Disneyland Day - First Trip this year!

Sunday, November 11th, 2012

We had such a fun day! I'm going to write about all of our Disneyland trips in as much detail as I can because they are very special days and I am not trying to flaunt and embellish, just trying to record great memories and reflect on our magical lucky days. Warning: this is going to be a long post!

Since we are beyond the diaper and nap stage of life now, I can pack lighter for days out.  I brought our ears, Libby's blankey, and a few snacks. Plus, I brought our Princess Encyclopedia. It's a big picture book of princesses and it has pretty pictures of each of them. It's a lot to lug around, but we keep it in the basket of the stroller so it really isn't a big deal. And, I kept a sharpie marker in my purse. We got the book at the Scholastic Book Fair last year and took it one other time. That time we got only one autograph, but it was Dr. Faciler from The Princess and the Frog, an unusual character so it was pretty cool!

I decided to ignore the electronic sign on Ball Ave that says (and probably always does) to turn left on Harbor Blvd for Theme Park Parking. I prefer the Mickey and Friends parking structure since it is a lot closer and takes less time to get to and from the vehicle to the park. Bad idea. The M&F structure had cones in front of it and the traffic was routed around to the Toy Story parking lots just off of Harbor Blvd. This took an hour! I should have obeyed the sign and saved myself 45 minutes at the very least.  Live and learn, this included parking. I don't know why I can never manage to get in there. I have parked in there just enough times to know it's where I'd prefer to park. Oh well, we parked in the Woody lot and rode the bus to the park. We didn't get a blue Toy Story bus though, they tossed in an extra bus since it was a busy day and we ended up on that one. It was fine, plenty of room and easy enough to board and hop off with the kids, bag and stroller, but it wasn't blue with Toy Story characters painted on it. So, the bus got a big "awww" from the kids, but they were happy to hop on instead of wait for a blue bus; guess it wasn't that big of a deal after all.

First stop: Ticket booth. Tickets are available online which would save time, but I decided to buy our passes at the park for two reasons: 1. We were going on a SoCal Select Blockout day and buying online would have blocked us out that day, but buying tickets at the gate you can get in that day and buy the same pass that would have blocked you out but you don't have to buy a blockout ticket ($70 each) on that day. So, buying at the gate you can go any day you want to and still get the SoCal Select pass and get in the park too.  2. It's more exciting and fun this way!

We waited in line for 15 - 20 minutes, it probably would have taken me longer to navigate the website and print out my e-ticket if I had done it at home. Time saved = none. We bought three SoCal Select Annual Passes and a parking pass. Since I already paid $15 to park, that price was refunded to me. Walt sure does charge a premium to visit his park, but we will make the most of it!

We entered Disneyland first (as opposed to California Adventure) and since our passes were brand spanking new, we had to get our photos taken. The photos are no longer on the pass, but on the computer. When the gate keeper scans your pass, your photo pops up on his screen.  There were lots of photopass photographers right there in the entryway, but they were in training, so it was actually difficult to get anyone to take our pictures even though it looked like a swarm of Disney photographers were ready. They weren't. We got it done though, and had a group photo taken in front of the Mickey Mouse flowers too.

We entered Main Street and were struck by the magical "awe" that is Disneyland! Being there in person is amazing! It was all decorated for the Christmas Holidays! So pretty!  Mickey and Minnie were both on Main Street doing "meet and greet".  The girls wanted to see Minnie and I wanted to see Mickey, but I was persuaded by their big eyes and happy smiles so we visited Minnie Mouse.  The characters don't always stay long and you are never guaranteed that you can see one or another, and the girls really seem to understand the hit and miss way of the Main Street characters. It's been a whole year since there were here and they have amazing memories for being such young things.

Minnie was great!  I had Gracie  hand her the book and I opened it to the front cover. This is the moment where I notice that Gracie had written her name on the front cover as well. That's fine, but the book should be for both of them, so after Minnie signed it I had Libby sign her name there as well. Minnie even wrote "To Gracie"!

We went up Main Street and the wonderful sugary smells were strong today. I love the way Disneyland smells! It's one of my favorite things about the parks. Can  you say that about Six Flags? Nope!

Our first stop was "the hub" to admire the statue of Walt Disney and Mickey. Gracie and Libby know him as "Mickey's Daddy" and they like to stop and see the statue and see what color flowers are planted around him. The flowers are different at different times of the year, always fun to see them.

Onward to the castle!  Passing under the castle archway is a thrill! First we stopped in the handicap accessible room which is a very nice little room filled with royal trinkets. It's a small little space with a video playing of the castle walk-through that goes over the castle which is mostly stairs. But of course, it is done up Disney style and it's very beautiful. Then we went into the Sleeping Beauty walk-through up over the castle arch and down the other side. As expected, Libby was brave as long as she held my hand and Gracie was afraid of the section where Malificent's shadow appears and her evil laughter comes out of the speaker. We watched Sleeping Beauty's dress turn from blue to pink and back again before we left. We left when it was pink, of course.

The aptly named by my daughter, "Mary Poppins Band" was playing in front of the Bibbidti Boppity Boo shop and we listened for a bit. The next song they played was from Beauty and the Beast, which Libby recognized right away. Since she was dressed as Belle, she caught the reference and beamed! She was thrilled that they played a song for her! Along came Mary and Bert, they were walking with a little girl who was wearing a Mary Poppins dress and she was just adorable. The band played a show tune from that movie for them. They didn't perform but they did dance with the children who were there and Gracie asked Mary to sign her book. We didn't get a signature from Bert, maybe next time.

Next Gracie tried to pull the sword from the stone and become the ruler of Disneyland. She tried her best, but that sword wouldn't budge from the anvil. I recently read somewhere that there is an ipad app that will unlock the sword and  you can pull it up from the stone, but not completely out and go running off with it. I do not have an iphone so I don't know if this is true, but it's always worth a try!

Finally, we can make our way to the restroom! That's my only complaint about Disneyland: I wish there were bathrooms as you enter the center of the resort, before you go into the gate and enter Disneyland or California Adventure. After a long car ride and then the shuttle to the park, a restroom would be handy dandy before the excitement of entering Disneyland! There are two bathrooms right as you enter Main Street, but who wants to stop right when you first enter the magical land of enchantment? My favorite bathroom, "the hidden bathroom" on the left side of the castle was gone! It was behind a construction wall, looks like they are improving that area so we went to the right and used the Queen of Hearts restroom.

The Princess line-up has been moved to the stage area where the villians have their meet-and-greet in October. Hmmm, are they improving the Princess Fantasy Faire? That line is always long and it's a hard one to stand in without much for distracting entertainment. Hopefully, they are at least improving the queue! We wanted to visit princesses of course, so we hopped in line to see them. One nice thing about having them in this new location is that the kids can see the princesses visiting with everyone while waiting your turn. More fun while you wait. The line wasn't extremely long, but plenty long enough. Ready to greet us were Ariel, Cinderella and Tiana. We found the right pages in our princess book for them to sign autographs. About halfway there, the princesses all left the stage and there was a bit of a break in the action. Two new princesses came to replace the three that left. We met Jasmine and Belle. Not sure why the third space wasn't filled, but the girls were happy to meet two of them anyway. We were able to get them to sign their pages in the book. This book is going to be fun!

Small World had an unbelievably long line, so we decided to skip that and come to it another day. We were all too excited to do anything that had a line that long! Right across from Small World was Merida! The new movie "Brave" just might end up under our Christmas tree this year. We saw the movie in June at the theater with Fenna as one of the last things we did together. It's no surprise that the girls were super excited to meet the princess Merida. She didn't have a page in our book since we bought it before her movie came out, but she signed a spot on the back page. The page has each princess with her prince and she commented that she doesn't have a prince, but she'd sign there at the top anyway. I think we should get a Brave storybook and have her sign it. We could start a collection of books if we keep going back! Why not! Merida was magical! She took her time with the girls and gave them the special attention that one can only hope for. I was wishing that the weather was a bit warmer because she was wearing her cloak over her dress and I was dying to see that costume! Maybe next time.

I love being able to say that! "Next time!"

While we were in line to visit Merida, we decided to call the Grandmas to tell them Thank you and let them know we were having a fun day at Disneyland. We got to talk to Great Grandma and we told her that we were there and having fun. It was hard to hear anything with all of the noise surrounding us, but we said our Thanks into the phone and the little girls had a lot of excitement in their voices, so I think that worked out well.

As soon as we hung up, I got a text from my friend. When I talked to her the day before, I told her about our exciting gift of passes and that I was planning to bring the girls this weekend. Their family also has passes, but one step up from the passes we have which allows them to go on Sundays. Her text message said she was at California Adventure and wondered if we made it to Disneyland today or not. I replied and we decided to try to meet up in front of the Ariel ride, which is a long way from where we were presently.

Secretly, I did not want to try to plan to meet up with anyone on our first day back. I knew I would be too excited and I didn't want to be watching the time and trying to steer the girls toward a designated meeting spot, and keeping all of this on the back of my mind on our first day back. I just wanted to be sucked up in the Disney excitement and forget the rest of the world. Which is pretty much what happened! But since this was not really planned and there was no pressure to actually meet up, we were just going to try to find each other but if we didn't then we would just laugh about it later, there wasn't any of that planning or pressure that I was avoiding. Actually, since we were on opposite ends of the Disneyland Resort, it was going to be hard to time it right anyway. Luckily, I have great friends and there was no real pressure to make this happen. We can plan to do a Disney day another time together. My friend was just saying that she was thinking of us and happy for us, and for that I only felt more loved than I already felt  that day. Magic! 

After we visited with Merida, we boarded the train which goes all the way around Disneyland with several stops in between. The train took us through the facade of The Small World and on to Tomorrow Land, then Main Street. We got off at Main Street.

While on Main Street we saw the Disneyland Fire Fighters play a couple of songs and then we went to the entry where the Mickey Mouse flowers are. What! Princesses! There was Snow White, Ariel and Cinderella! We were able to meet with two of them, but then the lines grew way too long. They must have just come out when we did because we didn't wait long at all to see Ariel and Snow White. Gracie was really happy to get more autographs in her book.

When we entered California Adventure, I handed over our passes to the gate keeper and she asked, "did you just buy these today?" For a moment, I thought we weren't going to be able to get in since it was a blocked out day for those passes, and now we were in between parks!  Maybe you can only get in once and our day was done! oh no! I should have stayed in Disneyland! I told her "Yes, today." And she said, "Have fun!" and let us through. Whew! I told the girls I really want to ride the Ariel ride before we go to Cars Land. They were dying to see Cars Land! But they can't say no to Ariel, and it's not far from the entrance.

But wait! A street show! Mickey Mouse and maybe it's the Newsies? Whoever they were, it was a great show. We stopped to watch them sing and dance. It was a back-in-time sort of performance and Mickey Mouse was heading to California to build Disneyland with just a suitcase and a dream. Very cute!

Onward. Where were we going? Oh yes, the Ariel ride. The girls' favorite!

Guess who we saw in front of the Ariel ride? The girls' best friends! It was awesome that worked out so well! We couldn't have planned it if we tried. The tiny amount of planning that went into meeting up was insignificant to the amount of planning it should have taken for this to actually happen. Funny how things work out. They told me they actually hadn't planned on being at Disneyland in the afternoon, they wanted to come in the morning and leave by 1pm so their girls would nap on the way home, but they changed their plans last minute and decided to spend the afternoon and evening at Disneyland instead of the morning. Since they knew we might be there, they took a shot in the dark and sent a text wondering if we were there. Actually finding one another was amazing too, it was a very busy day in the park. As soon as we approached the Ariel ride, they did too! Timing was great!

We rode the Ariel ride all together. There wasn't a line at all, we walked right on! How exciting!

When we came out of the ride, Phineas and Ferb were singing and dancing right in front of us! Gracie, Jillian and Mallory danced with the Fireside Girls and Libby watched. She was wearing down.

After that, as promised, we went to Cars Land. Our friends wanted to go there too, so we all went together. It was much more fun to be together! Cars Land is amazing! It looks and feels like you are walking in the movie, right there in Radiator Springs. We loved it!  It was crowded though and lines were long. The lines for the rides were way too long. One ride had a 120 minute wait!

Libby was getting tired and hungry at this point. Gracie didn't care if she was hungry, she was too excited. We decided to ride one ride, after all, we were there! We chose the ride with the short line, only 35 minute wait time and hopped in line. Gracie was through the roof excited! This kid knew the entire dialog of the movie when she was still in diapers. However, Libby found her melting point. Gracie rode Luigi's Tires with our friends and I took Libby for a stroll. 

Gracie had such a great time on the ride. It was like bumper cars. Libby enjoyed the stroll. Libby and I wandered all around Cars Land. We both loved the canyon scenery. So beautiful! Even though it is just a facade, it looked so real!

We also saw Mater, Lightning McQueen and DJ.  DJ did a little dance show with the waitresses from Flo's V8 Cafe. Gracie and our friends were off of the ride at this point and we found them easily. Time to eat! The kids were starving. I brought little snacks, but nothing with sustenance. We walked over to the Food Court near Paradise Pier.

Libby wanted a $12 bowl of macaroni and cheese from Flo's V8 Cafe. Luckily, I talked her into a $6 Asian kids meal instead. Gracie wanted an Asian bowl too. I got that for both of them, but they didn't eat it. It was too spicy and had rice instead of noodles. Aaah, well, we tried!  I had a burrito from the Mexican counter. It was delicious! Gracie ate half of it and I ate part of her Asian bowl. Libby nibbled at things and the kids all talked and chattered away. It was so much fun to sit and eat with our friends in the middle of California Adventure!

Something horribly embarrassing, but really funny happened while we were eating. I was having a conversation with Brian (J&M's daddy) and eating at the same time. Not especially polite, but I had to shovel it in to keep up with the kids and actually get something to eat too.  I was replying to him and a surprise loud burp came out of me! Sneak Attack! Oh it was a big one! We laughed so hard, I couldn't believe it! This is what friends are for, to laugh at and with us. 

I decided our day was going to have to be over. I wanted to stay all evening and into the night, but I didn't think the kids were going to be able to last that long (well, one of 'em anyway).

The night show I really wanted to see is Fantasmic. I've never seen it! It was at 9pm, and probably lasts a half an hour or so, then there would be the crowd of people leaving at the same time; I'm sure it would be awfully late by the time we got home if we stay to watch it. They only have that show on weekends though, so I was hoping to see it today. Since we were all pretty tired and Libby didn't eat well, I gave up the idea. It didn't start for another three hours! We had enough fun for one day already. When the girls are several years older we can come back to Disneyland and see all the night shows. Our friends were done for the day too.

Since we were deep inside the California Adventure park, we had to wander through other areas to exit. The shortest route was through Bugs Land. Such a cute little place! The kids had all kinds of fun just walking through there. We decided to ride 'Heimlich's Chew Chew Train". It is a cute little train ride on the back of a caterpillar who eats and burps his way around the track. Brian called me Heimlich after this. Too funny!

We made our way toward the entrance but before leaving, we stopped to enjoy the fountain and the pretty Christmas tree. We took several pictures together and separately. It was so much fun! We were all very happy that we spent the last part of our day with our good friends.  This was where we parted and went our separate ways to our vehicles. They parked in the Mickey & Friends structure. How did they do that? We were at Disneyland before they were and we couldn't get in there! Someday, I'll have to figure out the trick to getting into the parking structure.

When we boarded the bus (we got the plain white one again), it was after 8pm. The day went so fast! We arrived at 11am, got in the Disneyland gate a little after noon. We put in a long day, but there was just no way we could put in three more hours to see the Fantasmic show. My legs were tired! Gracie had a blister too and Libby wasn't going to make it much longer.

We left the parking lot at 8:30 and Libby was fast asleep at 8:34. I'm surprised she lasted that long! I thought Gracie would sleep too, but she was too busy talking and reflecting on her day. She chattered all the way home. I was glad she did because she kept me awake and alert too. We put in a long day! A long, magical, wonderful day!