Today I am SO thrilled to finally start writing about our fantastic honeymoon to Disneyland and Hawaii! I guess I technically already started writing about it with my Club 33 Review, but I was so excited to write that one that I just couldn’t help myself. But the time has come to write about all of the OTHER fun things we did…and there are a lot! This doesn’t really need any more of an introduction so let’s just dive right in 🙂
Day 0 – Friday, February 2
To begin I’ll actually rewind a bit to start off right where we ended the last wedding day post – right after we left our wedding!!
We were pretty tired but SO happy! After we got changed and packed up (with the help of Sarah and Ana), we were on our way to our home for the evening – Coronado Springs! We booked a room here so that we could get the Magical Express to the airport the next day. We said bye to Brandon, Alec and Danny (who were taking our car back to our place for us) and then checked in and headed to our room! Here’s a quick little room tour lol
Desk. Bed. We were literally only going to be there for a few hours so it didn’t really matter what it looked like! As soon as we got in the room we realized how tired we were and immediately passed out, ready for our fabulous adventure to start!
Day 1 – Saturday, February 3
The next day – if you can call it that, lol – we were up bright and early at 2:45am to get ready for our Magical Express pickup! We were SO tired but our pickup time was 3:45 and we needed some time to get ourselves mentally prepped to be at the airport that early. I didn’t do my makeup and we didn’t shower because it was cold and we were tired. I know, this honeymoon is really thrilling so far.
Our Magical Express picked us up around 3:50am, and after a few stops at other hotels we were on our way. It was fun to feel like a guest for once but it didn’t last too long because soon we were at the airport! Before our trip I had signed us up for a service called Clear, which is like a watered down version of TSA Pre-Check that lets you skip the airport security lines. It was great but it costs $180 a year so I quickly cancelled our free trial after this trip lol but ANYWAY… we got through security really quickly with Clear, and we stopped for some breakfast at Wendy’s on the way to our gate. At this point we were still so over the moon from the night before and beyond happy just to be together. It was just the start of our magical trip!!
We found our gate and we were pretty early thanks to Clear, so we settled in and ate our breakfast.
I also did my makeup at the gate and it made me feel so much more alive and ready to go! Putting my brows on really makes a difference in my demeanor. Before we long we boarded pretty quick and were on our way to California!
The flight was pretty uneventful – we both slept for the first ~3 hours, then I woke up and watched It (thanks American Airlines).
We actually landed a bit early in LA which was great! While we taxied on the runway we had TONS of notifications to catch up with, it was so crazy. After a little bit we were on our way into LAX. From there we quickly found our Super Shuttle pickup spot and waited for our ride to Disneyland! Hey look here’s my Away suitcase again:
I slept a bit on the shuttle too since we were both still SUPER tired. Before long we were arriving at our BEAUTIFUL hotel, the Grand Californian!! We had been there before on our last trip to Disneyland, but it was so much more exciting to be checking in than just passing through. We quickly got checked in and the cast members there were SO cute and excited for us!! Thankfully our room was ready, so we were able to go check it out while making a plan for the day. We were deciding between napping, showering, or immediately heading into the park.
We got to the room and it was SO. STUNNING. Beyond any expectations we could have ever had! We were booked on DVC points, so we were lucky enough to have a beautiful 1 bedroom villa for the night.
It was absolutely huge, probably bigger than our apartment at home!
It had a full kitchen and dining area…
…two bathrooms, including a bathtub and a shower…
(super cute bathroom decor details!!)
…a huge, beautiful bedroom…
…and a balcony that was literally RIGHT next to California Adventure. We could hear the park music and attractions from right outside!
AND they still use room key cards out in Disneyland which I was so happy to get as a souvenir!
Too cute!! We were absolutely in love and only wished we got to stay there for more than one night. We decided to unload, change and head directly into the park to make the most of our time. We really wanted to ride the new Guardians attraction and just see a bit of the park before we took a nap and showered before dinner. We weren’t sure if we were going to get it all done…but we would sure try! We decided to wear our matching Mr. & Mrs. shirts and I also wore the lipstick that Chris got me for one of his wedding gifts!
I love looking at these honeymoon pics because we are just BEAMING in all of them…we were just so happy!!!
Once we were ready it was time to head into the park! We made our way to the super cool entrance to DCA through the Grand Californian (Walt Disney World hotels need to get on this level, it was seriously the BEST) where we aggressively told every cast member (and some guests lol) that we had just gotten married and were SO THRILLED TO BE HERE!!!
All the cast members we talked to were super sweet and excited for us too! Or at least they were good at pretending to be excited for us! It was so good to be back in the park, we missed Disneyland so much.
We had to take our typical “Kaela hates Cars” photo:
The just married edition. Also, for those wondering – my bridal ears are (somewhat) DIY…they’re just white iridescent ears from this Etsy shop, which we added a veil to!
Right away we bought MaxPass, Disneyland’s slightly different version of FastPass+ that allows you to book FP on your phone and download your photopass pictures. We quickly got a fastpass for Haunted Mansion for about an hour from then.
We popped by Guardians of the Galaxy Mission Breakout to see what the line was like and saw it was at 45 minutes… a little longer than we wanted to wait, but we decided to do it because it was our biggest priority since it was the newest attraction since we had last visited. The line moved pretty quickly and we loved the queue and the pre-show room!
And we absolutely ADORED the ride!!
It was so much fun, we were seriously smiling and laughing and cheesin’ the entire time. We’re officially not mad that they changed it from Tower of Terror…but don’t go thinking about touching WDW’s Tower!
After Guardians we stopped to get a snack of a Mickey pretzel and snap some photos in front of Guardians. They turned out sooooo so cute!
This Mickey pretzel was actually even better because it was free!! We had saved some of our snack coupons that we get in our holiday discount book for cast members and brought them with to use in Disneyland. The only thing better than honeymoon snacks in Disneyland is free honeymoon snacks in Disneyland!
Once we got our photos we hightailed it over to the Disneyland side for our fastpass at Haunted Mansion! We walked through the park quickly because we were right at the end of our time slot, but it was SO great to be back in Disneyland. We were so happy!
We booked it over to Haunted Mansion and made it to our fastpass just in time! Having the MaxPass on our phones made it super easy, honestly – we just had to scan our little barcode and we were in! I honestly wish we had fastpass on our phones like that in WDW… maybe someday.
Haunted Mansion was, of course, wonderful! I tried and failed to take some shoddy photos:
That’s me but in ghost form.
The Hatbox Ghost which we absolutely STAN for…I remember the first time we rode Disneyland’s Mansion and saw this and we were literally speechless. It’s so perfect.
Even their moving walkway is cooler than ours!
After our doombuggy joyride we headed out to use another free snack coupon on…a churro!!
Our first married churro y’all.
That pic of me is one of the most Kaela pictures ever to exist. I’m obsessed with it.
We thoroughly enjoyed our first married churro – they really are better in Disneyland and I refuse to hear any arguments against that fact. While snacking we moseyed around New Orleans Square, my favorite land in any Disney park I’ve been to. We also popped by Club 33 to check out our dinner location for later that evening!
At this point we were REALLY feeling the effects of having so little sleep, and we kinda just wanted to get back to our room so we could nap and shower before dinner. So we headed to Main Street and got a few more photopass pics! We couldn’t go on our honeymoon to Disneyland and NOT get photos in front of the castle, right?
We also got a cute one at the entrance to Tomorrowland:
…where we were headed to do another fun thing that was new for us, the Disneyland Monorail! We decided to ride it back to Downtown Disney rather than just walking through the park, just to check it off our list. The monorail was closed on our last visit so we were really eager to check it out this time.
Super stunning view of the Matterhorn while we waited – oh how great it felt to be back in Disneyland again <3
The monorail was so cool and spiffy looking! I hope when WDW eventually gets new ones they look more like this 😎
OMG guys why didn’t anyone tell me that on Disneyland’s monorail you can open the windows??? That’s wild.
So happy <3 <3 <3
We hopped off the monorail at the Downtown Disney station and headed back to the Grand, where we promptly CRASHED, we were so tired! After a delicious nap we felt super refreshed, and finally showered and got ready for dinner. We were dressed nice for a very fancy and special dinner!!
If you don’t already know where we were headed…it’s the super fancy, super exclusive restaurant inside Disneyland, Club 33! Of course I already wrote an entire post with all the photos from that mindblowing dinner, so I won’t recount the entire thing here. But we got all dressed up and ready and headed back into the park. We went in through DCA so we could get this photo:
So appropriate for the occasion <3
We got to Disneyland and the castle looked so beautiful against the cotton candy pink sky… the tragic photos we got truly don’t do it justice:
And from there we headed to Club 33! I’ll take a brief pause here – if you haven’t already read my full Club 33 post, you should head on over there now to get the full story! Or, if you already have, you can reread it now to get the full experience again 😉
Okay – all caught up now? Good, let’s continue.
So we left Club 33 – a truly breathtaking, once in a lifetime experience that we will never forget – and headed out into New Orleans Square. We were still on a high from how amazing it was! We decided to do a few more things and then head out and end the evening on the highest note we possibly could. And the best way to do that was to ride our absolute favorite ride in any Disney park we have visited.
And that ride is Pirates.
We love Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean more than I can even tell you. When planning this trip, I asked Chris to make a list of 5 or so attractions he wanted to go on in Disneyland, so we could maximize our time. His answer was “Pirates, 5 times”. We just love it so much and so it was an absolute must do on this perfect day!
It was flawless, as expected.
At some point we had also made a FP for Indiana Jones and Chris SWEARS we went and did it but I have no memory of riding it so who knows what happened. So after Pirates we decided to finish off the day with a quick little ride on the Disneyland Railroad – which was another new attraction for us! For such a short visit, we actually got to do a lot of new things that we hadn’t done before. The Railroad was also closed on our last trip, so we were glad to be able to see it this time. We hopped on near the entrance to the park and did a full loop.
After practically falling asleep on the railroad, we decided it was time to head back. We were so tired again, but it was the good kind of tired – those of you who have spent an entire day at a Disney park and ended up exhausted in a hotel bed at the end of the night probably know what I mean.
We got back to the room to find one more special surprise waiting for us:
I could NOT believe this!
It turns out that one of my coworkers from Epcot GR who used to work at Disneyland had connections at the Grand Californian, and she let them know we were coming and they set up this special surprise for us 😭 Thank you so much Rikki for thinking of us and the cast at the Grand Californian for this special surprise – I seriously cried when I saw it, I could not believe how generous and thoughtful it was!
It was the perfect way to end an already perfect day!
And to make it even better…I decided I wanted to order room service before bed. We’re on our honeymoon, why not right?
I literally saw the first item on the list and immediately had to order it. I ate a DELICIOUS corn chowder at Storytellers Cafe at the Grand Californian on our last trip, and I was dying to have it again. It did not disappoint!!
Chris also ordered some fries as a midnight snack. Our little spread was so cute:
We sat there enjoying all our delicious food and I literally sat there wondering how my life was real. I believe I even tweeted something about how I was eating my favorite corn chowder in our hotel room at Grand Cali with my NEW HUSBAND ON OUR HONEYMOON AT DISNEYLAND….how is this real?? I was so happy and in love and everything was just perfect.
We finished our meals while watching Disneyland’s resort TV and then finally, FINALLY headed to bed. After such a long day we fell asleep so quickly – amazing how great it feels to get a full night’s sleep in a real bed after a long day 🙂
So…that was the first day of our honeymoon!!!!! It was SUCH a great day, we had so much fun and did so many cool new things AND so many old favs. We loved every minute of the day but the best part was just being together – Chris and I were so very happy and like I mentioned before, it just warms my heart to look back at these photos and remember how ridiculously thrilled we were. It was such a great trip…and it’s only just beginning!!
I hope you enjoyed this post, and if you did, you’ll come back when I write the rest (which will be very soon!!) Thank you so much for reading, and be sure to check out the rest of the posts about our wedding if you want 🙂 xo!!
<3
