Happy 4th of July from the Happiest Place on Earth

This year to celebrate the 4th of July Alison and I took an impromptu trip to Disneyland. Alison was working in Columbus, Ohio during the last week of June. One night she had a dream we were in Disneyland. When she woke up in a hotel room, for a minute she thought maybe it was not a dream, then reality set in. She looked up potential trips in July and called me at 5:30 am MST. I was still in bed when she pitched me her idea to visit Disneyland in July. Her plan was to leave on a Friday night and come home on a Monday morning. Much to her surprise I quickly embraced the idea. I even suggested we visit over the 4th of July. It just seemed like the perfect time to go. We quickly found reasonably priced flights and hotels. Within a couple of hours, our trip was booked and we were going to Disneyland.

We had 4 magical days in Disneyland. Rather than give a play-by-play of our experience I want to record a few of our favorite memories:

4th of July

We arrived at Disneyland on the 4th of July. We flew in the morning so we got to the park ~11:30 am. We were reminded why we prefer to fly the night before. When you arrive at the park in the middle of the day, lines/crowds have developed for most attractions and it is harder to get off to a great start. Despite those challenges, it was a fun day. There is not much difference between visiting Disneyland on the 4th of July and any other day. There were a lot of American flags all around the park and Mickey Mouse dresses up in patriotic attire, although it never really worked out for us to meet Mickey in his patriotic getup. The 4th of July Minnie ears are very popular. We saw people wearing them all over the park. Alison decided before we arrived at the park she was not going to purchase the holiday Minnie ears. She questioned whether she would wear them enough to be worth the cost. We did not even fully make it into the park before she purchased a pair. She got a lot of use out of them over the weekend and she loves them.

We ate lunch at the Plaza Inn. It seemed like a fitting all-American type meal – fried chicken, mashed potatoes, veggies, and a biscuit with a slice of carrot cake for dessert. As always Plaza Inn is one of our favorite places to eat in Disneyland. It is so good, but so much food.

One aspect of visiting Disneyland on the 4th of July that was interesting is that the crowds at the park noticeably thinned as afternoon turned into evening. We can only assume it is because people had other plans for to celebrate the 4th outside the park. We were happy with this development.

The highlight of the 4th of July was a special firework spectacular - Disney’s Celebrate America! – A Fourth of July Concert in the Sky. It was a dazzling display of fireworks lighting up the night in conjunction with popular patriotic folks blasting throughout the park. The show culminates with a unique version of the Star-Spangled Banner as a grand finale explodes overhead. It was a very inspiring firework show celebrating much of what makes America such a special place. It was the perfect ending to our 4th of July celebration.

Star Wars Land

A big driver behind our decision to take this trip was the opening of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Disneyland. I think everyone pretty much expected the crowds at Disneyland to be particularly crazy when this new area opened to the public. Surprisingly, there have been record-low crowds at Disneyland after the new area opened. This is a combination of many factors – annual pass blackouts, peak season pricing, and families avoiding this time frame because they expected lots of crowds. We kept seeing information about the lower-than-expected crowds and wanted to take advantage of this unique opportunity.

In anticipation of the crowds, Disney created a boarding group system that would be used if Star Wars land ever reach capacity. This was never necessary during our trip and the land remained open so we could come and go as we pleased. In fact, the land never felt overly crowded during our visit. This greatly enhanced our experience. We took advantage of the low crowds by spending 3 of our 4 days in Disneyland. Every day we were in Disneyland we visited the new Star Wars area multiple times.

The land itself is incredible. It has an interesting duality. When you enter the land, it feels separate from the rest of Disneyland. It is like you entered a different world but at the same time slots perfectly into Disneyland. The towering cliffs and spires of Star Wars land fit right into the views from Frontier Land/Critter Country. The land is massive (it added ~20% to the size of Disneyland) and it feels huge and expansive. There are three entrances – one from Critter Country and two from Frontier Land. They are built in such a way the transition feels like you are walking through a portal and leaving Disneyland behind. Everything about the land is detailed and immersive from every cast member acting in character as a local resident of Batuu to the playing of ambient sounds (droids, crowd noise, spaceships, subtle music, and more) and the design of the land all make it feel like you literally stepped into a Star Wars movie. Disney did an incredible job in making this an entertaining experience.

We made reservations at Oga’s Cantina while we were at the airport waiting to board our flight. Currently, Disney only allows you to make same-day reservations starting at 7 am. We heard good things about Oga’s, plus if you get a reservation they will guarantee you can enter Star Wars land, even it if reaches capacity. The capacity ended up being a non-issue. Honestly, if there was one thing about Star Wars land that disappointed us it was Oga’s Cantina. It is very much set up as a bar with mostly standing room and only a few tables. We were fine with standing and ended up with a standing-room-only spot. When we were led to our spot at the bar there appeared to be two open spots and we tried to take them, but the cast member quickly explained that we would only have one spot and that one of us would have to stand behind the other. This wouldn’t have been that big of a deal, but no one else at the bar was standing two deep. It was an annoying development. We ordered blue milk and a sugar cookie to share. The blue milk was way good – it exceeded my expectations. It is very hard to describe the taste and Alison and I both described it differently. It is creamy and subtly sweet in a very refreshing way. The cookie was fine, Alison enjoyed it, and I thought it was okay. If I wasn’t annoyed we may have ordered another drink, but none of the other non-alcoholic beverages looked particularly intriguing. The bar itself was exquisitely themed with a robot DJ and lots of random interesting details to take in. The bar scene is not really our thing so Alison and I finished our blue milk and took a brief walk around to check everything out and moved on. We did not feel the need to return to Oga’s on this trip and I don’t know if we would go on future trips, especially since the blue milk is available from a milk stand as well.

The land has a lot of unique features and we took plenty of time walking around enjoying the ambiance. The land is roughly split into three sections. There is a First Order section with an Imperial-style ship. In this area, you will often run into Storm Troopers who may tell you to move along or might stop you for questioning. You may also run into Imperial Officers and, sometimes, even Kylo Ren. There is also the main area, which is a hanger bay holding the Millennium Falcon. Here there are a couple of restaurants, the Millennium Falcon ride, and plenty of shopping. The third area is a secret Resistance base complete with Poe’s X-wing. This area will be home to the other Star Wars ride set to open later this year or early next year. We ran into Chewie and Rey as we walked through the Resistance area. In Star Wars Land the characters interact with guests, rather than creating a queue and taking pictures. The whole idea is to bring the Star Wars experience to life as much as possible. Disney succeeded in this endeavor.

There are numerous shops throughout the land. Most are small and attempt to create an intimate shopping experience. Honestly, they mostly sell a lot of random creatures and things that did not appeal much to us. There is also a popular experience that allows guests to build their own lightsabers. We decided to pass on this experience mostly because we were not sure what we would do with a $200 lightsaber. We did however decide to build a droid. At the droid depot, they have an experience where you can build and customize your own BB or R-series unit. You choose the color scheme and pick your parts from a large conveyer belt. You then assemble the droid at one of the droid-building stations. The droids are basically like glorified remote-control cars. I enjoyed assembling my own BB-8 droid. Alison and I decided to stay with the classic BB-8 look. It is a fun little toy. It has a Bluetooth signal that allows it to interact with other droids and react to the various areas of Star Wars land – it would act excited near the Resistance areas and become concerned when we were around the First Order. I have also already gotten a kick out of confusing Tex and CC with the droid (CC was super curious when I had it follow her around and beep at her, while Tex could care less). I am really looking forward to showing it to Skylee.

Picking the parts for our droid

Finishing the gathering process

A conveyer belt of parts

Assembly time

The finished product

We very much enjoyed the Millennium Falcon ride. We rode it a lot more than we expected. We thought we would probably stand in line and ride it a couple of times, but we ended up riding it 7 times over 3 days. The queue was usually reasonable – we probably averaged a 50-minute wait time, which is not at all bad for a brand-new ride. We found that the wait time spiked in the morning and leveled off in the afternoon/evening. We would keep an eye on the Disney app and when the wait time looked reasonable we would run over and stand in line. The more we rode this ride the more we liked it. There is a bit of a learning curve. The first time we had fun, but by the 3rd or 4th time we were really loving it. We had the opportunity to try all 3 roles – pilot, gunner, and engineer and while we liked being pilots the best, we found that all the roles were enjoyable. One of my favorite parts of this ride was the end of the queue. While you are waiting to board the ride you get to explore the inside of the main cabin of the Falcon – complete with the holo chess table. After you finish waiting you line up with your assigned flight crew and you enter the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon. There is a little bit of Disney magic here because they have succeeded in making it feel like you are getting into the one and only cockpit (even though I know there must be more than one they create a very compelling illusion). The cockpit itself looks like you stepped right into the movie. They nailed the design of this ride. The ride itself is somewhat dependent on the quality of your pilots. We had some really good pilots at the end, which seemed like it unlocked some fun features of the ride. The worst ride experience we had was when two small kids were assigned to be pilots, they crashed a lot. Once when I was the pilot we got an extra scene at the end of the ride where we had to fly through an asteroid field. I have no idea if we did something that unlocked this extra experience or if it was random, either way, we only had this scene one time. We very much enjoyed the ride.

Earthquakes

There were two large earthquakes nearby during our trip. The first one was a magnitude 6.4. It struck while we were on our way from the airport to our hotel. We did not feel a thing and we would not even have realized it happened, except Alison and I were watching wait times on the Disneyland app and half of the rides suddenly showed temporarily closed. That did not seem to make any sense until we realized there was an earthquake. By the time we made it to the park, everything had reopened.

The next night an even bigger earthquake struck. At the time, we were in line for Luigi’s Rollickin' Roadsters. Once again, we did not even feel the earthquake. We had just gotten buckled in when they evacuated the ride. We had no idea why they were making us get off, but then, as we were standing at the exit someone mentioned there was another earthquake. We googled it and sure enough about five minutes earlier an earthquake had occurred. They ended up shutting down rides all over the park. It took them a little while, but they slowly began to get them going again. They did not get the two rides we wanted to ride that night back up – the Incredicoaster and Grizzly Peak Rapids. So, we decided to call it a night, maybe an hour or so earlier than we originally planned.

This picture was taken shortly after the second earthquake

Magic Morning

Hands down our best day was Saturday. It was one of those perfect days in Disneyland. We arrived at the park ~30 minutes before it opened and we were some of the first people through the gate. Since we were in the park so quickly we got on Peter Pan without waiting in line. We then rode Alice in Wonderland and the Matterhorn with no wait. By this point, many of the people who showed up for Magic Morning were waiting to try to enter the new Star Wars land right when the park opened. We headed to Hyper Space Mountain and we rode it 4 times by the time the park opened. The morning could not have been better. Wait times at the park took a long time to develop. The new Millennium Falcon ride spiked to 120 minutes, but everything else had little to no lines. We spent most of the morning wandering the park riding our favorite rides. There were times when the limiting factor of getting on rides was how fast we could walk from the exit back around to the queue.

Early in the day Hyperspace Mountain was slow enough they were running cars partially full. We were the only people in this one. 

In the afternoon, it started to get busier, but by then we had ridden our favorite rides to our hearts' content. Our focus shifted to some of the other attractions. We rode the train and the Mark Twain riverboat, caught the afternoon parade, and wandered around Star Wars land. We also used our very plentiful fast passes to continue to ride our favorite rides without waiting in long lines. We got lucky in the morning with our fast passes. We had a fast pass to Space Mountain, India Jones, and the Matterhorn. All three of these rides went down temporarily during our fast-pass return windows. This meant our fast passes changed to replacement fast passes, allowing us to use them at any time of the day for any ride with a fast pass. This was great luck because the lines weren't even that long for any of these rides during our fast pass windows. When they changed it meant we got to save our fast passes and use them during a busier time at the park. It was great to have these passes in our back pockets. Really the only line we stood in was to ride the Millennium Falcon ride. Ride times there came down to around 45-50 minutes in the afternoon.

It was such a great day in the park we did not want it to end. We came early (7 am) and left after midnight. This was one of our best, if not the best, days ever at Disneyland.

Food

We enjoy the food at Disneyland. They have a lot of good options, both meals and snacks. We ate some of our normal go-to meals, but we also tried a few new things on this trip.

The food at Star Wars Land is all new. We made sure to enjoy it all. We tried the blue milk at Oga's Cantina and we got some a couple of days later from the milk stand. The only difference with the milk from the milk stand is that it is a frozen smoothie-style drink. We also tried some green milk. Both were very good. Star Wars Land also features a restaurant called Docking Bay 7. We tried the Roasted Endorian Tip-Yip Salad. It is a chicken and veggie salad with curry ranch dressing and was totally delicious! We also tried some Outpost Mix at Kat Saka’s Kettle. It is a savory and sweet popcorn mix that hit the spot.

We actually left the park to get one of our favorite treats. We took the Monorail from Tomorrowland to Downtown Disney to get some ice cream from Salt and Straw. Their ice cream is handmade, in small batches, the way they used to make it back in the day. It tastes incredible. We got two scoops - Meyer Lemon with Blueberry and Honey Lavender. Disneyland has a lot of good ice cream, but this ice cream is worth leaving the park.

We did try a new ice cream place in California Adventure. The Adorable Snowman is serving up soft serve at Pixar Pier. The signature soft serve is lemon flavored and is also oh, so good. We couldn't visit Pixar Pier without going to, arguably, our favorite Disney restaurant - Lamplight Lounge. We shared a plate of lobster nachos. We have had them many times and every time we come away satisfied. Another treat we tried in California Adventure was the Sorcerer Mickey Shake. It is a cookies and cream milkshake with whipped cream that looks like Mickey's sorcerer hat. We love cookies and cream so this was a must-eat treat for us.

One new restaurant opened in Disneyland since our last trip - the Tropical Hideaway. They are situated right next to the Tiki room and serve up Bao buns. They have beef, chicken, and vegetarian buns. We tried all three. Alison was so impressed that we stopped by later to grab another one for her dinner.

We found a couple of new varieties of mac & cheese around the park. One was a chili mac & cheese served in a bread bowl. It was delicious. The chili complimented the Mac nicely. Alison also stumbled upon a lobster mac & cheese, served in a bread bowl. This was quite a yummy dish and was a more adult version (used real cheese, rather than an orange cheese sauce) of mac & cheese.

Hidden Mickey alert

Conclusion

We could not have asked for more from this trip. Everything fell right into place to make this trip one of our favorite Disney experiences ever. Our flight actually got delayed on the way home on Sunday night, but we got the notification right as we were leaving Disneyland so we turned around and walked right onto It's a Small World. Alison commented that it was the most pleasant flight delay she has ever experienced. That is how this trip went. We got to spend 4 days enjoying the happiest place on earth.