The Happiest Place on Earth recently turned 71 which means the Disneyland 70 celebration is sadly winding down. The theme for this 15 month birthday party was Celebrate Happy and that is just what Laura and I did on not one, not two, but THREE visits to Walt’s original park! Trust me, we did not intend to make so many trips across the country in such a short time. If it was intentional, we most certainly would have purchased Magic Key’s, Disneyland’s equivalent of annual passes. Oopsie!! 🤷♂️ Oh well, hindsight is 20/20! So how did we ‘accidentally’ visit three times in a year? Read on to see how the year unfolded, including some highlights from three very different trips that were each special in their own way!
It all started with a birthday. No, not Disneyland’s birthday. Laura’s birthday!! Ok, it was actually her birthday and a very special parade. When Disneyland 70 was announced, we were most excited to hear they were bringing back “A spectacular nighttime pageant of magic and imagination, in millions of dazzling lights!” That would be better known as the Paint the Night Parade – the greatest piece of daily entertainment presented in any US Disney Park in decades!! No, I’m not overselling this. It’s just that good! Laura’s first ever trip to Disneyland and our first visit together was 10 years ago when the park was wrapping up its 60th birthday Diamond Celebration. We were literally there the final weekend of Paint the Night’s debut run at the park and it was the most fun we had ever had watching a parade! We loved it so much that we have planned a trip every time Disneyland has brought it back and this time would be no different. So we decided to go for Laura’s birthday just a couple weeks after the start of Disneyland 70 in May 2025. Our friends Katie and Erica came along for the celebration too!
Every Birthday Party Comes With Food:
We always find new (to us) things to do at Disneyland and this trip was no exception. Our first stop upon arrival was a first ever visit to the original Trader Sam’s at the Disneyland Hotel! It was full inside, but we enjoyed a drink and bite to eat on the terrace with views of the hotel’s monorail inspired pool area. The next day we had another food first with Laura’s delicious birthday lunch at Din Tai Fung!
Click the arrows above to see the delicious food from Din Tai Fung!
We tried a lot of other wonderful food items during the trip, but I’ll just share one more food photo! They call it a Fantasyland Faire Fold. Basically a cheeseburger Crunchwrap and soooooo good!!
The Disneyland 70 Entertainment that Called Us Here:
Food is always a great part of visiting Disneyland, but there were many other highlights – most of all, the entertainment!! In addition to bringing back Paint the Night, Disneyland 70 brought back Wondrous Journey’s a short lived fireworks show from the Disney 100 celebration that I had never seen. Oh was I glad they brought it back!! I absolutely loved it and saw it twice on each of these three trips; however, it took several attempts to get the perfect view! We watched from Small World Plaza the first night. I figured this would be perfect since they do projections on the attraction. The projections were great, but due to where we were positioned the fireworks were off to the side so we couldn’t watch both the fireworks and projections at the same time. Nonetheless, I instantly fell in love with the show and its soundtrack! The Big Hero 6 segment makes me emotional every single time for some unknown reason! It just gets to me. There is also an amazing medley of Beauty and Beast, Hunchback of Notre Dame and others that I just felt blended together the unlikely heroes so beautifully!!
We also watched Paint the Night from the Small World mall area and I was sad to say I was disappointed. I was so excited for this parade but it just didn’t draw me in like it always had before. Did it not withstand the test of time? No, not possible. I was trying to put my normal obsessive trip planning aside for once and didn’t insist, or even ask, that we wait the two hours that were needed for the perfect fireworks and parade viewing location like I normally would. It wasn’t all about me and my wants!!
Well, that kind of backfired. It was just so busy by the time we got there that we couldn’t get a decent spot for the parade. We were way too far back with too many obstructions. I wasn’t going to let that happen again!! I decided right then and there that we would watch the parade again with a perfect, front row view on Main Street!! Laura, Katie and Erica went back to our hotel for a rest during our second day at Disneyland while I stayed back in the park, had some dinner and then staked out a spot for the four of us as soon as it was allowed!
Yesssssss!!! The parade was amazing and left me wanting more!! The theme songs lyrics “When Can I See You Again” always hold true after this parade! Photos just don’t do it justice. Click the links below to watch all the highlights from Paint the Night in Instagram reels. Yes, it needed three separate reels! I just couldn’t cut it down anymore!
After that amazing parade viewing, we moved out into the street to watch the fireworks. I wanted to be fairly close to the castle for a good view of the Blue Fairy and Baymax who both fly above the castle instead of the usual Tinkerbell. Well, we did get a good view of them, but they didn’t do any projections on the castle!! What?! Did I screw up on viewing location again?! I looked back at videos of this show on You Tube which definitely had projections on the castle so they must have had technical difficulties that night. Oh well! 🤷♂️ Wondrous Journey’s was still a ‘wonderful’ show! I did get a good view of the flying characters, but somehow messed up my video recording. In all three trips, I never got a good video of Baymax!
Katie and Erica decided to go back to the hotel after the fireworks, but Laura stuck it out with me until park closing and we were so glad we did!! We had purchased a Fantasmic dining package so we were able to head over to New Orleans Square and claim our spots in a reserved viewing area just a few minutes before the show. I just love Fantasmic at Disneyland!! This is my all-time favorite piece of Disney entertainment, anywhere in the world! It is so much better and more magical than the Florida version!! I remember sitting here on the ground for 4 hours before the show back when it opened in 1992 and sooooooo many hours since!! I am now hooked on the dining package for a less crowded, less time consuming and more comfortable experience!
Magic Moments Only Disney Can Do:
While all the shows that night were amazing, it was what happened after Fantasmic that made this night so special and memorable! When Disneyland 70 started everyone was obsessed with the Key to Disneyland experience. Not us! Instead, we spent the late night hours hitting up all the OTHER interactive kiosks they installed throughout the park! Each kiosk was activated by our Magic Bands and did different things. On one side of the castle, the kiosks activated little scenes from various movies. Another one in Adventureland popped out a commemorative Jungle Cruise ticket keepsake. Nothing major but it was so much fun just roaming around a mostly empty park doing these little activities!
I didn’t take any photos but I did get some videos which are included near the end of the Instagram reel below. Click the link below to watch all the highlights of Disneyland 70 that I posted on Disneyland’s 71st birthday! This actually includes some footage of almost everything in this blog that I didn’t have photos of plus a few things we wouldn’t encounter until our next two visits! I love how this reel turned out and I hope you do too!
While searching for the kiosks, we came across something else that was truly magical and always there! While Laura stopped in the restroom I waited in the adorable little Fantasy Faire courtyard. We had only ever been there during the day. Well, it comes alive at night, literally!! There was nobody there so it was easy to take in the sights and sounds without distraction. After sitting there for a couple minutes, Rapunzel’s hair started to light up!! I never had any idea this happened! It’s little things like this that make me love Disneyland so much!!
The park was about to close so we headed down Main Street and grabbed this quick photo in Town Square.
Then we looked up at the train station to find Minnie Mouse who appeared to be looking for someone.
Oh Minnie!! We found him!! We found your Mickey!! This was the perfect ending to a perfect night at the Happiest Place on Earth! Another thing that would just never happen at Walt Disney World!!
Disney California Adventure Celebrates Disneyland 70 Too:
Oh but wait, there’s more!! I’m going to wrap up this post and write about Disneyland 70 trips two and three later, but first I should mention we did also visit Disney California Adventure. They had a new edition of its nighttime spectacular called World of Color: Happiness to fit the theme of Celebrate Happy. I had mixed feelings on this show. I loved the music and all the musical segments which featured Powerline, Louisa from Encanto, Four Town from Turning Red and much more. I really loved these sections! I wasn’t a huge fan of the Inside Out narrative that was featured throughout the show. It just broke up the flow of the show too much and Inside Out isn’t a favorite movie of mine. Again, I didn’t take any photos or videos of this show from this trip, but it is shown in the Disneyland 71st Birthday reel linked above. Luckily, this show grew on me on later visits. I ended up loving it!!
One other California Adventure highlight from that trip was meeting Baymax and Hiro!! I wore my shirt with Baymax squeezed into a Buzz Lightyear costume just for the occasion and they loved it!! Hiro thought it looked like a good technology upgrade for Baymax!
I’ve been having a Big Hero 6 / Baymax moment the last couple years!! Loving everything Baymax related! Except the macaron. It was just okay, but it was cute!
Laura also set her sights on winning a Star Catcher plush at this La Luna game in Paradise Pier! All four of us won plush stars, but no Star Catcher!
Finally, the park debuted a new Pixar Parade. Or maybe it was something they brought back from their Pixar Fest event the previous year, but it was new to us. Honestly, it was just okay. The floats were really small and some I had definitely seen in other parades. Here are some of the highlights:
Now this is what I was most excited about!! I absolutely love the film Luca and for them to have their own float was awesome! But just wait until you see it from the side!
OMG!!! Alberto and Luca were seen in both their forms!! They were humans above the water line and sea serpents underwater!! I didn’t get any great photos, but this was so cool!! I loved it!!
That was pretty much it for Disneyland 70 trip number one! We rode all the rides and ate all the great Disneyland food, but this giant birthday celebration really shined when it came to entertainment and the little touches of extra magic! Plus we enjoyed spending time with friends! Our next trip was already scheduled before we even took this first trip but that story will have to wait.
We are on our way back to Anaheim once again. As in, we will be boarding our flight within a couple from now! Laura will be going to Disneyland AGAIN and I will be going to my first ever D23 Expo!! I wish I had more time to go to the parks, but I guess three visits in a year will hold me over for a while longer! Stay tuned for more on D23, plus parts two and three of Disneyland 70 in the coming weeks!
I hope you enjoyed this first of three Disneyland 70 trip recaps!! Please like this post and share your thoughts in the comments below or on Social Media! See ya real soon!
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