Quick update on our 1+ day trip, which went fabulously despite a couple of hiccups.
We flew into LAX, arrived at 6:30 pm, made the short trek from the Southwest terminal to the LAX-It ride share lot, got an Uber in about 10 minutes and were on our way to Disneyland. We got stuck in traffic for about 20 minutes due to a crash at the 105 to 605 split but still made pretty good time. After a quick check-in at Hotel Lulu and some wardrobe changes, we were on our way to the parks and made it to the hub just in time to watch the 8:30 Wintertime Enchantment of the castle.
We decided on Rancho del Zocalo for a late dinner and split the Tinga Enchiladas (had a good spicy kick). We had time to ride the tea cups before settling in by it's a Small World for the 9:30 fireworks. After the fireworks, we scooted quickly to Rise and were in the briefing room in under 20 minutes. From there we hit Winnie the Pooh and made our way back to Fantasyland, where we rode Alice in Wonderland, followed by Runaway Railway and Big Thunder, and did some browsing and shopping in the Emporium before calling it a night around 11:30. The parks felt blissfully empty after 10:00 and we were able to just meander and enjoy the decorations.
We decided to sleep in a little the following day and planned to arrive just after 8, bypass the rope drop madness, and head to Pixar Pier, skipping our usual rope drop of Guardians (our favorite ride). However, despite a little Starbucks snafu in mobile ordering a chai tea for my daughter (it auto selected the wrong location, not the one at Hyatt House), we still made it into the park just before rope drop and decided to join the relatively small crowd headed to Guardians.
After riding Guardians and making a LL selection to ride it again between 9:30-10:30, we headed to the Pier and did Incredicoaster, Pal Around, and Goofy's Sky School before picking up a breakfast corn dog for my daughter (we were in fact the "First Corn Dog of the Day" but sadly Corndog Castle didn't have the special button).
Unfortunately, on our way to Little Mermaid, my daughter noticed her soles were falling off of her Nike shoes, one of them halfway and the other a little. We walked on Little Mermaid while brainstorming options for next steps to fix the shoe-tastrophe. We asked at the entrance to Little Mermaid about places that would possibly have rubber bands or tape for an interim fix and were referred to the Baby Care center, which unfortunately had nothing. However, at Sarge's Hut the cashier hooked us up with some clear packing tape. I wrapped the front of the worst shoe with several rounds of tape so we could make our way to Guardians (my very-appearance-conscious kiddo was not happy with walking around with a crinkly, sticky taped shoe). While in line for Guardians, we decided we would catch the 10:30 Storytime with Deadpool and Wolverine and pick up my sticky toffee pudding macaron as planned, then head out of the parks through the Grand (checked out the gingerbread house on the way) for a quick Uber ride to Shoe City for new shoes. Since we were going to have a time gap, we booked our next LL for Indy at 1:20 (we were hoping for Tiana's Bayou Adventure, but LL was not available for that at all on the 17th and the ride was down for large chunks of the day).
The new shoes were quickly acquired and we took an Uber back to Downtown Disney and entered Disneyland via the monorail. We rode it's a Small World Holiday and Autopia via standby with less than 5 minutes' wait, then took the train back to Main Street station. We tried to get a silhouette at Disneyana, but the artists were heading on break. We met Mickey, got a birthday button, and did our Gingerbread Magic Key shot, stowed our spare clothes in a locker (change of clothes/ponchos/flip flops for Tiana's and our jackets, since it was a warm afternoon) then checked back on the sihouettes, but the artists weren't available at either location.
Our two hours had passed since we booked Indy, so we booked a Space Mountain LL for 2:20, then took a lunch break (gingerbread cake for me from Plaza Inn and a chil/mac bread bowl for my daughter) and picked up a mobile order of gingerbread from Jolly Holiday to bring home.
Indy was down, which got us a MEP, but also left an awkward schedule gap. We decided to wait the 15 minutes to ride Star Tours standby. Unfortunately, when we headed to Space Mountain after Star Tours, we were told that it was "down for
Lightning Lane" but we would get an MEP (the ride itself wasn't down, because they were still letting people into the standby line, which was strange to me).
It took a few minutes for the MEP to pop up; once we were able to make a new LL selection, we picked Matterhorn for 3:40. Since we again had an awkward schedule gap, but Tiana's didn't look like it would have any LL availability for the day, we decided to suck it up and head for the 45-minute standby line, crossing our fingers the ride would stay open. After changing clothes and shoes and depositing our to-stay-dry clothes back in the locker, we stopped at Tropical Hideaway and picked up the POG float (excellent) to nosh on in line.
The Tiana's wait ended up being only 20 minutes, which was nice, but adding in the changes of clothes/shoes, it was an investment of over an hour, which both my daughter and I concluded wasn't worth it -- we were very underwhelmed by the ride and it definitely got us too wet to have stayed in our normal clothes/shoes.
We were able to hit Matterhorn, Jungle Cruise, Indy (MEP), Haunted Mansion Holiday (LL), Pirates (LL but not needed), Space Mountain (MEP), and Buzz (walk on) in fairly short order before hopping back over to DCA a little before 7:00. Daughter got dinner at Smokejumpers while I picked up mac and cheese from Holiday Duets (ordered earlier at the same time as my Macaron).
After dinner, we wandered through Redwood Challenge Trail before it closed, then went on Midway Mania (LL), Incredicoaster (immediate return LL), RSR (single rider) and picked up pumpkin bread pudding at Aunt Cass's cafe before walking briskly to catch the 9:30 World of Color show. Following WOC, we hit Soarin (had LL but didn't need it), then caught the 10:00 pm Animation Academy (Olaf) and Monsters, Inc. We originally had aspirations of hopping back to Disneyland for a few more rides, but my daughter was really fading by this point, so we hopped back to Disneyland to empty our locker and checked once more at the silhouette studio (still a long line at 11:00 pm) before calling it a night and walking back to the hotel to pack up and get a few hours of sleep before our 4:45 a.m. pick up back to LAX.
We missed the holiday overlays in Carsland and weren't able to line up a good mobile order window for the gingerbread at Harbour Galley, but other than those two things, we were able to accomplish everything we wanted to do.
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