Continue reading]]> Disneyland’s Bibbity Bobbity Bootique

Pretty much any Disneyland visit will give your family chances to meet Disney princesses, but do you have a little girl who loves to play princess, herself? Guess what! At Disneyland’s Bibbity Bobbity Bootique, your little princess can get her very own princess makeover from her very own fairy godmother. (For princes, or princesses who’d rather wield a sword than a tiara, knight packages from well-trained coachmen are also available.)

Kaylee tried two different makeover packages, on two different trips. We had so much fun! She loved getting the princess treatment, and her fairy godmothers really made the experience special. Click below to see her first makeover.

Or see her second, more elaborate makeover below.

Think this might be an experience you want your little princess (or prince, or knight) to have? You can see a listing of what’s available, what’s included, and how much the experience will cost here. Be sure to reserve a spot early, though. This is not something you can just go visit day-of. To get the date and time you want, you should make your reservation at least 60 days before your visit.

Magical Makeover DIY’s

This part of the post contains a few links to related products on Amazon. As an Amazon Associate, I earn a small percentage from qualifying purchases.

If you are pretty sure you would need your own personal fairy godmother to afford a makeover at Disneyland, don’t despair! Think of my videos of Kaylee and the linked listings as a magical wishing well of ideas. With some basic supplies and a healthy dose of creativity, you can create a magical makeover for your little one right at home.

Choose where you’ll do the makeover, then set the scene with something like this.

If you’re doing the makeover in a bathroom, just attach it over your regular shower curtain. If you’re using another room, you can put it up carefully with thumbtacks or tape. Be sure to use something like masking tape or painter’s tape to prevent damage to your walls.

Need a comfy gown for your princess?

A fancy tiara?

A hairpiece?

Or perhaps a sword and shield that won’t damage furniture or siblings?

Try the ones I’ve linked! With a few magical extras and some hair and makeup products you have at home, add your own time and creativity to make a magical makeover experience!

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Disneyland Deals Book

You may have noticed I haven’t been blogging as much as usual.  I have been having a reoccurrence of some health issues from years past and it’s been a rough winter.  Here’s to a better Spring!

Spring also has brought a new edition of the book I wrote called, “The Cheap Family’s Guide to Disneyland; How to Save $1,000 & Still Have Fun”.

Are you wondering how to save money at Disneyland?  If so, in this new edition, I’ve added more dates, more resources, and more ideas for saving quite a lot of money.  I hope you will check it out and let me know what you think!

I’d love ideas for the 2016 version, so if there is anything you would like me to add, please let me know via the comment section!

Happy Traveling!

Continue reading]]> Our family goes to Disneyland several times a year.  Last year we went a record (for us) 6 times!  We have stayed at a lot of hotels, some nice (the Grand Californian) and some not so nice (Del Sol).  We usually like to stay very close to the park so we can walk to and from the hotel easily, but being a mile away wasn’t bad at all.  We drive to the park, but you could walk if you wanted to.

Last week our family had the privilege of staying at a My Castle House near Disneyland.  We stayed at home #12 which is a 4 bedroom house with a full kitchen and 3 bathrooms (see the video for a walk through).  It was about a mile away from the park.  We invited friends to come with us, so there were 2 families of 6 staying in this house comfortably. There were a lot of beds and there were hide-a-mats in the closets that were comfortable to sleep on for the kids.

I have to say no other hotel we have stayed at in Anaheim has been as nice as this was.  It will be really hard to stay in a “regular” hotel again, honestly!  I loved the full kitchen, disney decor, bunk rooms, amazing pool, living room, and the master bedroom was bigger than some hotel rooms we have stayed in.  I didn’t try all of the beds, but the master bed was very comfortable.

See the costs for this house here. We booked in under 6 weeks, so we got special pricing. There is a $250 cleaning fee charged at the end of your stay.

If the price is too high for you, I would suggest splitting the cost with another family which makes this home about the same price as other hotels in Anaheim, but you will have much more space, privacy, quiet, and very comfortable beds.  The managers were very available and willing to help as well.

These houses would be awesome for a family reunion as they have several houses right next to each other that share the pool and splashpad.

Here is the video walk through

Continue reading]]> Eating gluten free at Disneyland is easier than any other theme park on earth.  They have even won awards for being food allergy-friendly!  Disneyland makes it pretty simple for us and if we are at all worried, we bring our own food.

Disneyland does not let people bring in food, but if you have an allergy – here is the official statement from their website, “Guests with food allergies or intolerances are allowed to bring food items into any Disney theme park. Please inform the Security Cast Member at bag check that someone in the party has a food allergy or intolerance.” Easy!

Here is a list of places you can eat GF easily. Expect your food to take about 30 minutes to prepare because they have to make it fresh.

Here are some do’s and dont’s I have learned over the years eating gf at Disneyland.

DO

• Get a restaurant list at City Hall for a list of restaurants and open-air cafe’s at Disneyland that offer gluten free food.

• If you plan to do Character Dining (which I completely and wholeheartedly recommend), choose the ones that aren’t buffets.  The chef will come speak to you personally and tell you what they can make you that is GF.  Ariel’s Grotto, Storytellers Cafe, and Plaza Inn were all very accommodating to our GF/DF allergies.  If you do go to the buffets, the chef will personally show you what you can eat there.  I have been to all of the character dining restaurants.  If you have any questions about them, please post a comment.
• In terms of treats, there’s not much of a variety (at least that I’ve found).  We enjoy a Dole Pineapple Float at the Tiki Room (GFDF) every time we go.  I am dairy free as well as gluten free, so that limits me from most treats.
• Bring GoPicnics.  This can save you time and money and they are delicious and protein rich to keep your energy up.

DON’T

• Expect every cafe to accommodate your dietary restrictions.  There are certain ones that will and certain ones that won’t (see link above).
• Forget to bring snacks with you!
• Expect food to be GF if you have not asked the chef.

Here is a video of the Chef taking me through the buffet at the PCH Grill to show me the GFDF options.

If I missed anything, please let me know!

Continue reading]]> On our last trip to Disney World in April of 2014, we really wanted to do some character dining, but we didn’t think about it with enough time to get in to the most popular restaurants (Be Our Guest and Cinderella’s Table).  I was really bummed, but by being tenacious and checking the desk about a hundred times, they got sick of me and let me in!  There was a cancellation and my daughter and I were able to get in for dinner at Be Our Guest and later to Cinderella’s Table.  The food was absolutely fantastic and they worked with our food allergies (gluten and dairy).  Well, everything was fantastic, except for the gf rolls which tasted like sawdust.  They took them straight from the freezer to the microwave for too long which doesn’t work with gluten free.  I wish I could train chef’s on how to work with gluten free foods.  Many of them just don’t know how to work with it.

Anyhow, rolls aside, it was a great atmosphere and we loved being at the only place at Disney World (or Disneyland) where you can meet the Beast.  We got to see inside of his castle and into his library.  It really was a once in a lifetime experience and I highly recommend it!  It worked out to be around $30 a plate for us.  Be careful because the tip is almost always included at these Character Dining Experiences.

How to get into be our guest for dinner:

Alternatively, you can check Disney’s character dining site here and you can book up to 180 days in advance

Here is a video of the inside of Be Our Guest, and the food.

Continue reading]]> My 12 year old and I got to go to Disney World in April of 2014 and we had the most wonderful time!  We stayed on-resort at the All Star Sports hotel so that we wouldn’t have to drive and we could use the Disney transportation system (which I really liked for the most part).  A review will be coming soon, so check back later!

One thing we really wanted to do was see the real Anna and Elsa at Disney World at their meet and greet location at Epcot.  The lines were anywhere from 4-6 hours to see them.  It was blistering hot and humid and neither of us wanted to wait in a line that long, so we decided to try to “beat the system” if we could. We came back another day and decided to be the first ones in line to enter Epcot on a low-peak day.  We took a taxi ($15) and got to the Epcot entrance 90 minutes before opening time.  We were able to sit down for most of that, and they let us in 10 minutes before the official opening.

Then, the marathon began!  Everyone in line sprinted to Anna and Elsa which were way on the far end of the park.  My daughter went ahead of me and got in line.  She was about #10 in line from the runners and there were already people in line from the princess breakfast in Norway (people would book the early-morning breakfast, and then pay the cancellation fee to not show up, and get in line early to meet Anna & Elsa).  We only had to wait 45 minutes to see them and every 10 minutes that went by, the line got an hour longer, until peaking at about 4 hours.  By the time we had seen them, the line was over 4 hours and later in the day it was 6 hours.

Currently Anna and Elsa have moved to Fantasyland in Magic Kingdom at Disney World.  They have fastpasses but they are GONE on-line for the whole month within minutes of them being available.

Here’s a video of us seeing our beloved princesses!

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You guys know I am a Disney fanatic.  Our family goes to Disneyland at least once per year, and many times more than that.  This year we have 5 trips planned (and one to Disney World).In fact,  I leave next week on a business trip to take videos of all the rides.  Stay tuned and they will be posted on our Positively Mommy YouTube Channel.

Our sister site, The Cheap Family was mentioned in this article and we are so pleased!  We hope it gives you lots of idea about how to save money at Disneyland.  I know a lot of our readers love Disneyland as much as I do and I think you will find the tips listed very helpful.  See the article here on Utah Valley 360.

Continue reading]]> If you could save a few hundred dollars on your next Disneyland trip, would you be happy?  We all know it’s hard to find really big discounts on Disney travel because they don’t really need to offer discounts to encourage people to come.  They do, however, offer large discounts to groups of people traveling in the off season.  If you can travel September 24-27, I have a really great group deal that could save you more than a thousand dollars.  This is as good as it gets people!  They tickets will sell out soon, so if you want to take advantage of this deal, contact Get Away Today as soon as possible.

Disneyland Deals 2014

This deal comes from the website freebies2deals.  Their package starts at $755 for a value hotel (which includes two 3 day park hoppers!!!).  They are also offering some great discounts on the Disneyland resort hotels.  If you have been wanting to try out a resort hotel, now is your chance.  All resort hotels offer 1 hour early entry to the parks which is REALLY nice.

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Disneyland Deals Book

So, I have been working on a new project that has been consuming my time for the last couple months…. A BOOK!  I have always wanted to be an author and thanks to Amazon Kindle, that goal has been realized.  It’s called,“The Cheap Family’s Guide to Disneyland: How to Save $1000 and Still Have Fun”.  The ebook can be purchased on Amazon for .99 cents or downloaded on your Kindle for free.  By mid-January 2014, we will have a print copy of the book for $5.99 available.  The print book may also be availible in bookstores soon.

I have been to Disneyland more than 20 times and it’s one of my favorite places to vacation.  A couple years ago I started to search out Disney deals so that our family could go to Disneyland more often.  That’s how this book was conceived.  The book is all about how to save money and time at Disneyland by following a few simple tips and tricks that I have learned from going to Disneyland.

A few tips from the book would include:

1. Go to Disneyland in the off-season when crowds are at their smallest.  You can get lots of hotel discounts this way.

2. Save on flights by signing up for Southwest coupons or fly on little-known airlines to get a bargain.

3.  Save time by utilizing Magic Morning and getting to the park 30-45 minutes before it the gates open for Magic Morning.  If we get there early enough, our family can generally go on all the rides we want to by lunch time.  We can then leave the park for lunch (which saves money) and go to the hotel to take a nap.  Then go back to the park for evening events or to go on rides we’d like to experience again.

For more tips, check out the book here!

Continue reading]]> Our family visited Disneyland in the fall of 2012 JUST to see the new Cars Land and we were not disappointed!

We loved the happy feeling when we got there.  Disneyland is so amazing at creating “the experience” in everything they do.  The scenery was amazing.  There was careful attention brought to each building and restaurant.  Our family liked to hang out at the “Cozy Cone Motel”.  It had lots of yummy lunch items and treats served in cones.  Disney just thinks of every detail and spares no expense.

We attended California Adventure on a “low peak” day, but Cars Land was plenty busy.  The park even had the mob patrol out to control the flow of people getting in.  I think the reason it’s so popular is because there’s finally something for boys that competes with the Disney princesses (but girls like Cars Land too) and because the Cars Land rides are really quite fun and you can go on them over and over without getting tired of them, which is a big plus for parents!

We took photos and videos of the Cars Land rides and scenery and hope you enjoy them. There are 3 rides in Cars Land (see them below).

Cars Land Quick Tour (Scenery and Rides)