Jarrod needed to make a trip down to the valley for work, so we were able to squeeze in a mini vacation. And when you're short on time, but want maximum fun, there is only one place that I want to go... Disneyland!!!!
There are 3 places that if you asked me where I'd rather be (in no particular order), they would be Hawaii, New York and Disneyland.
We are lucky that Disneyland is a relatively close to us. With careful planning, we can drive down to LA, have a nice dinner and a good nights sleep, and be at Disneyland when the open the following morning. And then it's back in the road the next day for the drive home. Easy peasy.
It's safe to say that I love Disneyland. And I'm really lucky that Jarrod is also a Disney fan. There is just something about the park that is so magical. To me, it really is "the happiest place on earth". And don't even get me started on how magical it is during the holidays. I'm really happy that Shane's birthday is in Decemeber so that we can take him there as part of his birthday or Christmas present.
Shane has been watching "Cars" (over and over) recently and he loves it. We've never been to California Adventure, just Disneyland, so we ponied up for the park hopper to check out Cars Land. We are so glad we did. True to Disney Magic, you feel like you're right there in Radiator Springs.
One of the other awesome things that happened was that we were there right when California Adventure opened for the day. What made it so awesome? As we got off the trams, there were Disney Cast members wearing Mickey gloves giving everyone high fives and telling us to "have a great day" and other various statements of welcome. And then as we got passed through the gates into California Adventure, we were greeted by even more Cast members lining the streets in Carthay Circle. It gave me the warm fuzzies :) I made sure to give as many high fives as I could.
We were able to ride California Screamin' with a short wait (maybe 15 minutes) once in the morning. I was surprised that we were able to get on the ride so quick. I was anticipating the wait time to be much longer. I guess I'm just used to the 60+ minute wait for Space Mountain.
After a quick tour around California Adventure, we headed over to Disneyland. It was a little bit of a bummer that there were so many rides that were down for refurbishment in Disneyland. But I can't be mad at them for wanting all the rides to be perfect for the Diamond Anniversary at the end of the month. That just means we will have to go back so that we can ride the Haunted Mansion, Peter Pan, and the Matterhorn (wink wink). I almost had to add Space Mountain to that list. We tried twice to ride and it was temporarily closed :( Finally on our 3rd (and final attempt) it was open.
We were just going to snag a fast pass, but the wait was only twenty minutes, so we rode it twice. I've never in my life seen the wait time so short in my life. I think that makes up for it being down the other two times we tried to ride. We had good Disney kharma for sure.
If you're looking for the fastest tea cup, grab the purple one. I've heard that orange is also fast.
We finished up the day over at California Adventure. We lucked out with another short line for California Screamin'. This time we were better prepared for the picture.
The park wasn't super crowded, so we were able to squeeze in "Toy Story Mania" before our Fast Passes for "World of Color" opened. I think I'm not tall enough to fully enjoy the "World of Color" performance. I will have to do a little more investigating to find out where the best vantage point is. It was awesome, like the Bellagio fountains but with Disney flair.
We finished out the night with another trip to Cars Land. I had to see "their neon". It is quite possible that I've watched "Cars" too many times. As we were walking around I was quoting a bunch of lines from the movie. I'm quite sure that "Cars" will be the first of many Disney movies that I will have memorized from start to finish.
What's are your must do's in Disneyland?
