little while, we finally decided to eat lunch at Splitsville. By this time it was later in the afternoon, and though we were really hungry because we hadn't eaten anything that day, we already had dinner reservations that night at 7:00, so we decided to just get a couple appetizers to hold us over.
We had a great table out on the patio, overlooking this really cool fountain. So I took the kids over there a couple times while we waited for our food.
After eating and a little more shopping, we were finally able to check-in to the resort. As I said, our suite was perfect for us and the view of Disney's California Adventure Park from our room was pretty cool too! The suite had a living room, kitchen and bathroom when you walked in. The couch folded out into a bed which is where Jake's mom and Jackson slept and there was a fold out bed under the t.v. in the living room as well, which is where Avery slept. Then the hall to the left was our room which had a king bed and master bath with a jacuzzi tub and a patio overlooking California Adventure. To the right of the living room was another room with 2 queen beds and a bathroom which is where our friend's stayed.
Avery on her bed with our friend's girls Natalie and Aliviah.
After getting un-packed and settled in some, some of us decided to go check out the pool.
After swimming for a little while we came back and got ready for our dinner reservations at Naples Ristorante. We were able to sit out on the patio which was great! They had a balloon artist coming around to each table so the kids all got a balloon creation.
After eating dinner, the kids were dying to go to the Lego store. So I took them down there to see what they might want. They each found a cute set to buy.
After a long day of travel and Downtown Disney, we were more than ready for bed. I snapped this picture with my phone before going to sleep though. So cool to see the park all lit up at night!!
It was a great first day at Disneyland!!
