Anaheim, CA
Wednesday, January 22, 2023
Today was the beginning of a very long travel day with some fun mixed in, too. Early Wednesday morning, we left the Townplace Suites Hotel in Bloomington, MN for the Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport. Our flight to Brisbane, Queensland, Australia departed at 8:50am with a 14-hour layover in Los Angeles. We wouldn’t have typically booked a flight with such a long stop in between, but we were able to score our plane tickets to Australia for 25,000 frequent flyer miles/per person. All the way to Australia for 25,000 miles! We couldn’t pass up on that deal.
Since we had such a long connection in Los Angeles, Andi suggested we surprise Tory and Aden with a day at Disneyland. Aden has been asking to go to Disney for years, and Andi has always said no. He isn’t a fan of big crowds and Disney’s extravagant prices. However, if we were ever going to cross Disney off our list, we figured this would be a great opportunity.
The outside temperature was 8 degrees when we left Minneapolis Wednesday morning, but nothing compared to the negative double-digit temperatures of Minnesota and Wisconsin the day before. It was hard to imagine that somewhere in the same country could be a sunny 75 degrees, but that was indeed the temperature when we landed in Los Angeles around 10:30am. The warmth felt wonderful!
I was concerned the air in Los Angeles would be smoky from the recent wildfires, but it wasn’t at all. In fact, if you hadn’t watched the news recently, you wouldn’t have even known there were fires happening in the area. Today was blue skies and very light wind in LA.
Andi ordered an Uber to drive us from the airport to Disneyland located in the city of Anaheim. Traffic wasn’t terrible, and we arrived there an hour later.
We’d planned to store our luggage for the day in rentable lockers at Disney, but the Uber driver happened to drop us off in front of the Disneyland Hotel. Andi and I figured it was worth asking the hotel if they’d keep our bags behind the counter for the day, and the bellman’s answered with a cheerful, “Of course!”
From Disneyland Hotel, the four of us walked to the Downtown Disney area to find a restaurant for lunch. I couldn’t get over the weather — it felt so good to be outside in the sunshine! We picked a Mexican restaurant called Certrico and ordered tacos, burritos, and chips & salsa. Our meals were surprisingly delicious.
After lunch, we continued walking down the sidewalk toward Disney. We saw a sign that said “Theme Parks” with an arrow, and blindly assumed we needed to hop on the tram to get there. The connector was about to pull away, so the four of us hurried into one of its cars. “Next stop, the Disneyland parking structure! We hope you enjoyed your time at Disneyland today,” the conductor announced.
Whoops, we accidentally left the Disney compound.
“Silly question,” Andi asked the conductor as we were forced to disembark, “Where is the entrance gate to Disney?”
“You were just there,” the guy responded with a chuckle. “You need to go back through that security line and take the tram to the other station.”
We spent the next 30 minutes going through the security checkpoint again, and then riding the tram back to the stop in Downtown Disney. We all had to laugh at our dumb mistake. Fortunately, the park wasn’t very busy today and our wait time was minimal.
Back at Downtown Disney, we got off the tram in the same spot we were before, and then continued walking down the sidewalk. A few hundred feet ahead were the entrances to Disneyland and California Adventures Themeparks.
We chose to visit Disneyland today. The first thing we saw when we entered the theme park was the Disney Stars Parade. Mickey, Minnie, and a handful of other Disney characters danced their way along Main Street.
The whole scene was a little overwhelming at first. Where to begin? After familiarizing ourselves with the park map and ride options, Andi asked Tory and Aden to pick a couple rides they were most interested in. Tory’s top picks were The Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean, and Aden wanted to ride Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters and Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run. Andi booked a Lightening Lane reservation for Haunted Mansion first, not realizing that once we booked something in the app, we couldn’t reserve anything else until that reservation had been used.
The four of us wandered through Tomorrowland and Fantasyland. Every attraction had at least a 25 minute wait time. “I think we just need to pick a ride and wait in line,” I told Andi. He didn’t love that idea.
No roller coaster rides was Tory’s only request, so we settled on the Snow White’s Scary Adventures ride. We hopped in line and surprisingly, it moved quickly. The ride was a simple and fun one to get us started.
Disney isn’t Andi’s idea of a good time, but I appreciated what a good sport he was about being there. He knew it meant a lot to the kids. A week of theme parks would definitely be too much for our family, but an afternoon of crowds felt manageable.
“Let’s go do Aden’s Astro Blasters,” Andi suggested. The four of us walked to Tomorrowland for that ride. The line was long, but it moved along at a decent pace. Both Tory and Aden loved this ride, and even Andi seemed to enjoy shooting lasers at the targets.
Next, it was time for our Haunted Mansion reservation, so we walked to the New Orleans Square. I loved the design of this section of the park. It was lively with a marching band playing and Mark Twain’s Riverboat floating by.
Tory loved the Haunted Mansion ride. She loves spooky things, and was totally in her element. Luckily, it wasn’t too scary so the rest of us liked it, too.
Now that we had the hang of the Lightening Lane reservation system, Andi immediately booked another spot for the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Having a Lightening Lane reservation lets you speed to the front of the line. Totally the way to go for all the popular rides!
In no more time than it took to walk over to the Pirate’s of the Caribbean ride, our reserved window had arrived. We sped to the beginning of that line and had a blast there. This was Andi and I’s favorite attraction of the day.
Andi made a Lightening Lane reservation for Millennium Falcon next, so we walked over to the Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. This area was so well designed — good job Disney! It truly felt like we’d walked onto a new planet. There was a life size replica of Han Solo's ship and real petrified trees throughout. Being here reminded me of my Dad; he loved roller coasters and Star Wars.
The Smuggler’s Run ride felt like an entire experience with a short video to start, a holding room for all the “teams” of missions, and finally the motion simulator attraction. Andi and I were a little motion sick by the end, but Aden and Tory loved it. It was an intense ride that made you feel like your body was really flying as fast as your eyes thought it was.
Maybe the strangest part of it all was that it was dark outside when we exited the ride. That really made us feel like we’d entered a new planet. How long were we in there??
Andi and I decided we’d better make our way back to Disneyland Hotel to retrieve our bags and make our way to the airport. We weren’t sure how much traffic we’d encounter on the 40 mile drive to LAX. As we were leaving, we admired Cinderella’s castle all lit up and the energy of Disneyland at night. There was so much more we could have seen & done today, but we all agreed that we’d had a really fun day together.
Two minutes after we’d settled into an Uber, Aden was fast asleep in the backseat. It’d already been a long day traveling from Minneapolis to Los Angeles, and then we spent six hours walking around Disney. It was crazy to think our travels weren’t over yet; now we planned to take a 15-hour flight to Australia. We’d successfully accomplished our mission of tiring ourselves out before the long flight.
Back at LAX, we made our way through security for the second time today and found our way to the gate for Brisbane, Australia. It was 8:30pm Pacific Time (10:30pm Central Time — past our bedtimes) and the four of us were quickly hitting a wall. We still had two more hours until our flight departed to Brisbane.
We ordered food for dinner, and then sat our gate to wait for our plane. Andi and Tory paired up to sit together again, and Aden and I sat together on the flight. Aden and I were so tired, we were asleep in seats before the plane left LAX. We all slept as well as can be expected on the long flight.
Next stop: Brisbane, Queensland, Australia!
