As I mentioned several times recently, I spent the weekend of my birthday at Disneyland. This year, Disney’s parks are featuring the theme “Celebrate Today,” and encouraging visitors to come there for their special occasions. One incentive they’re offering is free admission on your birthday, which is what prompted the whole idea to go there. My birthday’s falling on a Sunday, and the fact that the kids had no school the next day due to a scheduled teacher in-service, combined to turn that into a weekend plan

1. Even though we live within reasonable driving distance (about 90 minutes in normal traffic), we decided that we preferred avoiding the early-morning drive there and late-night drive home that go along with trying to cram the whole Disneyland experience into one day and turn it into a full-weekend mini-vacation. And if we were going to do that, we wanted to stay at one of Disneyland’s own hotels.
2. It was worth it. We were able to walk from our hotel to the main park entrance in less than ten minutes, and Disney packaged the two nights at the hotel and three-day Park-Hopper tickets with extra discounts and perks. They even threw in $50 gift card for the birthday person, which allowed me to spend $50 on souvenirs that I probably wouldn’t have otherwise. (Of course, they know you’ll probably do that.)
3. The tricky part of using a multi-day ticket when you’re at Disneyland over your birthday is that you won’t actually get in free on your birthday. But you can swap that for one of a few other options, and my choice was four extra Fastpasses for each of us. The birthday Fastpasses are special because they don’t require getting a time ticket first – you can use them pretty much at whim.
4. If you’re not visiting during a peak season, my opinion is that there are very few rides worth waiting in line for more than 40 minutes or so, but the Fastpass isn’t always an option for avoiding the lines, since it’s not available for every ride. When it is, it’s almost always worth taking, as long the time-ticket return window is reasonable for you – you might not mind having to come back in three hours, as long as you know you can walk right up to the boarding area – or the time-honored “run to Space Mountain as soon as you get into the park first thing in the morning” strategy pays off and there’s only a 20-minute wait for it when you get there (by Space Mountain standards, that’s nothing).
5. Every family who has made repeat visits to a Disney park has its own traditions. Since I’m an East Coast native and former Floridian, mine were formed at Walt Disney World, but many of these traditions are transferable. The “Run to Space Mountain strategy” was a tradition with my first husband, as was “hit Pirates of the Caribbean during the nighttime parade, when there’s no line.” Things are different with my second husband and family, at least in part because Tall Paul’s motion-sickness tendencies mean that he doesn’t go on Space Mountain at all. We start with Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion.
6. Disney rides I wish I could experience again for the first time: Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion. Although Captain Jack Sparrow now has his own spot in the Pirates’ lair, the thrill of both of these attractions has been lessened for me, although I wouldn’t say it’s entirely gone.
7. Disney ride I experienced again for the first time in a long time: Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Katie and I took Spencer on it for his first time on Saturday, and it was the only ride we went on every one of the three days.
8. Disney ride I experienced for the first time that I can remember: the Jungle Cruise. Totally cornball and quite politically incorrect, but still fun, mostly due to the terrible jokes that the skipper tells. If my husband worked at Disneyland, he’d be a Jungle Cruise operator.
   
9. Disney rides we all experienced for the first time: everything we did at California Adventure, since none of us had ever been there before. The new park hasn’t had the best reputation, but I liked it, and it seemed to be especially popular on the day we visited. We spent much of our time in the Paradise Pier area, which is modeled after a beach boardwalk amusement-park area; most of the rides there are rather like traditional carnival rides, but built to much higher standards so they don’t look like deathtraps, and they really were a lot of fun. But our favorite new discovery was the Grizzly River Rafts, in which you ride an eight-seater round “boat” over the “rapids;” despite getting drenched, we went on that one twice and loved it.
10. Disney ride I didn’t experience, which was fine by me: It’s a Small World. No one wanted to, so no one was subjected to it. We really didn’t ride or see anything unless at least two of us wanted to do it – which meant I passed up the Tiki Birds show, but also meant no one went on the Mad Tea Party either. (We did drag the kids on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, though, which we found far more amusing than they did.)
11. If you’re not compelled to go on every ride and see every show and parade, two full days at Disneyland/California adventure is a sufficient amount of time. We didn’t even last past sunset on Saturday and Sunday, and we didn’t feel deprived – we could even see and hear some of the fireworks from the window of our hotel room, although Spencer somehow slept through it both nights.
12. Disneyland: the home of goofy hats, which sometimes are Goofy hats. (Mine was a Minnie Mouse hat.)
    

It was one of the best birthdays ever. Tall Paul is already wondering how I’ll be able to top it when his comes around in October. That’s a good question….

I’ve got a few other questions for you – have you taken my survey yet?

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