Our First Family Vacation to DisneyLand! Many ????

princessfansmom

Earning My Ears
Joined
Sep 8, 2000
We will be vacationing this June at the DLH for the first time. We are a party of 5 including my sister(DA-Dear Aunt-someone who is truly part fairy godmother) my DH and our two DD's who will be 4 and 11 at the time of our trip. We have vacationed often together including two recent trips to WDW--Oct '99 at the Contemporary and Dec'00 at the Yacht Club Concierge. We settled on the latter part of June, right before regular season becomes peak season,so we could spend 7nights and enjoy the resort as well as the two theme parks. Planning is something I really enjoy, so I am looking for lots of information!

I have read some recent posts on concierge at the DLH and realize it is different than the offerings at the YC. Am still interested in any additional info on concierge that anyone has to offer.
Are advance reservations necessary for Goofy's Kitchen or the Mary Poppins Tea? What about the Rain Forest Cafe, do they accept reservations?
Is any restaurant at the DLH like a food court with late hours? Are there refillable mugs available?
How long of a walk to the Monorail from Sierra Tower? Are there also paths to just walk to the MK,DCA and DT Disney? We are debating about needing a stroller outside of the parks.
I am assuming California is warm the end of June, but not sweltering and humid as Fl would be,is this right? Do we still need to bring Mister Fans along?
We are looking forward to our family trip to the Happiest Place on Earth! Any and all information and encouragement is most welcome! Thanks.
 
I don't have answers to all of them, but I'll answer those I can :D

Advance reservations are not *necessary* at Goofy's Kitchen, but are a *good idea*. Especially with a group of more than 1 or 2, and if you're going to go during peak dining hours. I believe reservations *are* required for the Tea, but if I'm not mistaken, you can make those when you arrive. I don't know about Rainforest Cafe

I don't remember any late-night food courts or anything like that from my stay almost a year ago, but someone more familiar with the hotel can better answer that. I didn't do much eating there ;) There is one mini-store thing over by the pool that may be open late, but I'm not sure, nor do I remember its name. To my knowledge, there are not any refillable mugs at the Disneyland Hotel.

I don't remember which tower is the Sierra, but I'd say it's no more than a 5 minute walk to the monorail from the tower farthest away from the monorail. Yes, there are paths to walk to everything now. You get to both Disneyland proper and DCA by walking *through* Downtown Disney. I'm not sure how long of a walk it is from the Hotel to the turnstiles of the parks, though.

CA gets pretty warm in the summer. Temperatures may be anywhere from slightly lower to slightly higher than Florida temperatures, but you don't have the humidity to make it so sweltering. I *would* take the misters, and make sure to drink more water (or poweraid or gatorade) than you might think you need. With it being a desert climate, you won't realize how much moisture you're losing because it won't feel like you're sweating much -- it evaporates much faster in lower humidity, and especially if you're used to higher humidity the dry climate will just sap the moisture from you. So keep water going constantly.

Have fun on your trip :D IMHO, Disneyland is one of the best places to go :D

-Rajah
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No there are no places or foodcourts open late. We were there in November and we got back fromt the Lion King show in Hollywood and we were hungry but there was nothing open to get food. We ended up begging the front desk for food and they got us salads that were left over from room service. They have some of the best food at their resturants but they need something for those late night snacks.

Never seen any refillable mugs at DL but I have not been in the Grand Californian. They may have added a late night foodcourt.

The walk to the monorail or right to the parks is not long. If you are use to walking around WDW you will have no problem with walking here. Everything is much closer together.

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I believe that Downtown Disney is open until 1:00 or 2:00 am. There are plenty of places there to get a snack or meal. Downtown Disney is less than a 10 minute walk from the hotels (maybe 15 minutes from Paradise Pier).

Another thing to consider is that Disneyland is in the middle of the city. There are non-Disney restaurants all around Disneyland (including McDonalds).

No refillable mugs at the hotels.

I would definately bring a stroller. You will find that walking to your hotel is much faster than riding the monorail most times. If you don't want to bring your stroller from home, buy an inexpensive umbrella stroller when you arrive.

And last, you will have a fantasmic time at the Disneyland Resort.


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Thank you for the advice and tips for our upcoming trip to DisneyLand!
We are very used to humid weather, and it is good to know you still need lots of water in a dryer climate. And even though we have read everything is closer than in WDW, it helps to know that it's about a 10 minute walk to get somewhere and that walking may be faster than the monorail.
The more we know about all the details of the DisneyLand Hotel and the theme parks, the better prepared we will be to enjoy our vacation, which we are really looking forward to.
We actually started thinking about going to DisneyLand after reading a copy of Birnbaum's Guide to DisneyLand 2001 which I took out of the library to help us better answer the trivia questions in the Trivia2 game which we received for Christmas! Then we read my sister's copy of the Disney Magazine that focused on DCA and...
now, DisneyLand, here we come!
I will continue to read the boards here to pick up new information and tips.
 

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