Disneyland & California Adventure

After Easter Sunday's baseball game and dinner, we took off for Southern California and Disneyland. We planned a two day visit before departing for the American Southwest. This would give us one day at Disneyland and another day at California Adventure.

We had initially planned to drive as far south as possible Easter night and stay at a motel off of I-5. This changed when we crossed the Grapevine into the Los Angeles basin at around midnight. We decided it would be better to spend a little extra time getting to tomorrow's destination rather than fight the Monday morning infamous commute traffic. We pressed on and, fortunately, the hotel that we had reservations at for tomorrow, had a space for us tonight.

Our son was thrilled with the bunk beds. We slept in (for us) and didn't even miss the opening of the park. Our hotel came with a complimentary breakfast, which was about as bad as could be. Still frozen sausages just don't do it for me. I didn't eat breakfast that morning. Our hotel was right across the street from Disneyland, so all we had to do was walk to the entrance. This was much more convenient than having to drive, then park, then take a shuttle.

We spent the rest of Monday walking all over Disneyland. We rode Space Mountain (several times), Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blaster, Autopia, and even managed to get on the Matterhorn Bobsleds before the line got ridiculous. Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Railroad and Indiana Jones were exciting, but my favorites are still It's a Small World, Pirates of the Caribbean and the Enchanted Tiki Room. The Swiss Family Robinson's treehouse has been transformed into Tarzan's treehouse, but even so, it was fun to walk up. We also went to Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, which I had not seen in over 20 years. It had just been redone and the animatronics is even better than before.

Again, this is not a conditioning hike, but it's still a lot of walking! We met up with some friends who have children in the same school as our son and had a nice dinner at the Blue Bayou with them. We were fortunate in that we were able to get the last available space at 7:15 pm! After dinner, we went to the Haunted House together and then our friends went to see World of Color, the water show that is currently playing at California Adventure. Our tickets were for Tuesday evening so we stayed at Disneyland for the rest of the day and watched the fireworks before going back to our hotel for the evening. It was nice not to have the explosions happening right overhead, as happened the last time we were at Disneyland!

The following day, Tuesday, we went to California Adventure. Our favorite ride there is California Screamin', a huge boardwalk style roller coaster. It's really my second favorite after the Giant Dipper at Santa Cruz Beach and Boardwalk. California Soarin' is also a wonderful ride which simulates flying over California. Our son likes Toy Story Mania which, like Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blaster, is a moving shoot-the-target ride. We also went on the Monsters Inc. ride, saw a parade near the Aladdin theatre, and then went on the Hollywood Tower Hotel ride. I had completely forgotten that this was a freefall style ride. Had I remembered I would have passed. I white knuckled it during all three freefalls, which probably was a good thing since our son was so concerned about me that he forgot to be scared.

The height of the evening came with World of Color, but also the most annoyance. This water show is a medley of all of the great Disney animated movies. The show is absolutely stupendous BUT you have to watch it standing. In fact, you pay extra to watch it standing. There is no where to sit down, not even a park bench. The show lasts about an hour and it's another hour before the show starts, so that's a total of two hours of standing. Whoever planned this out obviously did not think this through.

It was a wonderful two days and we all managed not to get too sunburned! We headed back to the hotel for a good night's sleep. Tomorrow will be a long drive to Williams, Arizona - our jumping off point for the Grand Canyon.

California Screamin': The Adventure Continues

After yesterday's long adventure at Disneyland, we slept in and we needed it! All of this park hopping has got us pretty tired and worn out. After getting dressed and having a quick breakfast, we headed out of the motel, arriving at California Adventure by about 10:00 am.


We took it fairly easy, though our first task was to get a Fast Pass for California Screamin' the park's enormous roller coaster. We walked around Hollywood area, visiting the Monsters, Inc. and some of the other rides.

The lagoon was all torn up for construction of a new exhibit, so there was no water in it. Some of the major rides, such as the ferris wheel, were also being updated and were thus unavailable. At last it was time to go on our roller coaster ride and California Screamin' did not disappoint. It was totally awesome! I went on it three times, one of them sitting next to a Roman Catholic priest! Be not afraid!

Our son's favorite ride in this park, however, was the Toy Story shooting gallery - target practice with a laser gun while moving on a ride. I have to say that for all of the rides of this kind that we have been on at Legoland and Disneyland, this was the best of the bunch. We also visited the Bug's Life area, where we saw a 4-D movie, complete with water spray, stinkbug stink and "bugs" crawling under our seats! Yuck! Cute, but a little bit scary for the little guy.

The other ride that we really like in this park is California Soarin'. This is a simulated plane flight over various areas in California. We got Fast Passes for 7:45 pm, then we headed out of the park for an early dinner and a rest at the Rainforest Cafe in Downtown Disney, walking all the way. After a good meal (at least this one was on my diet!), we hopped on the monorail which took us into Disneyland's Tomorrowland. We still had a couple of hours to kill, so we grabbed a ride on the submarines before taking the train to the Disneyland entrance and walking back across the mall to California Adventure. Our little one loved California Soarin' and, although he had some trepidation (is this a roller coaster???!!!??? No!), afterwards he decided that this was easy, just like riding an airplane and he could do it again.

Being pretty pooped out, we headed out of the park after California Soarin', deciding to get an ice cream cone at Downtown Disney and catch the tram back to the parking lot. We did a little minor window shopping, got the cones and listened to world class violinist Drew Tretick playing there. Wow!

Back to the motel and it didn't take long for us to be sound asleep! Lots of walking today, even if not up hills.