Day 4-Monday and Disney thoughts

Written by Emily on Tuesday, New Year's Eve, while riding in the car on the I-5 heading for Redding.

Note: Monday morning, J and K adventures was sleeping in.

It was to be our last day at Disneyland and although we were all exhausted, especially Fred and Ruben who helped mom close the park down on Sunday, we were up and at the park gates by 7:30am. We were admitted immediately and went to Main St in Disneyland where we had to wait for the 8am official opening. We watched the rope drop and took off with the crowdfor Space Mountain.

Once I found the right line in all the chaos I got us fastpasses and we wandered over to ride Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters. Its kind of a shoot em up game based on the premise of keeping the evil emperor Zurg from taking over. Having stopped the evil one with our excellent marksmanship we went into Fantasyland.

We rode some dark rides we missed earlier such as Pinocchio's Daring Journey and Snow White's Scary Adventure. We also rode the carrousel and the less claustrophobic of us went through Sleeping Beauty's Castle. I dragged Freddie and Ru on to Small World because... well because its Disneyland and Fred had to experience it. Twenty minutes later we gratefully disembarked and walked around the corner to Toon Town.

Toontown opens a little later than the rest of Disneyland so we were at the gates just before it opened. We got escorted into Toontown by Mickey and Minnie. It was super sweet, they were holding hands.

Fred is a big fan of classic cartoons and LOVES Roger Rabbit so we rode his ride first. Then we took the opportunity to take silly pictures with all the sight gags and Goofy. We walked around a little bit and realized that Toontown has very little to offer big kids and adults so we went back and rode Space Mountain using our fastpasses from earlier.

Meanwhile J and K slept on, with the plan to meet at IHOP for breakfast later...

Disneyland was filling up, and Ru really wanted to ride a water ride at California Adventure called Grizzly River Run. Its like a whitewater rafting adventure. You have to time it right though because you WILL get wet, probably soaked. You don't want to ride it too early or too late or you will freeze. Even though the weather was sunny it was cold in the shade and being wet and cold is never fun. We had gotten fastpasses for it the day before but it was closed and drained when we got there, so we went elsewhere.

We got to the ride intending to ride single rider to save time, but we changed our minds and decided to ride together and waited the 20 minutes. We had a good run and got pretty wet, but we had time to go again. I asked one of the cast members if we could ride from the fastpass line because we were denied yesterday and she said sure. So we got on fast the second time and got absolutely soaked. At least I didn't have to worry about my mascara like the poor teen we were on the boat with, or my new spendy sneakers like the teen boy on our raft.

It was time to meet up for breakfast so we met at the hotel where we got dry then along with J and K went on to IHOP for pancakes and eggs. Note: IHOP sucks for people with food allergies.

Jeff was in football mode and went back to the hotel, Mom joined Ru, Fred, and I at the pool for sun and splash. When we felt sufficiently baked Ru and I started our nap, and Fred took off for some exploring.

J and K adventured to ESPN in Downtown Disney for what sounded like an awful meal and a football game which the Ducks won, but played only slightly better than their lousy opponents. (Note this football commentary was written by someone who knows little about the game and possibly cares even less, and was based on commentary heard later from mom.)

At 7pm Jeff went back to the hotel to recover from ESPN food, and Mom ventured onward with us to California Adventure park. We went immediately to the hand dipped ice cream where Ru got a chocolate chip mint in a waffle cone that was dipped in chocolate and sprinkles. He'd been looking forward to ice cream all day!

Next we went off to ride California Screaming and Mike and Sully's Adventure. We also learned how to talk like a turtle (with Crush from Finding Nemo) and mom and I watched Fred and Ru spin around on the ladybug ride. Mom took off for the hotel to rest up for her long drive tomorrow, and Fred and I finally got Ruben on the trolley he'd been wanting to ride for days.

We got back to the hotel around 10, and were all utterly exhausted. I wore my pedometer and I had walked about 7 miles. I know I had walked more than that on the previous days. We all had sore legs and feet, even the kid.

In summary I'd say we hit all the Disney highlights, did the best that we could with the INSANE crowds, and that we all did our best to have a good time even though none of us (perhaps with the exception of Ruben) were even close to 100% to begin with.

Fred's overall Disneyland impression: He could tell that Disney is the standard that all other theme parks are basing their ideas off of. He really liked that you didn't need tickets for the rides, and the fastpasses and single rider systems really saved a lot of time and made it more fun. The train is invaluable for trying to get around when its crowded. He liked that there were two parks with different feelings and he could go back and forth between them. It was neat to see the classic rides and the brand new rides. He was glad that they kept some of the old classic rides. He was impressed with the staff and felt that they were helpful and friendly. He also noticed that everything was very clean. His favorite ride was the California Screaming Coaster, and he also really liked the Toy Story 3D arcade game. The shows he liked were Muppet Vision 3D and Bugs Life. Bugs life especially because of the effects. (bug spray, stink, water). He feels it was worth the money, and would surely visit again someday.

Ruben's overall impression of Disneyland:

He loved the rides. His favorite ride was Splash Mountain, and his second favorite was Space Mountain. His third favorite was Tower of Terror. He thought world of color was amazing with the fountains and he liked that they used Olaf from Frozen. He said that was pretty girlie. (I took him to see Frozen and he said it was a girl movie.) He feels that he got to do everything he wanted to do. He says he doesn't need to ever go to Disneyland again because he's done everything there is to do there. He wants to go to Yellowstone on our next vacation.

Update: Waiting for the ball to drop at the Red Lion in Redding, I uploaded ALL of Fred and my pictures from Christmas and DLand to:

https://plus.google.com/photos/106050256545946650438/albums/5963766164714239329?authkey=CMakxbqwx8jd9gE 

if you want to see them.