When you need to escape reality, go to the land where mice speak and elephants fly. And no perfect place exists for a little nostalgic, childhood fun than Disneyland. Especially when enhanced with a Park Hopper ticket to enjoy California Adventure's Food & Wine Festival all on the same day! (Food & Wine Fest occurs every year during the months of March & April)
As soon as May 31st hits, Star Wars land will open its doors to the public, and Disney will find itself filled to the brim all summer! Now is the perfect gap of time to enjoy Disney in all of its spring glory, beautiful blossoms, and baby ducklings before the Star Wars fandom decends. We perfectly balanced our time between Disneyland and California Adventure (DCA) by utilizing Disney's Max Pass feature, my favorite way to experience the parks. This $15 add-on allows you to book fast passes digitally and is SUCH a time-saver! Additionally, any photos taken by any of the professional photographers around the parks become instantly digitally accessible through the app when you have Max Pass. Aka you can slide right up to Donald Duck, snap some shots, then download the HQ-DSLR pics from your phone and upload straight to your instagram. Talk about convenience!
We first entered DCA in order to score some World of Color fastpasses for the end of the day (which lucky Max Pass users can now book via the app, a feature rolled out just days after our visit). Previously, fastpasses that allowed you to enter special viewing zones for World of Color (in DCA) and Fantasmic (in Disneyland) were the only fastpasses that you still had to go to the physical kiosks and scan your ticket to obtain a pass. Now, Max Pass users can delight in downloading a digital pass without walking over there.
As we entered DCA so close to park opening, we were able to grab a digital fastpass for Guardians of the Galaxy as we were collecting our World of Color fastpasses. As soon as we got our FP for the show, we mosied on over to Guardians for the first ride of the day. I had not experienced DCA since the changeover of everything (California Screamin' to Incredicoaster, Tower of Terror to Guardians of the Galaxy, and Paradise Pier to Pixar Pier) so this Disney trip involved a lot of firsts which was exciting for me. Guardians of the Galaxy was definitely just as thrilling as Tower of Terror and so much fun!
Next, we headed over to Disneyland side to get my roomie Shea a pair of Mickey ears (she settled on the new Jasmine Magic Carpet ears, so flippin' cute!) and spent a little time in Fantasyland taking some instas before it got hot outside and our hair was messed up from all of the rides. We rode Teacups to get some perfect shots of Shea with her new ears! Pirates has become the ride I traditionally like to start out with, so although we did Guardians and the Teacups first, it still always feels good to do Pirates in the morning. There's something about that first drop in the dark and then that beautiful, cavernous grotto that gives me some of the best Disney vibes. We followed Pirates with Indiana Jones, which to be honest, is probably my favorite Disney ride of all. It just has everything: rollercoaster thrills, a great theme, nostalgic music, and a massive, immersive environment. We were sure to grab a Space Mountain fastpass as soon as we got off Indiana as the wait time for that ride can be very long and it's Shea's personal favorite!
After the morning's rides, it was time to adventure back over to DCA and take part in some of the Food & Wine Festival goodness. While we had originally planned to spend the $54 on a Sip & Savor pass, a cast member alerted us that the pass (which provides 8 coupons for the fest which we were going to split between us) is only good for food at the stalls, NOT alcohol. We immediately realized that it was going to be a better deal not to buy the pass, and first both indulged ourselves in mimosa flights. We followed the flights immediately with another glass of wine each to get a nice buzz going. From the patio of the Wine Bar where we purchased the glasses, there were winding stairs that lead up to an upper patio that we ended up discovering was a secluded wine bar/restaurant called the "Wine Trattoria." We made a note to come back later. Next ride up: The Incredicoaster. And don't worry about any post-drink puking, this was the ONLY ride of the entire day that we had to wait in line for! The 55-minute estimate ended up only being a 30-minute wait.
After partaking in some of the festival food (I love spicy so I tried the ghost pepper mac n' cheese, while Shea went for the artichoke toast!) we went up to the Wine Trattoria for some early afternoon cocktails. We planned to drink for about an hour before our Grizzly River Run fastpasses were available to redeem. Of course... to a Capricorn's dismay, nothing ever goes perfectly to plan. Just as we were going to pay for our drinks and head over to Grizzly, I noticed our fastpasses (via the app) had morphed into "Multiple Experience" passes, a sure sign of a broken ride. And yes, Grizzly River Run was broken down, but we did have the option to utilize the multiple experience pass for any ride in DCA at any time that afternoon. Instead, what are two young twenty-somethings to do than to opt for another round of drinks! So we did.
I ended up realizing that it was the perfect time to unleash our inner child and explore the Redwood Creek Challenge Trail tucked just behind Grizzly. We ended up joining the slew of under-12s for a riveting 30 minutes of climbing and jumping on rope bridges. It was good, solid, tipsy fun. The remainder of the afternoon/evening we filled with riding Haunted Mansion, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and Space Mountain back over on the Disneyland side. We had a 7:45pm reservation for the Lamplight Lounge, which is a beautiful restaurant situated over the water in DCA, but as we had eaten fried food all day we both opted for salads which ended up being unfortunately disappointing! To be honest, I've never loved any of the salads I've had from Disney. But the corndogs and churros are too die for.
The finale of the day was definitely getting to experience World of Color for my first time ever! For all the times I've visited Disneyland, I've experienced the evening fireworks, parades, and Fantasmic, but never WOC. I know that the show went on a hiatus for awhile so I'm so glad that it made a comeback. The level of engineering, creativity, and craftmanship it must have taken to design and execute that entire show is just astronomical. Beautiful fountains basked in light depict some of the most emotional scenes from Disney's repertoire, everything from Pocahontas' Colors of the Wind to the stampede scene in The Lion King. The show was so beautiful and brought all the tears to my eyes.
Overall, it was another wonderful day at Disney. Even though I love a good Disney trip, I've surprisingly still never gone enough to warrant buying an annual pass. I think my fear as well is that if I go *too* often the magic will wear off! And with the opening and expected chaos of Star Wars land, it may be awhile before I next return. But until next time Disney, I'll hold onto the magic of this trip.
If you have any questions at all about Disneyland or DCA, please comment below and I'll try my best to answer. Have a wonderful week!
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