Travel Tuesday: Throwback 2018 Disneyland Trip, Day 1

Hello, friends! Welcome back to another Travel Tuesday post. I decided to recap our November 2018 trip to Disneyland with you all! Mostly as another way for me to preserve these memories :) We took this trip a few weeks before my son turned 3, so he was still "free"! We did have to pay for his airline ticket, food, etc., but you don't have to start paying for Disney tickets for children until they turn 3! Any way to make a Disney trip cheaper is fine by me ;) So I hope you enjoy this look into a pre-pandemic trip to Disneyland!

Sunday, November 4, 2018: Day One

We decided to go to Disneyland from Sunday to Saturday, and this Sunday happened to be the day Daylight Savings ended; so we gained an hour of sleep and didn't have to get up quite as early ;) This was kind of the in-between week of Halloween and Christmas, so crowds were low and the decorations were going up! Best of both worlds for me!

I had started this countdown over a year out, and I was so excited to finally see a zero!

We got dropped off at the airport by my hubby's dad a couple hours before our flight. Mama got herself a coffee ;) and we walked around so my son could watch the planes take off and land. This was his first flight ever and he did fantastic! We had a ton of turbulence flying over the mountains, but he was perfectly content eating snacks and watching Daniel Tiger on the new kids' Kindle we got him for traveling.

He LOVED watching all the planes out the windows! So much stimulation for a 2-year-old's brain :)

Super blurry picture but I love how excited we were for our upcoming trip!

Ready for our flight! I had my sea bands on :) I used to get motion sick on planes as a kid so I don't risk flying without them!

Snacks and Daniel Tiger make for a successful plane ride :) I had packed a lot of activity packs, a couple new books, etc., but he was perfectly content looking out the window or just watching a show. Anything goes to make a child happy on a plane trip!

Even with all the turbulence, the scenery of flying over mountains was just beautiful!

I did some research on how to get to Disneyland once we landed at LAX; we didn't want to rent a car, because we could walk from our hotel to the parks and definitely didn't want to deal with Los Angeles traffic. I'm not sure if they still have it, but at the time we went they had a coach bus that could bring you from the airport to the hotels around Disneyland for a fee. In my research I heard VERY mixed reviews on this service, so we ultimately decided to hire a private shuttle service, Zippy Shuttle. I would 100% recommend this service. We just had to give them a call when we were ready to be picked up and they arrived to the airport within 10-15 minutes. A car seat for my son was included, and we were dropped off right at our hotel. I think our flight landed around 10:30 or so and we got to our hotel by 11:30! For sure worth the price.

Another blurry picture, but we were excited to finally be in California!

He pretty much passed out as soon as we got in the van :)

We decided to stay at Castle Inn & Suites for this trip, which was only a 10 minute walk to the main gates from our room. It wasn't the most modern hotel and didn't have the biggest pool (which we never used anyway) or continental breakfast, but honestly we were just in the hotel for naps and bedtime; when we pay for a Disney trip we want to spend as much time in the parks as possible, so this hotel was perfect for our needs.

Our hotel wasn't ready when we arrived, but they were able to hold our bags for us; we changed into warm-weather clothing (we came from the Midwest where it was pretty chilly when we left) and walked over to Downtown Disney for the afternoon.

We made it!

We did some shopping and got a Holiday Turkey sandwich from Earl of Sandwich. Yummmm! 

This was so good! I'm already planning a visit when we go to Disney World just to get this :)

After a few hours our hotel room was ready, so we walked back and did some unpacking. We actually have a friend who lives in the area, so she met us at our hotel and we walked over for our dinner reservation at Tortilla Jo's. I don't remember all of what we got for dinner, but the table side guac was delicious! There was also a balloon sculptor walking around the restaurant and we let my son get a little Pluto :) It was his little hotel buddy for the trip!

I'm pretty sure chips and salsa were his whole dinner ;)

The bracelets on my son's arms were ID bracelets we got from a company called ROAD iD. They do kid's ID bands, medical alerts, pet ID's, etc. We figured for a trip to Disney, you can't be too careful.

Since we had such a big travel day, we ended up calling it an early night and all 3 of us were sound asleep by 7:30! Which was actually 10:30 our time minus the time-change, so it wasn't really that early ;)

The next day was our first day at Disneyland Park, so make sure you follow along for a recap on the next Travel Tuesday post!