The Log Dog Blog: Summer Adventure 2024: Disneyland

We hadn't been to Disneyland since January 2019 and it seems strange that it had been so long! When we were planning our summer trip, we decided to think of Disneyland as an extended layover and stay at the revamped and re-themed Pixar Place Hotel. We'd stayed there years and years ago when it was called Paradise Pier Hotel and if I'm being honest, it wasn't particularly impressive. Fast forward to now, and the hotel is fantastic! While it seems to me that Disney is scaling back the theming at WDW resorts, Pixar Pier Hotel is all about the theme! I could have taken ten times as many photos as I did because everywhere I looked, there was another little detail to admire! We spent four nights there and had a great view of Disney California Adventure as well as the surrounding Anaheim area because we were on the ninth floor, so we saw a ton of Independence Day fireworks for over an hour last night!

One of the best things about this Disneyland trip was meeting up with one of my friends...we taught together at the same school, but now he works for Disney and it was fascinating learning all about the cool job he has over dinner one evening!

I often get asked, "Which is better? Disneyland or Walt Disney World?" and it's not really a fair question because they are so different! Yes, there are characters and theme parks at both, but each has its own unique vibe and obviously WDW is enormous while Disneyland is compact; some of the attractions are similar and some only exist in one park or the other. I love them both: WDW because it's my "home" park and the one I visit most often and the one where C and I got married and renewed our vows; and Disneyland because I have countless happy memories from my childhood when we would visit my grandfather over the summer in Huntington Beach.

Instead of saying which park is better, I'll share a "high" and a "low" about Disneyland. I think Disneyland has better overall entertainment - characters and performers roam around all over and interact with guests and you never know which band or group or character you'll run into. It's fantastic! I think WDW is definitely lacking by comparison. However (and this has been a problem for a very long time), Disneyland is incredibly inefficient with getting guests into the theme parks. The cast members use phones to scan tickets one at a time and it is such an excruciatingly slow process. WDW has a great system for getting tons of guests screened and checked in quickly and I really cannot understand why Disneyland has not learned a better way of handling guest entry!

Since our flight tonight isn't until 10:30 pm, we were able to spend five days at the theme parks and although we didn't get to do everything we would have liked, we had an awesome time! I've broken the photos into four categories (Pixar Place Hotel, Disneyland, Disney California Adventure, and Miscellaneous) and I've just posted them chronologically based on when they were taken. Some have captions and some don't, but I hope you enjoy them regardless!

Pixar Place Hotel