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5 Things You Need To Know Before Going to Disneyland

photo courtesy of Disney

For those visiting Disneyland this coming year, I am about to share with you my top 5 things you need to know when planning your trip to either Disneyland Resort in California or Disney World in Orlando.

Invest in Max Pass

Your successful day at Disney means finding the best way to maximize your time, right? You only have 12-15 or so hours (which may seem like a lot, but it’s not) to experience all Disneyland has to offer so it’s important not to waste time or physical energy on unnecessary tasks. Which leads me to the Max Pass. Max Pass is a digital tool that will make your life a heck of a lot easier. It’s available as a $10 purchase on the Disneyland app and it not only allows you to make FASTPASS reservations with your app (without physically walking to the attraction/ride to get the printed copy), it also includes unlimited Disney PhotoPass downloads for a day. Now, I have never been one to get my photograph taken by any Disney photographers in the past because I didn’t want to spend $20 per printed photo. However, because of this extra Max Pass perk, Meta Knight and I went around to many photo zones and got some invaluable high quality photos taken of us, all included in the $10 price! Here are some of the photos we downloaded from the app.

Buy a Magic Band

Image result for magic band images

For those visiting Walt Disney World Resort in Florida, I would recommend getting a MagicBand. MagicBand is a colourful and waterproof wristband developed by Disney to help you travel lighter on your days at Disney. Annual Passholders and Disney Resort Hotel guests will receive them for free but otherwise you can purchase them at select Disney retail locations and online. You can use your MagicBand to:

-unlock the door of your Disney Resort hotel room
-Enter Disney parks
-Check in at FastPass entrances
Connect Disney PhotoPass images to your account
-charge food and merchandise purchases to your Disney Resort hotel room

Without the extra weight of your backpack or purse, it really allows you and your whole family to go on rides and walk around the entire day without being dragged down (literally) by your belongings. I for one always carry handbags that are too heavy and by the end of the day my shoulders are always red and sore.

Stay close to Disneyland

As mentioned above, I stayed at Grand Legacy at the Park just across the street from the Disneyland Parks and it was a complete game changer when it came to our Disney experience. Staying within walking distance allowed us to walk around Downtown Disney every night and take our time looking at all the merchandise instead of rushing through it all in order to catch the last shuttle back to the hotel. Furthermore, when I went in December, the afternoons were blistering hot while the evenings were nearing 5 degrees with chilly winds. My boyfriend and I ended up going back to the hotel mid day to change our outfits, put on a jacket, take a nap, and have dinner before resuming our evening festivities at Disneyland. What an amazing difference that made to our entire experience! We felt so refreshed when we went back at 7pm instead of being completely burnt out from the whole day.

Bring your own food and water!

A couple years back, I remember Disneyland not allowing anyone to bring in bottled water or food into the park. Even though it was for a valid security reason, it made for an expensive day because you HAD to pay their park prices for things like water and food. This time around, I found out we were able to bring our own apple, water, granola bar, and cheese string into the park and I gotta tell you, that saved us so much money! Our hotel provided these snack bags and because we were able to bring it into the park, we pretty much did not have to pay for food besides our lunch.

Go to Disney California Adventure Park for food

photo courtesy of Disneyland

Speaking about food, do you realize that when people usually talk about their Disneyland vacations, they don’t really mention anything about the food? It’s normally a side thought, and most people eat whatever they see at the park in order to curb their hunger and get on with the day. While I also felt the same for the longest time, I bumped into something that I thought was very interesting at the Disneyland California Adventure Park.

Throughout California Adventure Park, there were these specific holiday food stalls that sold very inexpensive and incredibly mouth watering dishes like Butternut Squash and Almond Pakora Fritters, Braised Pork Belly Adobo with Garlic Fried Rice, and Fruit & Nut Rugelach. Yes, I know. What?! These dishes are inspired by different ethnic cuisines and it’s amazing to know that Disneyland has branched out to offer their visitors not only more variety when it comes to food choices, but also feature different cuisines around the world. Both my boyfriend and I ate dinner outside the park so when we saw all of these incredible food stalls inside California Adventure Park, we were beating ourselves up that we didn’t eat here instead. Who would’ve thought?

I hope you enjoyed my top 5 tips for your next trip to Disneyland and as always, follow me on Instagram for more travel and food deliciousness!

Happy Eating!

thank you so much GIF
Hopefully these tips make you go

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