Tips Archives - Gather Lemons

Honest Reviews of all the Hotels we’ve used around Disneyland

Christy — Sun, 14 Sep 2025 16:20:26 +0000

We have taken over 50 trips to Disneyland and we’ve stayed at a number of different hotels around the Disneyland resort. I am sharing my honest thoughts on all the hotels we have stayed at over the years. When it comes to booking the hotel for our Disneyland trips I always check the package deals through Get Away Today, because they always seem to have the lowest prices. I highly recommend checking Get Away Today for package deals or tickets only.

I often get asked if I think staying at a Disneyland hotel is worth the extra cost. I think it’s fun to stay at a Disneyland hotel at least once or twice, but we mostly choose the good neighbor hotels around the resort for a couple of reasons. One, we don’t really spend much time in our hotel, we prefer to hang out at the Disney Parks or at the beach. Second, the prices of the Disneyland hotels are substantially higher, we prefer to go for a less expensive hotel which leaves extra money for Disney treats, meals and souvenirs. We can also make more trips to Disneyland each year by choosing hotels that are less expensive.

When we started our Disney trips we had a family of 7, since some of our older kids have headed off to college we don’t need large rooms anymore. Plus, many of our trips have just been my husband and I (Yes! We do take kidless trips to Disneyland). You will find that many of these hotels have room options that work well for large families. My favorite hotel that fits 8 is the Grand Legacy (3 room suite). My favorite hotel for 5 is the Fairfield Inn or Tropicana Inn & Suites.

If I had to narrow down my top hotel choices, it would be these hotels, most of which are within very close walking distance. It really is a huge plus not to have to drive, park or ride a shuttle into the parks.

Grand Californian Hotel & Spa – If it’s in the budget, this is such an amazing hotel to stay at, the location can’t be beat and we love the perk of getting into the parks 30 minutes before everyone else.
The Westin Anaheim Resort – This hotel is absolutely stunning! They have some amazing rooms with views of DCA.
Grand Legacy at the Park – The walking distance from this hotel is super easy, they have family suites which are great for large families and they have one of the nicest pools of the hotels on Harbour Blvd.
Fairfield Inn – We love this location for it’s proximity and the fact that there is a Panera Bread in the parking lots which makes breakfast super easy. We also love the fact that it’s a Marriott hotel and we can use our Marriott rewards to get free stays.
Tropicana Inn – This is a great hotel that is fairly easy on the budget and it is one of the closest hotels to the entrance to Disneyland.
Courtyard by Marriott Anaheim Theme Park Entrance – This is a great hotel with plenty of room for everyone. The rooms also have a microwave which is really handy. Kids will love the waterpark and pool!

Disneyland Hotels

Grand Californian Hotel & Spa (5 times) – This hotel is amazing as far as location and ambiance. I love the huge open lobby and the atmosphere with the fireplace and the Craftsman decor. The restaurant selection is great! We love the Craftsman Grill for quick meals and Storyteller’s Cafe for sit down meals. The pool is wonderful. The rooms are lighter and brighter since the remodel and I really like them. The showers are amazing! Each room has a refrigerator and you can find a microwave on each level near the ice machine. Many rooms have amazing views of California Adventure from the balcony, but you will pay extra for those. This hotel is an amazing option if you have the funds and if you have small children, taking them back to the room for a nap is so easy. Keep in mind this hotel does not have tubs, they only have showers. The customer service is great, everyone was very friendly. The pool was only open until 8pm when we visited in January, which is a bummer, because we were hoping to sit in the hot tub after a long day at the parks. I know the pool hours are extended in the summer, but it’s something to check when you are visiting. This is probably my absolute favorite hotel around Disneyland, but the price is often a deal breaker for me. I’d prefer to stay at a less expensive hotel to allow for more trips.

Disneyland Hotel (4 times) – This hotel is completely magical! The rooms are stunning! I love all the little Disney touches you can find around the room and though out the entire hotel. This my favorite of all the Disneyland hotels as far as the rooms and the grounds. The floor to ceiling windows give you a great view and let in a lot of light. In addition to the property being amazing, the restaurant selection here is great too. We love Goofy’s Kitchen for character breakfast and Tangaroa Terrace is a great option too. The only drawback that I see (and it won’t be a drawback for everyone) is the fact that the pool is only about 4 feet deep. This is great if you have little ones, but we were traveling with 4 teens and they weren’t all that impressed with the pool.

Villas at Disneyland Hotel (once) – We stayed in a Deluxe Studio, which had a queen bed and a pull down queen bed and a little kitchenette. The decor and amenities of the room are gorgeous! They also have 1, 2 and 3 bedroom villas that include full-size kitchens and sleep quite a few people. You get access to an exclusive pool and cute Steamboat Willie splash pad. I love the fact that everything at this hotel is new and pretty. Even the walk down the hallways is gorgeous! The staff at the Disneyland hotel is always top notch.

NEW! Pixar Place Hotel (once/twice when it was previously Paradise Pier Hotel) – The theming throughout the hotel is so well done! The rooms include some truly stunning artwork and the service we experienced from cast members was exceptional. One of our favorite things about this hotel was the private entrance into Disney’s California Adventure. This park entrance is exclusive to guests of the Pixar Place hotel which means you most likely won’t wait in any lines at all. We literally walked right through security! It’s less than a 10 minute walk away lets you in right next to Goofy’s Sky School. Majorly convenient! However, it’s important to note that you can only enter through here before 12:00 pm. You can exit through here any time of day though. They also have a great pool area! It’s situated on a rooftop on the third floor and includes a snack shack, plenty of lounging area, and a decent sized pool! The only major downside is the elevator situation. You cannot access the stairwell from the first floor and the elevators run on a unique system that means you’ll likely be waiting a while. It was a common gripe amongst all guests. We bonded with a few strangers in the lobby over how long it takes to grab an elevator.

Super Easy Walking Distance

We have found that we love staying within walking distance so we don’t have to bother with parking. The hotels with an easy walking distance to Disneyland are always the hotels I check first. These hotels are located on Harbour Boulevard across the street from the entrance to the Disney Parks.

Courtyard by Marriott Anaheim Theme Park Entrance (once) I have been wanting to stay at this hotel for awhile, I have heard so many great things from other people. The rooms are very nice with plenty of room. You can find either a king bed or two queens & then most rooms also have bunk beds for the kids. There are also two showers in the rooms too!. We have a room with a view and could actually see the Disneyland fireworks from our balcony. The service was great, and there is a Bistro restaurant open for breakfast, lunch and dinner within the hotel. We love to take advantage of the Panera bread that is super close by, we just order our breakfast and stop by before we head to Disneyland. The pool and waterpark is still by reservation only and that’s a little difficult because it’s not always easy to plan pool time on your Disney days. We wanted to go in the hot tub after a day in the park and unfortunately there wasn’t any openings. If you are driving, valet parking is the only option at this property. This hotel is still a super option if you are looking for something a little nicer than most of the hotels on Harbour Blvd.

Fairfield Inn (7 times) – This is probably the hotel we like the best and use the most. The location is great and the rooms have 2 queen beds and one fold out loveseat so it makes it super easy to sleep 5 people. Many rooms at other hotels only sleep 4. The showers at this hotel are nice, too many other hotels have very low water pressure. There is a Panera Bread in the parking lot (this is a huge plus for us)! We have a Marriott Rewards/credit card so we can often times stay here with our points. There are 2 different rooms at this hotel. You can get a standard room or a deluxe room with a view (the photo above is a deluxe room). Save your money and just go for the standard room. I don’t feel the view is really worth the extra cost.

Best Western Park Place Inn (2 times) – The rooms aren’t over the top amazing, but they are comfortable and there is plenty of space. The staff here is amazing and super friendly. My husband had to make a copy for something business related and he went down to ask if they had a business center so he could make copies. They did not, but they said they would be happy to make the copies for him on their copier. Every time we walked by the desk they would greet us with a great big smile. I am so impressed with the employees here! One drawback is the pool is teeny tiny. If we know we are going to want to swim, I usually skip this hotel because of the pool. Breakfast is free here, but honestly it wasn’t all that impressive and I mostly just stuck to a granola bar in our room.

Grand Legacy at the Park (7 times) There are a couple of reasons we really like this hotel, one of which is they have great options for larger families. Twice now we have stayed in the three room suite, which fits our family of 7 perfectly. The pool at this hotel is a nice size too, it’s much bigger than the other hotels within walking distance. They also have a free snack in the morning, they give you a piece of fruit, granola bar, crackers & a water bottle in a lunch sack.

Tropicana Inn & Suites (5 times) – We recently stayed at the Tropicana Inn & Suites and we will be adding this to our list of Disneyland hotels we will use on a regular basis. The room had a refrigerator and a microwave in the room. It’s not common to find microwaves in hotels near the Disneyland resort. Our room had a King bed and a sleeper chair. They do offer 2 queen beds and a sleeper chair, which makes it a great option if you have 5 members in your family. This hotel is just across the street from the main entrance to Disneyland. I love that it is super close, which is a huge perk. The pool was a little on the small side, so keep that in mind if your family wants to do some swimming.

Anaheim Desert Inn & Suites (once) – This location is fantastic! Just a stone’s throw from the entrance to Disneyland, this is a great place to stay if you enjoy taking breaks in the middle of the day and don’t want a long trek back to your hotel or dislike waiting for a shuttle. While this place may have a coveted spot on Harbor Blvd, the room itself wasn’t exactly top-tier. The shower was old and lightly stained and the beds left much to be desired. Not only that, but the pool was small and located indoors, which definitely feels strange for a place like California. But at the end of the day, this hotel is on the more affordable end, and you get what you pay for. Besides, most of your day is probably spent in the parks anyways, so if you want a great location for a great price, and are willing to give up some of the “luxuries” associated with hotels, this is a good spot! Also, worth noting they have some family suites that can sleep 8-10 people.

Howard Johnson (once) – We finally booked a stay at the Howard Johnson! We’ve been wanting to try this hotel for awhile. The staff was very friendly, We stayed in one of their newly updated rooms and we loved the decor and the layout of the room. The room had a refrigerator and a microwave which is very handy. If you have small children you will love having access to the Pirate’s Cove water playground that is included with your stay. The pool is decent size compared to some of the other hotels that are within walking distance. The one problem we experienced during our stay was the fact that the internet was really bad, most of the time we couldn’t get it to work at all. I did love the fact that we could place on online order for breakfast from Panera & pick it up on our walk to the park.The walk to the parks is about 8 minutes, so not bad at all.

Moderate Walking Distance

The Westin Anaheim Resort (once) – This hotel might be my all time favorite stay at Disneyland, the hotel is stunning! It’s great to have a luxury hotel near the Disneyland resort. Our room had a balcony with an absolutely amazing view of Disney California Adventure. This hotel really felt more like a resort destination. The pool area has plenty of loungers. If you are one that loves to workout even while on vacation you will love their exercise room, they have thought of everything! They have a cool roof-top bar. You can add “club level” at this hotel for the fee of $150 a day, which gives 4 people access to the club lounge which serves breakfast, snacks and more. You also gain access to the patio where you can view the the nighttime fireworks at Disneyland. This hotel is about a mile away from Disneyland, so it’s not a super easy walk, but totally doable!

Four Points by Sheraton (2 times) – I was very impressed with this hotel. The rooms were nice and the walking distance wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. It’s a straight walk on the sidewalk (over the freeway overpass), you are already on the side of Disneyland, so you won’t need to cross over Harbor Boulevard. One of the things I liked the most about this hotel is that the pool was open 24 hours. Often times when you get back from Disneyland the kids want to swim in the pool (no matter how late it is) or you want to sit in the hot tub and at other hotels the pool is closed. This was a great feature! This hotel has an on-site restaurant too.

Candy Cane Inn (once) – There are three different room options at this hotel, Standard, Deluxe and Premium. We stayed in the standard room and it was a little on the small side. This hotel includes a deluxe complimentary breakfast with your stay, which is basically cereal, oatmeal, pastries, hard boiled eggs and fruit. Once again the pools is small, but the property is pretty. It does have a Disneyland shuttle from the hotel, but it only leaves every hour and a half during park hours.

Anaheim Marriott Convention Center (once) – We are quite fond of most Marriott properties. This hotel is beautiful and we received excellent service. The beds were super comfy. The wi-fi at this hotel is not free unless your are a Marriott Rewards member. There is a shuttle running to Disneyland, but it is not free. This hotel is very close to the Disneyland Toy Story lot parking lot so you can just walk over there and use the Disney shuttle to take you to the parks. The pool is nice, but it is little shallow. It’s about a 15 minute walk to Disneyland.

Drive or Take a Shuttle

Anaheim Majestic Garden Hotel (once) – This hotel has great prices. The further you get from Disneyland the less you will pay. It’s not too far away and the hotel has a shuttle that leaves every 30 minutes, which was super convenient. The shuttle ride takes about 5 minutes. The pool was great and a nice size too. I thought the rooms were spacious, but they weren’t the cleanest I’ve seen. I enjoyed the nice little garden areas around the hotel. The service was great. I enjoyed my stay, but wasn’t wow’d. I would stay here again if it was an amazing rate and the closer hotels weren’t available.

Sonesta ES Suites (formerly Staybridge Inn & Suites) (2 times) – If you have a large family, I highly recommend this hotel. We booked a 2 bedroom suite which comes with 2 bathrooms (which is really handy when you have 7 people in your family). The rooms here come with a fully equipped kitchens, which is another big plus. The breakfast here is top notch, they give you more than just cereal and bagels. In addition to breakfast there is also an Evening Reception that serves food on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. This hotel is next to an Anaheim Resort Transit stop so you can use that for transportation instead of driving your car and dealing with parking.

Cortona Inn & Suites (once) – For the first time ever we are adding a hotel to the list that we wouldn’t actually recommend. This hotel states that is has free breakfast, free wi-fi and free parking, but they charge a $16 resort fee, so these items aren’t technically free. The room we stayed in had damaged furniture, the sink didn’t have any hot water, I could only find one open outlet (and it wasn’t near the bed). The room does have a microwave (which is rare) and a mini fridge. The pool is on the small side and the breakfast wasn’t all that impressive, mostly cereal, yogurt, sausage patties and square shaped scrambled eggs. This hotel is located near the Toy Story lot so you could walk over and catch the shuttle from the Disney lot. We did get an amazing rate on this hotel, but I think it’s mainly because it doesn’t come with many amenities and because it’s a little further away from the parks.

Hyatt Anaheim Orange County (once) – We love this hotel! It’s gorgeous, there is more than enough room for even our large family. The only drawback is it’s not that close to the parks and you will have to drive in or take a shuttle. We also have a Hyatt Rewards/credit card which is another reason why we like the Hyatt properties. This hotel offers exclusive shuttle service to Disneyland Resort for guests going to and from these theme parks for a daily fee.

ALO Hotel by Ayres (once) – This best feature about this hotel is the price! If you are looking for a budget-friendly hotel near-ish to Disneyland, this might be a great option for you. It’s actually about 3 miles from Disneyland, so not super close compared to most of our hotel recommendations. We really prefer to stay closer to Disneyland, so we probably won’t choose this one again, but overall we were impressed with the hotel in general. I loved the fact that parking was free (you will find free parking at more hotels the further you drive away from Disneyland). There is a free hot breakfast buffet every morning. It’s even a pet-friendly hotel.

NEW! SpringHill Suites Anaheim Maingate (once) – We stayed in a Queen Suite and I couldn’t believe how spacious it was! It comes with a massive closet and plenty of space in the bathroom. The rooms come with both a microwave and mini-fridge. The hotel provides free continental breakfast (which is always a win when the rest of your meals that day are going to be pretty expensive! They also have an outdoor pool, hot tub, fire pit, and patio area. This is a great option if you’re looking for something a little more affordable with tons of space!

Hotels We Want to Try

While we are happy with so many of the hotels on this list we are always open to trying new properties. Here are a couple we are looking forward to trying in the future.

SunCoast Park Hotel Anaheim – This is a newer hotel that looks like it would be a great option. It gets great reviews, has free breakfast and it looks like the pool is awesome too.

JW Marriott Anaheim Resort As far as Disneyland area hotels go, this is more on the luxurious side, it would be great for a kid-free trip to Disneyland (which we enjoy)!

If you have a Disneyland trip planned don’t forget to check the package deals through Get Away Today, they consistently offer the lowest prices I have seen. We have used them on more than 1/2 of our Disney trips and I am always pleased with the service. If you book a package deal you can use the the code THRIVING10 to save an addition $10 off the package price. I’d love to hear about your favorite Disneyland hotels. Do you use the same one every time, or do you like to switch it up? If you have questions about any of these hotels don’t hesitate to ask. I am happy to help!

We have plenty of other Disney posts to help with your vacation planning. Check them out!

The post Honest Reviews of all the Hotels we’ve used around Disneyland appeared first on Gather Lemons.

Discount Disney World Tickets & Packages

Christy — Wed, 24 May 2023 16:17:56 +0000

You know we are huge Disneyland fans and try to visit a couple times a year, but we are also fans of Disney World too. In fact, my husband and I took our honeymoon to Disney World in combination with a cruise. We love to visit Disney World every year around our anniversary in November. We love visiting at this time of year because we get to enjoy Food & Wine at Epcot and usually visit one of the first Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas party’s of the year. I’ve compiled several different ways you can get discounted tickets to Disney World. The discounts may not be huge, but every little bit helps when it comes to a Disney vacation.

Here are several ways you can save on Disney World park tickets and hotel packages:

Get Away Today – Get Away Today offers discount tickets to Disney World (and other Orlando theme parks). I have used Get Away Today nearly a dozen times for our Disneyland trips, so I am thrilled that they also offer discounts to Disney World. Their customer service is top notch, I highly recommend them.

Right now, there is a super deal where you can get a day at each Walt Disney World Resort Park with huge savings on a 4-Park Magic Ticket from Get Away Today! June 1 – September 29, you can spend a day at Magic Kingdom, Disney’s Animal Kingdom, EPCOT and Disney’s Hollywood Studios and save big! No theme park reservations required; blackout dates of July 1-4 and September 1-4, 2023 apply.

If you are looking for a longer stay Get Away Today is offering 7 days for the price of 5.

Undercover Tourist – Another place that sells discount tickets to Disney World is Undercover Tourist. I have personally purchased our Disney World tickets from this company on several occasions and have been very pleased with the service (and savings). Head over to Undercover Tourist to check out their prices, they have so many different options. They have great hotel discounts too.

Sam’s Club – Sam’s Club has recently added travel services to their lists of offerings and you can get a nice discount to Disney World as well as other great travel destinations. You can even save on Disney World’s special ticketed events like Disney After Hours, Mickey’s Halloween Party, Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas party and more (when they are available). I would check out their prices and see if signing up for a Sam’s Club membership is worth the discounts on travel alone.

Costco – You can’t buy individual park tickets from Costco, but they have nice discounts on package deals that include hotel and park tickets together. I love the discounts and extra’s Costco offers for Disneyland vacations, but their offerings for Disney World are a little different (not bad, just different). Each hotel package offers different items and perks. With your package you may get a Costco cash card, complimentary hotel parking or other benefits, you will have to read the details on each hotel package. They do not offer all the Disney World hotels, but you can book the Disney World Dolphin or Swan which will give you all the benefits of staying on property at Disney World.

Disney Visa – This is a different way to save a little on your vacation or possible earn some money for your Disney vacation. The Disney Rewards Visa will pay you cash back in the form of Disney Rewards that you can use at Disney locations. It may take you awhile to rack up some rewards, but it is a simple way to save some money for a Disney trip. You may not earn a ton, but you can earn enough to buy one Disney ticket or get yourself some Disney treats. Disney will often offer incentives if you sign up for a Disney Visa, right now they are offering a $300 or $150 statement credit. If you already carry a balance on credit cards that isn’t paid off on a monthly basis I don’t recommend this as an option. There is a standard card (no fee) and a Premier card ($49 annual fee).

Discounted Disney Gift Cards – Your savings with this method will be small, but like I said every little bit helps. If you have a Target REDcard you can purchase Disney gift cards and save an extra 5%. You can get a $100 Disney gift card and pay only $95, when you pay with your REDcard. I personally would purchase my Disney tickets via Get Away Today or Undercover Tourist and save the discount Disney gift cards for Disney food or souvenirs.

Military Discount – Military personnel can get promotional prices on Disney World Park Hoppers. You can get all the information via Disney’s website.

Make sure you always purchase your Disney World tickets from a reputable seller, like the ones I have mentioned above. I do not recommend buying Disney tickets off of Ebay. Let me know if you have any questions, I am always happy to chat Disney!

I’m sharing some tips and money saving advice for those that have a Disney World trip planned. When it comes to Disneyland, I am all about the off-site hotels, they are a great way to save money. However, when it comes to Disney World there are more benefits to staying on property. Staying at a Disney hotel also give you Extra Magic Hours, where you can enjoy the parks before regular opening or closing times. We love these perks! There are so many different price levels for the Disney World hotels you are sure to find one in your price range.

Before you purchase tickets you need to decide if you want one-park per day tickets or Park Hoppers. I would recommend skipping the Park Hopper option, going from each park at Disney World is not as easy and convenient as it is at Disneyland. Plus, skipping the Park Hopper will save you some money, which you can spend on Disney souvenirs or treats. I would just dedicate one day to each park you plan on visiting and if you decide you really want to hop to a different park you can add the option to your tickets while at Disney World. You won’t be able to add the Park Hopper option for just one day, it will be added to all the days on your ticket. Keep in mind there are four different theme parks at Disney World.

Check out other other Disney related posts:

One of our favorite events is EPCOT Flower & Garden
See our review of the Caribbean Beach Resort at Disney World
Find out how you can save big of official Disney Parks souvenirs
Check out the highlights from our trip to Disneyland Paris
Check out our Ultimate Guide to Disneyland Snacks
I share honest reviews of all the hotels we’ve used near Disneyland

The post Discount Disney World Tickets & Packages appeared first on Gather Lemons.

Ultimate Guide to the Best Disneyland Snacks

Christy — Tue, 28 Sep 2021 18:02:44 +0000

There’s nothing quite like a trip to Disneyland! I love the magical feeling you get once you walk through the turnstile and head towards main street. We have our favorite attractions, our favorite shops and our favorite Disney food!! Treats are probably one of the things I get most excited about when we take our Disney vacations. We are sharing over 20 best Disneyland snacks that you can buy at Disneyland and California Adventure. There’s something for everyone, whether you love your treats sweet, salty or Mickey shaped.

Many of the snacks we feature can be purchased with Mobile Ordering. You simply open the Disney app, click “Order Food” and select the location, time and items you want to purchase.

If you are visiting Disneyland during a busy time (or anytime really), I highly recommend using Mobile Ordering. Now, on to the fun stuff…the best Disneyland snacks you can get in the parks! I’d love to hear about your favorite Disney snacks too, let us know your faves or if there is anything you think we’ve missed. I’m always up for a new Disney snack!

Choco Smash Candy Bar – This new candy bar can be found at Avenger’s Campus at Pym’s Test Kitchen. The Choco Smash Candy Bar is made with Dark Chocolate, Peanuts, Caramel, Nougat and Chocolate Brownie. And it’s divine!! Definitely big enough (and rich enough) to be shared.

Dole Whip – One of our favorite snacks is the Dole Whip and I am super excited that you can now get the pineapple Dole Whip swirled with flavors like Raspberry and Orange. The Pineapple Raspberry Swirl is my new fave! You will find these new flavors just down from the regular Tiki Juice Bar at the Tropical Hideaway.

Loaded Dole Whip – This crazy version of the Dole Whip can also be found at the Tropical Hideaway and it is so good! I finally tried it for the first time recently and I think it may be my new “go-to” when I visit Disneyland. It has pineapple/orange swirl (you can choose whatever flavors you want though) then it’s loaded with tropical fruits, shredded coconut, crystallized Hibiscus and Pocky sticks. (This unfortunately is no longer being served, I’ve left it on the list because they have different versions of the loaded Dole Whip on the menu that you should check for while you are there)

Matterhorn Macaroon – This classic treat is basically a big coconut macaroon that is topped with melted white chocolate and sugar sprinkles. It’s a fun representation of the iconic Disneyland Matterhorn attraction and can be found at the Jolly Holiday bakery.

Mickey Pretzel – When you want a savory snack, look no further than the classic Mickey Pretzel. We love to add the cheese dip. They also have cinnamon and sugar Mickey pretzels too. You will find Pretzel carts throughout the parks.

Asada Fries – We’re giving two big thumbs up for the Asada Fries at Award Wieners in DCA, especially if you like your food a little spicy! These fries are topped with marinated Carne Asada, cheddar cheese, cilantro, onions, Salsa de Arbol and Guacamole! Yum!

Corn Dog – Nobody makes a corn dog quite like Disneyland! You’ll find the Little Red Wagon selling corn dogs on the end of main street on the right hand side just before you get to the Plaza Inn. In California Adventure you’ll find the corn dogs sold at the Corn Dog Castle.

Strawberry Hand Pie – This is a fairly new addition at Jolly Holiday and I hope it sticks around, it’s a good one! It’s pretty much a glorified Pop-Tart, emphasis on the word glorified, because it’s really good. The crust is flaky and butter and the filling is just right. I recommend giving this one a try!

Hand-Dipped Ice Cream Bars – These hand-dipped ice cream bars are divine! You can choose your flavor of ice cream, chocolate coating and toppings. My personal favorite is Raspberry Sorbet, with Milk Chocolate and Popping Pearls (basically Pop Rocks). Find these at Clarabelle’s at the end of Buena Vista Street in California Adventure.

Mickey Beignets – These unique Disneyland snacks are golden fried dough tossed in powdered sugar. So yummy! You can also order Mickey Beignets from the table service restaurant Cafe Orleans where they also come with dipping sauce and they are divine! If you do head to Cafe Orleans I highly recommend the Monte Cristo sandwich (I also recommend sharing it).

Soft-Serve Cones – You have to love a classic ice cream cone on a hot day. My favorite is the chocolate and vanilla twist. These cones can be found at the Cozy Cone Motel. If it’s a busy day, this line can get kind of long, there is usually only one cast member working the booth.

Turkey Leg – These huge cured, smoky Turkey legs can be found at several stands throughout the park and at Edelweiss Snacks in Disneyland and Poultry Palace at California Adventure.

Pretzel Bites with Cheesy Sauce – The Pretzel Bites are a kid fave! You’ll find them at the Cozy Cone Motel. They come with a cheesy dipping sauce.

Chili Cone Queso – Another Cozy Cone snack that is one of our family’s favorites is the Chili Cone Queso. It has Beef Chili, Cheddar Cheese and Corn Chips served in a Bread Cone. Yummy!

Jack Jack Cookie Num Num – These warm, gooey, chocolate chip cookies are not to be missed. They are so thick and gooey you’ll need to eat it with a fork. You will find this cookie stand at the exit of the Incredicoaster on the Pixar Pier.

Mickey Caramel Apple – The Mickey Caramel Apples have always been a favorite. I love that these are treats you can take home with you too. Just let the cast member know you are traveling and they will box it up for you. You can find these cute treats at the candy shops in both parks at at Marceline’s in Downtown Disney.

Pixar Pier Frosty Parfait – All the treats at Adorable Snowman Frosty Treats are great but we really like the Pixar Pier Frosty Parfait. It’s Lemon Soft-serve with Blue Raspberry Swirl. The tartness of the lemon and sweetness of the blue raspberry is the perfect combination. This treat is large and sweet enough to share. The line here can get extremely long on super hot days.

Mickey Ice Cream Bar – The classic kid treat is the Mickey Ice Cream Bar. Vanilla ice cream with chocolate coating. These ice cream bars are sure to make anyone smile.

Popcorn – Popcorn is one of our favorite treats for when we are waiting in line for an attraction. You don’t have to worry about it melting and it’s super easy to share. You’ll find popcorn stands all over the Parks.

Chieftain Chicken Skewer – The Chieftain Chicken Skewer is one of my favorite Disneyland snacks when I need something small (mainly so I can do more snacking). This skewer has grilled chicken covered in a sweet, slightly spicy chili sauce. While here I also recommend trying the Safari Skewer which is bacon-wrapped Asparagus. Both of these treats are found at the Bengal Barbecue in Adventureland.

Churros – Churros are a must when you visit Disneyland. You can stick to the classic cinnamon and sugar Churros or try one of the many different flavored churros that Disneyland offers. They always come out with seasonal varieties and they can really get creative. Churros stands can be found throughout the Parks.

Macarons – Stop by Jolly Holiday bakery for huge Macarons. The flavor options will sometimes vary with the seasons and celebrations. The Raspberry Rose Mickey Macaron has been one of my absolute faves. These aren’t tiny macarons, these are big and can easily be shared. These are so good! I recommend using mobile order or getting one early in the day because they do often sell out.

Churros Toffee – This is a new treat for us. The Churros Toffee is toffee covered with cinnamon and sugar just like you would find on a churros. This one is super sweet and great to share. It also travels well, so you can enjoy some Disney goodness at home. We found the Churros Toffee at Bing Bongs Sweet Shop.

Chocolate Covered Pineapple – Stop by any of the locations selling candy and treats and pick yourself up a Chocolate Covered Pineapple Skewer. These are so good. The pineapple has always been fresh and flavorful and in my opinion chocolate goes with just about anything, but it’s really good with pineapple.

Giant Dill Pickle – Disneyland has been selling pickles for a very long time. The pickles are a great snack if you need a break from all the sweets. They are tasty and I love the fact that they are chilled on ice, so they are cool and crisp. The pickles are one of my son’s favorite snacks.

Corn on the Cob – The corn on the cob is another great option. You can choose buttered corn or Chili-Lime. You’ll find the corn at Edelweiss snacks at Disneyland at the Poultry Palace in California Adventure.

Mickey Sourdough Bread – Swing by Pacific Wharf Cafe to pick up a big Mickey Sourdough Bread. You will find the loaves & shapes of bread being sold just outside the cafe. We bought this treat on our most recent trip to Disneyland. I will admit we always passed by this treat because I thought it was going to be super expensive, but it was reasonably priced and it was something our whole family could snack on. I’m a fan! If you plan ahead of time you can pack in some fruit and cheese and you have yourself lunch with the bread. For a free treat, head inside for the bakery tour and they will give you a small sample slice of sourdough bread.

Mickey & Minnie Donuts – These cute donuts can be found outside of the parks! Get these at the GCH Craftsman Grill at the Grand Californian Hotel. They come in either Mickey or Minnie and they are as tasty as they are cute.

If you are planning a trip to Disneyland to try out some Disneyland snacks, I highly recommend checking the prices on package deals from Get Away Today, they always offer some of the lowest prices. You can either purchase a hotel and ticket package or buy your park tickets individually from Get Away Today. If you purchase a package, use the code Thriving10 at checkout to save an additional $10 off their low rates.

We have a ton of other Disney related posts if you are looking for even more Disney information:

We’ve got a complete guide for visiting Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge
Check our our Guide for the Disney California Adventure Food & Wine Festival
Your complete guide to Pixar Pier
I share honest reviews of all the hotels we’ve used near Disneyland
10 of the BEST places to eat breakfast at Disneyland
10 of the BEST places to each lunch at Disneyland
Great tips that will help you to do Disneyland (and California Adventure) in a day.
Another great way to save on Disneyland package deals is through Costco Travel
See our review of the Caribbean Beach Resort at Disney World
Find out how you can save big of official Disney Parks souvenirs
Check out the highlights from our trip to Disneyland Paris

The post Ultimate Guide to the Best Disneyland Snacks appeared first on Gather Lemons.

Save Big on Official Disney Parks Souvenirs

Christy — Sat, 08 May 2021 03:12:27 +0000

Confession time! I love to save money and I am a frugal person by nature, but I have no problem buying the official souvenirs on our Disney trips. You might think I would be one of those people that buys Disney merchandise on sale ahead of time, but I’m not. Nope! We go for the full-priced in park merchandise and love every minute of it! I think Disney souvenirs are part of the fun and it’s something we budget for on our trips. Ok, that the fact that I pay full price isn’t totally true, on occasion we’ve had a Disney Annual Pass which gets us a discount and I also have a Disney Visa which saves me 10% on purchases of $50 or more. However, I have found a way to get our official Disney merchandise AND save a ton of money.

Whenever we take a trip to Disney World we also make a stop at the Disney Character Warehouse. These stores are filled with official Disney Parks merchandise at super low prices. You can find Disney Character Warehouse stores at the following locations:

Orlando Vineland Premium Outlets, 8200 Vineland Ave #1252, Orlando, FL (closest to Disney World)
Orlando Premium Outlet 4951 International Drive, Orlando, FL

Because capacity is limited in the store, you will need to enter a virtual queue to enter the store. You start by telling them how many people are in your party and giving them your cell number. They will text you when it’s your turn to enter the store and you have 15 minutes to return (they are not flexible with this time, so be on time)! We had to wait an hour before we were allowed in the store. We killed time by checking out a couple of the outlet store and eating lunch at Panera.

I am sharing some of the deals we spotted on our most recent trip to Disney World. The inventory at these outlets will change quickly, but it’s always fun to see what new things you can find.

There were a couple of different sets of Minnie ears priced at only $3.99. This is a great way to add to your collection. A lot of our Minnie ears have come from the Character Warehouse or the Disney Outlet Stores.

They also had some different hats priced at only $3.99/. This is a super deal for this Star Wars had, especially since it’s a 9Fifty brand.

My husband and I took a kidless trip to Disney World so we picked up this shirt for our son. It was marked down to $12.99 + it was an additional 30% off. The final price was only $9.09. The regular price on the shirt was $36. Such a great deal!

There were a bunch of Otterbox phone cases on sale for $7.99. This is a screaming deal for these phone cases because they retail for $59.99.

Another great deal were these Disney face masks for only $1.75.

If you have a Disney World trip in the works, I recommend using Get Away Today to book your vacation, it’s a great service that will save you money. We have booked over 1/2 a dozen Disney vacations with them and I have been pleased with every single one. Here are some of my other Disney posts:

The post Save Big on Official Disney Parks Souvenirs appeared first on Gather Lemons.

Disneyland Vacation Booked Totally with Credit Card Rewards

Christy — Wed, 03 Feb 2021 16:10:05 +0000

Current Rewards Card offers:

Disney Rewards Visa – $150 credit when you get a card with no annual fee, $300 credit with the premier card with annual fee of $49.

IHG Rewards Card: up to 80,000 bonus points, $95 annual fee

How we planned our vacation:

I love family trips to Disneyland and I love saving money, but when I can combine the two and take a “free” trip to Disneyland, that’s completely magical! We recently took a quick 2 night/3 day trip to Disneyland and paid for the entire thing with credit card and reward miles. This “free” trip wasn’t an instant gratification thing, it took us several years of saving our rewards. I also didn’t set out to book this trip with our rewards, it just kind of happened that way.

I am sharing this information with you to let you know that a free or inexpensive trip to Disneyland is completely possible. You may not be able to book an entire Disney trip with rewards, but you certainly can use some of these techniques to make sure you pay less out of pocket for your trip. Here’s a peek at how we took advantage of our rewards to take a trip to Disneyland that didn’t cost us anything out of pocket.

Please note, booking a trip with rewards is only a good deal if you pay your credit card off in full every month. I do not recommend putting anything on a credit card and making payments. When it comes to credit cards, we pay for all of our expenses with credit cards and the total amount due is automatically subtracted from our checking account when it’s due, this way we never pay interest. We use our credit cards for pretty much everything, medical bills, auto repairs, utilities, groceries, travel and the list goes on.

Flights

First up, we had to get to Disneyland! We booked our flights using our Alaska Airlines miles. Fortunately, my husband has quite a few airline miles accrued because of his job. I don’t recommend just using miles when you want to go somewhere, I suggest you still watch for low fares. Usually when fares are low the amount of miles you need is lower too. Flying from Seattle to California isn’t that expensive and it’s easy for us to find deals. This is one of the reasons why it’s easy for us to take quick trips to Disneyland. If you have an airline that you frequent, look into the credit card for that airline, they will often have bonuses when you sign up. Alaska is currently offering 40,000 bonus miles. As an example, our flights to California were only 7500 miles each. You could easily send 2 people round-trip somewhere with 40,000 miles.

Hotel

Next up we booked our hotel using our Marriott Rewards. One of the main reasons we opened the Marriott credit card is because we had a trip planned for Tokyo that was a couple of years out and we wanted to save up some points so we could get a few free hotel stays on that trip. We have enough points for 3 nights in Tokyo so we used some of the extra points for this stay. We scored two free nights at the Four Points Sheraton, one night stay was free with our anniversary reward and the second night we booked using 25,000 reward points.

One of the perks of signing up for the hotel rewards credit cards is they give you bonus points for signing up, which makes it a fairly quick and easy way to save on a Disney trip, it will take only a few months to earn this bonus reward.

Both my husband and I have Hyatt Rewards cards too, the offer when we signed up were 2 free nights at ANY hotel. We used both our free nights when we went to Paris. If you are looking to maximize your rewards, sign up fo the rewards cards separately instead of adding your spouse onto you credit card. You will get double the bonus sign-up rewards! Decide on your favorite hotel chain and sign up for that card.

Park Tickets

Once we had our flight and hotel booked, we needed to take care of the Park tickets. Both my husband and I have an annual pass so we only needed to buy a ticket for our youngest (the older kids are off at college). I have a Disney Visa and I used the rewards from that card to pay for his 2-day Park Hopper ticket. I know what some of you are going to say…if you have annual passes than the trip wasn’t actually free. Guess what??? I actually paid for the passes last year with credit card rewards!! See how fun this is? I have seriously been saving my rewards for nearly 10 years and we are now reaping the rewards.

We also bought tickets for all three of us to attend the Oogie Boogie Bash and those tickets were bought with the rewards from my Disney Visa too.

Food

Since this was a short trip there wasn’t a huge food expense, the items were paid for with my Disney Visa Rewards. Another general money saving tip is to share meals and just drink water from the restaurants. You can ask for a cup of ice water from any restaurant, you don’t have to buy bottled water or soda, it’s a great way to save. Because of our annual pass, we also save 20% on our meals. We ate breakfast at Panera one morning and I paid for that with a Panera gift card I earned from ibotta.

Lightsaber building

This trip happened during our son’s birthday and we knew that he would love making his own lightsaber at Savi’s Workshop. We gifted him with a new wallet (he lost his old one) and we put a note inside telling him he had an appointment to make a lightsaber at Savi’s Workshop. My husband built one on our last trip and the whole experience is completely magical, especially if you are a die hard Star Wars fan. My son absolutely loved the entire experience, he went on and on, all day long about how it was one of the coolest things he’s ever done. This experience was paid for with my Disney Visa Rewards (I’m starting to sound like a broken record, aren’t I?)

Rental Car

The last expense we had on this trip was our rental car. We always book a rental car through Costco, it is often times cheaper than it is to pay for a shuttle. The trick is to book your car and keep checking back every week to see if the price drops. If the price is lower you can book the new car at the lower rate and cancel your old one. I find that I can usually get the best deal about 3 weeks prior to our departure date. Sometimes, I find 2-3 days before I pick up the car there is a major drop in the price too. I paid for the rental car with the rewards from my Costco Visa (you thought I was going to say Disney Rewards, didn’t you?). The Costco Visa is probably the rewards card I used most now, because the perks are the best. With the Costco rewards, you will get a rebate check once a year, the check can be redeemed at Costco or you can get cash back. I opted for cash and used some of the money on our rental car and the cost of parking at the hotel. Booyah!

Whenever we take our trips to Disneyland we usually always incorporate one or two credit card rewards in some way. This was the first trip we took where I actually used rewards to pay for the entire trip and it was kind of exciting. Unfortunately, this trip used up a lot of our rewards so I am going to have to start saving again.

I hope this encourages you to come up with some creative ways to save on your next Disney trip, whether it’s with airline miles, credit card rewards or just basic money saving tactics like sharing meals or ordering free water.

Another great way to save on a Disneyland vacation is by booking your trip through Get Away Today. I have found Get Away Today has some of the best deals! When we aren’t using rewards for our hotels or tickets I usually always book my Disneyland trips through Get Away Today. If you book a package for 2 nights or longer, you can use the code THRIVING10 to save an additional $10 off the package price. You can also purchase discounted Disneyland tickets through Get Away Today too.

Once again, here is the rundown of how we used our rewards to get this trip for free:

Flight – Alaska Airline miles
Hotel – Marriott Rewards
Park Tickets – Disney Visa Rewards
Lightsaber Building Experience – Disney Visa Rewards
Food – Disney Rewards Visa & gift card from ibotta
Rental Car – Costco Visa Rewards

It’s worth mentioning that we planned our stay with the minimum hotel nights as possible. We flew in Thursday morning, went to Oogie Boogie Bash that evening, spent Friday in the parks all day, we then spent 1/2 the day on the park on Saturday and flew home late Saturday night. Since we made our arrival and departure days park days, less hotel stays were required. This may not work for everyone, but we live fairly close to California and we visit on a regular basis so we don’t feel the need to fit everything in all in one trip. Just another tip your might try when booking your trip.

We visit Disneyland on a regular basis and we have a bunch of posts to help you with your trip planning, check them out below:

I don’t recommend signing up for all the credit cards at once, just pick one and start with that, maybe a couple years later add another one. If you have experience with traveling with rewards I’d love to hear what your favorite cards are, let me know!

The post Disneyland Vacation Booked Totally with Credit Card Rewards appeared first on Gather Lemons.

Disney California Adventure Food & Wine Festival 2020

Christy — Fri, 06 Mar 2020 18:05:58 +0000

Have you been to Disneyland during the Food & Wine Festival? This year the Food & Wine festival can be found throughout the California Adventure Park from February 28 – April 21, 2020. This festival features food and beverages from around the Golden State of California. You will find 13 festival marketplaces, family-friendly seminars, and visits from celebrity chefs. There is not an extra fee to attend the Food & Wine festival, it comes with your entry into California Adventure.

Are you vegan or gluten-free? There is plenty for you too! Pick up a Food & Wine tasting passport and it will tell you which options are vegan and gluten-free.

You can save yourself a little bit of money by purchasing the Sip and Savor Pass. This pass includes a souvenir lanyard and entitles you to eight select food or non-alcoholic beverage items from participating Marketplaces, Paradise Garden Grill and select Festival Food & Beverage Carts. You can use all the coupons in a single day, or spread them out over multiple visits. You can purchase the Sip and Savor Pass at Trolley Treats, Elias & Co., Seaside Souvenirs, the Sip and Savor Cart, Festival Marketplaces, Festival Gift and Artist Corner and the Studio Store in Hollywood Land. Because I always want to make sure I am getting my money’s worth, I did some math. The Sip & Savor pass costs you $56, which comes out to $7.00 per item. Make sure you are only redeeming the coupons on items that are worth more than $7.00. If you want to try an item that is less than $7.00, just pay for it out of your pocket. If you are an annual passholder the Sip & Savor Pass is $51 ($6.37 per item). Make sure you don’t break off the tabs until you are at the register and told to do so.

A few of our favorite foods show up year after year, but they bring in so many new items each year. Here is a peek at all the different booths and all the food we sampled during out trip to the Food & Wine festival this year. We were happy with all of the food items we ordered (with the exception of one salmon item). Some we loved so much we ordered more than once.

Nuts About Cheese

Fiscalini White Cheddar Lager Soup served in a Mini Boudin® Sourdough Bowl (Vegetarian)
Impossible Cheeseburger Mac & Cheese (Vegetarian)
Oikos® Greek Yogurt Banoffee Tart

Peppers Cali-ente

Verlasso Sustainable Salmon Peruvian Poke with Cucumber-Lime Salad and Aji Verde Salsa (GF)
Ghost Pepper Mac and Cheese with Chili Cheese Corn Chip Dust (V)

One in a Melon Marketplace

Compressed Watermelon and Tomato with Whipped Ricotta and Lemon Olive Oil (Vegetarian, Gluten-Friendly)
Poke-style Watermelon with Cucumber (Plant-Based, Gluten-Friendly)
Pabana Cream Puff with Mango, Passion Fruit and Banana Mousse
House-made Watermelon Agua Fresca (Non-Alcoholic)

I <3 Artichokes

Fried Artichokes with Lemon Aïoli (Vegetarian)
Artichoke Toast with Artichoke Cream Cheese and Olive & Artichoke Tapenade (Vegetarian)

Berry Patch

Raspberry-Lychee-Rose Custard with Mixed Berry Compote
Oikos® Greek Yogurt California Berries Summer Pudding (Contains trace amounts of alcohol)
Ruby Citrus Sparkler (Non-Alcoholic)

Avocado Time The Impossible burger is vegan and it was AMAZING!! Seriously, I was super impressed with the taste and the texture. Give it a try!

Petite Impossible Burger with Guac and Pepper Jack (Vegetarian) – one of our faves!
Tortilla-crusted Fried Guacamole with Carne Asada

Golden Dreams

Brunch Fried Chicken & Waffle Sandwich with Mimosa-inspired Slaw and OJ Bubbles
Seared Verlasso® Salmon with Lemon Pea Purée, Black Rice and Meyer Lemon Relish (Gluten-Friendly) – salmon was dry, not a fan.
Strawberry-Rose Lemonade (Non-Alcoholic)
Fig & Lavender Cold Brew (Non-Alcoholic)

Cluck-A-Doodle Moo

Ranch Fried Chicken Wings with Buffalo Hot Sauce Drizzle
French Onion Grilled Beef Tenderloin Slider
Chocolate Hazelnut Crunch

Garlic Kissed

Black Garlic Soy-braised Pork Belly Banh Mi
Carbonara Garlic Mac & Cheese with Nueske’s® Bacon

Off the Cob

Mini Chicken Chimis with Chimichurri Corn Pico de Gallo and Chipotle Crema
Shrimp and Braised Corn with Chorizo (Gluten-Friendly)
Mickey-shaped Caramel-Peanut-Milk Chocolate Macaron – this was divine!
Farmstand Punch (Non-Alcoholic)

LA Style

Asian-style Beef Barbacoa Street Tacos
Smoked Bacon Barbecue Beef Loco Moco on Rice (Gluten-Friendly)
Monkey Bread with Caramel Whiskey Glaze and Candied Pecans (Contains trace amounts of alcohol)

Here is a tip: If you find a specific line to purchase food is really long, you can go to a different booth and place your order. You will then take your receipt back to the original booth to redeem for your food. I’m not really sure if this helps all that much because if the line for ordering is long the line for redemption is long too. It’s helpful information to have in case you want to give it a try.

Make sure you check out the Jammin’ Chefs, they use pots, pans and percussion to entertain you. Chip & Dale also dance and play along. Junior Chefs can see Goofy as he leads an interactive experience for kids ages 3 to 11. There is a “tasty surprise” at the end of the demonstration. There is also a fun coloring station for kids too.

Reservations are required for some events as well as an additional charge. Head on over to Disneyland.com to make reservations for those events.

You will also find festival merchandise, including cute themed Minnie ears.

If you want to enjoy the California Adventure Food & Wine festival I recommend booking a trip through Get Away Today. They sell discounted Disneyland tickets and their package deals with a hotel and Disneyland tickets can’t be beat. If you book a package deal use the code Thriving10 at checkout to save an extra $10.

If you have never been to a Food & Wine festival, I highly recommend attending one. The festival at California Adventure is great, but we really love the one at Disney World which happens in the fall. If you are looking for discount travel to Disney World I recommend Undercover Tourist.

Check out more Disney information on the blog:

The post Disney California Adventure Food & Wine Festival 2020 appeared first on Gather Lemons.

What’s Included with a Disneyland Costco Ticket Package

Christy — Mon, 02 Mar 2020 16:00:50 +0000

Booking a package deal to Disneyland can often times save you money and the majority of our Disneyland vacations have been booked with a package deal. Two of my favorite places to book Disneyland packages are through Get Away Today and Costco Travel. I should mention when booking a package deal we always book our airfare separately, we don’t include that in the Costco Disneyland tickets package.

What Comes with your Costco Disneyland Tickets Package

I am going to show you all the items and extras included in the Costco Disneyland Travel package for 2020 (styles and colors of extras will vary). Tickets that are part of your vacation package, along with your other vacation documents, will be delivered to your hotel to be picked up when you check in. Here is a peek at what’s included in the package and some tips too.

Hotel Voucher

You will receive a voucher for your hotel stay that will be sent directly to the hotel. Many times parking fees will be included or reduced with your stay, so if you have a car that will save you a little extra. When you book your package through Costco Travel you can choose from several different hotel options. You can choose a Disneyland hotel or one of the Good Neighbor hotels. The package price will vary depending on the hotel you choose. They give you a ton of options and price ranges!

Disneyland Park Tickets

You can customize your vacation by choosing how many days you want to spend in the parks, you can choose between 2-5 days. Here’s a tip! We always choose the minimum amount of days we think we will be in the park. If we are deciding between spending 2 or 3 days in the park we choose to buy the 2 day park tickets. If you decide you want the extra 3rd day in the parks you can easily add the extra day to your ticket and just pay the difference between the cost of the 2-day and 3-day ticket. (You MUST upgrade your ticket BEFORE the park closes on the last day you use the ticket for park admission).

Also, it’s important to note that you DO NOT have to buy Park Hoppers. The package quotes usually contain Park Hoppers, but you can easily change the type of ticket you want at checkout. If we are only spending 2 days in the park we get the 2-Day 1-Park per day tickets. We save approximately $50 per ticket by choosing this option instead of the Park Hoppers. You also have the option of adding Max Pass to your ticket package. Max Pass allows you to book your Fast Pass selections via your phone instead of claiming them in person at each ride kiosk. You will also get all the Photo Pass photos for the day. Max Pass isn’t cheap, it’s $20 per person per day. It can add up quickly, lots of people rave about the convenience and say it’s worth the extra money. We tend to stick with the regular Fast Pass options, we have teenagers run and get all the Fast Passes for everyone and it works out great for us (and saves us money).

Disney Gift Card

When you purchase your Disneyland trip through Costco you will receive a Disney gift card as a bonus. The gift card amount will vary from $145-$245 depending on the length of your stay and the hotel you choose.

Disney Hotel – If you stay at a Disney hotel you will receive one gift card per package depending on the amount of nights you stay.

Stay 2 to 4 nights and receive a $185 Disney Gift Card
Stay 5 nights and receive a $205 Disney Gift Card
Stay 6 nights and receive a $225 Disney Gift Card
Stay 7 nights or more and receive a $245 Disney Gift Card

Good Neighbor Hotel – Get a $145 Disney Gift Card when you book a stay at a Good Neighbor hotel for 2 nights or more.

Magical Extras Savings Card

You will also receive a coupon book with additional savings and perks. The contents of the coupon book will vary from year to year. You will find coupons in this book to save money at Downtown Disney, save 15% on Disneyland Resort Park tour and more.

Lanyard and Pins

Redeem a voucher at a designated location and you will get a Disney lanyard and pin for each person in your the reservation. This is a fun bonus because your kids can trade the Disney pins with Disney Cast members. This has been a perk with Costco packages for awhile now. We booked our first package 9 years ago and we received them back then too.

Splitsville Luxury Lanes Bowling Discount

Roll into vacation with some savings on bowling at Splitsville Luxury Lanes in the Downtown Disney® District! Guests traveling on a vacation package receive $5.00 off bowling per person. (Applicable to walk-in rates only.)

Important Information

You may be surprised to see how much you can save when booking a package deal (it’s not always the case, but most of the time the savings were pretty big for us). If you have a Disney trip planned I encourage you to price out a package with both Costco Travel and Get Away Today and then see what the cost would be individually by booking a room directly through the hotel and buying your Disneyland tickets either through Disney or save a little by purchasing the tickets through Get Away Today.

Here are a few important facts when booking your Disneyland Travel package through Costco:

If you are an Executive Member, you can earn 2% on your Costco Travel purchases!
You will pay a $200 deposit at the time of booking and the remainder is due one month before your departure date.
When paying for your package you can pay with your Disney Rewards card if you have a Disney Visa. I noticed this option when I checked out. I am assuming you should be able to pay with a Disney gift card too. (This is technically purchased through Disney Travel)
You can pay the final amount due online via Disney, you just need the reservation number and your phone number. You should have received and email after you first booked your trip that will include the reservation number.

Cost Breakdown

Here is a peek at the cost breakdown I found when planning a trip for this year:

Get Away Today = $1820

Hotel
Disneyland Tickets (3 – 3-day Park Hoppers)
Lanyards (given to you at check-in)

Costco Travel = $2003

Hotel
Costco Disneyland Tickets (3 – 3-day Park Hopper tickets)
$145 Disney Gift Card (Bonus)
3 Lanyards and pins (Bonus)

Booking Hotel & Tickets individually = $1978

Hotel = $898.50
Disneyland Tickets from Get Away Today (3 – 3-day one park per day tickets) = $1080

In this case I would choose Get Away Today over Costco, but I would choose Costco over booking the items individually. I would subtract the cost of the gift card from the overall cost because this will be saving money that we would have spent on food in the parks anyway. After the deductions, the final cost of the Costco vacation would be $1858. Prices will vary every time you book depending on the season and availability. When we book a package deal more than half of the time we order from Get Away Today and the rest of the time we order from Costco.

Costco’s Disneyland Extras vary from year to year, here is a peek at some of the items that have been included in previous years, these items are not available for packages purchased for travel in 2020.

Luggage Tags

Premium Character Dining Vouchers

Here is the best part about the Costco character vouchers (in my opinion)! If you read the fine print on the back of the vouchers, they can be used at ANY Disney restaurant and each voucher is worth $49 for the adult vouchers and $29 for the kids vouchers. We prefer to use this option when we redeem our vouchers.

So, instead of using all 4 vouchers on 1 breakfast for our family, we use the four voucher individually at 4 different restaurants to cover almost an entire meal for our family. That is 4 meals covered instead of just one! One voucher for $49 can easily cover a meal for four people if you choose a quick service restaurant.

You will want to make sure that the meal you are purchasing is as close to the $49 value in order to get your money’s worth, because they will not give you any cash back. As an example, if you have a group of 2 and your meal only comes to $25, you will lose the additional $24 that the voucher was worth. If your group is small I would recommend eating at a nicer restaurant to get the full value of the vouchers. I highly recommend the Monte Cristo at Cafe Orleans.

Here are a few other popular Disney post to help you make the most of your trip:

The post What’s Included with a Disneyland Costco Ticket Package appeared first on Gather Lemons.

Exclusive Disneyland Discount Code

Christy — Wed, 22 Jan 2020 18:33:10 +0000

Hello friends! I am heading to Disneyland and I am crossing my fingers that I get the chance to experience the new Rise of the Resistance attraction in Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge. I have been a huge Star Wars fan since I was in elementary school when I saw the very first movie, to say I am just a little excited to check out this immersive attraction would be an understatement.

While I am traveling and visiting Disneyland the great folks at Get Away Today are offering an exclusive discount code to save you an additional $20 on your Disneyland hotel & ticket package. Just book a 2-day or longer trip with a hotel & tickets and use the code THRIFTY20 at checkout. This code is valid January 22-27, 2020. Right now you can Save $86 per child on all 3-Day Disneyland Resort tickets for travel now – May 21, 2020!

In addition to seeing what’s new at Disneyland we will also be visiting my son who starts his job this week as an official cast member at Disneyland. He is taking part in the Disney College Program. He was assigned to an attraction, but he didn’t learn the specific attraction until this week. My son will be a cast member at it’s a small world! This is totally funny to our family, because it’s the one ride pretty much everyone in my family refuses to ride with me. He’s totally taking his roll seriously though, he’s already read up on all the history about it’s a small world.

You can share in the adventure and the excitement of Disney in the following ways:

Join our Disney Planning & Tips Facebook group – We’ll be be post updates and tips about getting a boarding group for Rise of the Resistance. You can join us and other Disney fans who are looking to plan and share tips about Disneyland, Disney World, Aulani and even the international Disney Parks.

Follow along on our Disney Vacationeers Instagram account – We’ll be sharing photos and stories about out visit to Disneyland

Read the Blog – The Disney parks are some of our favorite places to vacation. We have a ton of posts to keep you informed and help you make the most of your trip.

If you are in the process of planning a Disney trip make sure you check out our other Disney related posts, we have a ton of great Disney content:

The post Exclusive Disneyland Discount Code appeared first on Gather Lemons.

Save on Disneyland Tickets

Christy — Wed, 08 Jan 2020 20:30:21 +0000

Some affiliate links are used in this post, if you make a purchase I may earn a small commission.

You won’t find huge discounts on a trip to Disneyland, but I am sharing some ways you can save on your Disneyland tickets! Some are straight forward discounts and others are more creative, but they all will save you some money. First, make sure you only buy the type of tickets you need. If you are unsure if you will use a 4-day Park Hopper, just buy the 3-Day Park Hopper. You can always add an additional day before the park closes on the last day of your 3-day ticket. You can also save money by choosing one park per day tickets over Park Hoppers. If we have a 2-day trip planned we will just buy two of the one park per day tickets and spend one full day at each park. This option saves us $45 per ticket. Here are a number of ways to save on Disneyland tickets. We will keep this post updated as new deals pop up.

Get Away Today – You can buy discounted tickets to Disneyland every day through Get Away Today. This is a reputable company that I have personally used more than 10 times and I have always been pleased with the service. You can purchase individual tickets or a package deal that includes tickets and a hotel. I have found that the Get Away Today vacation packages often beat the prices of booking your hotel and buying tickets individually. You can save an extra $10 off the low package price by using the discount code THRIVING10 at checkout.

Costco – You can book a package deal through Costco Travel that may save you money on a hotel/Disneyland ticket combo. The Disneyland Costco packages usually contain extras like a Disney gift card and pins and lanyards. Also, when booking through Costco travel you can pay with your Disney Visa Rewards or a Disney Gift Card.

Disney Visa – If you sign up for the Disney Visa you will earn points for every dollar you spend. You can then use those points to purchase Disney tickets (or hotel stays, food, souvenirs or more). In addition to earning points to spend at Disney, they had an offer where you will get a FREE $200 Disney gift card if you open and account and spend $500 within the first 3 months. We did this offer for both my husband and myself several years ago and it gave us a free $400 to put towards our Disneyland tickets. The Disney points may not save you money right away but it is a great way to save up for a future Disney trip. (This method will only save you money if you pay off your balance in full every month. You do not want to carry a balance on the card) The current Disney Rewards Visa offer is a $300 statement credit for the Premier Visa & a $150 credit for the no-annual fee Disney Visa.

Target REDcard – Target sells Disneyland Park tickets, so you can purchase your Disneyland tickets via Target.com and save 5% with your REDcard. They sell both Disneyland one-park per day tickets and Disneyland Park Hoppers. You will also have the option to buy with or without Genie+. You can also save 5% on Disney gift cards if you use your REDcard which can save you money on park tickets or your food or souvenirs.

Military Discount – Active and retired U.S. military personnel can purchase Military Promotional 3-Day and 4-Day Disneyland Park Hopper Tickets. Contact your participating U.S. military base ticket office for all the details.

Consider an Annual Pass – If you visit Disneyland on a yearly basis (or more often) an annual pass might be a way you can save money. In addition to admission to the parks you can also get discounts on food and merchandise. We occasionally buy one annual pass because with the additional discounts it is worth it to buy it for one person. My husband usually get the annual pass and then the dining & merchandise discounts can be used for our entire family.

Here is an example of the thought process on how we decided to get a pass (I used regular discounted rates from Get Away Today, because that is the price we would have paid, not the prices at the gates). Please note pass prices have gone up, but this is still the method you would use when deciding on an annual pass, just use current prices.

We had a trip planned for October (cost of 3-day Park Hopper = $310)
We had a couple only trip planned for Disneyland the following year in April (this trip was getting tacked onto a business trip my husband had in California (cost of 2 One-Park a day ticket = $197)
We had a trip planned the following year in August (cost of 3-day Park Hopper = $310)

The cost of a Disney Signature Passport was $849 and the cost of all the admissions we had planned was $817. We were just $32 shy of breaking even on the Disneyland park tickets. This pass offers 15% discount on dining and a 20% discount on merchandise so we knew we would be able to save that extra $32 over the course of the year. This is the reason why we only buy a pass for one family member, it usually is for my husband because he is the one with business trips to California. In addition to savings from Disney, there are some Good Neighbor hotels that also offer a discount if you are an annual passholder. Just something to consider.

In the past we have also purchased the Disney Premier Passport which offers admission to both Disneyland and Disney World. It was much cheaper when we first purchased it, but if you plan to visit both Disney Parks in the same year it might be a good option. The pass for Disney World does not offer as many dining discounts, but it does offer the merchandise discounts and even admission to the water parks and more.

I’d love to hear if you have ways that you save money on Disneyland tickets.

Disneyland is one of our favorite vacation destinations, you can check out our complete guide to the newly reimagined Pixar Pier. If you have a trip planned this year make sure you check out our other Disney posts too:

The post Save on Disneyland Tickets appeared first on Gather Lemons.

Holidays at the Disneyland Resort

Christy — Thu, 19 Dec 2019 18:01:24 +0000

A trip to Disneyland is magical, but a trip to Disneyland during the holiday season is extra magical! I love visiting Disneyland at Christmastime, both parks are decorated for the holidays and you can hear Christmas music playing everywhere. It’s the best combination…Christmas and Disneyland.

I just returned from a trip to Disneyland with my sister and here is a peek at all the fun we experienced at Disneyland during the holidays. This year the holidays season at Disneyland runs from November 8 – January 6, 2020.

We stayed at one of my “go-to” hotels which is right across the street from the entrance of Disneyland, the Tropicana Inn & Suites. You can check out our thoughts on all of the hotels we’ve used near the Disneyland Resort. Our trip was booked through Get Away Today, they really have some of the best deals when it comes to Disneyland vacations.

The parks are all decked out for the holidays, you’ll find a big Christmas tree on main street, garland, lights and decor all over the parks. They really go all out!

The holiday decor in Cars Land is so much fun! They are so clever and creative with the holiday decorations, they make sure it’s festive and that it fits with the theme of Cars Land. I swear, everywhere you look in Disneyland and California Adventure there are fun touches of holiday magic.

Even the characters are dressed in their holiday best! There are lots of opportunities to take photos with your favorite characters dressed up in their holidays attire. To find out when and where the characters will be, consult the Disneyland app.

Some of the attractions get dressed up for the holidays too, here are two of the most of popular ones:

It’s a Small World Holiday – It’s a Small World get’s decked out for the holidays. Listen as the costumed chorus of children sing a medley of traditional holiday tunes and the classic “It’s a Small World (After All).”

Haunted Mansion Holiday – Pumpkin King Jack Skellington has decorated the Haunted Mansion with frightfully festive touches inspired by Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas.

You can be there the moment they flip the switch and turn on all the holiday lights on the facade of It’s a Small World, it happens everyday at 5:15. The building is absolutely beautiful all decked out in twinkling lights. I highly recommend watching it all happen one of the days during your trip. There really isn’t a need to wait, you can just walk up a few minutes before it happens.

Another fun lighting event that happens is the Christmas tree lighting on Main Street, this happens at 4:55. There is a tree lighting that takes place over at California Adventure too. You can see the Buena Vista Street Holiday Tree Lighting at 4:55 every night.

You can’t miss the lighting at Sleeping Beauty Castle, it looks absolutely beautiful all decked out in icicles, wreaths and festive décor. You can gather to see the castle glow. Times may vary, so consult the day you are there, but the lightings usually happen at 7:30 and 8:30 every night.

You can watch A Christmas Fantasy Parade with Mickey and Minnie and lots of your other favorite characters. We were there are the beginning of December and had no problem finding a spot just minutes before the parade started. We caught the parade twice while we were there and we had a great viewing spot both times.

If you are visiting during a busier time during the holidays you will probably want to grab a spot up to 30 minutes before the parade starts. This is definitely a parade kids will love because they will get to see their favorite characters.

In addition to all the fun Disney characters at the end of the parade you get a visit from Santa Claus himself!

Of course one of my favorite things about visiting the Disneyland Resort is the yummy food and treats and during the holidays there are tons of fun new things to eat. Here is a sampling of some of the food we tried, we’re sharing our thoughts on what you should eat and what you should avoid too.

Before our trip I checked out the Holiday Foodie Guide for Disneyland, I knew I wanted to try this Mickey Gingerbread Cookie, not only is he cute but he’s delicious too! You can find the Mickey Gingerbread Cookie at several places including Jolly Holly Bakery and Market House in Disneyland and at Clarabelle’s, Fiddler Fifer & Practical Cafe (Starbucks) and the Cappuccino Cart in California Adventure. If you have this on your list make sure you grab him sooner rather than later, he’s a popular one and sold out by the middle of the day when we were there. Luckily we were able to grab him on our last day.

I seriously make a mental list of the treats I want to try when they have special events. This one wasn’t on my list, but when we stopped at Market House (Starbucks) in Disneyland and I saw this beauty sitting in the case I knew we had to give it a try. It was good, I would buy it again. It’s almost too pretty to eat. This Holiday Linzer Cookie is only available at the Market House in Disneyland.

Whenever we head to Disneyland stopping at Cafe Orleans is a must! Our family love the Monte Cristo Sandwich and Pomme Frites. We always share the Monte Cristo because it’s way too much for one person, which meant we had enough room for dessert so we tried the holiday special of Hot Chocolate Beignets. Yum! These were so good. We actually saved some of the raspberry jam from our Monte Cristo and dipped the Beignets in that too and it made it even better.

I also consulted the Holiday Foodie Guide For Disney California Adventure and made my list. A churro is a must on every Disney trip and this time we tried the Sugar Cookie Churro. It was good, but the frosting made it a little too sweet. I think it would have been much better if it was just drizzled on top. I wouldn’t buy this one again.

I was really looking forward to trying the Peppermint Soft Serve cone from the Cozy Cone Motel. Unfortunately, I was not impressed by this one at all (and so many other people have raved about it, I’m totally confused). I couldn’t eat it all, the peppermint ice cream just wasn’t that great. Skip this cone and go for the Chocolate-Peppermint Sundae at Clarabelle’s, it was divine! The peppermint ice cream is how Peppermint ice cream should taste, plus it has chocolate which takes it to the next level.

Once of the fun events that happens this time of year is the Festival of Holidays over at California Adventure. It is similar to the Food & Wine Festival where booths are set up and you can sample different food and drinks. There is an option to buy a Sip & Savor pass but I didn’t see huge savings in buying the pass so we skipped it. I of course consulted the Holiday Foodie Guide for Festival of Holidays and made our wish list.

Here is what we tried at the Festival of Holidays:

Chorizo Fundido – Served with House-made Tortilla Chips. This dip was so good! Definitely one of our faves. We could have used a little more tortilla chips though because we had some dip left over. We just stopped by the Boudin Bakery and got a couple of sourdough bread samples to finish off our dip.

Holiday Stuffing Mac & Cheese – This was really good too! I loved the little crunch from the stuffing crumbled on top of the mac & cheese.

Pork al Pastor Naan Taco – With Pineapple Pico de Gallo and Cilantro-Lime Crema. I absolutely loved this one! I was surprised how much I really loved the pineapple with the pork. Yummy!

There were several other items we would have loved to try, I think the offerings during the Festival of Holidays are great!

The Festival of Holidays also includes some great entertainment too. You can catch a street party hosted by the Three Caballeros, bands, groups and a dance company too.

You’ll also find holiday entertainment to end your evening at both Disney Parks for the holidays.

“Believe…in Holiday Magic” Fireworks show – Over at Disneyland you can enjoy the “Believe…in Holiday Magic” Fireworks show. It ends with it snowing on Main Street. It’s really is a magical feeling! My favorite place to view the fireworks is on Main Street, U.S.A. You’ll be able to see the fireworks and the projections on Sleeping Beauty Castle and the Main Street buildings. Another great option for fireworks viewing is at It’s a Small World, they also do projections on the facade of the building. I personally don’t recommend standing directly in front of the castle, it gets super crowded. At the end of the show it will begin to magically snow on Main Street. It’s so festive!

World of Color: Season of Light – This is a combination of cherished holiday music with memorable moments from treasured Disney animated films. You can get a FASTPASS to view the show (or use MAXPASS). You can also get a voucher for the show with a World of Color Dining Package.

I’m going to share my World of Color viewing tip with you…make a late as possible reservation at Lamplight Lounge and you should be able to stay and view the show from your table. We’ve done this three times now and it’s a very relaxing way to view the show. You may not always have the best view, but it’s nice to be able to sit and watch the show at the end of the day rather than watching it standing on your feet in a crowd. While there, make sure you order the Donuts with Raspberry & Chocolate dipping sauce. They are divine!

I highly recommend visiting the Disneyland Resort during the holidays! I prefer to visit earlier in the holiday season and not anytime near the week of Christmas. That’s a crazy time! If you are looking to plan a Disneyland vacation I recommend booking your trip through Get Away Today, you can purchase individual tickets or a package deal that includes tickets and a hotel. The Get Away Today vacation packages often beat the prices of booking your hotel and buying tickets separately. You can save an extra $10 off the low package price by using the discount code THRIVING10 at checkout.

We love Disneyland and have numerous posts and tips to help you make the post of your trip. If you have any questions, let me know, I am always happy to chat Disney.

The post Holidays at the Disneyland Resort appeared first on Gather Lemons.

Make Custom Lightsaber at Savi’s Workshop at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge

Christy — Wed, 31 Jul 2019 15:33:10 +0000

When you visit Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, you will find that two of the most popular attractions are Oga’s Cantina and the custom lightsabers at Savi’s Workshop. If you are a big Star Wars fan, making your own custom lightsaber will probably be high on your to do list. The custom lightsaber building is an experience as well as a souvenir and it comes with a high price tag. The cost is $219 and there are no annual pass discounts.

If you want to ensure you get a spot in one of the lightsaber workshops I highly recommend booking a reservation, you can now book reservations for Savi’s Workshop up to 14 days in advance. In the future, Savi’s Workshop will go to the usual 60 days in advance Disney reservation system. You can also check if there are any opening first thing in the morning the day you visit Disneyland. You must first have a Disneyland.com account. Once you’re logged in to your account, you should easily find where to make a reservation. If same-day reservations are available, they will be posted at 7 am PT that day. If you decide to make a reservation, it will require a credit card deposit.

Now that we’ve got the scary stuff out of the way (the price), let’s talk about the experience, because it is pretty amazing. We attended Savi’s Workshop opening weekend and there was not a lot of information out at the time about the experience and there are things we wish we would have know prior to visiting Galaxy’s Edge.

The cast members act as if they really are from a galaxy far far away. They are playing a role and some of them play it a little too well. We missed the first workshop because when we enquired about where we go to make lightsabers, they told us they had no idea what we were talking about and that they only sell “scrap metal”. By the time we figured out that “scrap metal” was actually the lightsabers, the workshop was booked. We were fortunate to have found an opening later in the day and jumped at the chance to buy some “scrap metal”.

Because lightsabers are not allowed by The First Order, Savi’s Workshop is unmarked, there is not a huge flashing sign that says “Make your lightsaber here”. You will want to look for the building with the blue banner. And don’t get caught saying the “L” word, you might get in trouble!

Once you get in line to pay for your “scrap metal” you will be given four options to choose from and each option has a different style hilt. This is something that is handy to know ahead of time, you can check out the different options ahead of time so you’ll know exactly which one you want to make. We felt a little rushed choosing our lightsaber because things were so busy (no regrets though, we are super happy with our choice). Here is peek at the four different styles. You will not use all of the pieces in each collection, they give you a couple different options so you can truly customize your lightsaber.

Peace and Justice

Protection and Defense

Power and Control

Elemental Nature

These pieces are not made of flimsy plastic, they are made of metal and have some really nice weight to them.

Once you’ve chosen your design, you will be given a pin that coordinates with your design choice and a color coded card that will assign you to a certain group. We were part of the orange group and we chose the Elemental Nature design. Each person that is building a lightsaber is allowed to bring two people in with them to witness the event.

Everything in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge is interactive. While we were waiting to make our lightsabers we were visited by Kylo Ren and a couple of Stormtroopers. They questioned people about what they were doing and of course we all had to pretend that we were only interested in buying scrap metal. This land is totally immersive, it’s truly amazing.

Once we were ushered into the workshop area, everyone was put at a station where we received a brief introduction to the lightsaber.

They shared the different colored Kyber crystals and who owns lightsabers with those colors (example: Yoda has a lightsaber with a green Kyber crystal).

We then had the chance to choose our own Kyber crystal. You can choose from blue, red, green and purple. You can also purchase additional Kyber crystals in Dok-Ondar’s Den of Antiquities.

Your Kyber crystal is placed in front of your building station and then the fun begins.

There are several people there to assist with the building process if you get stuck on any of the steps, but it really isn’t too hard to understand.

Here is my husband’s finished hilt using pieces from the Elemental Nature lightsabers kit. It’s a lot of fun customizing and trying out the different options. The pieces in the tray are leftover pieces that he didn’t use.

Once everyone has constructed their lightsaber hilts, they are attached into the the lightsaber area that is connected to the tables.

This is one of the most magical parts…all of the lightsabers light up and are revealed at the same time. It seriously gave me chills, but I am a Star Wars nerd who grew up in the 80’s, so your experience may be different.

At the end everyone raises their lightsabers! More chills! The whole experience was so cool, I would highly recommend it. The lightsaber also has realistic sound effects.

Lastly, you are given a padded bag to carry and protect your lightsaber. I love that the bag was included in the price and not another added expense. For the $199 price tag it totally makes sense that the bag is included, but Disney is known to charge extra here and there for things. Here are a couple things to think about when you make a custom lightsaber at Savi’s Workshop:

You will have to carry the lightsaber with you all day, so if that is a concern make plans to take it back to your hotel room or maybe book a spot towards the end of the day. It won’t be easy to go on attractions like Space Mountain with the big lightsaber.
We didn’t have any problem traveling home with the lightsaber. We made it through security without a problem. When we boarded the plane, we simply put the lightsaber at the very back of one of the overhead bins. It wasn’t a problem at all (we flew on Alaska Airlines). I can’t guarantee that everyone will have the same experience, but it is possible to fly home with the lightsaber.

If you have plans to visit Disneyland to see Batuu, I recommend checking out my Complete Guide to Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. If you are still in the process of planning a trip I highly recommend checking out vacation packages and ticket prices through Get Away Today. I have used them on numerous occasions and they usually always offer the best prices. They have great customer service too! You can save an additional $10 on any 2 night stay with Disneyland tickets by using the code THRIVING10 at checkout.

Looking for even more Disney? We have tons of posts for hotel recommendations, food choices and more.

The post Make Custom Lightsaber at Savi’s Workshop at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge appeared first on Gather Lemons.

Guide to Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Disneyland

Christy — Thu, 25 Jul 2019 15:03:57 +0000

When Disney announced they were making a Star Wars themed land I was so excited! I have been a huge Star Wars fan since I saw the first movie with my Dad back in the fourth grade (don’t do the math, you’ll find out I’m old). I became Star Wars obsessed! I had Star Wars sheets, a Star Wars lunchbox and I listened to the movie on a record in my room every night before I went to bed. My favorite character from the movie was Darth Vader and I thought the Stormtroopers were super cool too! I guess you could say I am a fan of the Dark Side (not in real life, I’m all light and goodness – I promise)! That’s why I was so excited to get to go to Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.

When I was finally able to set foot on Batuu, the feeling was magical. Getting to experience my favorite childhood movie in my favorite theme park was truly a dream come true. You do not have to be a Star Wars fan to appreciate the amazing theming of Galaxy’s Edge. It is so stinking cool and way better than I could have ever imagined! If you are in fact a Star Wars fan, you may even shed a tear!

If you plan to visit Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge before June 23rd you will need a reservation into Galaxy’s Edge in addition to your park tickets. There is no fee for the reservations, but all the regular reservations have been claimed. The only way to get a guaranteed reservation now, is to stay at one of the three Disneyland hotels. I recommend booking your Disneyland vacation through Get Away Today. I have used them many times, they have great customer service & their prices can’t be beat. If you book a vacation package, use the code THRIVING10 at checkout to save an additional $10 off the package price.

I’m giving you a complete overview of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge so you will be able to make the most of your visit.

Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge is a totally immersive land, you will feel like you left Disneyland and landed on another planet. One of the coolest things is that all the cast members act as if they truly are residents of Batuu. They even have their own language, here are a few things they say and what they mean:

Bright Suns – Good Morning
Rising Moons – Good Evening
Til the Spire = Farewell
Refresher = Bathroom
Hydrator = Water Fountain
Credits = Currency

Characters

The character interaction is different at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, you won’t line up to take photos with the characters, instead the characters roam throughout the land and interact with everyone. Some kids may be afraid of the characters (I get it, Kylo Ren freaks me out too). The characters are very good with the kids, none of them do anything scary, all the interactions I saw with children were fun.

The Stormtroopers may stop you to ask for your ID or to see what kind of business you have on Batuu. They are out looking for rebels and it is so cool! My husband got stopped by two Stormtroopers asking for his ID. It was so much fun to see my husband interact with some of my favorite childhood characters.

Attractions

There are two main attractions in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.

Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run – Ride in the famous cockpit of the Millennium Falcon, you will get to play one of the roles of pilot, engineer or gunner.

You are given a color coded card and put in groups of six, each group consists of 2 pilots, 2 gunners and 2 engineers. These are handed out at random, but you are welcome to trade with the people in your group. If you suffer from motion sickness I do not recommend that you be a pilot. The pilots are up front and see the images up close. I tend to get sick on Star Tours, but I was a gunner both times and I didn’t have any problems feeling sick afterwards.

There is a holding area where you wait for your color to be called. This gives you the opportunity for a photo op at the famous chess table.

Once you are called forward, you take your seats in the cockpit. The pilots sit up front, then the gunners and lastly the engineers. The height requirement for this ride is 38 inches. If you have a small child you will not be able to sit directly next to them, so keep that in mind. Whenever you need to push a button or pull a lever it will flash at you. There isn’t a ton of instruction given prior to take off, but the more you ride the more you will get the hang of things. Every person is given a score and the total of all 6 people gives you an overall score. The ride is a little chaotic, but a whole bunch of fun, especially if you are with a vocal group. It’s fun to yell, scream, cheer, and really get into the ride. It’s the Millennium Falcon for goodness sake! The pilot is the most active and exciting role in the ride (as long as you don’t get motion sickness). I was happy being a gunner both times.

Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance – Finally open as of January 17, 2020, this ride has been a hit! This is without a doubt, the most immersive ride at Disneyland. The cast members remain entirely in character throughout the queue experience as you move through multiple different locations before buckling into your transport. These vehicles contain two rows, each with four seats. The mechanics of the ride are pretty smooth and there is only one small drop, so I would consider it suitable for all guests that meet the height requirements. The visuals on this ride are incredible and the attraction transports you into such an exciting story that revolves around a capture by the First Order and a daring rescue from your fellow members of The Resistance! I won’t say too much else because the experience is best when you go in without knowing what’s going to happen!

Food & Drinks

Oga’s Cantina – This is a popular place! This is the only place in Disneyland where alcohol is served, and it must be consumed in the Cantina and there is a 2 drink limit. I don’t drink alcohol, but they have great non-alcoholic drinks too. The theming of the Cantina is just like you see in the movie.

Reservations for Oga’s Cantina can now be made up to 14 days in advance. Additional same-day reservations will be made available each day at 7:00 AM Pacific Time for visits that day and are subject to availability. Eventually, Oga’s Cantina, will be available for reservations up to 60-days in advance.

Here is a peek at the menu.

The atmosphere in Oga’s Cantina was chaotic, crowded, noisy and lively. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, it is a Cantina after all. When it comes to seating (or standing) there is a very good chance you will be with other people, they encourage you to socialize and get to know your fellow travelers.

There are a few tables that will seat large parties or a couple smaller parties.

They have tables for standing. You do not have to stay at the table the entire time, you are free to walk around. We were placed at a standing table with 2 other couples. Somebody will come and get your drink order. If you are at the bar area you can order directly from the bartenders.

I ordered the Carbon Freeze I and liked it a lot. My husband ordered the Blurgfire and neither one of us really like the Habanero Lime that was around the edge of the glass. We also ordered the Mustafaran Lava Roll which was a Cinnamon Roll with some cookie crumbles on top. It was yummy!

You’ll even find DJ Rex at Oga’s Cantina.

Mobile Food Ordering – Before I talk about more of the food, it’s important to stress how convenient and important it is to use mobile ordering. You can place your mobile food order via the Disneyland app. With Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge being so popular mobile order return times may fill up quickly so order your food early. You can schedule your pick-up time for hours later if necessary. You can use mobile ordering at the following locations:

Docking Bay 7 Food & Cargo
Ronto’s Roasters
Milk Stand

Docking Bay 7 Food & Cargo – There are lots of options here, we tried the Smoked Kaadu Ribs, sticky pork ribs served with a blueberry corn muffin and cabbage slaw. We won’t order this again, the coleslaw had too much vinegar. The ribs had a great flavor, but they were kind of fatty and very messy to eat. The cornbread was delicious though. We ordered the Moof Juice and we loved it! It was so refreshing, we will order this one again for sure.

I think the serving plates and utensils are perfectly themed. How cool is this spork? Some of the meal choices are a little out there, especially when it comes to kids meals, there aren’t a ton of great options for kids in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.

For dessert we tried the Batuu-Bon, it was so good! I highly recommend it. It’s supposed to have a coffee flavor, but I really couldn’t taste any at all. Get this one for sure!

Ronto’s Roasters – Great place for wraps for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

We had the Ronto Wrap and it was so good! It doesn’t look beautiful but the flavors are so good together. It’s a little spicy. I am not a fan of super spicy food and I could handle it just fine.

Here we chose the Meiloorun Juice and we loved this one too.

Milk Stand – I am once again going to stress how easy it is to use mobile ordering. The line at the milk stand was long. I checked my Disneyland app and I saw that you could mobile order the milk instantly and go pick it up. I placed my order on the app while standing next to the milk stand, I walked up to the counter and got my milk, it took less than 2 minutes. The line would have taken 15 minutes. Use mobile order my friends, it’s a huge time saver!

We of course had to try the Blue Milk. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t amazing. I don’t think we’ll order it again. It’s totally fun to try once though. I have heard many negative reviews on the green milk we decided to pass.

Kat Saka’s Kettle – You will find colorful flavored popcorn here, the popcorn is a mix of a sweet and savory. In addition to the popcorn, you can also purchase the super cool detonator Coke bottles. They have Coke, Diet Coke and Sprite. It’s a drink and a souvenir in one.

Experiences

Savi’s Workshop: Handbuilt Lightsabers – This workshop combines entertainment and retail into a shopping experience. The only way you will be able to see this cool experience is if you shell out the $199 to make a lightsaber. The lightsaber is not a cheap plastic one, the pommel is made of metal and is more of a collector’s item. This experience is better for older kids, teens and adults. If your child really want’s to build their own lightsaber they still have the less expensive option over at Star Traders in Tomorrowland. This is a popular one, you will need to get in line early to get a return time reservation. Many people were turned away because they couldn’t keep up with the crowds.

My husband convinced me that in order to give a full report on the blog it was necessary for him to make a lightsaber. He’s a giver! He’s always thinking of you, my wonderful readers. I have a post in the works to give you a full and complete review of the Handbuilt Lightsaber Workshop which will give a more in depth review.

We had such a hard time finding the Lightsaber workshop because all the inhabitants of Batuu were adamant that they didn’t sell lightsabers, they only sold scrap metal. We were finally informed that we didn’t say the “L” word on Batuu. So, if you are looking for this place and they ask if you are interested in scrap metal, say YES!! Savi’s Workshop isn’t clearly marked, so look for the blue banner outside the building.

Whether this experience is worth the hefty price tag will be a personal decision, but for us, it was well worth the $199 price tag. We have a family filled with Star Wars fans and this lightsaber will be cherished. The actual lightsaber building experience was fun and if you are a true Star Wars fan you may even get a little choked up.

The good news is the experience includes a carrying case for your lightsaber so you can protect your investment. You are allowed to bring two members in with you to watch the experience. Reservations for Savi’s Workshop can now be made up to 14 days in advance. Coming soon, reservations can be made 60 days in advance.

Droid Depot – Another combined shopping and entertainment experience is available at the Droid Depot. The cost for this one is $99. This is another popular place, but I didn’t see anyone turned away. From what I have seen this isn’t going to be a relaxing, take all the time you want way to make a droid kind of experience. It is noisy, chaotic and crowded (Hey! It sounds a little bit like Oga’s Cantina).

Once you pay for your droid, you will get to choose the pieces from a moving conveyor belt. This is just so cool! I can see kids (and adults) having so much fun with this.

After you select your pieces, head to one of the stations to assemble and activate your droid. Once complete you will get a remote control and a box to store you droid. You are not allowed to use your droids on the ground in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. You can take them out to admire them and maybe snap a selfie, but using the droid on the ground is not encouraged.

If you don’t want to make your own droid, you can shop for other droid merchandise. Maybe you want this life size working model of R2-D2. It will set you back $25,000. That is more than I have paid for any of my cars!

They have R2-D2 and BB8 headbands that actually make noise.

This bowl is pretty cool!

Merchants

Dok-Ondar’s Den of Antiquities – You will find an eclectic collection of merchandise from many different planets and eras. The line to get in this store can get long at times, but don’t let that stop you, it moves rather quickly and this merchant is a must see.

The doors to the shop and many of the other doors in Black Spire open automatically, just like you see in the movies. Kids (and adults) will think this is the coolest thing ever.

In addition to all the merchandise for sale the theming at this merchant is amazing. It’s fun to take in all the details.

The items they sell are pretty cool too. You’ll find jewelry, clothing, robes, rare Kyber crystals and more.

They also sell several lightsabers here, you can purchase one from your favorite Star Wars characters like Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luke Skywalker or Darth Maul.

First Order Cargo – Here you will find all your First Order merchandise from clothing, key chains, water bottles, pins and more.

Resistance Supply – You will find the Resistance Supply over where the Rise of Resistance ride will be.

Who wants a Chewie over the shoulder bag?

Kids were going crazy for the helmets. And by kids I mean men over the age of 18.

At the Market you find the following merchants.

Black Spire Outfitters – Pick up a robe or other casual attire to blend in with the locals. The interesting thing about this land is there are no items that say Disneyland or have pictures of Mickey Mouse on them, Disney really went all out in keeping with the theming of the land.

Jewels of Bith – This is a great place to pick up souvenirs from your stay at Black Spire village on Batuu.

They even have cooling fans that are Star Wars themed.

Creature Stall – Pick up exotic creatures and critters from around the galaxy at the Creature Stall.

I’m not gonna lie, some of the creatures are UGLY!

Toydarian Toymaker – Cute handmade toys that look like something you’d find at a galactic artisan market.

Disney Play app

If the amazing land isn’t enough, there is also an interactive component to the land that you can access through the Disney Play app.

You can scan codes, play mini games and translate signs.

Since our time was limited in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge we didn’t play with the app too much, but I can see this being super fun for kids and teens.

Theming

I can’t get over how amazing the theming is throughout the entire land. Just look at these drinking fountains and water bottle fill station.

Even the bathrooms are cool.

The garbage and recycling cans are neat too.

I was totally impressed with Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge and I can’t wait to visit again. It is truly an immersive land full of so much detail. I believe that people who aren’t Star Wars fans will also appreciate the land.

Once the land opens up to the public on June 24th, I recommend visiting during the day and the evening. At night it has a whole different feel to it.

If you stay until closing time you will be able to view fireworks from Galaxy’s Edge too. I hope you will be able to visit Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge soon. It’s amazing! Plan on visiting? booking your Disneyland vacation through Get Away Today.

The post Guide to Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Disneyland appeared first on Gather Lemons.

My Tips for Finding Cheap International Flights

Christy — Thu, 16 May 2019 16:49:34 +0000

This post contains affiliate links. If you sign up through my links, I receive a commission. My thoughts are honest and true.

We love to travel and have found that one of the most expensive parts of traveling internationally is the cost of the flights. Fortunately, I stumbled upon a site that helps me find the best deals on flights, it’s called Dollar Flight Club. Last year we were able to fly our family to London for $372 round trip per person!

Dollar Flight Club has a free subscription service that will get you 1/4 of the deals they find, however, I totally recommend paying for the premium service. The regular yearly rate for the Dollar Flight Club Premium service is $40, but right now you can use the code discount40 to save 40% off the regular rate. That means you will be paying only $24 for this service that can possibly save you hundreds on travel. The premium service gives you more flight deals than the free service and also includes extras like choosing your home airport, text alerts and more.

Last year we planned on taking a family vacation and we told my daughter that since she was graduating she could pick the destination (within reason). She really wanted to go to Paris, unfortunately we weren’t finding any flight deals and it was too expensive to fly 6 people at $900 per person. We had finally decided we would head to Canada, but thanks to Dollar Flight Club I saw an amazing deal on a flight to London, the tickets were only $372 round trip. I knew that London was a quick train ride away from Paris, so we decided to fly to London and split our vacation between London and Paris. I’m so glad we did! London was an amazing place and we can’t wait to go back.

Here are a few tips we use when it comes to getting deals on international flights:

Be flexible with your dates – Many people plan the dates of their vacation and then try to find deals to fit into those dates. You will find the best deals if you look for cheap flights first and then fit your vacation into those dates. I know this doesn’t always work, but it has worked for us on several occasions and it has saved us a ton a money. We do the same with our flights to Disneyland, we book when the deals are good and not on set dates we had planned in advance.

Check for deals at neighboring airports – You may find a cheaper deal in an airport that is in a neighboring state or even a neighboring country. We have flown out of Portland, OR to go to Hawaii because they had a better deal than our airport here in Seattle. Like I mentioned above we also flew into London as a way to get to Paris.

Use Dollar Flight Club – Dollar Flight Club will send you emails on flight deals as they come available. They include all the links in the email so you can check flight prices for different days using Google Flights (I love Google Flights). I highly recommend signing up for the Premium service of Dollar Flight Club and using the code discount40 to save 40% and pay only $24 for the year. I love the fact that you can go to their site and see all the current deals at one quick glance too. Here is a peek at some of the current and past deals. You will only have access to all the deals if you are a premium member.

Here is how to get signed up! Head over to Dollar Flight Club and enter your email address, and then your closest departure airport. You then can choose to “Try Premium for free” (you will get a 14-day free trial) or “Continue with Basic”. If you choose the free trial of premium you will need to enter your CC number on the next screen. Before you hit submit, make sure you click the “promo code” link just under where you enter your credit card. A promo code box will pop up and enter the code discount40 to get the service for only $24 a year. If you don’t want to be charged, you can still try the service for free for 14 days, just make sure you cancel before the 14 days are up.

Where would you love to travel? We’re watching for deals to Italy and Toyko. We are hoping to visit Disneyland Tokyo and Disney Sea next year. We’ll have to wait and see what deals pop up, maybe the deals from Dollar Flight Club will take us somewhere else exciting next year.

The post My Tips for Finding Cheap International Flights appeared first on Gather Lemons.

Disneyland Get Your Ears On – A Mickey & Minnie Celebration

Christy — Sun, 17 Feb 2019 01:38:41 +0000

Disneyland is paying tribute to Disney’s most iconic couple…Mickey and Minnie Mouse! Now is the perfect time to visit Disneyland to enjoy the fun celebration, save some money on park admission and enjoy the parks before the crazy starts when Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge opens. I recommend booking your trip through Get Away Today, you can purchase individual tickets or a package deal that includes tickets and a hotel. The Get Away Today vacation packages often beat the prices of booking your hotel and buying tickets separately. You can save an extra $10 off the low package price by using the discount code THRIVING10 at checkout. With the spring ticket savings, you can save up to $111 per ticket. The Get Your Ears On celebration lasts at Disneyland resort through May 2019. Here is an entertainment and food guide for the Get Your Ears On celebration.

Mickey’s Mix Magic

Every night you’ll find a music and lights show with state-of-the-art projections, lighting and lasers. The show is filled with high energy tunes and “DJ” Mickey spinning the new celebration song, “It’s a Good Time” along with remixed tunes from some of your favorite Disney songs, like “I Wanna Be Like You”, “Un Poco Loco”, “Let It Go” and more. The show lasts about 10 minutes.

You can view Mickey’s Mix Magic at the following locations:

Main Street, U.S.A.
Rivers of America (on the water screens, when Fantasmic! returns this spring)
The façade of “it’s a small world”

Select nights Mickey’s Mix Magic will also include a fireworks show. The fireworks shows are usually only on the weekends. To know if there are fireworks included and to find the exact time of Mickey’s Mix Magic each night, consult the Disneyland Entertainment Schedule. Showtimes vary between 7-9:00 pm. Some evenings there are 2 shows, so if you miss the first one you can catch the second one.

Mickey’s Soundsational Parade

The Soundsational Parade returns to Disneyland in celebration of Mickey’s 90th birthday. There are colorful floats, great music and tons of your favorite Disney characters.

Watching the parade is fun, but I think it’s even more fun to see the little kids get super excited about seeing their favorite characters. This trip was just my husband and I, but watching all the little kids dance along the parade route and wave to Mickey was just plain fun to watch. This was a colorful and fun parade. During other parades Mickey is often the final float, but with this parade, Mickey was the very first one to kick off the festivities.

Get Your Ears On Food Guide

I’m not gonna lie, probably my favorite thing about the themed celebrations at Disneyland is all the limited edition food! The Get Your Ears On celebration has tons of Mickey and Minnie shaped food that is not only fun, but delicious too. You can check out the entire Disneyland food guide for the Get Your Ears on celebration, but of course we did our best to sample many of the treats and meals and we are sharing our thoughts on everything we ate. Make sure you look for the special red signs at each restaurant or food stand, the Get Your Ears On special items will not be on the regular menus.

The Mickey Cookies & Cream Shake from Schmoozies in California Adventure is probably the cutest thing I have ever seen. It addition to it being cute, it is yummy too. I highly recommend this one!

The River Belle Terrace has a Mickey Jumbo Pretzel. The hand-crafted bavarian pretzel comes with a cheese sauce and a sweet mustard sauce. Both of the dips were really yummy! You will probably have to book a reservation if you plan on dining at the River Belle Terrace. The pretzel was average, but I thought the dipping sauces were above average. I would order it again!

We tried the Fiesta Cone at the Cozy Cone Motel. It has spicy beef, refried beans, shredded lettuce, cheese sauce, sour cream, Pica da Gallo, and crispy tortilla strips. This was just okay. We much prefer the Chile Cone Queso over this one.

Have you had the hand-dipped ice cream bars from Clarabelle’s in California Adventure? They are divine! For the Get Your Ears On celebration they have special hand-dipped Mickey or Minnie Ice Cream Bars. This treat is so cute! You really can’t go wrong with ice cream and chocolate, but I think next time I will stick with the classic hand-dipped ice cream bar. I love the get the raspberry, with milk chocolate.

We also had the Sopes Trio from the Rancho del Zocalo Restaurante. It has chicken, beef, and pork served on fried corn dough with refried beans, shredded lettuce, spicy lime aïoli, and salsa roja. I’m kind of wimpy when it comes to spicy food and this was almost a little too spicy for me. I will say this looked nothing like the picture, the picture made it look all cute and Mickey shaped. Everything was just kind of plopped on the plate. It was still good, I’d order it again. We love this restaurant, we usually stop here every time we head to Disneyland.

Get Your Ears On Merchandise

With every celebration there is also new merchandise. You will find lots of festive, brightly colored merchandise featuring Mickey. I like my Disney souvenirs and shirts to be more subtle, so I didn’t find any Get Your Ears On merchandise I had to take home with me, but you can’t help but smile when you see all the happy merchandise.

We have quite a few Disney posts you can check out if you are in the process of planning a Disney trip.

The post Disneyland Get Your Ears On – A Mickey & Minnie Celebration appeared first on Gather Lemons.

Get Away Today Black Friday Disneyland Deals

Christy — Wed, 21 Nov 2018 19:26:58 +0000

Sale extended one day! Black Friday isn’t just for toys, electronics and appliances, it’s also for saving money on trips to Disneyland! My favorite travel site Get Away Today is having a big Black Friday sale on 3-day Disneyland tickets. The amazing discount on tickets are valid on individual tickets or package deals. Adults will pay kids prices on all 3-day Disneyland Park Hoppers or 1-Park per Day tickets. These tickets are valid for travel in 2018 and 2019!! The 3-day Disneyland Park Hoppers purchased through Get Away Today do include the Magic Morning. Here are the details on the special:

Adults at Kids’ Prices for ALL 2018 and 2019 with a MAJOR price cut for spring travel
Valid on all 3-day and longer Park Hopper and 1-Park per Day Tickets
Must be booked by Wednesday, November 28, 2018

I highly recommend checking the package deals at Get Away Today, the discounted ticket prices will be reflected in your package price and if you book a 2-night or longer Disneyland package use my code Thriving10 for an additional $10 off. If you are new to Get Away Today, I have a post that explains the entire booking process from start to finish.

Even better there are extra savings if you are planning for spring travel. Combine the Adults at Kids’ Prices Black Friday Disneyland deal with the value spring travel dates, and you can save up to $95 per ticket over annual pricing! That’s almost an extra $500 savings for a family of five! I don’t think we’ll see Disneyland prices this low ever again, so it’s a once-in-a-lifetime sale!

Below is a breakdown of the savings depending on travel dates:

Now – January 6, 2018: Up to $31
January 7 – May 23, 2019*: Up to $95
May 24 – December 31, 2019: Up to $19

Savings vary per ticket and are calculated based on annual park pricing. Blockout dates April 14 – 22, 2019. Standard pricing with Adults at Kids’ Prices $19 per tickets savings will apply for travel over these dates. Here is a peek at the prices for spring travel.

3-Day Disneyland Park Hopper (Adult) $255 (reg $330) SAVE $75
3-Day Disneyland Park Hopper (Child) $255 (reg $330) SAVE $75

4-Day Disneyland Park Hopper (Adult) $274 (reg $355) SAVE $81
4-Day Disneyland Park Hopper (Child) $274 (reg $337) SAVE $63

5-Day Disneyland Park Hopper (Adult) $284 (reg $370) SAVE $86
5-Day Disneyland Park Hopper (Child) $284 (reg $351) SAVE $67

These are the fun events you can expect at Disneyland in 2019:

Get Your Ears On: A Mickey and Minnie Celebration begins in January
January/February: Lunar New Year Festival
March/April: Disney California Adventure® Park Food and Wine Festival
Summer: Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge Opens
September/October: Halloween Time at the Disneyland® Resort
November/December: Holidays at the Disneyland® Resort

We have a bunch of posts to help you plan an enjoy a Disneyland vacation. Don’t hesitate to email me or leave a comment with any questions you may have, I am always happy to chat Disney!

We’ve got your complete guide to Pixar Pier
I share honest reviews of all the hotels we’ve used near Disneyland
10 of the BEST places to eat breakfast at Disneyland
10 of the BEST places to each lunch at Disneyland
Several ways you can save on Disneyland Park Tickets
Great tips that will help you to do Disneyland (and California Adventure) in a day.
Another great way to save on Disneyland package deals is through Costco Travel
Check out the highlights from our trip to Disneyland Paris

The post Get Away Today Black Friday Disneyland Deals appeared first on Gather Lemons.