The Enchanted Pumpkin

**Note! MaxPass is no longer available at the Disneyland Resort! I am currently working on an article about its replacement: Genie+ & Lightning Lane. Stay tuned!** Good Morning! This week our blog returns to the Happiest Place on Earth! In May, we visited DISNEYLAND right before the opening of Galaxy's Edge! We were hoping to enjoy the last little bit of off-season crowd levels before the expected heavy crowds hit, but when we got there we found that everyone else was thinking the same thing! The parks were a bit more crowded than we had expected for late-April/early-May, and once Galaxy's Edge opened up, the crowds were reportedly non-existent! The crowd levels prior to Galaxy's Edge actually surprised me given the fact that the weather was quite chilly. This was also the first time we had been to the parks since MaxPass was released, so we took this opportunity to give it a try! Without further ado, here are our thoughts on using MaxPass at the Disneyland Resort, ...

Good Morning & Happy First Post of 2019! (Yikes, is it April?) 2018 brought a lot of wonderful experiences and also added a lot to my plate! Unfortunately that meant that my Etsy shop and this blog had to be sidelined for a bit. However, today I am back to bring you a huge post I have been working to get out, which will be the first of many posts I have lined up for you guys! Thank you for your patience & support!  (Also just as a quick announcement: We will be making a trip to the one and only DISNEYLAND here in a few weeks!! I will be posting a trip review of that trip as well - and you won't have to wait as long as you did for this one! Also be sure to follow us over at Facebook , because we will be posting live periodically from the park!) We had such a fun time with this big group! So just as a re-cap, we returned in October of 2018 from a wonderful 9-day vacation to the Disney World Resort in Florida! We spent two days each at the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, H...

Good Morning! Our Magic Bands arrived! Unfortunately, these stick-on covers didn't stay on long, but we thought they were super cool looking anyways (: Yes, I am still here! I have been so busy the last few weeks that I haven't had a chance to post, but I am back this week to bring you some planning tips I discovered through my experiences in planning our upcoming Disney World vacation using My Disney Experience! (ONLY 7 DAYS - not that I'm counting or anything...)  This is the first time my family has been in about 10 years, so we're basically newbies at this point! All righty, so the last few things we did for planning included picking out our Magic Band colors (which showed up at our house two weeks ago!!!), and scheduling all of our FastPasses! We were so excited to get our Magic Band box, which included our two personalized Magic Bands, cute luggage tags, and a Magical Extras card with a bunch of coupons to get some fun things like free mini golfing games...

Good Morning! This week I want to share one of my favorite tips to give family and friends when planning their vacations! Since California Adventure’s major remodeling project and rededication back in 2012, the park has received some really popular and exciting attractions! However, the lines for these attractions can get extremely long. I checked the Disneyland app just after 12:00 PM yesterday and the line for Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout! was already 80 minutes long with FASTPASS return times between 6:50 & 7:50 PM. Radiator Springs Racers was up to 150 minutes and FASTPASSES were already gone for the day! However, getting decent FASTPASS times for these two rides is not impossible! And no, you don’t need to purchase MaxPass to do it (though it can be a good option). The key is to arrive EARLY . You will actually want to plan on getting to California Adventure at least 30-45 minutes before the gates open. Make sure to take into account days with Magic Morning Hou...