Oct. 18 — My 30th Birthday! (If you haven’t read Day 1, that’s here.)

At long last! The Disneyland: Day 2 entry. I’ve been busy working on my home movies of the ocassion (iMovie 09 is super time consuming to use!!) But anyway, here is how we spent our only full day at DISNEYLAND. And It Was Awesome.

Day started off with breakfast at our resort. It was not technically a character breakfast because you could make reservations for either, but apparently their character breakfast is just a couple characters milling around. Not as structured as another we’ve been to. So we still saw Chip (or Dale?) Someone’s going to need to remind me which one is which. I don’t know why I felt the need to tell the reservationist on the phone that it was my birthday, but they ASK you. And at the time it sounded like a good idea, then you remember that while it will include a little treat it also comes with embarrassment. (This time in the form of waiters singing zip a dee doo dah.) But my little cake was yummy. As was my mickey shaped waffle.

I’m pretty sure October 18 was like the only day on the Disney calendar with a late opening time. There’s a charity walk in through the parks that day for the Children’s Hospital of Orange County. So that’s why we ate breakfast in the hotel, then we walked through the store at Downtown Disney to kill time before heading to the parks about an hour before the scheduled opening time of 10. We were expecting lines and crowds, but there were none. We went and checked in to get the special birthday passes (You show your ID, a printed registration that I got online, and then can choose from options including a free ticket, a gift card for retail stores, or 6 special fastpasses.) Time was most valuable, so we chose the passes because we had bought tickets in our package. Too complicated to plan for the free ticket thing. And the fastpasses were great.

So, no lines, no crowd for about an hour! It was fantastic, and not what we expected. We first jumped on one of the horse-drawn carriages and took a ride down mainstreet. Then we stopped and got a picture taken in front of the castle – required.

(They have these cards now where the photographers will scan them, then you can look at digital pictures when you get home. Just a warning – they are as expensive to get as you might imagine!!) Please get a good laugh at this photo with Tinkerbell…

We decided to go straight toward Haunted Mansion because we wanted to see it again, and walked right in. Then we decided Fantasyland was the next best place to go, where all the kiddy rides get crowded later. We zipped through Pinocchio (I don’t like Pinocchio, but apparently no one else was interested either and we walked right in. The ride is still fun.) Then we also walked right in to the teacups. I was thrilled because you HAVE to ride the teacups and we chose not to wait in a long line the night before. Then we decided to do the Matterhorn again because we loved it, and wanted to try it during the day.

The big question was to Nemo or not to Nemo. I had read all about the new Nemo ride in my ‘unofficial guide.’ The wait is usually ridiculous, and the ride is long so the line moves slowly. A lot of people also say it is so-so. But the submarine part was so tempting, so when we saw there was a shortish line we went for it. It was cute! Not the best ride ever, but the submarine aspect is unique. It used to be 10,000 Leagues Under the Sea, or whatever that was. We are glad we didn’t wait for two hours, it would not be worth that. We maybe waited 20/30 minutes. One of the longer lines we waited in, most likely.

Then we decided to leave Disneyland and head over to DCA before that park got too crowded. We had Toy Story on our list (a newer ride) so we wanted to get to that. We went over to the Midway part of the park which we hadn’t seen yet, and it’s pretty cool. Sort of a classic coney island style (only Disney-ier, of course.) We got a fast pass for a smaller rollercoaster (Mullholland Madness, which we really didn’t need to have) and then rode the Golden Zephyr because there was no line. It’s just a flying, spinning gentle rocket ship ride. Fun, good views.

Then we zipped over to Toy Story Midway Mania, which is pretty popular. That might have actually been the longest line we waited in the whole trip, perhaps with the exception of the Matterhorn breaking down. Maybe we waited 40/45 minutes. The ride is fun — you put on 3D glasses sit in little cars with shooters. Then you play a series of carnival games at different screens throughout the ride. Darts at balloons, paintballs, etc. Because it’s 3D, you always feel like you’re shooting actual balls or darts. And we love the Toy Story characters, so it was a blast. The ride is quite long too, so the wait feels worth it.

Then we went and rode the Mullholland Madness with our fastpass, which we didn’t need at all but used it anyway. It’s a “wild mouse” roller coaster, which I don’t really know how to explain. There’s a ride at Animal Kingdom like it. Just a small, tight, not super-fast rollercoaster.

Then, lunch of cheeseburgers over by the Soarin’ ride (because the other burger stand was closed and Cortny didn’t want pizza). Then we did a little pin shopping — Disney makes these collectible pins of which we have a binder full from our other trips, so we wanted to pick up some here. They are the cheapest and easiest souvenirs to buy, and we’ll actually keep them for a long time I think. Anyway, Mike picked the only pin in one store that didn’t ring up on the register  so this took a while. But it WAS a candy corn with Mickey ears, who could resist that? I picked out a pin at another stand on our way back to the Midway area. We used our first of the birthday fastpasses to ride California Screamin’, which was a really awesome roller coaster. Big roller coasters kind of freak me out now (they all have to be the MOST EXTREME, they can’t just be fun.) But this one was awesome except for the speed booster at the beginning. I hate those things, they make me feel like I’m going to implode. But the rest of the ride was great. Then we rode the big Mickey ferris wheel.

After this, we walked back through the park, through Downtown Disney to ride the Monorail back into Disneyland. The monorail at Disneyland is a little different than DW. It’s less of a transportation source (because they don’t really need it) and more of a ride. But it does make one stop at Downtown Disney. Because it lets off in the park, you have to get your tickets scanned before you get on. It lets you off right by Nemo.

At this point we were ready to use the birthday fastpasses now that everything was crowded. The most major ride we were saving was Space Mountain (similar as DW, although Mike thought actually  more fun here). Well, guess what — it was closed! So we crossed our fingers and stayed in the area. We used the pass to ride Autopia, the gasoline car ride. Like the ones that used to be at Kings Island, these are also always packed.

So, funny story. We just started on our auto journey when the cars stopped. The car two in front of us just stopped! We’re thinking it’s a little kid or something, but no, it was a teenage girl. I wouldn’t make fun of her except that she was being dumb. She just sat there and looked behind her. She didn’t try to get her car going again or anything. THEN she — big surprise — GOT on her CELL PHONE, and then got out of the car and went walking down the road. As if she was on the highway. This was all very hilarious. Eventually someone from the ride came, I was surprised it took as long as it did because I figured they would have cameras that could monitor everything. They got her car going again. By the way, she stopped it two other times, until finally a ride worker jumped in the car to drive it for her. This was all very amusing, especially for a ride we weren’t planning on riding. ;)

We went through “Innoventions,” which looked like it would have a ride in it or some kind of “carousel of progress” type show in it because it rotated. But it was actually just kind of a really big commercial for several things and was kind of boring. But when we got out, Space Mountain was open again, horray!

I have to say I hated the Halloween theming on the ride — Ghost Galaxy. Dumb, fiery skeletons coming at you on screens during the ride, and the music was “scary.” It really kind of detracted from the fun of Space Mountain for me, but we still thought it was great and just as fun as I remembered. (And I must admit that those freaky skeletons still came back to me as I was trying to fall asleep that night! I don’t like scary things unless they are like “Nightmare Before Christmas” scary. Ugh, the regular flying stars are much better.)

By the way, on my way out I smashed my elbow on a doorway like I never smashed my elbow before. I almost cried. We had to get a cold Coke in a bottle so I could prevent an inevitable bruise.

At this point we were done until nighttime. We had dinner reservations and we knew we had enough time to go enjoy the hotel a little bit. So we fought some crowds to do some more pin shopping (I always save these things until last minute — by the way, among the pins I picked out were  ”Zero,” the dog from Nightmare b/f Christmas, and a Disneyland pin with the Matterhorn Yeti on it whose arm moves up and down.  We probably got 8 or 10 pins to mark our favorite parts about the trip and that also looked unique: one from the hotel, one with DCA on it, something Halloweenish, and I always make sure I get one with the year on it… A couple of them were the lame free ones you get with the hotel reservation. They came with the blue lanyards you see in our pictures.)

Oh, and we ran into Mickey on our way out. He was leading the band in the parade, of course.

We had contemplated watching the PIXAR parade at DCA, but didn’t want to take the time. We went back to the hotel to regroup and opted for some hot tub time. They of course had great pools and hot tubs at the hotel. We soaked until we had to go get ready for dinner, which was going to be at the Napa Rose restaurant.

It was kind of easy to pick where I wanted my birthday dinner to be. Unlike Disney World where there are about 1,000 unique and delicious restaurants, there are only a handful at Disneyland. And only a couple of them are your “nice,” sit-down kind. Google revealed that Napa Rose and the Blue Bayou (the one in the Pirates ride I mentioned) were the favorites. And I knew it would be easiest to eat in the hotel. The food was gourmet and fantastic. I couldn’t resist the petite filet, which came with “crispy potato gnocchi” and were as delicious as they sound. It was interesting to actually dine with locals. The park is just right in the middle of town, and you could tell that, at least with the couple next to us, people just come to these nicer restaurants for special occasions. We had some wine, split a salad, had entrees and dessert. Mike’s beef spare ribs were delicious, too. And our service — Steven — was great. Mike had of course told them it was my birthday. They brought out a plate with a candle on it, chocolates (which I took back to the room) and they also comped our dessert. Nice!

So we wrapped up dinner and got back into the park. The fireworks were about halfway over, and we just wanted to see what they looked like from Main Street. Basically, the castle lights up, which was all we couldn’t see the night before. We still had 4 birthday fastpasses we could use, so we were off. We opted to ride Thunder Mountain Railroad again, this time at night. We really loved that ride this year. Neither of us are a fan of Splash Mountain (ugh, wet), and we’ve done it at DW, so we skipped it this trip.  We used another fastpass to ride Space Mountain again — because it’s Space Mountain, that’s why. And then the final pass on Buzz Lightyear again. That was it! We didn’t really have anything else we wanted to ride. We meandered down Main Street, took a couple more pictures, had our picture taken again and left!

We were completely exhausted with achy feet. We fell into bed and slept great (except for those fire skeletons that came back in my head, ’cause I’m a dork.) Next morning was another early alarm to get back to the airport. We took the bus back, and got through the airport with no problems. Virgin took us back to Seattle, slummin’ it in coach this time. Still fantastic. (This is when I caught the free episode of Modern Family, which I’ve discovered is a really great show!)

Hope you enjoyed my incredibly detailed descriptions of our first trip to Disneyland! I will totally go back again someday.

And WordPress decided to make uploading pictures IMPOSSIBLE today, so assembling this entry was fun!

Tags: California Adventures, Disneyland, Halloween
Posted in day to day, travel | 2 Comments »

Finally updating the blog! I know you’re all dying to know about my trip to Disneyland. Good thing I brought my laptop to Indiana. I want to write down what I did before I forget! (This will be too detailed for most of you, but writing everything down is mostly for my benefit… So, sorry.)

Saturday we were up at 4am — worth it — to be at the airport for our flight. We took Virgin America for the first time, and Mikey treated me to first class seats. This is a super-nice airline, and we are hoping they expand soon to some midwestern destinations. (So far, only major cities like LA, Seattle, NYC, DC, etc…)

We had comfy seats, free movies, breakfast, mimosas. We both watched The Hangover (hilarious and wildly inappropriate), and by the time the movie was over we were in LA!

Anaheim is about 45 minutes away by bus, and we had reservations on the Disney bus which comes every hour. We had to wait almost the full hour based on when our plane landed, but it was no big deal.

After the bus ride, we were dropped off at our hotel, the Grand Californian, but we couldn’t check in yet. So we just changed into shorts and had our bag locked up. The weather in southern California is, of course, beautiful all the time — just like dad always says ;).

So, by this time it’s about 12:30, I think. Off to the park! (We don’t have a ton of pictures because we remembered our point-and-shoot was broken and had to go grab a new one the night before we left. It is not a super-great camera – oh well!)

Most of you are more familiar with Disney World, but you have to picture Disneyland a little differently. It’s WAY smaller, and everything is much closer together. The property only has three hotels, Disneyland is basically the Magic Kingdom only more condensed, and then there’s the California Adventure park which reminds me most of MGM (or it’s Hollywood Studios now?) but it’s not really like anything at Disney World at all. It’s also a smaller park. And you can easily walk from our hotel through California Adventures (DCA) and across to Disneyland in just a few minutes. Downtown Disney is also connected, but it’s not very much like the Downtown Disney in Florida. Here’s a map. So, while there’s less stuff in California, it’s much easier to navigate. The downside is the pathways are tighter and therefore a little more cramped at certain times of day.

Anyway, we knew we would get special “birthday fastpasses” on Sunday for some of the most popular rides, so we headed for Adventureland and Frontierland. We got fastpasses for the Indiana Jones ride (exclusive to Disneyland) and then got in line for Pirates of the Caribbean. I think the ride is the same both places, although we had not yet seen it since they’ve added in Jack Sparrow. He’s tucked in a few places, and there’s a Davy Jones projection, but mostly the ride is the same as it was when we saw it last. One super-cool thing: There is a restaurant that seats diners in the “lagoon” where you board the boats for the ride. So if you’re eating at Blue Bayou, you’re sitting in this nighttime setting on a patio watching the boats. Nice ambiance, pretty cool. You ride the boat through the lagoon area then start the ride. Pirates is fun, and we didn’t wait very long.

Next we went in the Enchanted Tiki Room, which I had read was better at Disneyland. I’m not sure what it’s like at the Florida park now, but thankfully there was no stupid Iago plot in this one. It’s just the original show. (It’s singing bird animatronics, sounds stupid but it’s kitschy.) They also have a nice holding area at this one with things that talk. I can’t remember if DW has that or not.

Then we grabbed some tacos for lunch at one of the counter service restaurants and rode Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, which is a really fun, not-scary rollercoaster in a western theme. Also one of the original rides, and I think is the same both places. I had forgotten how fun was. After that I think it was time to use our Indiana Jones fastpasses.

The Indiana Jones ride is really cool — it is similar to the Dinosaur ride at Animal Kingdom, and is equally popular! You ride “jeeps” through the Indiana Jones themed scenes — you know, that rolling stone ball thing. Whatever, I’ve never seen the movies. But it was fun.

After we used that fastpass, we picked up one for Haunted Mansion (you can only have one at a time) which we couldn’t use until around 7 that night. So we headed over to DCA for a while  because they close much earlier at night. We were still waiting to hear via text message that our room was ready.

At DCA we caught the 3D Muppet show that we loved so much at Disney World. There was no line. Then we went to an Aladdin stage show they have there because we had a special priority seating thingie that came with our hotel reservation. I’m really glad we didn’t wait in a long line for it, because it was not great. The book says “Broadway quality musicals,” but this is just not true unless you’ve never SEEN one before. The production values were good, but the script was pretty lame and the performances were quite mediocre. But it was still fun, and a nice chance to sit.

After that we rode a new Monsters Inc. ride that had been shut down and reopened right when we walked by (no line.) It was cute, just one of the dark rides like all the ones in Fantasyland. It was not as cute as I hoped it would be, because I love Monsters Inc. But still fun. One weird thing was there were these TV screens in everyone’s car, but they weren’t working so we didn’t know what they were for.

We decided to wait for Soarin’ over California, a newer ride at DCA, because the line wasn’t very long so it didn’t make much sense to get a fast pass. We had plenty of time before our fastpass to Haunted Mansion. I guess they eventually added this ride at Epcot, but it started here. It’s supposed to feel like you’re hang-gliding over California. I’m not sure how to explain it. It kind of reminded me of Tomb Raider when you walk in, because there are these long rows of seats that are suspended. But really all they do is move up close to a domed screen (like an Omnimax) and then you sort of feel like you’re flying because your feet dangle and they blow air on you and move you a little bit. It’s a glorified motion simulator, and it was pretty fun, although there’s long chunks of time where you don’t move in line.

After that we headed back to the hotel to see if our room was ready YET, because we knew it would take a little time to have them bring our bag. I guess we just never got a message, because we got a room and then called for our bag. This slowed us down a bit.

We changed for evening (it gets cooler at night on the coast, of course) and had to figure out dinner. We opted for a hot dog stand we had seen at DCA and though it would be fastest, because we were coming up on the Haunted Mansion fastpass time. Well, we got in the wrong line and it took forever. So we snarfed the hot dogs fast and walked back over to the main park.

OMG, we had no idea what kind of crowd the fireworks would cause. They were still two hours away, but the walkways were completely jammed with people lining up and finding seats for the fireworks. Wow, it was crazy. We barely (really, barely) made it to the ride in time to use our passes. But we were really glad we had them because the ride is extremely popular at Halloween (maybe always). But the holiday theming is SO cool.

They completely change this ride for Halloween, and I’m guessing it stays this way for Christmas. It’s themed for Nightmare before Christmas, and it is probably better than the regular ride (which I kinda don’t remember). All of the scenes are changed out, the voice overs are completely new, projected pictures are new. It’s much more colorful (lots of neon and blacklight). It’s really cool, one of the major highlights of the trip for us. I’ve never even seen the movie (although it’s on my list) and we still loved it. There was lots of Nightmare stuff in the park for Halloween too, including the theming for the fireworks.

After that ride our goal was to find a way out of the crowd and away from the craziness. This was the first time we made it over to Fantasyland, where all the storybook stuff is. I think we grabbed a fastpass for Buzz Lightyear (Space Mountain was out of fastpasses and had a two hour wait so we saved it) and went over to the Matterhorn, one of the original Disneyland rides that’s exclusive to the California park. While we were waiting in line people were walking by saying it was broken, but we had an awkward amount of time to kill before both our Buzz fastpass and the fireworks so we just stuck it out. People were leaving in droves, so we were at the front of the line and only waited about 15 more minutes there before the ride picked up again. And we LOVED the Matterhorn. Another not-scary rollercoaster that just goes in circles down a mountain, and zips inside and outside. And there’s a Yeti. Naturally.

After that we did our Buzz ride (same as DW) where you ride through and shoot at the targets with your astro blaster. And then it was fireworks time. Amazing, we managed to find a place to see them without lining up for two hours.

Oh, but we are not done yet! Fireworks were over by 10, but there were still two more hours of park time. After fireworks we did the Alice in Wonderland ride, which is another that is exclusive to Disneyland, and is original. Again: like all the other dark story rides. That line was the hardest to wait in because the switchbacks were tight. Designed for 1950s-sized people. We watched the teacups while we waited.

After this it was time for a cookie and hot chocolate, which I was going to drink in some lines. But suddenly all the lines were short! We went on Small World, which is supposed to be better at Disneyland. It was definitely more fun than the last time I saw it — they’ve updated it with some Disney characters snuck in all the little scenes. Another classic! Then we did Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, which is no longer at DW. Wow, okay, that one is a little weird. It’s Wind in the Willows characters (a little outdated, of course) and you basically “crash” into a train, die, and go to hell at the end of the ride. (Mr. Toad is a VERY bad driver.) I bet there are a lot of confused children after that one!

I’m pretty sure that was it for Saturday. We left a little before Midnight. I think that night we decided to go over to the monorail and take it out of the park. It drops you off in Downtown Disney, and then we just walked to our hotel from there. And FELL into bed with our very sore feet and tired legs! Disney Day 1 was done.

Continue to Day 2.

Tags: California Adventures, Disneyland, Halloween
Posted in travel | 2 Comments »