First Day at Disneyland

Today was our son's first visit to Disneyland, so we made the most of it. Our 3-day tickets allowed us one early entry day, so this was our day! After a quick night's sleep, we left the hotel at 7:15 am so that we could enter Disneyland by 8:00 am. Only two areas of the park were officially open, Tomorrowland and Fantasyland. We were bummed out about that since it meant we had to wait until 9:00 am to enter Adventureland for the Indiana Jones adventure. So we stopped at Main Street to get our son's first visit badge. He wouldn't wear it, so I ended up wearing it all day. Hmfph! We also had breakfast in Tomorrowland and did some of the rides, including It's a Small World.


Immediately it was 9:00 am and we headed back for Adventureland and were among the first in line for the Indiana Jones ride. We've been singing the song for weeks and our son was very excited though the ride was a bit faster and scarier than he liked. He still says its his favority ride though, so it couldn't have been all bad.


Immediately after that we ran to the Tiki Room, one of our favorites. Our son was fascinated by the music, the singing birds and flowers, and the tikis in the pre-show outside. And afterwards we added the Tiki Room song to our repertoire.


We went on a variety of rides, including the Pirates of the Carribean and the Haunted Mansion. We also went on the newly refurbished sailing ship Columbia, a full scale replica of the first American tall ship to sailed around the world. Autopia was also a lot of fun, though by that time the line was quite long.


A nice feature that Disneyland has added to make the park more family friendly is that families with small children only have to wait in line once for roller coaster and other more adult rides. When the entire family gets to the front of the line, one parent goes on the ride and the other one stays with the children. Then the parents switch off without having to wait in line again. This was a life saver and really added to our enjoyment of the park since it meant that Duane and I got to go on some roller coasters too. Space Mountain is still a blast and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is also fun. Neither of us really wanted to wait the three hours to go on the Matterhorn, however, since there is no Fast Pass for that ride.

Toon Town has been added outside the original bounds of the park and is new since our last visit. This is a great area for toddlers and smaller children where they can get a taste of a roller coaster without actually being scared out of their minds.


One thing that I had not done at Disneyland was to eat at the Blue Bayou Restaurant. So this time, I made reservations for dinner for the three of us ahead of time. Yippee! We arrived at 7:45 pm for a dinner as good as you might find in any decent restaurant. The jamabalaya and gumbo were excellent!

After dinner, we had time for one more ride before seeing the fireworks show just before park closing. We gave our son the option of any ride in the park and he chose It's a Small World. So we headed back to Fantasyland for our final ride. Always a fun ride, I found it interesting that our son picked the same "favorite" ride that my mother loves!

We then headed over to Adventureland, closer to the park exit, to watch the final fireworks show. I was glad to be further away from the concussions than I was last night. Our son still doesn't like fireworks - they're too loud for him - but he managed. He fell asleep in our arms on the way out of the park and didn't wake up until the next morning. We took turns carrying him from the park to the tram and back to the motel. He had a big 14 hour day for his first day at Disneyland!

Best of all, we got lots of walking in during the day in preparation for our Half Dome hike!