Many of you have read that the wife and I had to cancel our big WDW trip this fall because we had a surprise pregnancy! We are very excited about our new little one (due 2.17.14), but we're pretty bummed about the trip cancellation. In order to quench our Disney woes, I changed our 1 year anniversary plans around from a lo-key beach hotel stay to a more splurgy short Disney CA trip. Here's the pre-trip gameplan!
TRAVEL:
We are lucky to live only 55 miles from Disney in CA, so we'll be driving up next Tuesday morning.
HOTEL:
After some research, I chose a really romantic looking place called The Anabella. The location is incredible. The Hotel looks directly at the perimeter of CA Adventure on Katella (ie: it's about 90' from CAA's back wall). We had contemplated staying at a Disney Hotel, but the only one I'd even want to stay at is the Grand Californian. Sadly their "basic" room starts at $550.00 a night! No thanks! Disneyland Hotel & Paradise Pier aren't worth the money in my opinion, so I was happy to find the place we did. We picked their best suite available and it was only $220.00! I can't wait to check in!
View from the grounds! Right across the street from CA Screaming!
Cute Patio's outside ground level rooms.
Great rooms. See the Disney love in there? Bunks for the kids too!
Another room style. There are quite a few styles on the website. Plenty of unique rooms.
1 of their great pools!
Beautiful Lobby.
Main Entry.
DAY 1: Disneyland
-ADR @ The Blue Bayou for Lunch! This is the famous table service spot that overlooks Pirates of the Caribbean. The boats cruise right by you as you dine waterside. The Blue Bayou is indoors, but designed to feel outdoors. It's pretty incredible and very romantic. I took my wife here the day before I proposed.
-ADR @ Napa Rose for Dinner. This place is inside Disney's Grand Californian Resort. We've never been so we're excited to try it! Too bad the wife won't be enjoying their extensive wine list!
*Reserved seats & dessert service for FANTASMIC! These seats are incredible. For those that have never seen Fantasmic inside Disneyland, it's very different than WDW. Seating with a good view is pretty limited, and folks will wait for hours and hours to get said seats. Not to mention they aren't even seats!!! It's just a spot on the ground. It's not like DHS where nearly every seat is a good view of the show with the very functional greek-style amphitheater bowl. The reserved seating/dessert service tickets we booked are pricey ($60ea) but we wanted to splurge and do something special! Not to mention we have a mountain of vacation savings we won't be using this fall now haha.
This is the venue Disneyland uses for Fantasmic. Tom Sawyers Island is the "stage", and Rivers of America is where all the water action happens. It's very similar to MK's Liberty Square area, but much larger.
DAY 2: CA Adventure
-No lunch ADR. We will prob want to enjoy the pool before checking out and heading into the Park.
-ADR @ Wine Country Trattoria for dinner
*Reserved seating for World of Color! Access to the reserved viewing area for WOC was included with the ADR we made for WCT. They have 3 table service restaurants you can do this through, and it's pretty reasonable considering you get a nice dinner out of the deal.
Current Disneyland / CA Adventure pass holder. WDW X4 visits!
Just out of curiosity, which route are you going to take to get to the front gate, down Disneyland Drive and through DTD? 
Oops. But otherwise, perfect. I booked it through Expedia and got a REALLY good deal. Closer in to your date, I might suggest double checking the travel sites to see if you can get the same room category at a deeper discount. Good luck, have fun, and take pictures!!
I highly recommend. We felt a bit under-dressed, but they didn't make us feel that way. Very classy and very romantic.
