How to Save Money in Disneyland (And Other Tips)

Planning a trip to Disneyland in Anaheim, USA?  Here are some tips on how to save money on your trip.  There are also some other tips for making the most of your trip.

Drinks

1. On Mainstreet USA, the market house general store has refill-able coffee.
2. Plaza Inn has refillable hot chocolate, pop, and other drinks.  
3. Refill water bottles at Plaza Inn.
4. Buy bottled water outside of the park ahead of time.  
5. Kid's meals come with a small bottle of water.
6. If you buy the souvenir cups and they are not refillable, check to see if the souvenir cup is actually smaller than the regular pop cups.  You might want to ask for the pop in the regular cups and just get the souvenir cup dry on the side to keep as a souvenir.
   
   

Food

1. Eat bread bowls!  Bread bowls filled with soup are very filling.  Most people can't even finish eating their bread bowl and it goes to waste.
2. Kids meals are cheaper and they come with a main dish (mac and cheese, chicken and rice, etc), carrot sticks, celery sticks, grapes, and a small bottle of water.  They are a cheap way to add some variety to your meal.
3. Buy fruit outside of the park ahead of time.  If your hotel has free fruit, take a few for the park.  Apples cost 2-3 dollars in the park.
4. Eat breakfast outside the park, especially if breakfast is free with your hotel stay.  You may want to pack some baked items for your day.
5. Check out Trip Advisor restaurant ratings for the Disneyland Park area ahead of time so that you know what's good and what to avoid wasting your money on.

Souvenirs

1. If you plan on bringing gifts back for loved ones, you'll find that it will cost you an arm and a leg.  If you have a lot of stockings to fill, consider buying items in prepackaged sets.  
• For instance, you can buy a whole bucket of little green men for about $20 dollars instead of one little green man ornament for $14.  
• Ornaments and pins also come in sets, so buy those instead of one by one.  
• When you get home, re-package them individually.  You can use the free Disney Christmas labels here to make them look more official and festive.
2. Trade for better pins.  If you buy a set of pins and there are some that you don't really like.  Find the staff that wear the pin lanyards and see if they are willing to trade with you.  You could trade for something you like better.  Sometimes you can trade for a more expensive/fancy pin too!
3. Take advantage of the promotions going on.  
• Sometimes you will be able to buy two dolls for a discounted price (ex. Minnie and Mickey together are cheaper).
• If you buy up to a certain amount (ex. $40), you can buy another item for a discounted price (ex. Jiminy Cricket for $12 instead of $20).  So group your purchases together at one time instead of spreading them out if you want to take advantage of the promotion.
• The food places give out a 20% off merchandise coupon when you buy your food.  You can use this at specific merchandise locations until 1pm.  
• If you want to find all of your souvenirs in one place, go to World of Disney in Disney Downtown.  Disney Downtown doesn't require a pass to get in.
4. Get free pins at City Hall!  You can get giant button pins that tell everyone that it's your first time in Disneyland, it's your birthday, anniversary, that you're an honorary citizen of Disneyland, etc.  Make sure you get yours!
5. Fast passes are cool for scrapbooking.  Make sure you get a couple before you leave.  Of course, it's even better if you actually use your fast pass  :)  
6. Some fast passes near the Midway will occasionally give you a voucher for free midway game tokens.

Coupons

1. The Anaheim Orange County Visitors and Convention Bureau has visitor coupons that you can print out and use.  There's even one for McDonalds!
2. Anaheim Gardenwalk has a VIP Pass that gives you discounts on their restaurants and shopping.
3. Check MouseSavers.com for other deals and promotions.

Good Food

These were my favourite places to eat at Disneyland and California Adventure Park.

1. The French Market has good food served up cafeteria style.  Prices are fairly reasonable (about $13 for an entree) and there is live music in the eating area outdoors.  
• Tested and found tasty:  The corn chowder bread bowl is filling and very tasty.  They actually garnish the soup with some tasty corn and green onions.  The other places don't garnish your bread bowl.
• Tested and found tasty:  The chicken entree with mashed potatoes, vegetables, and corn bread is good.  Sometimes they give you extra mashed potatoes and you get a nice, full meal out of it.
2. The Lucky Fortune Cookery isn't particularly cheap at around $8-9 for a take-out box, but it's tasty and filling.  Being a Vancouverite, we missed Chinese food after a while and wanted some simple stir-fry.
• Tested and found tasty:  Chicken and rice, but ask them to put the sauce on the side.  The sauces are not very good.  You can ask to taste-test the sauces, pick your favourite, and then have it on the side to add as needed.  We found the no-sauce version good enough without needing to add any sauces.
3. The Belle Terrace has tomatoes, lettuce, mushrooms and onions on a self-serve basis.  So if you get a burger/sandwich there, you can load up on the veggies and practically have a salad and burger in one. Burgers also come with a small side dish. 
• Tested and found tasty:  We tried the pulled pork sandwich with the pasta salad side and it was good.  The pasta had artichoke hearts and olives in it.  I covered the rest of the plate with lettuce, tomatoes, and the mushy mushrooms and onion mix.  It was SUPER messy, but yummy.  I went back for more mushy mushrooms  :)
4. Ghirardeli Soda Fountain and Chocolate Shop has chocolate chip cookies that they heat up before they give to you.  It wasn't actually the best chocolate chip cookie I've had before, but if you're going to eat one, you might as well have delightful melted chocolate in each bite  :)
5. Gibson Girl Ice Cream Parlour has ice cream (of course).  We tried the chocolate chip cookie sundae and it was an utter failure as the cookie sucked and the vanilla ice cream had ice chips in it.  However, we did try a simple waffle cone with two scoops later on and that was good.

Tasty Treats (but not necessarily cheap)

1. Churros (about $3.50) - we ate a lot of these because they seem to taste better in Disneyland than in Vancouver.
2. Popcorn (about $4) - it smells so good.
3. Pineapple Dole Whip outside the Tiki Room - tasty!
4. Green apple (about $2-3) - it can be tart and very refreshing after eating a lot of deep fried foods.
5. Frozen banana covered with chocolate and peanuts (about $4) - you may or may not like these, but I do!
6. Giant Turkey leg (about $9-10) - I love these, but they are a pain to eat.  You will look and feel like a cave person when you eat them.

Other Tips and Tricks

1. Get Fast Passes for rides!  Important ones to get are the Radiator Springs Racers ride at California Adventure Park, Indiana Jones, and Star Tours.  On busy days, the Radiator Springs Racers ride will run out of Fast Passes for the whole day by 9am so get there early and pick up a Fast Pass right away.  Fast Passes can lower your wait times to maybe 15 minutes instead of 1.5 hours!  
2. Pick up a "Fast Pass" for the World of Color show ahead of time.  It is not a real "Fast Pass" so you can overlap it with other ride Fast Passes.  The pass will let you move to the front of the best viewing areas so that you can actually see the show!  
1. The best view is right at the front centered between the California Screaming roller coaster and the ferris wheel.  You will get water mist, but not wet.  You will also feel the heat of the fire (but obviously not burned).  
3. If you enjoy the Star Tours ride and the lines are short, go on it again!  Apparently there are something like 54 different versions of the show.  
4. If you like Broadway Disney shows you should definitely go watch the Aladdin show at California Parks Adventure.  It's 45 minutes long and as good as the $50 Broadway ones (but shorter).  I liked it so much I watched it twice... but I'm a big Broadway musical fan.

Share Your Tips!

Do you have some great insider tips and ideas to share!  Please leave a comment and let us know!

Have fun in Disneyland!

Sewing Adventures

I've been sewing like a mad woman... so mad, in fact, that I sewed over my finger - OUCH!  One second I was pushing fabric through and then BAM!  My finger is under the machine and the needle is through my nail.  Ugh...

I will spare you any gory details, but I got it checked out and it is healing fine.  I just have to be more careful now.  My sweetie bought me some metal finger tip protectors and I started wearing those when I sew.  Now I'll only break needles, not skin.  Psh, and I used to think breaking a needle was bad...

I have been having a good time sewing though.  It's nice to be on summer break.  Here are some of the things I have been making.

First up, lots of fleece pouches!  This is a custom order I made for someone.  He wanted five in solid colours.

These are two lovely fleece pouches made from a delightful fleece called "lambskin fleece".  The customer wanted purple and she mentioned liking lambskin so it seemed like a perfect fit.  Unfortunately, then she got allergic to her hedgehog and gave her away.  So I put them into my Etsy shop.

If they weren't purple, I would have kept them for Poggles.  However, his theme colours are manly green and brown  :D

A sweet gal asked me to make her a carrying pouch for a boy hedgehog so this blue fleece pouch came about. 

Except then I went to the fabric store and I found a super cute hedgehog print flannel.  It was so cute I had to buy it.  Precious Moments fleece was on sale so I got that too.  When I showed her pictures of this pouch, she had to have it and got this one instead.  

I made two and I sold that one quickly too.

I ran out of the Precious Moments fleece so I used some brown polar fleece that I had.  It went so well with the red and white dots fabric handles!  I sold two of these too.

Then I had a most delightful surprise.  Someone contacted me about making a duplicate of Poggle's tree dome cover.  I've been wanting to clone it for a while now, so this was perfect.

I couldn't find the brown corduroy that I had used for Poggle's dome, but this dark brown polar fleece seemed like a perfect substitute.  It came out really nice.  I was so pleased.

Then I made a carrying pouch using some of my Robert Kaufman designer flannel.  That stuff is expensive!  It's so soft and wonderful though.  I love it.

I'm honestly thinking of keeping this one for Poggles.  If no one buys it, I might make it his new carrying pouch.  

Some cars, boats, and planes flannel came in the mail so I used it to make this sleeping pouch,

and I sewed some dinosaur flannel pieces together to make this carrying pouch.  Who doesn't love dinosaurs, right?

So that about sums up most of what I have been doing lately in the sewing department.  I'm glad that I have the time to sew right now.

If you would like to buy any of the above items, you'll find some of them in my Etsy shop.  Hurry if you have a favourite because they seem to be selling quickly.

Have a great day!

Somewhere Over The Rainbow In Hawaii - My Trip in Photos

I'm back from my very first trip to Hawaii.  What a beautiful place!  I hope I'll get the chance to go there again one day.  Here is my trip in photos to share with you!

As the plane approached Hawaii, the skies were vivid blue with fluffy white clouds.  A far cry from the grey, rainy city I had left behind.

The clouds cast shadows on the blue waters.  I found it neat to see the clouds from above instead of below. Airplanes are a marvel to me.

Thanks to a three hour time difference, we gained three hours on arrival.  Sweet!  A full day to spend exploring Hawaii.  We were greeted with marvelously fragrant leis made from tuberoses.  

We came to recognize this fragrance as a way to identify newcomers at the hotel.  You could smell the newcomers from a mile away and they smelled sooooo gooood!  :P  For days after, the hotel room smelled fantastic. We put one lei beside the shower and one in the bedroom.  I was sad when they finally wilted, leaving a light, lingering fragrance.  I wanted to dash out and buy a new one!

The beaches looked amazing.  The waters were so blue and the waves so... alive!  They would crash onto the white sands and soak you, throwing interesting coral bits and stones your way.  Sometimes I would see a  shell, but before I could grab it, the waves would literally suck them away out of my reach.  So fast!

Children played in the shallow waves at the beach front and surfers played in the bigger waves farther out.

Here's an interesting beach thing I found.  Is it coral?  I liked the orange colour and the texture. 

 I made myself a little collection on the sand.  I'd run about the waves, collect bits and things, run back to deposit them on the sand wall my hunnie built as he baked in the sand, and run back to the ocean to find more.  It was fun. Once in a while, a big wave would come up and take the sea things back.

There were pretty seaweeds along the water edge.

 I saw some sea creatures as well like fishes in the water and crabs.  I also saw a funny looking spotted fish thing.  I didn't get a good picture though.  The ocean sucked it back too fast. 

This is overlooking some coral reefs.  There are a lot of people with scuba masks padding around here. 

I didn't get to swim here, but maybe I'll do that if I ever go back one day.

 

We visited a Japanese temple and there were sooo many koi!  Here they are in a feed frenzy as I throw them some food.

This dove looks like he's enjoying the fish too.  It looks like he wants to eat the fish, but really he just wants to eat the fish food.

 See?  Tasty, tasty!

 Plants that I've only ever seen in the middle of malls or in the tropical section of Home Depot grow wild here.    It's weird seeing tropical house plants grow so lush here. 

 On Lei Day (May 1st) our hotel had tables set up with piles of local flowers and greenery.  A volunteer showed me how to make this pretty corsage.  It smelled great (most of the flowers in Hawaii seem to smell good).  The lady who sat beside me turned out to be a florist from Canada, and she was commenting how expensive it would be to make something like this in Canada because fresh tropical flowers cost a lot to ship over.

I also made this orchid and plumeria lei.  When I considered how each orchid plant costs about $30 at Home Depot and how I had just used over 60 blooms to make this lei... yup, it would be costly to do this in Canada.  In Hawaii, you can buy a lei for $5 or make it for free (like I did!). It makes me want to run out and buy/make a gazillion leis each day while I'm in Hawaii. 

 We visited the Pearl Harbor Memorial.  It's a beautiful but somber place.  Black dots of oil still leak from the ship sunken below and they call them black tears.  Thousands of soldiers are still buried with the ship because it was impossible to get them out without making the ship explode.  

The driver told us about how his relatives cried one day a month after the ship was sunk.  The divers had discovered that they could still hear knocking coming from the ship.  People were still alive in the ship, but there was no way to get them out.  I can't imagine the horror of waiting to die in this ship when it's so close to the surface of the water.  There were thousands of people on that ship.  So the memorial remembers and respects those that were sacrificed for the sake of their country. 

I was pretty depressed after thinking about all those people trapped below the memorial, but the people of Hawaii are generous and kind.  They treat you like family, and they feed you like family.  We went to Ono's Hawaiian Foods.  It's just a little hole in the wall place, but the food is delicious.

They make an amazing dish called Lau Lau.  It's chicken or pork wrapped in taro leaves and steamed.  It doesn't look like much, but it tastes soooo gooood.  I don't know why we don't eat taro leaves.  They're so yummy!

I also liked the Lomi Lomi Salmon.  It's very refreshing.  I loved the Kalau pork too.  I found the taste was very good.  If you go to Oahu, you should check out this restaurant.  Don't expect stellar service and expect a hole in the wall, but the food will be tastier than the fancy luaus you go to (we went to both the luau at the Polynesian cultural center and the one at Paradise Cove.  The food at Ono's is tastier.)  Oh, and for $20 for a set meal for two people, it's a seriously good deal!

It was good enough that we went back on our last day.  Back for Ono's and back for Leonard's fresh malasadas (donuts).  My favourite was the hot macadamia filled version.  Yummmmm!

 As a random photo, check out the price of milk here!  $10 for 4 liters, and that's on sale!  The driver joked that it was because there's only one cow on the island  :)

Our trip was winding down.  We had learned so much about a different culture, a different lifestyle, and we loved it.  Hawaii is a mixing pot of different people from all over the world.  As a result, the Hawaiians we met treated us like family, what they call "Ohana".  They call you their cousins when they greet you, much like we call people "brothers", "brotha", or "buddy" around here. 

This is not to say that everything is perfect.  We saw a different side of their city while we were there too.  We saw an old man (homeless?) walking around drunk with poop coming out of the top of his pants.  Another man came and saw him and told him to stay there so he could go get help.  Unfortunately, while he was gone getting help, the old man found a $20 in his pocket.  His eyes glowed with delight and he stumbled away into the nearest liquor store.  It reminded me of downtown Vancouver.

As we walked along Kapahulu, we saw a man who looked utterly depressed and hopeless.  He had his head down like Eeyore and his shoulders were slumped.  He was the saddest man I had ever seen.  The image was a stark contrast to the tourist areas I had come from, and the image of happiness and perfection that they talked about.   

I walked the beach for the last time, and I looked at the little bird foot prints in the sand.  Pigeons in Hawaii are white and they are everywhere.  They're even in many restaurants because most building are open to air.

Most of Hawaii is dependent on tourism now.  Plantations like the Dole plantation have shrunken down to a small fraction of their original size.  I saw mango trees everywhere with juicy fruit hanging down, and yet when I went to buy mangos at ABC stores the mangos were from Mexico.  I didn't know what to think.  It  didn't seem right.

One day, I'll go back to Hawaii and eat a ripe mango fresh from the tree.  I think that will be a very nice day indeed.

Have a wonderful day, and remember to enjoy your life.  Life is short, and there are so many beautiful and wonderful things in this world to experience.  You should go try them  :)

Take care~!