Our family has been to theme parks, but not Disneyland. I’ve been a few times, Peter went when he was one, but it was everyone else’s first time.

It was rainy. We went to the beach by ourselves the first day we drove in.

And the next day we experienced Disneyland as uncrowded as it probably ever gets. We also were very wet for most of the day. We basically did all the rides, the longest line was probably 20 minutes. And went back at dinner time to dry off. The hairdryer in our hotel got a lot of uses, drying out everyone’s shoes.

Zack was scared of the first few rides, like Pinocchio and Snow White. That didn’t bode well for the rest of the trip. He did struggle with being scared, and usually, we just pushed him on the ride anyway. He always enjoyed himself afterward. By the very end of the trip, he was able to go on a rollercoaster without freaking out.

My older kids definitely liked the rollercoasters the most. I think they rode Incredicoaster 5 times. None of us loved the more traditional dark rides: our worst experience was getting stuck multiple times on The Little Mermaid. Genie + helped us avoid lines, except for the Radiator Springs Racers line that was posted at 90 min and ended up being 2.5 hours. Luckily, we sent the three older boys on the single rider line, and they were done in under an hour and proceeded to explore the park without their parents. Luckily they did not lose each other, but they did try once. That was the only long line we stood in, and we did ride nearly every single ride in both parks.

The final day was the only day that we really had good weather, and that also meant bigger crowds. But we’d already done most everything, so it was a pretty chill day. My favorite ride was Guardians of the Galaxy. I also liked things like being on the Millennium Falcon, and going out to Tom Sawyer Island. The atmosphere is cool. And I liked doing everything, even watching Great Moments with Abraham Lincoln. But ultimately it felt a lot fake, was expensive, and wasn’t my favorite vacation. Worth doing, but only occasionally.

You might notice in the pictures that we didn’t bring Evie. She stayed back with Grandma and Grandpa and ended up with the stomach flu for most of our trip.