Our 2 year old son is crazy about trains, so we took him and our 5 year old daughter for a ride on the narrow guage steam train a few days after Christmas. We missed the holiday lights train, but figured it would be much less crowded after Christmas. It was still quite busy, and they added an additional train after the 12:30 train to accommodate the visitors. You may want to consider buying tickets in advance, especially during the holidays. There is food and drinks available at the station, and we bought cheeseburgers, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, hot chocolate and apple cider before boarding our train. The cheeseburgers were surprisingly good!

There were open cars and covered cars, and we opted for an open car. Even though it was late December, the weather was in the low 60s and very nice. We took the train up the mountain, which was about an hour and 20 minutes round trip, with a 15 minute break at the top. The train is dog friendly, and we had 2 tall poodle brothers in our car, which kept our son interested for a while. The trip up the mountain through the redwoods was beautiful, and the junior conductor-in-training, Trevor, gave a fun and interesting narration throughout the trip. There are a few fun encounters along the way, including great views of an old burned out trestle, and the train backing up a steep incline to go up a switch back. Looking up at the towering redwoods, some thousands of years old, was the best part of the trip.

At $24 for adults and $17 for kids 2 and over (plus $8 for parking), it's a bit pricey, but if you love redwoods and/or trains, it's well worth it, especially if you are already in the area.

Took my 22 month old and 4.5 year old here and really enjoyed it. It's a great alternative to Chuck E. Cheese and The Jungle, with more things to do and a cleaner environment. There are themed rooms, like the Sarari Room and Fish Tank, which are both huge and in different parts of the building so that you can go from one to the other when it gets crowded. The rooms have ride-on toys for both toddlers and preschoolers, jumpy houses, jumpy slides, and a foam pit in the Fish Tank. Beware the foam pit, the little bits of blue foam stuck all over my daughters' socks and took forever to pick off (and still didn't get it all off!). The Fish Tank room is cool with its glow-in-the dark theme, but because it's dark in there, keep an eye on where your kids are! There's a large mini-gym with basketball, zip line and ride-ons, but we didn't go in because it looked more suitable for older children.

They have a pretty good menu with lots of variety. We ordered a small pizza for the four of us and it was surprisingly big. My daughter chose the chicken ranch, which tasted really good! Starbucks is a plus. The rooms have nice leather seats that you can relax in while sipping coffee and watching the kids play.

We booked a Princess Party for our daughter's birthday (turning 5). We peeked through the windows of the Princess room and the Cinderella gave a wave and smile to my daughter. It looked spacious and set up very nicely for a princess tea party. I will update my review after the party!

*Edited October 18, 2011*
So my daughter had her Princess Party here this past weekend and it was great! The room is really large and roomy, they had one big table down the middle for all the kids, a long table along the wall for the food, drinks and cake, another long table on the side wall for the gifts, two round tables for the parents, two round tables for arts and crafts, a couple leather chairs, and one tall table with chairs in the corner. After checking in and going over the party details, we got two free Starbucks drinks included in the package. Very nice touch!

There is a big castle in the room, with a throne in the middle. Behind the castle is the dress-up area. They have a closet filled with princess dresses, and enough knight shirts and capes for the boys (we had 7 boys and 6 girls). The Princess and one helper greeted us and took our daughter to get dressed and have her hair done. As each guest came, the Princess would do their hair, and she did a fabulous job giving them different styles. Each princess also got to wear a tiara. They had foam swords and shields for the boys, and as you'd expect, there was much play fighting with those (some of the girls got into the play fighting too!).

After crafts and free play, the kids sat down for the tea party. You have a few options for food, and we chose 1/2 turkey/cheese and 1/2 berries/cream cheese sandwiches. They also served scones, fruit and pretzels, as well as juice boxes (pizza and soda were the other options). After the tea party was the fashion show. The Princess introduced each child and what they most wished for (she had gone around asking the kids during the tea party) and then everyone gathered for a group shot around the throne. The Princess then gathered everyone to the back for a story (my daughter chose The Little Mermaid). It was then cake time, and after cake time was freeze dance.

I was very happy with the room, food, organization, and atmosphere. My daughter had a blast, and all the kids seemed to enjoy it too. I was worried the boys would get bored quickly, but they actually may have had more fun than some of the girls! We did have two girls who were very shy, and one who wouldn't come out for the fashion show, so keep that in mind.

It is on the expensive side, but I think it was very much worth it for the amount of food offered (we took home lots of leftovers). Also worth it to not have to do any cleanup and just go home after those busy two hours!

We made reservations here for dinner the first night we stayed at the Disneyland Hotel. It was very convenient, located right inside the main tower of the hotel. It was bustling all night long, so I do recommend making the reservations so the kids don't get cranky waiting for the table. Also, buy an autograph book ahead of time! We didn't have time to go to the shops beforehand, and although they had autograph books available at the front register, they were all the generic one and they didn't have the fancy princess ones.

The first thing you do is take a photo with Goofy, which they are supposed to bring to your table to show you, but they never did for us. Too bad because we would probably have bought it since it was one of the few photos we had of all of us!

We learned early on (while meeting Goofy at the beginning) that, unfortunately, our 22 month old was afraid of costumed characters. Ooops! Make sure you know whether your kids will be okay with the big Goofy and Chip and Dale characters approaching them. It was perfect for my 4 year old, but my husband spent dinner taking the little one out of the restaurant every time he got scared by the characters.

A LOT of characters come by, which was great. My girl got autographs and photos with them, and she had a blast.

The food was pretty good, especially for the kids, and they had a pretty good selection to pick and choose from. Desserts were especially tasty. It is expensive, but I do think it's worth it for the experience.

There were warnings that the show may be scary for kids, so I left my almost 2 year old with the hubby and went in with my 4 year old girl. We had 'preferred' seating, which is just a row in the middle that was near empty. The show is loud and scary, especially because it's 3D and has some water and air effects! By the time we reached the part where the spiders were dropping down from the ceiling and looked and felt like they were surrounding us, my girl was screaming and I had to carry her out the exit, running full speed. Probably great for older kids and adults, but I really regret not heeding the warning that it may be scary!

Growing up close to Disneyland, I never got to stay at the resort as a kid, so I was looking forward to staying at the Disneyland Hotel with the kids, and was excited about the newly renovated rooms. Unfortunately, the construction was a big problem for us.

I booked through the Disneyland website and upgraded to a "deluxe" view room. When I booked, it clearly described a "deluxe" view room as being on levels 3 to 6 and having a view of either Downtown Disney or California Adventure [the website currently is NOT showing a "deluxe" room option when you go through the booking process, although on their room description they still list standard, deluxe and premium as the choices]. Well, our room was on level 6 of the main tower, but we had a view of the construction site, which is a big hole in the ground. Also, the main tower we were in was undergoing construction, and every day you could see two ropes hanging in front of our window, and one day we actually saw the platform being pulled by ropes in front of our window and going up the building! Around 8 or 9 in the morning, you could hear the construction inside the building and have a wonderful view of bulldozers outside moving dirt around. We complained about this before even unpacking, saying that the webside clearly indicated we would have a view of the resort or downtown Disney, but was simply told that what we described was a "premium" view, that we got a "great rate" and there were no other rooms available, but they'd keep checking for us. I knew they would not bother checking for us. Also, we paid upwards of $250 per night (3 nights) for this room, and on the first morning, they mistakenly put the invoice for the previous occupants of the room on our doorknob, and we saw that the previous guests only paid $175 for the room. Very disappointing.

I thought this would be a resort quality hotel, but was disappointed when no one offered to help us bring our bags to our room. My husband had to make two trips to the car while I waited with the kids inside the room. I suppose if we had paid extra for valet parking, then they may have brought our bags to our room. There were plenty of guys standing around.

The room itself was actually very nice. The light-up musical headboard was awesome! The TV was great, and had lots of chanels (lots of Disney stations). The two queen bed room we got did not have a daybed. It did have a pack and play, which fit fine in the large room. Bathroom was nicely updated, and all the Disney details were sweet. Bed was comfy enough, and everything was clean.

Construction around and inside the hotel made it inconvenient getting around. Also, the hotel is pretty far from the entrance to the parks. Although the monorail entrance is not too far, it starts running at 10 a.m., and when we went there at 10, we were told it was running late, so we ended up just walking.

We went through the Grand California entrance to California Adventure the first day, taking advantage of the early entrance for resort guests. That was nice. Going through Grand California also convinced me that we should book a room there next time. It would not have cost too much more to stay there, and we would have had a much better view, plus no construction noise/view/inconvenience. Also, we went back to the room for our little one's nap, and the trek to Disneyland Hotel is really long, especially compared to Grand California.

I did like the shop inside the main tower of the hotel. It had a lot of the things that the big store in Downtown Disney had, and was MUCH less crowded. There is also a small convenience store in the main tower that was great because they had small bottled milk as well as other drinks.

We had dinner the first night at Goofy's Kitchen in the hotel. Very convenient, and great experience for my 4 year old, but my almost 2 year old was scared of all of the characters! My husband spent most of the night taking him outside whenever a non-princess character came by. Food was pretty good, and had a good selection. We ate at the Tangaroa Terrace the second night and I wasn't too impressed. It is not connected to Trader Sam's, so we couldn't order drinks. It was more of a cafeteria style dinner, and was very empty.

Overall, I did like and was impressed with the inside of the room. But I would recommend staying here only after construction is completed, or if you can be sure to get a non-construction view and a room in a tower that is not currently under construction.