Disneyland Recap

So here is it, the best recollection of our trip to DL.

Monday - drove from Salt Lake City to Anaheim, CA. The trip was uneventful and took about 10 hours. We pulled in at 7:30 PM, walked around the hotel and checked out the pool, and then went to the grocery store to get some groceries.

Tuesday - arrived at the park at 9 AM, when the gates opened. It was roughly a 15 minute walk from our hotel to the main gate, our hotel was right across the street. We hit the rides early, mostly in the Fantasyland area. We did the Dumbo ride, the teacups, storybook land canal boats, and the Alice in Wonderland ride I think. Then we went towards the Princess area, little did we know that we were about to be roped into standing in a line for 2 hours to see the princesses. They don't let the princesses walk around the park like the other characters, in order to get a picture with one you need to wait in their line. So we did, it was painful but we survived. After that we went to Toon Town for a little while and found Chip 'n' Dales tree house and Goofy's house where the kids could run around and play while we sort of hung out on a bench. The lines started to become too much toward the late afternoon so we walked off the property and went to dinner. When we came back it was about 6 PM and the lines were much better. We went on the Amazon Jungle Boat cruise, and Pirates of the Caribbean ride, twice I think! And then we went for the Finding Nemo submarine ride. That pretty much took us to 8 PM when the park closed, we took a good picture of the castle all lit up in the background before we left.

Wednesday - Again we arrived at 9 AM and hit the rides. We finished Fantasyland with included Mr. Toads Wild Ride, Snow Whites Adventures, Peter Pan's flight, Casey's Jr. Circus train, and Pinocchio's ride. We spent more time in Toon Town and rode the Roger Rabbit ride which was the only ride we could really do in there. We went to Critter Corner and rode on the Winnie the Pooh ride. We did the Amazon Boat cruise again, as well as Pirates a couple of more times (we really liked the pirates!). We made our way over to the Nemo ride again and also found the Buzz Lightyear ride. I think we squeezed the Autotopia ride in there as well. We decided we didn't want to waste the time walking out of DL for food when we would spend the same in the park, so we found a Mexican food place and ate in the park. We left when the park closed at 8 PM.

Thursday - We used our hour early entry today. We had planned to go straight to the Nemo ride since it was the one that was usually more than an hour wait. Everybody else had the same idea so we went to Fantasy land and re-rode all of those short rides that last 2 minutes, but usually take 45 minutes of line waiting. When things started to fill up we went to California Adventures. We found the Monsters Inc. ride pretty quickly and we may have rode that twice. We wandered around and went into the Bugs Life area. They had some little kids rides which we rode, but they were pretty lame. The kids really didn't seem to be into them. After that we went to a Outdoor recreation area where the kids could climb and slide for a while, but that stuff seemed to be too big for them. For dinner we went to The Rainforest Cafe, which was just OK. It was noisy and crowded and out server wasn't the greatest for an expensive place. Aiden slept through dinner, but Sydney liked it. We went back into Disneyland and went to our favorites Pirates and Nemo. We again closed out the park and walked back to the hotel. We were all worn out, the crowds were horrendous today...we're thinking Friday is only going to be worse!

Friday - We decided to have a relaxing day away from the park, at least in the morning. So we slept in until 7:30 (thanks Aiden), Mommy and Sydney slept in until close to 9. We all got ready and went to Huntington Beach. We did some research and found that the ocean temperature was only 58 degrees, so we figured we didn't need swimsuits. The kids loved wading into the ocean and then running away from the waves. By the end thy had both fallen down several times and were soaked from head to toe. They didn't mind the cold water I guess. We Walked down the big pier and then went back to the hotel, threw on our suits and went swimming in the hotel pool. After that we got dressed and went to The Outback for dinner since we had a gift card. After that we went to Disneyland at 6 PM, managed to walk right in and catch the full nightly parade, then we rode more rides and then tried to scout out the perfect place for the fireworks that started at 9:25. We asked this usher guy who told us we had some prime location, that the tree in front of us wouldn't be an issue since the fireworks were up higher than that. He lied. We watched 90% of the fireworks through that stupid tree. It was so crowded though, moving would have been futile. After the fireworks we ran to Nemo, waited a crazy long time. then we did some Buzz Lightyear and some other rides (probably Pirates if I remember correctly!). We left at midnight when the park closed, both kids still wide awake!


On Saturday we were supposed to leave for home. We decided we wanted to go back to the beach for a few hours and then get home later in the night on Saturday night. Well we went back to Huntington Beach for an hour and a half and then drove back to the hotel area for some lunch at Red Robin. We decided since it was already 1 PM and we were still in Anaheim that it was going to be a not so fun drive late into the night. So we hatched a crazy scheme to stay in Vegas on the way through. We called Tom, who was working, and he booked us a room at the Circus Circus. We made it to Vegas around 7 or so. We walked from the Circus Circus to the Bellagio fountains and back. We wanted to see the Treasure Island Pirates show, but we missed it and didn't feel like sticking around until 11:30 PM for the next show. We called it a night and went to bed.

Sunday - we had enough of the Vegas crowds and of walking all over the place. So we packed up and drove to Treasure Island were we went to the Mothers Day buffet brunch. It was a good way to fill us up for the road, but it only made Bridget and I sleepy and got the kids all hyped up on sugar. It was an extremely long drive home, but we made it by 8 or so. We decided that was enough road trips for a while. Maybe for our next vacation we'll fly....then again it might not be so bad if we don't have 2 road trips so close together.

In the end we managed to ride every ride in Disneyland and California Adventures that didn't have a height requirement for the kids. It was a great time, I do think I have had my fill of lines and crowds for a while...at least to those extremes. And don't even get me started on California driving!