Disneyland and a new Anaheim

 

When you have young children, you will make many annual pilgrimages to the Magic Kingdom. The next time you go, you will be in for a pleasant surprise. The City of Anaheim, Disneyland and local hotels have banded together to renovate the entire area. Large sidewalk areas have been built surrounding Disneyland, framed by huge Palm Trees. This landscaping extends to area hotels, including the Anaheim Hilton, where we stayed.

 

 

The Parks

On this trip, we went on a Saturday to join the school choir, who were attending a workshop at Toontown in Disneyland. Saturday or Sunday morning is ideal for driving from our area to Anaheim. We encountered light traffic and made the trip in less than two hours. If you can navigate the LA traffic patterns, a weekday visit may reward you with smaller crowds at the parks.

We had a two-park hopper, which meant that we could visit both Disneyland and California Adventure on the same day. Due to the workshop, our group chose to visit Disneyland first. If I had the choice, I might go the other way around. It seemed that California Adventure was less crowded, especially in the morning.

The kids had a great time at their workshop and, as always, the Disney employees were very helpful. Several new attractions have been added in recent years.

 

The Disneyland Princess Fantasy Faire is a must for mommy and her little daughter. Here, guests are treated to Storytelling by the Princesses, a Royal Coronation ceremony and other activities. The Indiana Jones ride also is a fairly new addition.

We all have our favorite rides. I have found Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Railroad in Frontierland to be my favorites. I was also struck by the Innovations exhibit in Tomorrowland. They have a 15-minute demonstration with a real robot. The robot can climb stairs and even run. It also can answer just about any question, as it is also a speech-enabled computer.

 

California Adventure has many great rides and excellent dining options. Soarin’ over California is still my favorite ride. Here you get to experience hang gliding throughout California. The start is probably the most exciting part as you jump off the mountains above Sausalito and glide over the Golden Gate Bridge. The Paradise Pier section of the park has many exciting rides including California Screamin’. This roller coaster ride will get your heart rate up, especially on the 360-degree inverted loop.

There are excellent dining options throughout California Adventure. My wife and daughters actually dined with Princess Ariel and her court. My son and I choose the Wine Country Trattoria. For more information on both parks visit http://www.Disneyland.Disney.go.com.

 

 

The Lodging

The Anaheim Hilton has undergone an extensive remodel and is just across the street from Disneyland. Our room was luxuriously appointed with top-of-the-line bedding and electronics, including a flat screen TV. We had a balcony which looked out over California Adventure and Disneyland. Many of the famous rides, such as The Matterhorn and Tower of Terror, were in view. Later that night we actually had a great view of the nightly fireworks display at Disneyland.

 

The Hilton has many restaurants and shops. We ate breakfast at The Café Oasis, located in the lobby area. This sidewalk café gave us a great view of what turned out to be an exciting lobby that day. Turns out that the National Cheerleading Competition was being held next door at the Anaheim Convention Center. Each Cheer Squad traveled together (always 7 or more) and, as you can imagine, they were quite animated. The Convention Center, not more than 50 yards from the hotel, is extremely convenient. All of the common areas around the hotel and convention center have been redone with lush landscaping and are quite attractive. The Big West Basketball Tournament, with UCSB as a favorite, was played at the Anaheim Convention Center Mar. 12-15.

 

If you stay at the Anaheim Hilton, I would suggest parking there in the morning and walking across the street to the parks. That way when you finish up and head for the hotel you have one less thing to do. Just tell them at the front desk that you will need a late check-in. From the hotel you walk past the Convention Center and across Katella Ave to one of the Disneyland parking lots where you can get a shuttle to the park. You also can enter the California Adventure Park directly from the California Grand Hotel, which is about a five-minute walk from the Anaheim Hilton. For more information visit http://www.hilton.com or call (714) 750-4321.