Spencer and I got the chance to finally make a trip out west together and it was SO much fun! We love to travel any chance we get, and when we found out his younger sister would be moving out to California for an internship we knew we wanted to visit! I didn’t take my professional camera on this trip to keep things simple, and take a little break, so enjoy my fun little iphone recap of our California trip below!

We started our trip with waking up at 2:30am to catch our flight to San Diego. Our first day was basically fully dedicated to traveling, resting, and getting to know where we were staying. We arrived in San Diego just around lunch time (and rented a car for the first time – woohoo!). Our first stop was sushi for lunch with Kelsey at California State University San Marcos. We walked around the area, picked up Spencer’s parents from the airport, and then grabbed dinner at Draft Republic. It was a struggle to stay up all day, but we made it until 10pm to help adjust to the time change easier.

La Jolla and Sunset Cliffs

For our first full day in California together we went to La Jolla to see the cove, seals and sea lions, and do some shopping. We started off walking down into a cave to get closer to the water which was so cool! Then we got to walk over to the beach area you’ll see below. I actually brought my swim suit to Cali hoping to spend some time at the beach, but the water was SO cold. The weather the whole week we were there was beautiful, but it was got pretty chilly at night with the breeze from the coast.

After getting to watch the seals and sea lions at the beach, we stopped at a cute historic restaurant for cocktails and lunch. Then we walked around the shopping district for awhile before heading south for Sunset Cliffs. Before watching the sunset, we made sure to stop at In-n-Out Burger for dinner. I had never had In-n-Out, and it was on my MUST do list for our trip haha. It was so great!

Getting to watch the sunset on the west coast was unreal. The cliffs are so beautiful, and getting to sit on top of one watching the sun go down was such an amazing thing to see. We loved Sunset Cliffs and one day I would love to take photos here!!

San Diego

Our next day was dedicated to exploring San Diego more! We went to Balboa Park not realizing how MASSIVE it is! We walked around the gardens and the market village taking photos and admiring all the architecture.

For lunch we headed to Old Town San Diego for tacos and margaritas. I got a full margarita flight of 5 different flavors and it was SO good! After lunch we walked around Old Town and did some shopping. Then we headed to the Gaslamp District of downtown San Diego for our Padres baseball game!

The baseball game that day was Star Wars themed (very fitting for our trip to Disney that weekend), and they went all out. We got there a little early to hang out before the game started and the Star Wars theme was so much fun. We love going to baseball games since Spencer’s brother-in-law works for the Orioles! The view from the stadium was so beautiful, and they even won the game! This was such a fun day exploring San Diego.

San Diego Zoo

We spent most of our Saturday exploring the San Diego Zoo! Anytime I asked someone for recommendations of things to do in San Diego, they always mentioned the zoo! This zoo was HUGE. We spent a ton of time here and didn’t see it all. After lots of walking, watching animals, and exploring, we headed out for fun desserts someone had recommended to us. We went to Extraordinary desserts in San Diego, and they were seriously extraordinary. I had never seen such pretty desserts, so of course I took a photo of the display to show you guys haha.

Disney California Adventure Park

Alright – I will admit. Half of this whole blog post is Disney pictures because it was SO much fun. I grew up going to Disney World, so I knew if we were flying out the California we should make the drive to Anaheim for Disneyland. We spent 2 full days at Disney and it was the BEST EVER. Seriously even as a 26 year old – Disneyland was magical. We have a trip coming up to Disney World this fall with our friends, and I’m counting down the days!!

We went to California Adventure first, which I was super excited for because we don’t have that on the east coast, and they had so many cool parts of the park and new rides. To maximize our time for our trip, we got Genie+ and used it to ride all of the rides we were hoping to! This was SO worth it to skip lines and get to hit the most popular rides!

We got to the park at Opening at went right to the Avengers campus. We started off with Spiderman, the guardians of the galaxy ride (which used to be the Tower of Terror!), and watching the famous robotic spiderman we had seen on tiktok!

The Incredibles Rollercoaster was one of our favorite rides all day! Enjoy this cute pic of us from the ride! We even rode it twice because it was so good!

I took so many photos at Cars Land because it was SO cool. It looked like it was straight out of the movie!! We ended up eating lunch here at Flo’s and it was so good. We came back to the area of the park later at night to see all the neon lights and ride Radiator Springs Racers – which was a 20/10. We loved this ride so much. The wait time was basically 1.5-2 hours all day long, so we hopped in the single rider line to split up and ride it twice. This ride was SO. GOOD.

After lunch we got a drawing lesson from the Animation Studios. We all drew Mirabel from Encanto, and I don’t think we will be getting hired any time soon haha.

My DCA bucket list was basically to get a corn dog, so of course I took a photo of it 🙂

We watched the World of Color from the front (splash zone!) and it was the most beautiful thing ever. We all loved this show so much! I wish I could watch it again!!

Seeing Cars Land at night was SO cool. After watching the Imagineering documentary about them building this part of the park, it was even more fascinating. Such a great way to end our time at DCA! We had the perfect day!

Disneyland

Spencer and I headed back to Anaheim for a full day at the other park – Disneyland! After growing up going to Disney World I was so excited to see this original park! We got in the park right at opening to maximize our time and avoid longer lines in the morning.

We started out by riding the Jungle Cruise and Pirates of the Carribbean. Two classics! Then we got mickey shaped beignets for a breakfast treat! We got on the Indiana Jones Ride and got stuck for about 20 minutes, which was our only bump in the road for the day thankfully. Then we skipped the lines at Haunted Mansion with our Genie+, and got on canoes right after. Canoes was a 1/10 haha I will not be canoeing with 20 other strangers again.

We got the famous Dole Whip Float to try and it was sooo good!

Probably one of our longest waits of the day was for It’s a Small World. We hit it at a bad time I think, but it’s a classic so we had to do it! Such a cute ride!

We did LOTS of rides before lunch time! The park got really busy in the afternoon around lunch, so we took some downtime to walk around and eat at Pizza Planet for lunch.

I’ll save you guys from me posting 100 photos from the Galaxy’s Edge Star Wars park, but basically this was the coolest thing we’ve ever seen and 10/10 we can’t wait to go to the one in Disney World! Rise of the Resistance was the longest wait all day. The posted wait time was around 85 mins but we only waited 50 – and it was so worth it. Disney goes above and beyond to make it such a realistic experience and they left no detail out!

We made dinner reservations last minute at the River Belle Terrace for some southern food. It was so great to have a dinner reservation and be able to sit and chill for awhile. We did SO much walking at Disney, and we were there for about 15 hours straight! After dinner, we rode Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain. Then we got a spot on Main Street to watch the electrical parade and fireworks. There were so many people here, but we found some really nice people to stand with and we were still able to see everything. The fireworks show was so good to watch from Main Street because of all the projections and experiences they had that went along with it!

After the first fireworks showing, a lot of the crowds left. We used this time to walk back through Galaxy’s edge at night to see it all lit up. Then on our way out of the park, we decided to use our last minute Genie+ at Space Mountain. This was such a fun way to end the day!

Our trip to California was SO much fun. Spencer and I loved getting to spend some vacation time with family, and getting to experience Disney for the first time together! We can’t wait for our next trip together to Florida in September!