yes, we went back to disneyland a year after first going! i know everyone says that the parks have gotten worse, but we still had so much fun. this trip was technically a gift from my mom + my boyfriend for my birthday, so i only had to pay for the things we did while we were at the parks, and none of the travel expenses otherwise! we visited california adventure for half a day (wednesday) and then had two full days at disneyland proper (thursday & friday), up from the one and a half days from 2025! this felt like a pretty good amount of time, though i would never turn down the opportunity for more.
list of rides i rode
i am happy to report i faced my fears and rode much more rides this year than last year! not being traumatized by radiator springs racers probably helped with that.- Haunted Mansion (!!!) ★★★★★ - i am most proud of myself for going on this one because it's the only one that isn't fully fine for, like, newborns. and it was wonderful! kind of an engineering marvel with the ghosts and such. i would do it again in a heartbeat.
- Ariel's Undersea Adventure ★★☆☆☆ - so i was afraid to go on this one last time because it would have had to be the same day i rode radiator spring racers, and i just couldn't do it. but i managed to go on this incredibly chill ride and it was fine! the ariel animatronics needs a bit of tlc though i won't lie.
- Mad Tea Party ★★★★☆ - i rode this one last time so ofc i rode it again. short and sweet!
- Peter Pan's Flight ★★★★☆ - i got a tshirt of this ride!! we rode it after the projection show, which somehow did not lessen the wait by much (30 min). i was prepared for the swoops this time as well, so it was a better experience.
- Snow White's Enchanted Wish ★★★★☆ - very not-scary, though its reputation did make me have to look up a ridethrough beforehand orz
- Storybook Canal ★★★★☆ - such a magical little ride that i didn't even know existed last time we went to disneyland! you get on a boat and go around looking at miniature buildings from disney movies, mostly classic + princess stories. our tour guide kind of sounded dead inside and was going really fast, which made it a little less awe-inspiring, but i really recommend going around sunset because it makes the lighting on the buildings look so pretty!
- It's A Small World ★★★☆☆ - the classic that i somehow did not ride last time, but i had ridden it at disney world before. it was pleasant and fun, though the mom in front of us turning around the moment the ride finished and reading out a snarky facebook post about how kids are over-medicated for ADHD did dampen the spirit a little -_-
- Jungle Cruise ★★★☆☆ - this one would have been pretty cool (probably in a similar way to storybrook canal) except i could not understand a thing the skipper was saying the entire time T_T unfortunately i think this was due to the fact that she was wearing a mask and the microphone could not pick up her words clearly without severe muffling. the animatronics were cool, but the ride is known for its corny jokes, so i wish i could have heard more of them!
- The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh ★★★★☆ - another ride i rode last time & was so brave about! it was just as good the second time. really love the psychadelic vibes of this one.
meeting sleeping beauty
sleeping beauty was the main character i regretted not getting to meet last time (even though i sat and waited at the princess royal hall area for way too long), so we were determined to do it this time. the disneyland app said she'd be outside the royal hall at 3:30pm, so we queued up about...an hour early to uncertainly wait for her. we weren't alone, though; a family with a disabled child had also been waiting in a very confused manner ostensibly for aurora, but they didn't seem to actually know that she would be there until we told her what we'd seen in the app lol.the person and her kid behind us also didn't know how to check the app, and even when they did they later became absolutely convinced that it was going to be rapunzel instead of sleeping beauty, and there was a long period of time that i got nervous that we had led all these people astray because goddamn flynn rider shows up, alone, and how could we be sure rapunzel wasn't behind him?? it was a mess. but both me and juno got pics with flynn, who was clearly barely holding back a gay ass voice, so that was nice.
we stayed the course (and missed our reservation at cafe orleans, meaning it basically cost us $20 to meet sleeping beauty -_-), though, and built up a lot of solidarity with the family in front of us, and we prevailed in the end!! sleeping beauty arrived a little after 3:30 and we were second in line to meet her! she was lovely, of course, and the main notable thing that happened during out meet was that a bee suddenly appeared and would not leave juno alone. it was literally like bouncing off of his skin and hovering for a good minute and a half; aurora said he "must be a fairy" since the bee was so attached to him lmao. both aurora and juno remained remarkably calm throughout this, meanwhile i was wincing and skittering away in fear...it's fine we got the coveted picture!! and we were proved right in the end. yaaaay.
taking pictures!
one of my main goals on this trip was to take more pictures of juno and myself, and i think i succeeded! we got multiple full-body pictures and a lot of selfies. i even took time to scout out locations where i could rest my phone so we could take hands-free photos without asking anyone to take them of us lol. i'm really glad i did this because we got some great photos out of it, which makes up for the sometimes-shitty photos we got with characters (mostly peter pan and tinkerbell...not my best looks and i will not be sharing them). juno was a good sport about it, which is nice because we wouldn't have gotten any pictures at all if it wasn't for me, i think -_- he is very bad at remembering to take pics. i spent a particularly long time in tomorrowland taking pictures of myself in a mostly-empty courtyard while juno rode the nemo ride.
teenagers scare the living shit out of me
one of the downsides of this trip was the swarm of teenagers we encountered, particularly on wednesday (grad night at california adventure, god save us all) and friday. they were EVERYWHERE. and they all seemed to be very...idk. they were all in athleisure or branded outfits or tiktokified alt clothes. and they'd travel in packs which was extremely frightening. idk if california teenagers are just way more plugged in to the ~trends~ or what but *old man voice* when i was a teenager i wore cringe anime tshirts, skinny jeans, and barely knew how to do my hair. meanwhile i saw multiple of these teens just doing tiktok dances together as if the moves had been wired in their brains and the moment anyone said "action" they'd awaken into the correct dance like sleeper agents in the cold war. idk i was scared. the teens scared me. they were marginally better behaved in disneyland compared to california adventure, but i still had to hurriedly skirt giant groups of them who weren't paying attention to where they were going. i think next time i will choose to go in april to avoid all the graduation shenanigans that disney does to court local favor.etcetra
mud slide coffeebad. so bad. trying to drink this while going through the whacky toontown area of the park was nauseating. why do i want brownie crumbles in my coffee. why did i think this drink would be good. WHY.
front row seats
we parked ourselves right in front of the castle (behind the brick line denoting the front anyway) at 8pm for the projection show at 9. no fireworks that night for whatever reason, but staying there for an hour did give us a GREAT view, which is good because we could not see it at all the last time due to poor planning. however i do think it was overkill going there an hour early; we probably would have been fine sidling up 30 min before the show instead. but it was fun to watch the disney employees get increasingly aggressive with telling people to fuck off the out-of-bounds area lol.
food
ok so i have many food problems, so this is always a challenge when we travel anywhere. however we were able to eat in the parks and i enjoyed the meals pretty well! first was the noodle stir-fry bowl in san fransokyo, which was definitely a highlight; we liked it a lot. the vegetable shepherd's pie from cafe orleans was also REALLLLLY good and i kind of want it now even thinking about it. lastly, we got the gumbo at tiana's palace, which was a great source of vegetables and quite tasty!
i wouldn't necessarily classify any of these meals as worth the price, and they weren't like...star quality, but definitely amazing for theme park food. i would eat them again!
postcards
in sum
i am very grateful to my mom and my boyfriend for gifting me this trip. i feel like i definitely was able to do a lot more than i did last time, especially concerning the rides--there was just a lot less fear and anxiety! i also feel like my outfits were better and i got better pictures lol. we still had difficult moments, as happens with most high-activity trips, but disney is just so approachable to me that it gives me confidence in us doing other vacations as well.i'm always aware that others consider right now to be a low point of the park, but i will reiterate again that there is still "magic" to be found at disneyland if you're willing to engage with it as it is. that's not easy to do with the price tag, and i absolutely believe that the disney corp should be bundling and offering more if they're going to keep charging these absurd prices, but i can't in good faith report that i did not have an amazing time there, because i did, and i would go again.
