I was super excited to get to photograph this family’s Disneyland family vacation (yes! I do that…scroll to the bottom to get more info)! I’m going to let you hear it all from their point of view, PLUS they are sharing all of their best Disneyland family vacation tips. This is PART ONE. Make sure you check back for their PART TWO tips! Here are Jay and Amy:
“If you would have told us two years ago that we would hire a professional photographer to document our Disneyland family vacation, we would have thought you were crazy. But after our fantastic experience with our Day in the Life session last spring, we knew we wanted to have Davina back to photograph our family again, and we started musing about having her come with us to our favorite place in the world – Disneyland!
Disneyland is very important to our family. It is our number one vacation choice, and we have so many amazing memories from being there together over the years. At Christmas last year, we surprised our kids (and grandma!) with the news that we would be going to Disneyland in January, about a year earlier than they anticipated going. They were so excited. What they didn’t know was that we also booked a suite at the place they had always dreamed of staying: the Disneyland hotel. We were saving that surprise for the day of our arrival.
With the “once in a lifetime” nature of this Disneyland family vacation, and the fact that our children are getting older and we only have a few short years before our eldest will leave for college, we knew we had to document this experience. Naturally, we turned to Davina. We were so excited when she agreed to come spend the first two days of our vacation with us and capture this special part of our family life.”
Disneyland family vacation tip #1
Before You Go
- Try to schedule your trip for the off-season (any time that’s not summer or a school break/holiday…some people think if they go at Christmas time it will be the off-season, not so!)– it will help keep your sanity
- If you have enough time before your trip, consider giving your kids Disney gift cards for their birthday or holidays (or if family and friends ask, let them know gift cards would be a good gift), so when Junior is begging for a Mickey head bubble wand or a build-your-own light-saber, he can use his own gift card to pay for it.
Disneyland family vacation tip #2
While at the Park
- Bring a backpack or a stroller to hold your food and other items.
- Be patient with lines. Find something to do to pass the time in line … play 20 questions, download the Charades app on your phone, dig around in your backpack for some trail mix….
- Get your kids’ input. Ask what they want to do … it may be different than what you anticipated.
- Roll with it! Although you want to have a general plan of what you want to do and see during your trip, be open to change. If a few people want to ride the Matterhorn but others don’t, no worries! Separate and meet back up after the ride. If you’re hurrying to get to a ride and your little one sees a character they want to meet, go get in line. Take time to enjoy the many small details that make a Disneyland family vacation magical.
- Use fast passes to avoid long lines at popular rides. Important things to note with fast passes: you can only have one fast pass out at time so you want to make sure you plan when you want to use a fast pass, keep track of the time, and stay close to the ride
(stay tuned for part 2 of these Disneyland family vacation tips!)
What this dad wrote to me:
“I want to tell you how much I appreciate your work. After you left we missed you! Everyone kept saying, “aren’t we missing someone?!?” We have watched the slideshow a dozen times or more. Tears and smiles all around. You did an amazing job of capturing our family at Our Favorite Place. I cannot thank you enough! Awesome awesome awesome!!!”-Jay
Davina Fear is a Familyness Adventurer. She loves seeing the good in the world and she wants to photograph your family’s everyday awesome-ness. She specializes in photographing the craziness of everyday life for families. She also knows what Wingardium Leviosa means and wishes her kids could have gone to Hogwarts (but they would come home every night and not stay all term).If you are like this family and love Disneyland or family vacations…and you’d like to remember all the little moments (and that you were there, too), get details and more information by calling or texting Davina at 704-964-5882, you can also reach her at davina@davinafear.com
She blogs at davinafear.com. Have you signed up her FREE book: The Art of Familyness Photography? CLICK HERE
By day, I photograph families. By night, I build forts the size of elephants with my family. I live in a yellow house. I believe real life is the best getaway ever.
6 Comments
Love this! Great photos and a great memory for the family. And love Dad’s testimonial!!
Thank you, Paul! I love that I got to be part of their day. Especially, since their kids are getting older and Disneyland has been such a special and memorable place for them over the years.
One of my favorite parts of my documentary work is how much dads love the real interactions and no stress about posing or clothes or anything else. They just get to be them with their family. It makes it all even that much more meaningful.
Thank you for taking the time to leave a comment, Paul. You are awesome!
Lovely, encouraging and fun all rolled into one post – thank you!!
You’re welcome, Melanie! Thank you so much for coming over and reading! It was so fun to be in Disneyland with this family. I love how much they rolled with the excitement and exhaustion that goes with a Disneyland family vacation.
These photos are really creative! They are going to love having these to look back on! Great job!
Thank you so much Caitlin! I appreciate you taking the time to leave me this kind note. I agree! These are amazing moments that they will get to look back on. The mom and dad were wanting to be able to capture this dynamic before it all changes because their kids are getting older and the magic of Disneyland is still there but becoming something different for their older children. Getting to be with them for two days was so cool because I got to be there for all of the real emotion and fun and meltdown moments and exhilarating fun of rides and being together and all of it. So awesome! I love getting to be with families!