We were fortunate enough to take the kids to Disneyland in California a few weeks ago and thought there were a few overseas family travel takeaways worth sharing.
Cost
Wow can it be expensive. Maybe we were the only ones in North America who didn’t know this but it can be pricey. Betsy found a half-off sale for a 3-day visit so the tickets were a “reasonable” $70 but everything else was pretty expensive. Meals, snacks, and souvenirs.
Food
No budget restaurants in Disneyland (we stayed on site, see below) but we were able to bring lots of snacks from home. We ate breakfast in the hotel room and brought snacks and drinks with us in a backpack to the parks. Still bought popcorn and the kids tried cotton candy (didn’t like it) but overall worked out great. The restaurants were convenient if a little crowded but enough variety to keep us from complaining. Lots of sit-down places to eat, favorite among them was Flo’s V8 Cafe just outside of the best ride in the park in Cars Land. Quieter location, great view of Radiator Springs raceway, and had waffles shapes like Mickey’s ears.
Lodging
This is fancier than we normal do it but we decided to stay in one of the hotels for this trip. This does fit our usual approach to location, location, location but less so for the price of the hotel. Some of the off-site hotels had shuttles and were cheaper but we decided to spend a little extra to have the convenience of going back and forth from the room with zero driving. If we wanted to go back to the park at 6:45pm we did. No packing, walking to shuttle, driving etc. Downstairs and we were there.
Most importantly it allowed us to get in early (hotel guests are allowed into the parks 1 hour before the public) and come back to the room for naps. Proper 2 to 3 hour naps. This meant we could stay up late and watch the nightly fireworks display which the kids loved.
Lines
We tried to be strategic about going in the weeks leading up to the Star Wars release as a sort of “shoulder season.” Hard to tell if that worked. There were a lot of people, however, we didn’t spend more than 15min in any line and we rode everything except the Matterhorn (kids not ready for single seater scarefest yet). We took advantage of the fast pass and simply went on the rides that were open. We rode the Lightning McQueen ride 3 times in one day and the Pirates of the Caribbean back to back with zero waiting.
Normally Dan is the itinerary master but this time it was even easier to just follow the kids and do whatever was easiest. Even some of the less-popular rides became family favorites not least because there was no waiting and thus no stress involved.
Europe
We’ve always told parents “If you can do Orlando, then you can do Paris.” In fact Paris doesn’t require car rental and car seats and expensive hotels (for us anyway). This seems to have held up for the California Disney experience.
Cost for the whole trip was almost as much as a week in Paris, probably more than Madrid or Sevilla cost us(!!). Day to day it’s not even close. $50-100 meals for a family of 4 is way over 90% of our Europe meals.
And, my goodness, if you can handle crowds at Disney, Venice, London, and Berlin will be a breeze. Especially if you simply avoid the busiest days and times.
Skills-wise, Disney requires much more map-reading and deliberation than a simple 3 or 4 days in Rome. Plus, Europe had cheap eats and parks for relaxing and playing.
Have you ever been to Disney? If so, consider yourself 100% ready for family travel to Europe!!
talk soon,
Dan & Betsy