To some, Thanksgiving means turkey and green bean casserole. To my family, Thanksgiving means time to pack a bag and get out of town! This year, we decided that Disneyland would be our Thanksgiving destination. We’ve been trying to get to Disneyland since the summer of 2020, and I can imagine you know how that went. Three rescheduled trips later and it was finally time to board the plane to LAX and enjoy the warm Anaheim air!

Flying around Thanksgiving is the busiest time of the year and while it was busy this year too, I can say that it seemed less insane to us than normal. Not that normal is a ‘thing’ anymore since COVID, but I was expecting far worse of an experience traveling via air across the country. Other than what seemed like a million flight changes, rebookings, and getting to LA via Boston (go northeast to go west?), we made it safe and sound into sunny California and started the adventure on a high note. Thanks JetBlue!

Whenever I go to Disneyland, I stay at one of the three on-site Disney resorts: the Grand Californian, Disneyland Hotel, or Paradise Pier. This time, we went with the Disneyland Hotel, which never disappoints. I love that it is so classicly Disney and you can really feel the history throughout. Our room was lovely, all Cast Members we met were so gracious and happy, even the other guests were pretty darn pleasant. I’ve noticed that guests at Disney World in FL are skewing more ‘entitled’ and can be downright rude and obnoxious since the COVID reopening last year. Expectations are often way out of line with reality in these bizarre times we’re living in and some of the behavior I’ve witnessed definitely belongs back in quarantine. However, Disneyland has a very large local guest population from the SoCal area and that really tends to affect the guest attitude and park experience. I always joke that literally everyone in the parks has at least one piece of Disney apparel on if not multiple, and very few of the matching shirt groups like you see at Disney World. Everyone really seemed happy to be there, enjoying themselves, and ready for a good time. Refreshing!

The weather was delightful throughout our stay with not a drop of rain. My hair loves the lack of humidity and I love not looking like a disaster an hour after leaving the room. This is especially true when so many of the other guests have clearly spent a good bit of time prepping themselves for a day in the parks and look like they’ve stepped out of a magazine or off Instagram. I love people watching, looking to see if I can find any celebrities, which is completely crazy since I don’t know that I would actually recognize very many. I did see (and talk to!!) Josh D’Amaro, the Chairman of Disney Parks! Core memory!

Once we got settled in the room, it was time for a quick lunch and then park time. Disneyland was up first and it was crazy how quickly seeing the park got us in the holiday spirit! Everything is always so pristine at the Disney parks and walking into Disneyland, dressed to impress with holiday decor, was breathtaking. I will never get tired of entering those gates and walking down the original Main Street USA toward Sleeping Beauty Castle.

I couldn’t believe how many characters we saw during this trip! Of course, they are all still socially distanced and aren’t signing autographs, but I could make a gigantic list of everyone we saw. Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Goofy, Pluto, Chip, Dale, Marie, Stormtroopers, Jack and Sally, Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, Eeyore, Captain America, Captain Marvel, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Dr. Strange, Thor, three of the Eternals, Black Widow, Black Panther, Shang Chi, Taskmaster, the Dora Milaje, Spiderman, Iron Man, Woody, Jessie, the Incredibles, Snow White, Gaston, plus so many more in the parades! I know I’m forgetting some too! They also have cavalcades with characters running in both parks, like at Disney World, and a full holiday parade that is happening in Disneyland. I was blown away at how ‘normal’ all of that felt and how incredible it was to see the beautiful holiday happenings. I also so love that Disneyland still uses a lot of the original transportation that was in place when Walt was alive like the vehicle shown below with Minnie. Guests can even be driven up Main Street USA in these vehicles!

Something else I love about the holidays at Disneyland is the overlays that are put on certain attractions like Haunted Mansion and it’s a small world. Mind you, most of the attractions/lands get spruced up with holiday decor but these two attractions get full makeovers. Haunted Mansion becomes Haunted Mansion Holiday, rethemed like Nightmare before Christmas. Haunted Mansion is my most favorite ride on both coasts and I love, love, love it when it gets the overlay in California. I cannot believe how much work goes into basically redoing this entire ride for a few months. So impressive! it’s a small world becomes it’s a small world holiday but the bummer this year was that it didn’t open on time due a flooding issue, so we missed being able to ride it by a week or two. Boo hiss!

While Mansion will always reign supreme as the top attraction for me, I have to say that the new Web Slingers: A Spiderman Adventure ride in California Adventure is tough competition. Wait times at Disneyland are a lot different than World and the longest waits we experienced were for these two attractions. There were some longish waits for Radiator Springs Racers and Rise of the Resistance, but we’ve done those before so they weren’t priorities on this trip. Disney’s new Genie+ service hadn’t started yet when we visited Disneyland, so all rides were just regular standby lines for entry. We waited for Haunted Mansion once around 45 minutes (20 minutes the second time and walked on the third time) and 80 minutes for Web Slingers. To get me to wait 80 minutes in line for an attraction is a pretty big feat but I wanted to ride this new ride so bad that I made the commitment. Let me tell you, those 80 minutes were well spent! We loved every minute of this ride and I would have jumped right back on it again if I could’ve. So interactive, incredible technology, and such a fun concept overall. I’m not giving any spoilers other than to say, if you play the game well on this ride, your arms are going to be so tired! Spider-bot targets acquired! Oh and if you haven’t seen the new Spiderman movie, get out there and see it. Excellent flick!

Avengers Campus, where this new Spiderman ride is located, is a brand new section of California Adventure. It is located where the Bug’s Life section was. It is impressively themed and has all those little details you come to love from Disney. The character interaction there is on point too. Several shows throughout the day, characters out for greetings and selfies, and so much creativity! The Pym Test Kitchen with its “altered” food sizes is super fun for a quick service meal. I might have been trying to balance a tray with a gigantic pretzel on it when I met Josh…

Speaking of California Adventure, Cars Land was decorated for the holidays too. I love every little thing about Cars Land and their holiday spin is just icing on the cake. Even this little light set up here had everything ‘plugged’ in via jumper cables to a car battery! Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree ride turns into Mater’s Jingle Jamboree with holiday music and a haul-iday tractor spin. Gotta love that ride, even if you and your riding companion squish each other with every turn.

There is always so much to see and do at Disneyland. Even with two parks compared to the four (plus two waterparks) in Florida, there is enough to do to fill several days. Both parks are a stone’s throw from each other too, so no buses necessary. Coming and going from your Disney hotel is super easy and midday breaks for pool time are a dream. As with every other great adventure though, the ending swooped in before we knew it. That 4am transfer back to LAX to fly home was one heck of a buzzkill but a necessity nonetheless. I’ll end this entry with a shot of Sleeping Beauty castle, iced for the holiday season, shining in all of its splendor. Happy holidays!

xoxo, Amber