Disneyland: This time we knew what we were getting into. And it was just terrific as always!
We had a quick breakfast from Starbucks in the hotel lobby, and then headed for Anaheim. I'd like to take this moment to thank the road engineers of California for the HOV/car pool lane. Almost everywhere we went while in California, our car with four people in it had a fast-lane beeline to wherever we were going. Even when the freeways were impossibly backed up for whatever reason, we never experienced a delay of more than a minute or two.
After a short bus ride from the Toy Story parking lot, we started out the day in the Disneyland park, saving the California Adventure park for the second half of the day, as it was open later. We took 3 1/2 days for Disney World in Florida in 2009, and Jim and I took 2 days for Disneyland and California Adventure in 2006. We had only one day to spend this time, so we wanted to make it a good one!
We walked down Main Street USA and posed with Mickey and Walt for the traditional beginning-of-the-day picture. The photographer stationed there took pics with our camera first, and then his - and actually ours turned out better, so we didn't have to buy anything from PhotoPass! We're all just a little bit excited, don't you think?
We started in Adventureland, so we could go typical nerdy geek fashion in a clockwise circle through the park. We did the Indiana Jones Adventure first - a car ride through "scary" adventures underground. We almost got rolled over by the giant spherical stone!!! You did too?!? Gosh, they should fix that, someone could get hurt. :) Then we did the Jungle Cruise in a big boat - exact same corny joke script as in Florida, but as we'd forgotten most of the lines, it was still funny. We climbed to the top of Tarzan's Treehouse, which clearly used to be the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse, but has been cleverly redone and has lots of cool things to look at and do inside.
On to New Orleans Square! We toured the Haunted Mansion, which was really cool (I'm a big fan of fluorescent paint in black light) even though none of us have ever seen The Nightmare Before Christmas. I didn't even know Tim Burton was associated with Disney. We had hoped to ride the Pirates of the Caribbean ride - Aidan in particular is a big fan - but it was closed the day we were there.
We somehow skipped Critter Country. Aidan wanted to ride Splash Mountain but it was pretty chilly and we had no extra clothing with us. He was a little disappointed but we went on a water ride later in the day so he ended up being well satisfied.
In Frontierland we rode on the log raft (complete with barrels labeled "dynamite" for people to sit on) to the Pirate's Lair on Tom Sawyer Island. We spent an enjoyable half hour or so wandering about the island, spelunking in the caves, discovering pirate treasure, and generally pretending to get lost and sneak up on each other. :) Though we didn't ride on either the Mark Twin Riverboat or the Sailing Ship Columbia, we saw them both in operation on the Rivers of America. Jim and Aidan rode on the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, but Esme and I didn't really feel up for a roller coaster so we sat that one out. They came off the ride with matching big grins, so they must have enjoyed themselves!
Time for Fantasyland! We breezed through Snow White's Scary Adventures. Has anyone else noticed how Snow White doesn't really get all the way through the story on that ride before suddenly they're telling you "...and they all lived happily ever after"? Wait! But the handsome prince hasn't arrived yet! We took a spin on the teacups (of course, we can't miss the teacups), and Aidan tried to spin us as fast as possible while I was trying as hard as I could to slow us down...good thing we had lunch after the teacups! We briefly considered riding the Matterhorn Bobsled ride but the line was over an hour long and we had plans, people! On our way into the next section of the park we passed the It's a Small World ride but I think we've all had enough of that song for our entire lives, thank you, so even though there was no line at all we didn't go on it. If the day we were there was any indication, I'm thinking Disney might soon be rethinking that space.
On to Tomorrowland! I think we spent the most time here. We waited for about 20 minutes to ride the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage, which was new since Jim and I were there 5 years ago. We think it might have been a car ride then. Now it's really quite neat - you ride in a half-submerged boat thingy and they make the bubbles go by the portholes in just the right direction to make it seem like you're diving or surfacing. The seascape all around is really cool; somebody spent a long time forming, sculpting and decorating in there. When we finished they were just starting a Jedi Training Academy show, so we took a few minutes to see whether Esme could get in. They haven't moved to the "guaranteed spot if you wait in line" method in California like they have in Florida; the Jedi Master chooses children at "random" from the crowd. His strategy this time seemed to be to choose all children wearing licensed Star Wars clothing. Esme, in her Life is Good "hold your horses" t-shirt, had no chance. So! How about lunch, instead? :) We dined on the Tomorrowland Terrace on sandwiches and salads during the show, and Darth Vader was summarily defeated by a bunch of little boys in Darth Vader shirts. Go figure.
We didn't have to wait very long for the Star Tours ride, which has been completely revamped since the last time we were on it. Super cool! At the end a Nubian fighter smashed through our cockpit window and C-3PO had to make us all disembark. Oh well. At least we reached our destination! Jim and Aidan got FastPasses for Space Mountain before lunch, and they went on that after Star Tours, again rejoining us with identical thrilled grins afterward. Gosh they sure love their rollercoasters.
I didn't even realize when we were there that we missed Mickey's Toontown - looking at the map now I see it was kind of tucked away in a corner. Mostly rides for very young children anyway, and it was time for us to move across the way. :) We said goodbye to Disneyland California...
...and hello to California Adventure! A large section of the park was blocked off, and in a couple locations we could see inside where they were working on the new Radiator Springs/Buena Vista Street exhibits that are opening next summer. I guess we'll have to go back. :)
We were much less organized about our approach in California Adventure. Things were temporarily closed, or lines were too long, or whatever...we just did things as we came across them, mostly! First in the Golden State section of the park we went Soarin' Over California. The seats raise up really high in a giant IMAX auditorium and they turn on the wind so it feels like you're flying, and then take you all over California by air, starting with the Golden Gate Bridge. Beautiful, thrilling. Really. We loved it.
Next in A Bug's Land we had to see the "It's Tough to Be a Bug" show again, just as fun as it was when we saw it two years ago, and five years ago... some physical humor just never gets old. :) Not much else in Bug Land for big kids though, so back to Golden State, where we did The Bakery Tour while munching on sourdough. We tried to get on the Monsters Inc ride next, but it was temporarily closed for repairs. They did say it would be back up and running though, so we just put it on the back burner for a while. We stopped near the Hollywood Pictures Backlot for a while to figure out what do to next, and what do you know?
The Incredibles and their entourage paraded down the street and started taking volunteers! Naturally Esme jumped at the chance and put her hand up so high in the air that she got picked first. We videoed the whole thing and I will post the video when I get a chance. She was enthralled. She got to train as a superhero with Mr and Mrs Incredible and at one point Mr Incredible actually took her by the hand and led her to where she needed to stand! When she was all done her smile was as wide as her entire face. :)
Back to the Golden State! We found rain ponchos at a shop outside and rode the Grizzly River Run. And then we rode it again! Awesome super fun! When we were done we gave our ponchos to another family who didn't want to get any wetter than they already were, and went across the way to the Redwood Creek Challenge Trail, a new thing they have going in conjunction with the Up movie. It's a series of easy outdoorsy activities for kids so they can earn their Wilderness Explorer badge just like Russell in the movie. It turned out the "badge ceremonies" were all done for the day, but the kids had a good time tracking, being brave, climbing rocks, howling like wolves, discovering their animal spirits, and solving puzzles anyway. :)
It was starting to get darker and we were hungry, so we went to our "old standby" - the Storybook Cafe inside the Grand Californian Hotel. Jim and I enjoyed dinner so much here 5 years ago that we went again with the children. We enjoyed the buffet, which was loaded with healthy stuff, and the art deco style of the room, and the quiet atmosphere... and then we headed back out into the chaos. Since the hotel isn't actually in the park, we had to reenter the park with our hand stamps, and since we were going back in at the same time that the Disneyland park was closing, thousands of other people were going into California Adventure at the same time. We used my patented "campus walking" and arrived at the Monsters Inc Mike & Sulley to the Rescue ride in front of all those ambling stroller pushing slowpokes! It was a fun ride - even the line was fun, as we were watching Monstropolis news while we were waiting - and at the end Roz asked me if I wanted to trade glasses with her. :) When we came out we saw that "Mom's annoying super-fast walking" actually did us a lot of good, because the line was about 45 minutes longer when we came out than when we went in.
We had FastPasses for the World of Color show, which was meant to start at 8:30, with "priority" seating beginning at 7:30. We wandered around Paradise Pier for a while, just looking. We had thought we might ride the Toy Story Mania ride, but the line was forever and we were tired. We used our World of Color FastPasses and found that our "seats" were just a hunk of sidewalk behind a thousand other people. We'd seen the show in Florida and we wanted to do some Downtown Disney, so we chalked it up as a day.
Downtown Disney wasn't so busy with a million people queued up for the World of Color show, so it was nicer than Saturday night! We caught some live music and wandered about the Lego store but only bought a few keychains as we were just going to have what we wanted shipped home anyway - I ordered what we wanted from the website later in the evening. At the World of Disney store we each picked out a t-shirt and Esme got a Tiana figure playset. Then we headed for our bus, the parking lot, and the hotel. Whew!
When we got back to the hotel we started to watch the new show Once Upon a Time but Jim and I fell asleep after just a few minutes. Bless them, Aidan and Esme put us to bed. Aidan shut off the TV and put our phones up to charge, and Esme tucked us in. They both brushed their teeth and went to bed themselves. What sweeties.
These pictures are just a little bit out of order; this one is from the afternoon, just before we went into A Bug's Land. It's the flip side of the Grizzly River Run ride, and a lovely waterfall in its own right.
Here's Esme in her Superhero training, showing us her muscles!
Show us your Super poses!
Running as fast as she can!
Being labeled as a Hero of Tomorrow!
Off with Mr Incredible. Can you imagine how she felt when he took her hand?!?
This picture is from the morning, from Main Street USA. Esmeralda and Esme!
Riding the log raft to Pirate Island.
Esme in our teacup!
Aidan in our teacup!
Jim in our teacup!
In the car on the way back to the hotel after Disney. Wore her completely out. :)
Even big boys get tired out. :)
