My family and I went to Disneyland before Christmas 2014. It was a nice time to go, but I do wish it would have been a little earlier in the month. We arrived very late on the 18th of Dec. and went to both Disneyland and California Adventure, 2 days each. It was getting fairly busy on the last two days. But the Christmas decorations were awesome, as was the parade, but the most spectacular thing is the way they do the Haunted Mansion with a Nightmare Before Christmas overlay. It is a bit scarier to begin with. My 6 year old granddaughter who has been in the Haunted Mansion many, many times before, was pretty scared at first. In fact, she wanted to leave and tried dragging us out. We did get her to settle down, and explained it is a bit different from what she is used to seeing at Walt Disney World, and that they were just pretend, just like the Nightmare Before Christmas movie she has watched many times. Well she went through and ended up loving it and wanting to go again. Thankfully we had a second fast pass so we were able to do it again a short time later. There is so much to see, you will want a second ride through also. You do need to have a lot of patience if you go over the Holidays. The lines are very long, sometimes up to 2 hours. So use the fast passes as much as possible.
California Adventure is so different from what I saw about 7 years ago. Cars Land is wonderful. You actually feel like you are walking onto a movie set. The rides are very fun, especially the Radiator Springs Racers. There is something for everyone to do throughout the park. I still did not make it on Grizzly River Run. We were going to do it our last night, but it was so cold, no one wanted to take the chance of getting wet, even though we were a quick walk to the Disney’s Grand California. Talk about a wonderful resort. It was a great place to stay, which I highly recommend if you are someone who likes the special inclusive walk into California Adventure from your hotel.
We went to one Character meal at Goofy’s Kitchen. It was wonderful and we saw so many characters. My granddaughters loved it. Unfortunately it brought an end to our vacation to Disneyland. But I hope to go back soon.
