I’m not part of the mindset that Disney overcharges. In fact, I strongly feel that for the amount of experiences we get it’s a great deal. And when it comes to enhancing even the smaller holidays, Disney does it right.
For this natural mama, I love that for the Easter holiday Disneyland Resorts offers a fun activity instead of another sugar and candy option. (Although there’s plenty of options for your sweet tooth too!)
Disney’s Eggstravaganza offers a good amount of activity time dedicated to the kiddos finding hidden eggs around each park and even downtown Disney. Simply purchase the egg hunt maps at participating locations throughout both parks and start the adventure!
Each map set is complete with location clues and a sticker to mark each hidden egg that you find. Once the kids have completed their egg hunt you can redeem it for their choice of select special event eggs.
*TIP: I had the kids pick out and redeem their eggs at the time we purchased the eggstravaganza map sets. This way, I could give it to them right at the end of finding the last egg. Also, this will help you avoid any possible, and likely long lines of egg redeeming locations.
In our world, the kiddos have 2 weeks off for spring break. The same exact two weeks that we happen to be blocked out of our Disney annual passes. UGH. But…we did find a fun way to participate in this holiday Disney offering even while on break for a full day of magic. Here’s how we did a Disney day while blocked out:
We started at the Disneyland hotel for breakfast and enjoyed the characters and food at Goofy’s kitchen. If you haven’t been there, it’s a great option for young families with lots of very kid friendly food offerings, and wonderful character interaction. They also offer annual pass holder discounts. (BTW we used our parking pass for the Mickey & Friends structure, because it’s good even on our blackout days!)
*TIP: Before leaving the hotel, ask the front desk for coloring pages and they will give you their seasonal fun book and crayons. Put these guys away- You’ll need to play this card later.
After breakfast, we walked through downtown and purchased the Eggstravaganza map from the World of Disney Store. This map is for downtown hidden eggs only, since we are doing this on a day we are blocked on our passes.
*TIP: Learn from my toddler mom fail, and give the kids the map to hold on to, but not the stickers.
When they actually find one of the hidden eggs, show them their sticker sheet to pick the one they find and place that one on their maps only. Our 3 year old took all the stickers and put them all over immediately not understanding what we were doing and we had to go back and get a new pack.
I like to go in order of the egg map so that when we tell the kids to place the eggs we can say, “That one goes next to pluto”. This is mostly because our kiddos cannot read yet. Also, the water fountain and larger area to sit is about halfway thru so it lines up nicely for breaking up the hunt for us.
We like to sit in the shade and take a break by the fountain about half way through. This is where we bust out those coloring packs we got at the hotel. It was a warm day so we let the kids play around the fountain and splash a bit. It gave us an opportunity to feed the twins and take a little food break ourselves. We like to get fast, fresh nachos from the “To Go” side of Tortilla Jos and some fresh mini beignets from Ralph Brennan’s Jazz Kitchen. It’s a welcome break from the crowd and a good treat for us after pushing 4 babes along in the warmer weather.
Everyone got some energy out, re-fueled a bit and all packed up we continued on our way to finding the remaining hidden eggs. We made a little pit stop outside the Downtown Disney LEGO store to enjoy the fun, free play area. The boys are always happy to build some things and on days we are going into the parks we don’t really do this.
Rainforest Cafe has a good hidden egg and if you have good timing, you can catch their live parrot experience outside as well.
After we finished up, we headed back to the Disneyland hotel and grabbed a popsicle for the kids at The Coffee House and some Dole whip floats with a splash of rum for us! We took all our happy faces and sat outside by the outdoor fireplace enjoying the end of our Eggtravaganza day!
At the end of it all we experienced a good Disney day, even while being blocked out of the parks! You can partake in this too until Sunday, April 1st!
The Happiest Club on Earth 