Last Trip to Disneyland before the Summer Blockout

Gracie and I went to Disneyland, just the two of us! She's becoming more and more grown up lately, and I love spending some one-on-one time with her. We didn't take a stroller!

She wanted to wear her Merida dress and I was instructed to wear my Merida Tshirt, which I did. But, she changed her mind and wore "normal clothes". We both made poor shoe choices and paid dearly the next day, but it was so much fun to have a Mom & Gracie day! 

We reminisced about our first trip to Disneyland just before her 3rd birthday and we did the math to see how many years she's been coming to Disneyland. She's 7 now. That makes 4 years of Disneyland for her! That's a lot!

She gave me her verbal list of things she wants to do together, without little kids holding us back. Gracie wanted to ride Soaring Over California, Ariel, Star Tours and Indiana Jones. She wasn't interested in seeing any characters and she didn't want to do any "baby" rides. Well, we'll see. I had one thing on my list of things to do; I wanted to see the new show "Mickey's Magical Map". There was an AP showing today (annual passholders only show) with limited seating.

We went to California Adventure first and grabbed up a fast-pass for the Souring ride. We saw Goofy's water fountain orchestra show, and then the Army men performance. The Army men appeared right in front of us and they are very entertaining with all of their drumming. Gracie volunteered to be a part of their army training crew; she was soon trained to be a toy Army soldier.

We walked along to go ride the Jumping Jellyfish or the airplane swing thing, but when we got right up to those rides and Gracie looked up at them, she quickly changed her mind. She shook her head when I led her to Goofy's Sky School too.  Heights aren't her thing.

We rode Ariel; it's a favorite! This time we got to see how the handicapped carriage works. All of the people load into clamshells and ride around, the loading takes place on a conveyer belt so that the ride doesn't have to stop. There is one handicap vessel (or maybe there are two, and we only see one at a time) and it's always empty when we have seen it. This time the handicap carriage was right in front of our clamshell and when the ride ended, we got to see the Ariel cast members load a wheelchair on. It was really cool! They made it look effortless and easy, no big deal at all.

Gracie wanted to stop and play in the Redwood Creek wilderness area. We've done this before, but I don't enjoy it when I have more than one child to keep tabs on. The play area is big and has multiple levels, if one kid goes down a slide, I suddenly lost one. And in this play area, they run! I almost always avoid this place unless I convince them that we are doing one thing and then we leave the area right away. Since I only had one kid to wrangle, we stopped in for a good rowdy play.  Gracie rode the tire swing and then she looked at a few of the nature signs. We read about animal footprints and identified a few of them in the concrete path, and we looked at a section of a tree and noted the rings. She wanted to go down the slide, but it was blocked off. We looked over the ledge and saw that it was broken at the bottom. While she was on the tire slide, I saw Russel off in the distance but he was gone by the time her turn on the swing was over so we missed seeing him.

Next we rode Soaring Over California. It's such a nice ride! We've only ridden it once before so we were excited to ride again. You sit on bench seats that rise up and sway while the huge movie screen in front of you shows ariel views of various California locations. There are three rows of bench seating and the first row rises up pretty high, the middle row rises above the 3rd row. We were lucky enough to be seated in the third row so we weren't flying quite as high as those in the first row.

When we came out of the ride, we saw Minnie Mouse and her flygirls perform. We always like the shows at Disneyland, this is a fun one too. The ladies sing Disney flying songs. It is amazing that there are so many!

We also saw the Five and Dime performance. This show must play several performances every day because we always see it when we happen to walk by the area where they perform. It's good though, and Gracie appreciates the live music.

We checked the information booth where the wait times for each ride are posted. 120 minute wait for the Radiator Springs Racers ride. I didn't have to convince Gracie to skip that ride, she wasn't going to stand in line for 2 hours! We then headed out of California Adventure and went to Disneyland.

We went to the Indiana Jones ride and the girl did not want to grab a fast-pass and come back later. She wanted to wait in line. The wait time said 45 minutes, so I said ok. After 30 minutes, we made it about 15 feet of zig zagging waiting in line and we had miles to go (it seems). I made an executive decision and said we were done standing here, we need a fast-pass. I really hoped they were still giving them out by this time! Luckily they were and we got our appointment time of 6:40pm.

Off we went to the Tiki Room, they have a nice hidden bathroom and our feet hurt so we wanted to sit down for a bit. Perfect place to rest tired feet. Plus, the Tiki Room is awesome! On cue, Gracie clung to me just before the lightning strike and pretended she was frightened. I love that.

We grabbed some delicious burritos at Rancho Del Zocalo Restaurante. It's our favorite place to eat in Disneyland.  We left stuffed. I noticed that the prices were raised, no surprise since ticket prices were raised the other day, but the food is great and centrally located so it is convenient. After our horrible hamburger experience at the Villiage Haus Restaurant on a previous trip, I am willing to pay and extra $2 for a meal that I know will be good.

It was time to go to the Fantasyland Theater and line up for the show. I wanted to get there a little early since everything I saw said "limited seating" and this was a special showing. We arrived shortly after 5:00 for the 5:40 show and saw that the line was forming already. We went to what we thought was the end of the line. No, that was the end of that section of the line, they had a cast member controlling a gap in the line for traffic. The line went from the Fantasyland Theater into Toon Town. Into Toon Town? Seriously? My heart sank because I just knew that was too many people to be seated in the theater. We walked and walked looking for the end of the line and we finally found it in front of Goofy's House. I asked the cast member at the end of the line if we even had a chance of being seated. She said, "Oh, sure!"  She seemed confident, but I doubted her anyway.  I let Gracie go play in Goofy's back yard playground while I stood in line on the other side of the Goofy fence. This was crazy.

The line started moving and true to her word, Gracie listened for me to yell for her and she came a running. By this time, the line was piled up behind me farther than I could see. Whoa.

We actually got in! The theater had been expanded and there was a lot more seating than there was before. They used up the space that used to be the Princess line-up area. That space is now bleacher seats. Also, they expanded into the gift shop area and the restaurant seating was turned into bleacher space. It looks as if bleacher seats were installed into the open space in front too, where it was close to the stage. The theater now seats 1800 people and with all those people in line, there was still empty space. It also looks as if they'll be performing this show several times a day, every day. That's 1800 people they take out of the park and occupy in a seated area. Nice. That'll help with crowd control, wait times in lines, etc. We only had to wait a short time in the seats before the show began. While we waited, I pulled out our gigantic autograph book and let Gracie read it while we sat. A little girl next to us was peering over her shoulder, so Gracie began reading out loud to her. It was fun to see her sharing her awesome reading skills.

Mickey's Magical Map show was fantastic! I loved it! It is a singing and dancing show that is very well done. Characters appear and perform. We loved every one of them. The show was just great. Can't wait to see it again! After the show, one of the producers came on stage to talk about how the show was created. I was  hoping that there would be a meet and greet with the performing characters and we could get Pocahontas to autograph our book, but that didn't happen. Gracie didn't want to sit through the lecture, but it was interesting. We ducked out and headed to the Indiana Jones ride. We decided to ride the train to New Orleans Square and save ourselves from walking and lugging our backpack the whole way, plus, the train is fun!

We hopped on board and for the first time that I can remember, I thought they sure need a cleaning crew to stop by. The park, rides, restaurants, rest rooms, everywhere is always very clean. But we saw lots of trash on the floor of the traincar, spilled ice cream glopped around and it just looked like it hadn't been wiped down in a while. I do not understand why people can't hold onto their empty soft drink and water bottles for a bit, there are trash cans everywhere. But spilled ice cream I can understand. This was  a bit much though, and highly unusual. Sure made me realize how clean the park is that one dirty place stuck out like that. The train is in constant motion too, so I don't know how and when they clean the traincars, but I've never noticed them to be dirty before. Food for thought.

When the train stopped at Main Street, the parade was just starting and we could see and hear it from our bench on the train. We decided to hop off and watch the parade. Gracie just loves Disneyland parades!  This was the Soundsational Parade. Such a good one! We had a great view from the Train Station, so we just stayed up there on the platform and watched from above. It was really fun to see it from up here! Of course, Ariel and Cinderella made eye contact with her and waved to her! After the parade, we hopped back on the train.

We got off at New Orleans Square and made our way to the Indiana Jones ride. We got right in with our fast-passes! The line to get in still said 45 minutes and it was a lot shorter than it was earlier in the day. We were able to bypass everyone and walk right in. Gracie feigned bravery and courage, I truthfully admitted fright and nervousness. We rode that crazy ride and screamed the whole way. When it was over, she was delighted! I am just glad we survived.

Our day was done. We only had one more thing we wanted to do together and we skipped it earlier: Enjoy a Dole Whip!  We stopped into the Tiki Room waiting area and we each got a Dole Whip Float. Such a treat! They were so super delicious and sweet! Gracie couldn't find the bottom of her cup and I couldn't either, so we will have to try those again when we aren't so stuffed full of burritos. They are rich and delicious. It was the first time for both of us having the float; maybe next time we can finish them off.

The parking lot tram was our next ride. We didn't get to ride Star Tours, but we had a great day together.