We stayed at the Springhill Suites Convention Center this time. It's a little further than we normally stay, but the 15 minute walk was very doable and it was worth the walk to have a kids' suite with enough space for our 6 person family. The hotel itself was clean and the beds were comfortable. It was fairly quiet except when the city of Anaheim decided to repave Katella at 4AM on Tuesday. They do have a free breakfast, which is nice, but they don't start serving until 6:30 on weekdays and 7 on weekends. If you like to go to the parks for rope drop, especially on a Magic Morning day, you're sort of out of luck. Parking is also expensive at $24 per day, but it's expensive to park everywhere in the resort area. Still a dollar cheaper than Disneyland parking I guess. Overall, it was a good stay and I would happily go back, especially since the suite was cheaper than a small room closer to the eastern entrance to Disneyland.
Maxpass has become a must-have for my family. It's so nice to be able to select fastpasses without having to run around the park. Plus, with my kids loving to meet characters, the photopass feature is an added bonus as we had unlimited downloads of character meet and greets and attractions. I did notice that there are not as many photopass photographers as there used to be, but it was still worth the money.
It was a beautiful weekend overall. The weather was perfect, warming up to the 70s, but without being so hot that we absolutely needed shorts. California Adventure was slightly anticlimactic as Bug's Land is gone (soon to be replaced with a much more exciting Marvel themed land) and Grizzly River Rapids was also closed, which is one of our favorites. We still found plenty to do, however, and my older son took several animation drawing lessons for the first time. He really enjoyed the new-to-us experience while the little ones did the Disney Jr. show. Disneyland, likewise, has many little refurb and enhancement projects going on in preparation for Galaxy's Edge opening in a couple of months. The castle is under wraps for a while longer, but everything is looking great so far. I can't wait to go back in November to see the new area (and hopefully the crowd control will be figured out by then).
No budget update for the month. In case you missed it, any trip to Disneyland blows my budgeting attempts. But, I only exceeded my budget by about $500, which is better than it could have been. Here are some pictures from our trip:
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