How to get to Disneyland on the cheap

Disneyland to our family is simply a magical place.  The whole family loves it there.  Not every family sees the magic kingdom in this fashion but we do and we would like to go there as much as possible.  That being said, there's no reason to put Disney ahead of other financial goals.  We just need to make them all work in harmony.  Make no mistake college is coming and we need to save money for that, retirement is coming faster than we think and so are more trips to Disneyland.

Here's how we make our trips to Disney as inexpensive as possible.

Theme #1 Airmiles!

Park passes
You may be surprised just how far a few Airmiles can get you towards your Disneyland vacation goal.  We like to use our airmiles often to buy our park passes.  Those puppies are expensive so that's where we go first with our airmiles.

Rental Car
If you're doing Disney on the cheap there may be some driving involved.  If you didn't bring your car down then why not look at a rental car?  They're really not that expensive.

Hotel
We have not done this to date but if you have your park passes covered, why not pay for your hotel with airmiles too?  You can search out all the details on the Airmiles website but it looks like they do have a few hotels right by the park.

Flights
This one is a bit of a classic, but of course you can pay for your flights with airmiles.  You can also drive to Bellingham and fly on Allegiant Air to LAX those are about the cheapest flights from our neck of the woods.

Theme #2 - Being Thrifty

Shuttle
If you do fly into LAX the Super shuttle will happily give you a ride to your Disney proximity hotel for about $16 a head. 

Disney savings
One of the things we've picked up off of Pinterest in the past year is a Disney savings jar.  We like to plan our Disney trip, talk about the plans over dinner and generally just be excited about the upcoming trip a few months in advance.  In order to keep the topic fresh we often build a Disney savings jar from an old coffee can and decorate it like Mickey or Minnie.  That way as we go about our day to day life if there's a bit of extra money  around we put it in the jar.   Sometimes Grandma and Grandpa come around for dinner and put some money in the jar (its happened). If we feel like we've caught a good sale or made a good buying decision in another area we put some money in the jar.  Or if we've foregone a normal treat in lieu of more money for Disney, we put that money in the jar.  I think it teaches kids to set financial goals and we've been delighted when we take the accumulated cash to the bank and change it in for American spending money.

Park drinks and snacks
The only other things we regularly do to make Disney cheaper is we bring our own water bottles into the park so we don't have to buy drinks there and we stay hydrated in the California sun.  We also bring with us lots of snacks to take into the park. 

If you're wondering how close you are to your next Disney vacation just take out a blank piece of paper and estimate the costs.  You may be closer than you think!

Accommodation - Ramada Maingate Anaheim

Just this past year we discovered the Ramada Main gate.  While planning the Disney Grad Nite trip for 2014 we were exploring our good neighbor, less expensive hotel options while still trying to get as close to the park as possible.  Well I think this hotel was just what we needed.

The hotel is located on Harbour Blvd beside the Tony Roma's restaurant.  When you walk out of the park where all the shuttle buses are located and go onto Harbour Blvd the Ramada is about 4 doors to the right.  It would take us about 5 minutes to get right back into our room from the time we left either park.  That's as close as anyone needs their hotel in my option.

click to see larger map

The walk over Harbour Blvd into Disneyland

Over the past year the Ramada has been undergoing extensive expansion and renovation but we found the hotel to be very adequate.  Our room was spacious enough, the hotel was quiet at night and we had recently updated bathrooms.  The pool was a bit cool during our December trip but maybe that was just the time of year. 

Bathroom selfie

The hotel does host a continental breakfast each morning from 6 am to 9 am.  Each morning was a bit different.  You can find there the usual dry cereals, fresh fruit, toast, donuts, juices and coffee.  On some mornings they also had biscuits and gravy which was a riot that my tiny picky eater loved this!  She had it for two mornings in a row and the third when it wasn't available she was a bit sad.  Even so, if you can have a free breakfast it saves more money for in the park.  I was quite happy to have toast with peanut butter and jam each morning with my coffee.  It's almost what I would make at home.

So for the money, we really like the Ramada Main gate. 

Accommodation - Holiday Inn Anaheim

You'll have to bear with me here on my dated recollections of our stay at the Holiday Inn on Walnut Street in Anaheim.  I have nothing but good things to say about our stay there but it was a few years back.

In 2007 we stayed at the Holiday Inn on a car trip to Disneyland.  We found the rooms to be very well priced, they had a nice restaurant in the lobby although not included in our room cost and the rooms were very adequate.

One of the unexpected bonuses that we found at the Holiday Inn was its close location to the Mickey and Friends parking structure.  Rather than walk right to the park entrance we were able to hop on a convenient tram that runs pretty well a continuous loop to the park and back.  So convenient!  We had the convenience factor of being very close to the park but not the cost.

Click to see full size

My practical tips for a day at Disneyland

Every time we go to Disneyland we learn something new.  This is what's really neat about social media.  I can share what I've learned so that you can have the best possible trip just by doing some research!  Here are some of my best tips for a family going to Disneyland.

Always wear a back pack.  In it you'll be able to comfortably stow everything you need for the day.

Take a sweatshirt for evening time.  It does get cooler after the sun goes down.

You can bring food into the park.  As long as there's no glass containers you are good to go.  Bring your kids healthy snacks from home, buy a few extra boxes of granola bars and dump them into your suitcase or bring a few special treats for children with awesome behavior.  Any way you slice it, food from home is a financial win.

Waiting in line with a box of crackers

One our last few trips we've learned to take a water bottle or two into the park.  It rides on the side of the back pack.  It has been said that Disneyland fountains have some of the tastiest and best treated water anywhere.  Sometimes we take little single serve flavorings for water even the children will drink enough of.

At any walk up, counter service restaurant you can also as for a cup of water free of charge.  They are happy to give you one for each of your party.  Let's face it, eating out 2 meals a day is expensive and adding the cost of drinks is often just not necessary.
 
We always try to do breakfast at our hotel.  Some hotels we've stayed at like the Ramada Maingate have a breakfast included in your room.  If that's not a part of the accommodation we've had good success at bringing a selection of breakfast bars or granola bars and eating those for breakfast on our way into the park.

Breakfast at the Ramada Maingate

Buy your autograph book right when you get into Disneyland.  On both sides of the entrance tunnel there are little kiosks that sell the wide selection of autograph books.  Our girls have always had one at each trip for all the autographs and matching photos that they're bound to collect throughout our visit.  These books have proved to be priceless keep sakes.

Disneyland is tough on little people who try and stay awake for the whole day.  Strollers have a special place at Disneyland too.  You may think they are a great big nuisance but there is a parental code of honor at Disneyland with regards to strollers.  You can park your stroller outside of pretty well every attraction in a stroller parking section.  While your stroller is parked and you are off enjoying a magical Disney experience, it is virtually guaranteed that your stroller will not be touched nor will anything go missing from it.  It's crazy I know, but this is the code of honor.  I have seen cameras left on the top of a stroller, stuffies, blankets, you name it... if its on your stroller, its not touched.

The other thing about strollers is that you'll need one in Disneyland for far longer than you need one anywhere else in town.  Karly had a stroller right up to age 6.  I fondly recall a trip where she was wearing a pink dress and had fallen asleep in the stroller in the middle of the day.  People would walk buy and say "look there's Sleeping Beauty."

Disneyland has a neat program called Photopass.  You can go up to any one of the Photopass photographers that are located all around the parks, especially near scenic views and ask them to take a photograph of you.  They will take a photograph of your family and scan it onto a plastic card for you to look at the photos when you get home.  From there you can buy the photos if you like what you see.  What's not as well known in that the Photopass photographers will also take a photo with your camera as well.  They're quite happy to do both for you.

Other tiny tips are to wear comfortable walking shoes, take sunscreen and have a great time!

My Sister in Law Kerri, a newbie Disney pro, has come up with a few important tips herself:

1. Remember to take photos for autograph albums horizontally. You'd mentioned this before and saved me lots of cropping time! Who wouldn't take vertical photos of the princesses and their dresses?!?!
 
2. Take a large/thick sharpie for autographs. The characters with big mitts... Mickey, Minnie, Donald, etc. can hold onto them easier than pens.
 
3. Take Disney souvenirs with you to give your kids vs paying park prices. We had the princesses and Minnie "leave" our girls presents in our hotel room each day and it cut out a lot of "I wants" while in the park!

RunDisney - Tinkerbell Half Marathon January 2014

This blog post was written in January 2014 but I think it belongs here on this blog.

I am Run Disney's newest fan!  This past week I just returned from an amazing adventure with my family from Disneyland in California.  My sister in law and I had hatched a plan to make the Tinker Bell Half Marathon a reality and built a family vacation around it.  I knew it would be an awesome family vacation but I had no idea how much I was going to enjoy this run.  Disney runs are nothing like anything I have ever experienced before.  It was such an atmosphere of friendship and support!  Let me share with you my run.  First we got up at 3:45 in the morning to dress, feed and prepare ourselves.  Seems crazy right?  But I woke up ten minutes before my alarm ~ ready to get up!  When you have something so fun to do, how can you sleep?  Here I am at 4:30 as we prepared to head out to our corals.

Although it was dark out, it wasn't all that chilly.  The time passed very quickly as we chatted with a few people around us in the corals, everyone was in a great mood despite the crazy early time of day.

Before we knew it, the American anthem was playing and it was time to run. 

This run had sold out as it usually does and there were 13,000 registered runners!  The first few kms we worked our way around Disney Drive and over to the main gates of the park.  We spent about 8 kms running through the parks and we stopped for many character photos.  Here are a few of my faves.

Peter Pan and Wendy

Merida from Brave

Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean

After we left the park I stowed my camera in my water belt.  In hindsight, I wish I hadn't done that because there was so much to see on the streets of Anaheim.  There were the Red Hat ladies in droves, there were Cheer Squads, Marching bands and Dance teams.  The support from the community was unreal!  At times we ran down the street giving high fives to the spectators that lined the streets.  It was still pretty magical even though we weren't in the park.  The run was well supported with lots of water stops and fuel stations.  Before we knew it we were winding our way back down towards the park and the mileage markers read 11, 12, 13 miles... We were running down the chute and our magical run was over.  Even though the fun was over, getting our medals was pretty awesome...

What made this accomplishment even more Disney special was that in the days following the race, all the cast members made a point of acknowledging your run.  Even the characters in fur that could not speak would point to your medal or  your run shirt and give you the thumbs up and a high five.  That was Disney awesome!

Although this was my first Disney run I can say for sure that it won't be the last.  It was so much fun from start to finish.  It was a very special milestone for me!

Accommodation - Paradise Pier Hotel

There's nothing in the world quite like a Disney experience.  It's what they do.  Disney is all about the customer service the experience and the quality.  When you stay in one of the Disney hotels that is exactly what you get.  We've stayed at the Paradise Pier hotel on 3 separate occasions.  Each time was amazing.  What's more, the Disney hotel staff even knows when you check in, how many times you've stayed with them.  We've had room upgrades on that basis alone!

Some of the rooms at Paradise Pier also look out over the California Adventure attraction World of Color which plays each evening.  If you have small children this may be one of the best ways to watch World of Color each night, from the comfort of your hotel room while they sleep!

The hotel itself is located right behind the Grand Californian Disney hotel which backs onto California Adventure park.  One of the best selling features of staying "on property" is that you are close to the park - really close.  From the Paradise Pier you cross the street which takes you onto the Grand Californian property.  You walk through the lobby of that hotel and voila, you have the choice to walk into California Adventure park right by the Grizzly River Run or enter into Downtown Disney.

The ambiance of the hotel is possibly what keeps drawing us back.  When you're in the hotel's common areas there are always classic California beach tunes playing and the hotel is spotless clean and the staff so friendly. The surf side theme is a good one.  The rooms are spacious and have good decor.  You can also sleep 5 comfortably in these rooms as they all have a little day bed - Karly's favorite!  As  you can see this hotel stay was actually on one of our motor home trips as we have rubber maid totes for our luggage! 

The hotel also has some great amenities.  One of my favorites of course is the roof top pool!  That's right, the roof top pool.  The pool is very little person friendly with a slide and a shallow area.  As with all other Disney hotel pools it is also staffed by life guards.  That means that Mom and Dad can relax a bit and catch some California sun.

If you're staying in the Paradise Pier or one of the other close by hotels you mustn't forget to book a character breakfast at the hotel.  We'll need to do a whole post on character dining soon.  The Paradise Pier offers a character breakfast with Lilo and Stitch.  The breakfast meal itself is a grand buffet which has amazing food and the characters perform a little song and come visit your children right at your table and take some time to visit with them and sign autograph books and pose for pictures.  It's quite the experience.  Of course, your meal is crazy expensive but something to be enjoyed!

For the runners in the room the other thing to know about the Paradise Pier is that it's a central fixture to many of the Disneyland runs.   In January of last year we went down for the Tinkerbell Half Marathon and stayed at the Paradise Pier.  From looking that the maps we figured it was in the center of the action and boy were we right!

The corals for the start of the run were literally right outside the front door of the hotel and the finish of the run was in the side parking lot.  If you are looking for proximity to any of the Run Disney races check out the maps provided and then look at the Paradise Pier.

Running in Disneyland is different from running in Walt Disney World as far as logistics and travel go.  The Disneyland races you can walk to the start line from any close by hotel.  In the World you really need to take a shuttle to the start line there's just no other way to get there.  That means for Disneyland you can squeeze a few extra hours of shut eye in and get up and walk to your start coral.

Transportation - Flying to Disneyland

If you're short on time and not on money flying is most certainly the way to get to Disneyland.
From where we live in BC you have a few options.  You can fly out of your local airport, likely have to layover in Vancouver and then head south from there.  You can fly into John Wayne airport which is the closest airport to Anaheim but we've never actually gone that route.  We have flown into LAX on two different occasions and had good experiences.

When money is tight, sometimes driving into the USA will help you get a better deal on flights.  In May of last year we flew from Bellingham on Allegiant airlines to LAX.  The cost just couldn't be beat.  We flew for something along the lines of $90 per person each way.  The Bellingham airport is a nice little airport, has close long term parking and again the cost just couldn't be beat.

Disney Grad trip 2014

Disney Express Bus

Once you are into LAX you have a few shuttle options to get yourself to Disneyland.  Disney itself runs a shuttle that can take you to your Disney or good neighbor hotel.  My brother and his family have taken the Disney Express shuttle service and they said it worked very well for them.

http://www.disneylandexpressshuttle.com/shuttles-from-lax-to-disneyland.php

When Danelle and I went down to Disneyland for Disney Grad we took the Super Shuttle from LAX to our good neighbor hotel.  Other than circling the airport a few times until our shuttle was full, for the price you can't really beat the service.  They picked us up quickly from the stand outside the airport and they dropped us off right at the doorstep of our hotel.  For something like $16 per person we were very happy with this.  They also allowed us to make a pick up time when we need to be taken back to the airport and they arrived even a little bit earlier than expected for pick up.  Needless to say we were at the airport in plenty of time for our flight home.

The travel time from LAX to  Disneyland is about 45 minutes.

When you fly to Disneyland you need a hotel.  Ah ha!  My next post series Accommodations....

Transportation - Motorhome to Disneyland

In the fall of 2007 we bought our motor home.  She's a 1983 Ford Frontier.  We knew what her primary purpose would be and that was road tripping to Disneyland!!!  She had always been well cared for and was in such great shape given her vintage. 

Vulcan Alberta

In March of 2008 we took her on the first long trip together all the way to Disneyland and then over to Blythe California as well.

So the primary advantage the motor home has is that you have your accommodation and your belongings all with you.  The children can also ride in supreme comfort.  Oh, our gas cost went up a lot ... the RV is not really good on gas you would say ... then I laugh at the above photo.  It's at a gas station.  You'll get to know where your favorite fuel stations are if you travel the same route a bit.  But with that extra gas cost we lost our accommodation expenses.

At night when your driver tires you can pull over at a gas station, a rest stop, a truck stop or a Wal-mart and just shut it down for the night.  We found that driving can continue on much longer into the evening once the children are tucked into their beds for the night as well.  Now that may be a controversial statement, but that's how we roll.

Our motor home knows the way to California from BC very well via Red Lobster restaurants.  Our first stop on day 1 is Red Lobster in Coeur d'Alene Idaho.  From there on day two we can make it to the Red Lobster in St. George Utah.  No, we don't always do R.L. two days in a row for dinner but we usually hit one on the way down and one on the way back.

Our other favorite restaurant on the road is called the Village Inn.  It was something we stumbled across the first time in Utah.  Seemed like a local restaurant we enjoy so we stopped and we liked it so much we've now stopped at several of them!

Needles California

Just for good measure here's another photo of our motor home at a gas station.

One of the trips we traveled to Anaheim in our motor home we stayed in the RV park that is located within walking distance of Disneyland.

http://www.anaheimresortrvpark.com/

The Anaheim Resort RV park suited us very well.  It was pretty much a concrete parking lot with hookups but it was within walking distance of the park, about a ten minute walk, and it gave us a place to lay our heads at night.  On this particular trip Mom and Dad also brought their motor home over from Blythe. 

Mom and Dad's RV and tow vehicle and our tiny RV

One of the beauty things about taking your RV to Disneyland is that you have lots of storage space.  If the kids neeeeeed to have one of those flashing light balloons at night from the parade at Disneyland you can actually buy it and take it home with you.  Those big helium balloons at Disney will actually last about a week in our experience.  Karly was tickled to have her balloon come home with her as well!

The other great thing about having your motor home for travels is that you can pack it full of food.  You can do a grocery shop before you go, or once you get over the border into the USA and you can have all your favorite foods handy.  You don't need as many restaurants or any restaurants during your travels if you prefer.  That certainly keeps costs down.  You can also pack food into the Disney parks each day.  The security of the park is happy as long as you don't try to bring glass containers in so I'm told.  But juice boxes, granola bars, sandwiches you name it.  You can totally bring that into the park with you.

Our motor home in Blythe California

Breakfast is also easy to arrange in your motor home.  You can brew a pot of coffee to drink in the sunshine and lawn chairs, eat a little breakfast and get yourself together before you head into the parks for the day.

Of all our trips to Disneyland, we've taken the motor home down three times now.  We can see other sights while we are away and we basically have our house with us.

Remind me at some time to write a post on the downside of traveling in an older motor home!  I think you'll enjoy that one too!

Transportation - Driving to Disneyland - the ultimate road trip!

Hi All,

A rainy day outside so I'll spend a bit more time talking about my favorite subject.  Disneyland.

On trips past we have made our way to Disneyland in various fashions.  For the first many times we made the trek to California we drove.  The primary advantage that driving has over flying is its cost.  We drove the car down on one of our earlier trips.

When you're in a car you need to book hotels along the way.  We went in favour of making a rough map-quest trip plan but we didn't book any accommodation prior to leaving home.  That just left it open so that we could go as far as we could each day and then stop at a comfortable time.  We had a pretty good idea how far we'd get each day and we didn't have any trouble finding a room.  Most of the time we could stop at a Best Western or Motel 6 for a reasonably priced and clean room.

Now the downside to 2 and a half days in the car is that your kids need to be seasoned travelers.  Our two girls were ages 5 and 11 when we drove down in the car.  As you can see from the above photos we had plenty of things to keep them busy.  Electronics were a life saver.  That being said they did like to get out of the car every time we needed to get gas, stop for a meal or buy the odd thing here or there but they were quite happy.

I do recall that we had a tiny plastic potty in the trunk of the car on this trip because you never know when a five year old has to pee.  It's not always at a gas station although that's always encouraged, but sometimes its just in the middle of no where.  On this road trip I think we did need to use it twice on the side of the highway and both times we were so glad it was handy!

I should also mention that when we drove down in March for spring break, it is winter through many northern states that you will drive through.  You need to have winter tires and be prepared for those road conditions even though when you get to southern California you'll be right into summer like conditions.

What else do I need to tell you about taking a car to Disneyland???  One of the positives is that we were able to bring lots of things to keep the kids busy, we were also able to bring a fair amount of stuff home from Disney.  Trunk space is much more accommodating than a suitcase.

This will over lap a bit on a future post about accommodations at Disneyland but once we arrived at our hotel, which this trip was the Holiday Inn on Walnut street, we just parked the car and didn't need it again until it was time to drive home.  Our hotel was actually very close to the Mickey and friends parking structure which ran a regular tram to the park.  So even though we weren't across the street from Disney or on Disney grounds our commute over to the park never took us very long.  That was pretty neat.

It cost us about 8 tanks of gas to travel in this fashion perhaps about $320 dollars?  We needed two hotel nights on the way down and on the way back that adds about another $120 x 4 = $480 but overall if you've got the time, a road trip is a great way to see the country and get to Disneyland.

Welcome to my Disney / Running / Mom Blog!!

Hi Friends!

It's come to my attention that I'm a bit of a Disney pro.  My friends are always asking me for hints and tips and my best advice as they plan their next Disney trip.  This is great!  I'm always happy to help.  But I wonder, if my friends need this advice, how many more families can I share my experience and advice with?  In my opinion the more people that love Disney the better.  I know we have sure found a sweet spot in our hearts for all things Disney.  To share our advice on how to have the best experience possible sounds to me like something I'd like to tackle.

So stay with me, I'll cover all the basics from transportation, accommodation and hints and tips to enjoy your stay and see the best of Disney.  On top of this, what I'm currently in love with, is Run Disney.  I've completed two Disney half marathons and I can see many more in my future.  If you're interested stick with me and we'll go down that road too!