The day I heard that the Disney parks would be shutting down around the world due to the COVID-19 pandemic my heart broke. I can’t make it to one of the parks every year but knowing they are an option always brings a smile to my face. Now something that, to me, seemed bulletproof had become vulnerable. I knew I could always count on a Disney park to be open. I knew at the very least that was an option for a family vacation that everyone would be happy with. A place that always felt like an escape and magical had been shut down. I thought it would always be there, I hope it will be in the not too distant future.

I get it. Things have to close. We need to keep people safe and do the right thing to ensure the virus doesn’t get worse. I’m glad that the Florida parks can operate now, albeit in a limited way, and look forward to when California can get things back on track and the park can reopen.

In the meantime, my kids and I have still been riding rides. Virtually that is. It has been fun to remember some of the rides we love and also seeing rides that we may never get to see but are wowed by (see Pirates of the Caribbean at Shanghai Disneyland). I wanted to share some of those that we have loved with you. Here’s the virtual Disney rides that we have loved. What rides do you watch?

Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway (can’t wait for this one to open at Disneyland):

Splash Mountain (always a must; looking forward to the update to it)

Radiator Springs Racers

Smugglers Run (My son’s favorite ride)

Rise of the Resistance (haven’t ridden yet, but it looks amazing!)

Pirates of the Caribbean – Shanghai (Just awesome)

I could post every Disney ride but these have been a few of the ones my kids and I have found ourselves watching over and over again. It also can be fun to re-watch one of the nighttime shows. It isn’t the same but hey when you’re on day 100 and whatever it is since we’ve been asked to stay home, a little Disney magic is just the pick me up you need.

There is nothing quite like waiting in a long line with your kids at Disneyland… or anywhere else for that matter. For all the magic that Disney is, sometimes waiting in a line is just waiting in a line.

Your kids may do a couple of things while you wait. They may start to interact with one another and that’s all fine and well until it turns into a game of tag and they start bumping into the other guests at the park and disrupting their day. Another is they start pestering you to get out a screen so they can entertain themselves while you wait (I’m not above doing this but sometimes I do feel like you should just learn to be bored and take time to see the world around you). Another options is you try to engage with them and play “I spy” games or talk about things while you wait for that chance to ride in log being thrown over a water fall, fly with Peter Pan or drive the Millennium Falcon.

Now I give Disney lots of credit here. And actually I think this is one of the things that puts me over the top on Disney parks more so than other parks. I love the detail they give to their rides, even in the que areas leading up to the ride. Indiana Jones is a great example of this. Walking through the temple is a fun experience that takes you out of the real world and into an Indiana Jones experience. Millennium Falcon: Smuggler Run also does a good job of this as you walk through a repair shop where different vehicles are being fixed on while you wait to fly your favorite space ship. There’s even dialogue taking place in the speakers to help you pass the time. Not every ride at Disneyland is this way, many Fantasyland rides are more of your traditional amusement park feel, but Disney does it enough on the other rides, that for me, it makes it no so bad to wait a little bit.

Now to the point of this whole conversation, is paying the extra money for the Max Pass worth it? We recently did the max pass and based on our experience I would say yes it is. We had one person we spoke with who said, you should at least pay to do it for one day, I would agree. If you don’t want to do it for the duration of your trip, paying one day to have quicker access to fast passes is worth it.

The max pass operates through your phone using the official Disneyland app. The app does multiple things but what you may use it for the most is to see wait times for rides. When you have the max pass, you click on wait time and then you can move forward with reserving a fast pass for that ride. You don’t have to walk over to that ride to get the pass, it automatically loads onto your ticket. It will then also let you know when you can reserve your next fast pass, usually an hour and half or so after you made your reservation, though times on that vary.

I would reserve a fast pass for our family, then set an alarm on my phone for the next time we could get a fast pass. This worked great until I realized I had fast passes that fell into close time windows and were in different areas of the park. Sometimes we didn’t make it to the other ride in time. That isn’t a mark on the program, just a tip to pass a long to remember to think about proximity to where you will be when reserving your fast passes so you maximize your time.

The fast passes were great. We rode all the rides we wanted to ride, multiple times even, and once I got a handle on booking fast passes near one another, then our wait times shrank even more. If there is a criticism to this, it is that you do miss some of the magic of just being in Disney because you are busy running from ride to ride and getting on. You might miss some of the small details like the beautiful landscaping, or an unplanned character interaction because you have to make it to the next ride to meet your fast pass time.

If your phone is older and the battery drains a little quicker, you may want to bring an extra charger for your phone if you do the max pass. It doesn’t drain your phone quickly, but you are on your phone more and if you get to the park near opening and plan to stay until closing, you’ll probably be comfortable with a backup charge option.

You should also know, fast passes run out. Even if you have the max pass, eventually fast passes for rides and shows (like Fantasmic!) run out and you cannot get them again that day. So don’t put off getting your fast passes for Radiator Springs Racers or Midway Mania because they do eventually stop distributing them.

One other benefit of the max pass is you the photo pass is automatically included. I get it, you’re thinking I’ve got my phone I don’t need Disney’s pictures also, but we’ve found we really like the pictures the Disney photographers take of our family. They do a good job of taking candid shots and also the group photo with the characters always turn out well. One time a Disney photographer caught one of my daughters and myself waving at Mickey during a show and it is one of our favorite photos of the two of us. We wouldn’t have caught that photo on our own but the Disney photogs did.

I’d say the Max Pass is great and worth it. If you’re on a budget and you need to cut it, you’ll live and still have a great time, but if you can afford the extra expense, go for it! The quicker access to fast passes means less adventures of trying to entertain kids in line and also access to great pictures of your vacation from Disney.

I’ve always been mesmerized by the Disneyland Hotel. As a kid I remember riding the monorail with my family and getting off at the hotel station (now called the Downtown Disney station) and enjoyed wandering around the grounds at the hotel. I remember seeing a small water fountain show there as a kid and I remember doing a character breakfast with my family there.

I’ve always wanted to stay there. It seemed magical to me, like you never really leave the park. This past trip we got the chance to stay at the Disneyland Hotel.

Let me start with the positives. It was magical. The moment we walked into our hotel room our kids figured out there was something different about the headboard behind the beds with the Disney castle carved into it. My son flicked a switch and a music box version of “A dream is a wish your heart makes” came on and lights flickered around the castle forming stars and fireworks. We all smiled at the magic of this headboard and also enjoyed that the song only played once and didn’t keep playing over and over again.

Other magical touches to the Hotel also included the large pools which included two monorail themed water slides, toon gloves that hold up the lights in your bathroom and tasteful Disney themed artwork in your room.

The staff is also first rate. The housekeeping staff was excellent and even had some fun with our kids’ blankets and stuffed animals. One day we came back and our daughter’s blanket had been formed to look like Minnie’s bow on her bed. It brought a huge smile to our daughter.

The beds were comfortable and the day bed, which our daughter slept on, was adequate. There was also plenty of space in the room itself. The bathroom (which we will get more to in a minute) was smaller but the room was a good sized. Our family of five did not feel cramped or on top of one another during our stay.

We had an amazing view from our room. We booked through Costco Travel which was offering premium pool view rooms. I expected us to have a second or third level room with a view of the pool. We must of lucked out and got a ninth level room that did have a view of the pool but also had an amazing view of Disneyland. From our window we could see the peaks of Space Mountain, the Matterhorn, Big Thunder Mountain and Splash Mountain. To add to it, the view for the fireworks was also spectacular. We found ourselves on a Sunday night, with our kids asleep, laying in our own bed looking out the window enjoying a full view of the fireworks show. If our kids wouldn’t have been asleep we would have turned on the TV so we could have the music from the park to go with the fireworks.

Ok, I don’t want to call anything negative because I thoroughly enjoyed our stay at the hotel. But if there is something to set your expectations for, it is the bathroom. Now don’t misunderstand, our bathroom was clean, the handles for the sink and tub had mickey ears on them (just to add a little Disney touch) and the towels were fresh. The only thing to be prepared for is the bathroom is on the smaller side, at least ours was. Everything about the Disneyland Hotel is four star, and part of what you expect with a four star hotel is a good sized bathroom, this was a regular hotel sized bathroom. Again everything was clean and just fine, I would just warn you to not expect a large soaking tub to enjoy after a day at the park in your bathroom, unless you upgrade to one of those amazing signature suites, then maybe you can get a larger tub.

Now as far as the cheapskate father in me, the question I’ve gotten most from friends is, “was it worth it?” I can’t answer the question for everyone. For me, the money we spent at the hotel was worth it. I can’t say every future trip we make to Disneyland will include the Disneyland Hotel, but I would definitely stay there, or one of the other two Disney owned hotels, in the future. If you love Disney and you want to feel like you are still in the magic of it all, it is worth it. If maybe you’re still on the fence about Disney, then you may want to save your money and stay somewhere else. There are plenty of great hotels near the park and you can find one that fits you and your family, I’m confident of that.

One final other thing to consider about the hotel is if you don’t have a car, you are a little more beholden to the food at the hotel, the parks, or in Downtown Disney. Which can all be great but also is a little challenging with your younger kids who maybe aren’t ready to eat all of the yummy things you can find immediately close to the hotel. We did find ourselves doing an Uber Eats order one morning just so we knew our kids got food they would eat and we saved a few bucks on that meal.

Overall, I would say we had an excellent experience at the Disneyland Hotel. Four stars all the way. Great service, friendly staff, a good touch of Disney but it isn’t overwhelming. Can’t wait to do it again someday.

You did it! You finally made it! You’ve arrived at Disneyland and now are faced with what do you do first?

I don’t have a great answer for this. I know many have traditions and must dos that happen first for them, but it seems like it is different for every person.

As for me, I’m a ride the train around the park first kind of guy, but now that I have kids, it is usually find their favorite ride, hope the line isn’t terribly long, and get going on that ride.

Here are a few things to consider (don’t get paralysis of analysis here), as you step into the park:

• Do you need to see the Castle first to establish you’ve arrived at Disneyland, or are you OK with starting the day in California Adventure to ride the Cars ride before the line becomes too long?
• Have you downloaded the official Disneyland app? If so, did you upgrade your tickets to do maxpass so you can do your fastpass on your phone? This also might play into what ride you do first.
• Are you up for a parade or a show first? What times are those at?

I’ve heard a number of theories over the years about “how to do DIsneyland” and I have to be honest, I haven’t mastered any great plan to avoid lines or be ahead of the crowd. If you have a great plan and want to share, leave it in the comments, though we will all understand if you don’t want to give up your secrets.

I’d say, relax, get in the park, and have fun. You can’t go wrong with any strategy here.

Everyone has their thing that makes a vacation enjoyable to them. For some it is where they eat. For others it is the activities. Some people just want a good book to read or some want a great pool to hang out by. For me, it is the hotel.

This is where I may differ from many dads. My guess is a lot of dads would argue that you won’t be spending a lot of time at the hotel while on your Disney trip, so why spend the money there. I can’t disagree. The problem is me. My wife calls me a “hotel snob”. She probably isn’t wrong.

I don’t need room service or anything fancy but I do want to know it is a clean, updated, safe place to house my family.

I have a few suggestions based on where we have stayed in the past and other places that I have researched. There are a few things you may want to decide for yourself before deciding where to stay.

First is location.

How close is it to Disneyland? Can you walk there or do you have to ride a shuttle? If there is a shuttle, how much will it cost?

Second, what about food?

Do they offer a free breakfast? Do they have a fridge in the room? Is there a restaurant your kids are willing to eat at on the hotel property?

Third, how’s the pool?

We all know that you could drive your kids to a tiny Utah town and the trip will be a success as long as the hotel has a pool. So if you plan to take a Disney break and go swim for a bit, how’s the pool? Did you know some of the hotels near Disneyland have installed small water parks at their hotels? Is that of interest to you, you may want to check one of those out.

Does the room work for your family?

My wife and I have sort of created a bad habit for when we travel. We’ve often spent a little more and gotten a suite that allows she and I to have our own room with the kids’ beds in the room next to us. It is nice when they go to bed early so you can stay up and chat or watch a show while they sleep. There are a few hotels near Disneyland, that are even on the more affordable side, that allow you to do this, but if you plan to sleep when they sleep and everyone can fit in one room, then you have plenty of options.

Those are the top things I consider when looking at places to stay. Here are a few of the hotels we have enjoyed staying at on our trips:

Embassy Suites South Anaheim

We have stayed here multiple times and have enjoyed our time at this hotel. You do have the option to have a king bed in one room of the hotel suite and have a queen pull out from a couch in the second room of your suite (all rooms are suites at this hotel). The hotel also offers a free breakfast (I use the word free carefully as I’m sure you pay for it in the cost of your nightly room rate). The breakfast includes an omelet bar, cereals and pastries. It doesn’t disappoint. The pool is nothing fancy but our kids enjoyed it. This is a hotel that you want to use a shuttle for to get to and from Disneyland. The shuttle does cost extra money, nothing crazy but something to be prepared for. To learn more about this hotel, click here.

Anaheim Marriott Suites

This is another “suite” hotel that features a bedroom and a living room in the room that you stay in. Again when we stayed here we had a king in the bedroom and our kids used the sofa sleeper to sleep on, as well as a crib. It was a great hotel. They do not offer a daily free breakfast but there is a restaurant in the hotel. It also requires a shuttle to get to and from Disneyland. You can visit the Marriott’s website here.

If you aren’t into taking a shuttle and want to stay at one of the hotels across the street from the entrance of Disneyland I would suggest the Camelot Inn & Suites. It is near the entrance and does have a family suite with a king bed in one room and two queens in the room next door. We haven’t stayed there but are considering it for a future Disney trip. I also have heard good things about the Courtyard by Marriott Anaheim Theme Park Entrance hotel (this has the fancy water park-ish pool) as well as the Howard Johnson Anaheim Hotel and Water Playground.

To get a good feel on what hotel may fit you best, you might want to try one of the pricing websites to see how much the hotels cost, along with your tickets to Disneyland. If you are a Costco member, I find the Costco travel website to be a good way to navigate through the different price options of hotels. Sometimes you can even get a Disney gift card to use on your trip (we usually have used it to pay for a character breakfast) when you book through Costco. You can also try different travel agencies like Get Away Today or even just price it out through the Disneyland website.

I enjoy using sites like Costco or the Disneyland site to look at a different hotel options. It give me a chance to compare and consider my options as we plan our trip. Make sure to google search your hotels and see what the latest pictures are that have been posted about your hotel and the latest comments. That will give you a snapshot of what you are looking at. Like I said at the start of this, this is one of my favorite things about at trip. I enjoy a good hotel. There are many good ones near Disneyland, if you find one you enjoy, please feel free to share it with me and we’ll add it to our list on this page. My email is utahdisneydad@gmail.com

Road trip!

Once as a kid my family had planned a road trip to Disneyland. My dad runs his own business and was waiting for a customer to make a payment so that we could have enough money for the trip.

Sure enough the customer made good on the promise to pay. So we picked up the check, hidden in a milk box in front of a house (they knew we wanted to get on our Disneyland trip and made sure the check was available ASAP), made a quick run to the night deposit box at the bank and we were on the road well after sunset from Salt Lake City to Anaheim.

I don’t remember much about the trip except somewhere in the middle of Utah, we kids in the back had fallen asleep, and then a large boom woke us up. My mom had hit a deer! After a quick assessment of the car and deer situation we were back on the road late in the night heading towards Disneyland.

I believe my family stopped in Las Vegas to get some sleep and then continued on to Disneyland the next day.

Road trips can be fun, they also can be stressful. Mostly because of our adorable kids. I love them dearly and will do all that I can to guide them and teach them in their life but sometimes they make road trips difficult. Boredom, thirst, the need to go to the bathroom, hunger, one kid not being willing to play the game the other one wants to play in the car is making them upset. I could go on.

I don’t have great tips on “snack packs” or “game bags” or those kinds of things. I do think sometimes kids just need to be bored. It is good for them to just sit and think or be forced to listen to their parents music for a few hours. I also eventually give in and let them watch movies on the tablet.

With that said, I do have some ideas on places to stop between Salt Lake City and Anaheim that will help break up the drive.

If you’re one of those who leave around your kids’ bedtime and drive straight through to Disneyland, I wish you well but I have no tips for you. Just good luck and drive safe!

For the rest of us, here’s a couple of places we’ve enjoyed stopping at while on our road trips.

• Fillmore, Utah. If you need a great lunch/dinner spot Cluff’s Carhop Cafe is great. The food is kid friendly and you’ll enjoy it too. It is a hamburger joint. The fries were tasty and it was a fun place to make a stop at. You do have to drive about 10 minutes off the freeway to get to it, but it is on the same road that you exit the freeway from so you won’t get lost trying to get back to I-15. Cluff’s address is: 270 N Main St, Fillmore.
• While in Fillmore, if you need to stretch your legs, you can also visit the state territorial capitol. This is the oldest government building in Utah. You probably won’t need to spend a long amount of time there, but it is something to see while heading down the road. Here’s the website for more details on the Territorial Statehouse: https://stateparks.utah.gov/parks/territorial-statehouse/
• If you don’t want to make a stop in Fillmore, you could also make a stop at Cove Fort. Cove Fort is about 10 minutes off the freeway between Fillmore and Beaver. The early Utah settlers once needed a resting point between cities and so Cove Fort was constructed. It now has been refurbished and made up for tourists. There are Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints missionaries on site to act as tour guides through the fort. They did a good job of handling my seven-year-old’s many questions about the fort and even gave our two oldest a “pioneer” era toy to take with them while we went down the road, they would have given our third a toy also but we worried she may just shove the toy in her mouth. This was a good 45 minute stop and gave us and our kids plenty of time to stretch our legs and get our wiggles out.
• Do your kids like Dinosaurs? Do they love parks? Do they love splash pads? Then St. George has a stop for you. Thunder Junction All Abilities Park in St. George is now a must stop for us when traveling through St. George. This is the ultimate city park. The whole thing is dinosaur themed and has a train to go around it. There are plenty of slides, swings and other all ability friendly things to play on, as well as a splash pad area and a volcano that erupts. Our kids look forward to Thunder Junction. It is another good spot to tire the kids out as you head down the road.
• Las Vegas. I’m not one for ten hour car rides, unless I have to do it, so I’m all for making a stop in Las Vegas and spending the night. Vegas with kids is interesting. We all know why, there’s no need to go deep on it here. Recently we stayed at the Wyndham Grand Desert, which is right off the strip near the MGM Grand. It was great. They have two large pools, one for adults and one for kids. Our kids loved the kids pool. It has a basketball hoop, a zero entry side and plenty of room to splash around. To the side of the pool you’ll find ping pong tables and a life size chess set, as well as a grassy spot with small backyard playground toys. The hotel also has a “kids play room” that has different video game counsels to play on as well as a host of board games. The hotel also has a theater in it showing different movies. They do try to sell you a timeshare when you check-in, but maybe that’s something you’ll want to consider if you enjoy your stay. We found it to be great and our kids loved it.
• Kid friendly stops in Vegas: This list will likely grow but here’s a few things we have done and have considered doing. M&M store (near the MGM Grand), your kids will think it is fun, yes you can buy m&m’s cheaper at a gas station. Dolphins and tigers habitat at the Mirage. We’ll call this a mini zoo on the Strip. It’s expensive (everything is on the strip), but the dolphins are a sight to see and how often do you get to see a white tiger? Nevada Southern Railway. Think the Heber Valley Railroad and now put it in Las Vegas. This is way off the strip but we still had a fun time when we did it (I am a bit of a train nerd so I might have a slanted opinion on this). You can take a ride on a train or just enjoy looking at the trains that they have on display at the station. If you want to get some theme park action in before making it to Disneyland, you can always stop at Circus Circus’s Adventuredome. Just make sure that you’re kids are tall enough for the rides to make it worth it. If you need to cool off there’s the Wet’n’Wild water park as well as Cowabunga Bay. Finally, if you just need a place to let your kids roam, there is a children’s museum in Vegas.

Once you’ve wrapped up the fun in Vegas, I would say get on the road and head for Anaheim. Making more stops now is just getting in between you and having fun at your final destination. The drive is a little more than four hours (maybe quicker if you don’t stop and traffic is friendly). If you do need a stop, there’s always the world’s tallest thermometer (it is a road trip after all may as well stop to see something ridiculous).