Visiting Disneyland in the summer with my family has become a habit. We went last year and the year before that, and the year before that. I considered avoiding the park this year, because a bunch of rides were down for re-theming or refurbishment...namely Splash Mountain, Pooh's Adventure and the Haunted Mansion. However, Disney announced discount ticket prices in June to lure vacationing families, so I jumped on board and planned a vacation for early July.

The discounted tickets were for three days, priced at $249, which is $150 less than the usual price. Because this super-special was only available to mid-week tickets (Monday-Thursday), there was a strong possibility that the parks would be extremely busy during these days, while the weekends were comparatively slow.

Another change in 2024 is that I was bringing my girlfriend Mary along, so we were a group of four. My two children are now older teens, so we would have a very strong team for tackling Disneyland from open-to-close, squeezing as many rides as possible out of our three days.

The vacation got off to a rocky start. The hotel didn't have a room for us. I had reserved a room at the Peacock Suites through Hotwire, but then they didn't have the room when we showed up at the hotel. The desk at Peacock told me to call Hotwire (a division of Expedia) and to have them sort it out. After about 40 minutes and $200 we were on our way to the Cambria hotel across the street.

Pictured here: Sitting in the lobby, pissed off that my rooms at Peacock Suites have been given away.

On Monday we rode:

1. Space mountain
2. Space mountain again
3. Matterhorn
4. Pirates
5. Rise of the Resistance
6. Smugglers run
7. Jungle cruise
8. Thunder mountain
9. Indiana jones
10. Astro blaster
11. Pinocchio
12. Casey jr.
13. Roger rabbit
14. Mickey and Minnie Runaway
15. Pirates
16. Train
17. Autopia
18. Smugglers run
19. Space mountain
20. Buzz lightyear and
21. Matterhorn
22. Thunder Mountain

That was 22 rides!

If I remember correctly we finished our day at about 11pm. An incredibly long day of 15 hours in the park.To get as many rides in as possible, we each paid $30 extra to use the "Lightning Lanes" ride scheduling app at the park.

That means that our $113 tickets for Monday yielded 22 rides at $5.13 each.

On Tuesday, we took a day off from Disneyland.

My daughter toured CSU Long Beach and we visited the Gudetama Cafe in Buena Park.

Our main goal was to rest our legs and feet for the upcoming days of amusement park abuse.

Chalkboard over the urinals at California State Univerity at Long Beach (CSULB)

We rode:

1. Guardians of the Galaxy Mission: Breakout
2. Guardians again.
   
3. Grizzly rapids
   
4. Incredicoaster
   
5. Toy Story midway mania
   
6. Spider man web slingers
   
7. Incredicoaster
   
8. Ferris wheel
   
9. Little mermaid
   
10. Goofy's Sky School
    
11. Turtle talk
    
12. Toy Story
    
13. Incredicoaster
    
14. Guardians of the galaxy
    
15. Soarin
    
16. Monsters inc.
    
17. Spider man web slingers

17 rides! California Adventure closes a bit earlier than Disneyland, and it has fewer small rides, so we weren't able to match our Monday ride total. Our $113 tickets divided by 17 rides yielded a per-ride cost of $6.64.

Disneyland again on Day 3.

This was a strange time to visit Disneyland, because a bunch of rides were out of commission at the same time down the western side of the park. Splash Mountain and all of Critter Country was being re-created into Tiana's Bayou. Hungry Bear was closed, with Pooh's Adventures and Haunted Mansion too.This isn't too extraordinary, having three rides down for maintenance, but these three were all in a line, which felt like a big wing of the park was dark.

Rides breaking down while you are in line for them is part of the amusement park experience, but on this day it was an epidemic. Small World and Space Mountain broke down while we were in line, and Pirates and Rise of the Resistance broke down while we were riding them.

Now that I've written that out, it doesn't seem like an epidemic.

At Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.

June brings a book with her to Disneyland, so that she can read while waiting in line.

She gets a lot of compliments for it.

Oga's Cantina is a Star Wars Pub that kids can visit, and that you need reservations for. It is a cool oasis out of the sun-baked concrete pads of Galaxy's Edge. (You may have to wait outside in the direct sun for 30 minutes before you seat is available, even though you made a reservation).

The drinks and snacks were fine, and not outrageously expensive.

Any air-conditioned seating is glorious on a summer afternoon.

After about 10 minutes, some Stormtroopers busted in and scoured the place for some rebels, to a round of booing.

About the time we finished our drinks, we noticed other groups gathering their items to leave with haste.

Sure enough, Rise of the Resistance, the fanciest ride in the park, had reopened with zero wait, and we sat right around the corner! Recognizing this opportunity, we paid our bill and jammed over to get in line.

The line is often an hour or more, but we were onboard in about 15 minutes. A historically short wait.

Unfortunately, our luck ran out at that point, and the ride was stopped due to a malfunction. We had to exit early, but did score passes to ride again later.

1. Space mountain
2. Matterhorn
3. Thunder mountain
4. Smugglers run
5. Indiana jones
6. Pirates broke down
7. Storybook boats
8. Runaway railway
9. Mr toads wild ride
10. Peter Pan
11. Sleeping beauty castle
12. Ogas cantina 3:40
13. Astro blasters
14. Matterhorn
15. Small world
16. Pirates
17. Rise of the resistance
18. Matterhorn
19. Submarine
20. Star tours
21. Space mountain
22. Astro blasters

A $113 ticket divided by 22 rides, again, is $5.13 per ride.

It was a great trip! Over the last ten years I've decided to spend more money on food and snacks at Disneyland. Perhaps you remember the time I went and tried to not spend any money at Disneyland? Hopefully those days are over. Maybe I'm just getting older, or maybe I have more money, or maybe inflation caught up to the Disneyland prices. When a trip to any restaurant is $125, sitting down and eat at a Disneyland restaurant feels perfectly reasonable at $150. But a few days after our trip, I got a request to help with a Disneyland survey, and that made me add up all of my meal expenses.

The Disney Corp. survey asked pointed questions about what we ate and where, and how much we spent. Specifically on Friday. We had eaten at Tiana's Cafe for lunch, Oga's Cantina for a snack, then at Cafe Orleans for dinner. Here's how that broke down:

Tiana's Palace - $76.66
Oga's Cantina - $119.99
Cafe Orleans - $166.96

In total we had spent $363.61 in food and drink for one day! I was flabbergasted. Time to probably dial that back!

What really blows my mind is that I never would have added it up, if Disney itself hadn't pried into my spending! They should have just let me sleepwalk through my largesse, in brain-dead vacation mode!