Tips for Disneyland!

Here are some time and money saving tips for a trip to Disneyland!
1. Stroller and backpack are a must. We kept valuables (cameras/wallet) in backpack and took on rides with us.
2. You can bring any food and liquids in the parks, (except alcohol). Microwave popcorn/fruit rollups/ fresh fruit. Food isnt that expensive in the park but we tried to only eat one meal in there a day so we could spend more money on souveniers. You go through ALOT of water so we bought water bottles, then bought the large gallon containers of water and refilled the water bottles. Buying the flavored water packs was also nice to mix it up a little!
3. Buy most of toys/clothes/souveniers on your way out of the park so you are not stuck carrying them around all day. Our kids liked the idea of getting to go pick stuff out then play with it on the way back to hotel. There are stores EVERYWHERE!
4. Stay until midnight! There is no point in going to the park right when it opens @ 9a.m. It is a mad rush. The schedule we used was this. Took our time in the morning, ate a good breakfast, packed lots of snacks, went to park stayed there until 3 or 4 p.m., got a late lunch outside of the park (there is a ton of different choices right outside park, subway, pizza,....)had kids take a nap, went swimming, repacked snacks (sometimes swam before nap), ate dinner (usually at park), and stayed until closing (midnight) when you stay late the lines are soooooo short and you can do 4 rides in 20 minutes as compared to daytime when the lines can be as long as 2+ hours. Julian who doesnt nap anymore also took naps so he was able to stay up late w/out meltsdowns!
5. take advantage of the fast pass system it is free! And there is a parent swap too ( if you are with a child that is not big enough to go on a ride you only have to wait in line once, dad can go while you wait then you get to go when he gets back!)Julian benefited the most because he would go on a ride with Ron or Jen, and I would wait with the girls, then he would get to go AGAIN with me while they waited with the girls!
6. Depending on the time of year you go, sunscreen and those spray bottles with fans are outrageou$ in the park so we brought both from home.
7. we had five days and the park and still didnt get to do everything, toontown (in Disneyland) and Bug's life (in CA adventure) are good ones to do during the day because there is fun things but not a lot of waiting.
8. Tennis shoes or really comfortable sandels, you walk and are on your feet a lot ( that is when the stroller comes in handy even with older kids) If you do stay late bring a sweatshirt and pants, it does cool quiet a bit. Hats and sunglasses but hold onto them during rides!
9. Depending on how important it is for your kid....we didnt do they autograph books. If there was a character that the kids really like we would wait in line to have a pic with them but otherwise you are standing in line for a while for a pic/signature and we felt it was better to stand in line for rides then to waste 30 minutes for a signature. there was times we lucked out and had good timing and didnt wait too long but for the most part the lines got long fast for the characters!
10. Walmart makes name tags necklaces. We had the older kids (2yrs and 6) wear them at all times. They included their names, our names and both our cells. That way if we were seperated it would have been easy for someone to contact us immediatly! They even have a mickey mouse tag (which is what we got!)
11. Take a trip to walmart or Kmart before you go to buy clothes T-shirts with Disney on them. Before we left, I bought a cute princess shirt at Kmart for $7.99 and we bought her a princess tshirt at Disneyland for $28.00. Another example is when Jocelyn went to the princess dinner I bought her dress for $20 at and they are $65 there. They also had princess swimsuits that were less than $10 for both.
12. If you decided to do anything else why you are down there google "coupon code for ________(name of place)". We went to Medieval Times one Night. Adult meals are $55 kids $35 and I was able to order them online ahead of time with a coupon code that gave us buy one adult entree get one free. We paid for an upgrade so we could sit in front which was not included It was only $10 more per person, worth it!Either way we saved $$$$ over $100 with the coupon code.