When planning our Disneyland Vacation we do not plan out what we are going to do every hour of every day. With a toddler that would be impossible. But we do try to plan out all of our character meals and entertainment we hope to see. Since we tend to eat at a lot of Disney character meals and we have to purchase our premium seating for Fantasmic! in advance it always helps us to have a plan in place. We will adjust the schedule as needed at the parks.
We now (March 2005) have most of our rides planned out for our 1st full day. If we manage we keep that schedule we will then have ridden all of what we consider the 'must' rides. After that what we ride will depend on how we feel. It seems every trip we have different preferences on what we do and ride. The only reason we felt we were able to plan our day out to this level of detail was because we now have unlimited FastPass because we used AAA for our trip.
Restaurant Information (Character Meals Peak Season 2005)
Plaza Inn Princess Breakfast, 7:00 - 11:00 last seating 10:30, $21.99 adult/$11.99 child
Storytellers, 7:00 - 10:00, $21.99 adult/$11.99 child
Lilo and Stitch at PCH Grill, 7:00 - 11:00, $21.99 adult/$11.99 child
Ariel's Grotto, lunch 11:30 - 3:30, $18.31 adult/$12.89 child, dinner 3:30 - 1hour before DCA closes, $22.62 adult/15.07 child
Goofy's Kitchen, breakfast $27.25 adult/$14.86 child, dinner $35.92 adult/$14.86 child
River Belle Terrace, serves breakfast until 10:30
Disney Dining Plan:
This Disneyland trip we paid for the
Disney Dining Plan. The Disney Dining Plan allows you to prepay for most of your meals at the Disneyland Resort. We are undecided if this was a good idea. Having most of our meals prepaid is nice and we do eat 95% of our meals at the Resort so we have no worries about wasting the vouchers. But the dining plan is a little weighted towards breakfast and we rarely eat breakfast at Disneyland since that is the prime time to ride rides and visit ToonTown. We usually just grab some fruit which will hold us until an early lunch.
(Update - March 2005) We removed the Disney Dining Plan from our package. The reason was because we were forcing ourselves to have several sit down breakfasts in the park which we really never usually do. Now without the Disney Dining Plan we probably will attend another character breakfast.
We still think the Disney Dining Plan can be a good choice. It is nice to have most meals paid for in advance and if you have teenagers you can give them some of the vouchers to use for eating when they are off on their own. Just make sure you plan out when you are going to use the meal vouchers. If you find yourself struggling to fit in everything then go down to the next lower plan. (We might still do that)
Minnie's Disney Dining Plan (5 day): 1 Character Breakfast (each)
1 Character Dinner (each)
2 Breakfast in the park (each)
6 $5.00 vouchers ($30.00)
8 $10.00 vouchers ($80.00)
4 $15.00 vouchers ($60.00)
Wednesday, June 15th
Go to
http://espnzone.com/mvpperks.shtml to register for $20 ESPN zone voucher
Monday, June 27th
(Monday was an added day to our trip which is why we are in the Howard Johnson's)
Leave Denver on Frontier Flight 417 at 12:15pm. Arrive LAX at 1:40pm.
Pick up Alamo Mid size car, confirmation 719595538 $41.08, with car seat rental.
Drive to Howard Johnson's (Disneyland)
Drive to Disney Outlet Store
Swim, relax
Find our Brick - C29/685
Walk the Disneyland Hotel Grounds before dinner, let Alex run around
Dinner: 7pm Goofy's Kitchen (don't forget to use AAA discount)
Watch fireworks from outside Disneyland or hotel balcony
Pack up for easy check-out before going to bed (Contact Vacation Planning about special 'treats' for arrival day on April 29th)
Tuesday, June 28th
Check out of Howard Johnson's, load car. Leave car there for now.
8:00 Get to Disneyland at Opening
Enjoy rides in Fantasyland before Toontown Opens
Go to Toontown at Opening
Get Fastpasses for Autopia, Buzz Lightyear and Indiana Jones
Single Ride Splash Mountain, while one of us takes Alex on Winnie the Pooh and then to see the 100-Acre Wood Characters while the other one of us Single Rides Splash
Get Fastpasses for Big Thunder
Go get car from Howard Johnson, Drive to Grand Californian and leave Bags with Bell Boy's
Use Grand Californian's Entry into DCA
Let Alex run in Redwood Creek, get Fastpasses for Tower, Screamin, Soarin, and Grizzly
Single Ride Soarin and Grizzly while Alex is at Redwood Creek
12:30 Lunch, Ariel's Grotto (don't forget to use AAA discount)
3:00 Check in at the Grand, take bags to room
4:00 Watch the Parade at Disneyland
Dinner to be choosen at the time
Use some of the Fastpasses from earlier
8:45 pm Disney's Electrical Parade Use some of the Fastpasses from earlier
Wednesday, June 29th
1:00, lunch Carnation Cafe (reserved)
5:15 Block Party Bash
6:00 Dinner, Ariel's Grotto (don't forget to use AAA discount)
8:45 Electric Parade
Thursday, June 30th
7:00 Toontown, Early Entry
8:00 Mickey's Morning Madness
10:00 Plaza Inn Princess Breakfast (don't forget to use AAA discount)
12:30 Playhouse Disney - Live on Stage!
7:45 Disneyland's Parade of Dreams
8:45 Electric Parade?
Friday, July 1st
11:00 Lunch, Goofy's Kitchen (don't forget to use AAA discount)
5:00 ESPN Zone
9:00 Fantasmic! Balcony seating for early show, watch fireworks from Balcony (Make Balcony reservations on June 1st)
9:25 Remember…Dreams Come True fireworks
Saturday, July 2nd
Check out of Grand
12:30 Lunch at Goofy's Kitchen (don't forget to use AAA discount)
Fly Home (Frontier Airlines Flight 269, departs Orange County at 7:55pm, arrives DIA at 11:00pm.)
The Vacation is Over - See How The Trip Matched Our Itinerary