Disneyland - Saving $ and still having fun

So being on a budget my husband and I decided that we wanted to come home with some cash in our pockets.

Some of things that we did that helped us save money on this trip were:
 - I went to the grocery store and purchased lunch and snack items. We took some time each morning and made sandwiches. I bought chips, fruit and drinks. This really helped hold off the munchies and the constant whining for snacks. Plus I knew my kids would eat it and I didn't feel like I wasted money on items they wouldn't eat.

Eating lunch, waiting for the show to start

-Set a spending limit for the kids. I gave both of my two older children $75 to spend and then I made them wait a day before they started spending on souvenirs. I think they both made pretty good choices.

-I brought cash for food. This helped so much. Every day I separated out the cash I needed for the days food purchases (dinner and snacks) and I left the rest in the safe at the hotel. This allowed me to be careful with what I spent. I find that when I swipe my Visa I don't watch what I spend as much.

-The hubs and I would split a dinner plate.

-For other activities, I picked ones that were inexpensive and involved the whole family. Like renting bikes. We rented bikes in Hermosa and biked along the Strand. Inexpensive and fun. Or go to the beach and play. Except for parking, FREE!

-I shopped around for prices for a car rental. I found that costco.com had the best price.

-I held back on my spending. I've learned that I would rather bring home lots of photo memories than "junk" that would need to find a place to gather dust.

All in all we did pretty well, we came home with some money in our pockets and wonderful memories to last a lifetime!

Disneyland - Ridemax review

So I was reading another friend's blog and she had used a program called Ridemax. I looked into it and thought, why not?

You'll find this program and www.ridemax.com. I spent $15 for the 90-Day membership.

It has some really good tips on things like fast pass, the parades, certain rides, etc. I thought those were helpful.

Basically you tell the program the Park and the day that you are going to visit and then pick the rides that you want to ride for sure that day. It then generates a schedule with an order of rides to visit at what time with estimated waiting times and includes walking distance to next ride and duration of the ride.


Here is my review of the program:
It did not work super great for my family. We had a larger group with 3 sets of needs and wants. I also struggled with the wi-fi at our hotel to be able to update and change our plans.
We used it mostly at California Adventure the 2nd day and it allowed us to catch some of the busiest rides first. We also were extremely lucky and were at the parks on rather slow days and so the majority of the rides that we did all had 15 minute or less wait times allowing us to go on some of our favorite rides multiple times.

I did like that it gave me an idea of where to start. For example, when we were at California Adventure we headed first for Toy Story Mania, one of their newest rides. I am so glad we did. That was the first ride we went on and we had to wait about 20 minutes and this was right after they opened. Later in the day we walked past there again hoping to ride once more and the line was 45 minutes long.

I think this program would work wonderfully for a smaller or singular group of people. We had 3 families trying to work together and they were all at different walking speeds. If I had just taken my husband and kids, I think we would have followed the plan more closely.

After planning our trip to Disneyland we found out that our in-laws would like to take all of us to Disneyworld next June. Due to the fact that I have never been to Disneyworld I think I will actually try and use the Ridemax program for that vacation. Plus we will be going to Disneyworld during a high traffic period and so we will want some order to the trip.

Let me know if you have any questions about this program, I'd be happy to answer them.


***I was not paid for this review. This is 100% my opinion.

Disneyland - The Flight

Sorry about the delay in posting, I went through some back to back illnesses and then with the craziness of Disneyland prep and travel, I've gotten behind. I'm back now and so excited to share with you all the fun things that worked and didn't work on our trip to Disneyland.

So the flight.
We flew with a 7 year old boy, 5 year old girl, 3 year old girl (my niece) and a nearly one year old girl.

For the 3 older children here is what I did -
Each child got their own backpack for the flight. In the backpacks were packed the following:
 - Gum for ears, they chewed this during takeoff and the landing. It helped A LOT.
-  Snacks, the airline we flew is a "no-frills" type airline and you had to pay for snacks or drinks.
-  Drinks, you can't take liquids through security so I was just prepared to buy them drinks right    after we got through for the flight. You could also bring empty water bottles to fill with water at the drinking fountains. Your choice.
-  New toys, the two older girls got a Disney Princess set and my son got a new Lego set.
   They did not get the toys until right before we boarded the plane.

Here the kids are playing with their new toys right before we got on the plane.

The kids were THRILLED to get some new toys to play with. It really helped with the boredom of sitting still for two hours.

Playing with his new Lego Set

Now the nearly one year old. She was another story. I had to bring LOTS of snacks for her, I did not bring enough to entertain her. She was actually quite difficult, very wiggly and didn't want to be held or sit still after awhile.

First Flight

Here is what you should always bring when flying with an infant.
- clean empty bottles and formula - you'll have to get water usually past security
- snacks (I think a variety is good)
- small toys, books, sensory items to keep them entertained
- pacifier or be prepared with a bottle or to nurse during take off
- diapers and wipes
- change of clothes - one outfit at least
- blanket
- Lots of patience

I think we actually did pretty well, my kids were so happy to fly instead of drive all the way to Disneyland. It was a very exciting part of the trip for my kiddos.

Disneyland - the extras

So we've planned a couple fun things for our kiddos for this trip.

Clothing
At first the idea was to have them wear the same brightly colored shirts so that we could notice them. So we picked out a set of 3 bright orange shirts for the older kids and then I got one and my husband got one. The baby is getting an orange outfit. Then the kids wanted to personalize them so we got Mickey Mouse appliques at the fabric store

Here's my son in his shirt.

After that we got drawn in by all the cute clothing they have for little girls. So we ended up buying lots of matching outfits for the 3 little girls and my son is getting his fill of Phineas and Ferb and Angry Birds shirts.


Backpacks
The two older girls will have Rapunzel mini back packs and my son will have a Cars mini back pack. These will hold snacks and activities for the plane ride first. Second we will use these through out our trip for the kids to store their snacks and treasures. They might just end up in the stroller, we'll see how well they hold on to them.


Water Bottle Holders
Please forgive my horrible sewing skills, but I did make each child over 1 a water bottle holder as seen in this picture.

 I found the tutorial at www.makeitandloveit.com she has lots of great tutorials for all sorts of creative things. I had made these two Christmases ago for some kid's friends that go hiking a lot. She told me that they loved them and so I knew that these were a must have for this trip. Hopefully this will help them to stay hydrated on the trip.

I'm thinking that these little extras will make the trip that much more special and fun! I can't wait!