California Trip - Disneyland!

Thursday was the big day - Disneyland!! I was expecting magic, but was prepared for tears and tantrums, and luckily we ended up having a great day. The kids were absolute champs and held it together really well considering we were at the park for over 12 hours. At one point we asked Sophie if she would like to go meet some characters or do more rides, and she chose rides - that's my girl! It turned out that Mickey at California Adventure was our only encounter for the trip, and she was fine with that.

Sadly the low point of the day was when Dave walked too close to a line stanchion pole while we were waiting to ride Small World and it completely obliterated his phone in his pocket. It was a complete loss, including all the pictures and videos from earlier in our trip, which is why everything on the blog is from my phone. Sad moment :(

Here are tons of photos, and this isn't even all of them. I ended up making a video of our whole trip since I knew it would be ridiculous to post them all on the blog. You can watch the video here: California Trip 2017 or at the end of this post.

Happy faces ready to go in!

Pirates of the Caribbean - Davey doesn't know what's coming and looks a little anxious :)

Jungle Cruise - this ride can get terrible lines, but he hit it just right and pretty much walked on

Splash Mountain - you can barely see Sophie's terrified face up front. She said she liked it though, and ended up going twice. 

Small World - always a hit with the kids

Ready for the Matterhorn! She liked it, but Dave and I both thought it was a pretty rough ride without much reward and probably one we'll skip next time. 

Napping while we went on some rides he couldn't do anyway

Star Tours

Astro Blaster Rockets

Thunder Mountain Railroad

In the middle of the day we went to a sub-par Rapunzel show that Sophie was excited for, but didn't really understand. Sadly, while we were at the show, we missed all the good spots for the character parade and Sophie only caught a glimpse of things from Dave's shoulders. And while they were trying to get a view, Davey pulverized his snack and spread it all over himself. Lovely. 

Space Mountain closed for two days after Memorial Day to reopen as "Hyper Space Mountain" with a Star Wars theme. We were glad to be there on the day it was running again, since it's always a favorite. 

First time ever riding the Casey Jr. Train. Somehow I've always missed this little ride in Fantasy Land, but it was a good one, especially for little kids. 

Sophie rode with Uncle Brent on the teacups because she wanted to go fast, and I'm pretty sure they out-spun everyone else on the floor. 

The Electrical Parade was amazing! The kids were mesmerized from the moment it started and I was glad we were able to visit during it's short run (it was only there for a few months). We had great seats and Cinderella even waved right at Sophie. 

Good night Disneyland and thanks for the memories!

THINGS TO REMEMBER:

• We went straight for the back of the park and were able to ride the Haunted Mansion, Pirates, Splash Mountain, and Jungle Cruise all with no lines. Some of those don't take Fast Passes either, so it was nice to get them out the way. 
• We brought our own lunch, but ate dinner at the Golden Horseshoe in Frontierland. It was great! Everywhere else was super crowded, but we were able to walk right up to the counter and order at there. Seating was plentiful, and it's indoors so it was a nice break from the heat. There was also a player piano near our table that kept the kids really entertained.
• Since Sophie loved the popcorn so much before, we brought some bags of popped microwave popcorn as one of our snacks. It was a little bulky, but weighed nothing so it was easy to just tie on the stroller. It was great to break out as a special treat while waiting for parades to start.
• I had purchased glow wands at the dollar store to use at the night parade, but left them at the hotel by accident. Bummer. They never knew I had them and weren't disappointed, but it would have been nice to hand out while we waited. 
• The kids loved the Electrical Parade, but were zonked for fireworks. Both passed out before they even started and I wish we had just left instead of waiting around for the show. When it was time to leave, they were both out cold and it was pretty challenging to collapse the stroller and carry two dead weight kids plus all our stuff to get on the bus. The people waiting on the bus cheered for us when we finally made it on. 

California Trip - California Adventure Park!

Our first park was California Adventure! My Uncle Brent joined us, while Derek and Faye stayed back in Newport for some beach time. The park opened at 8 am, so we had to get an early start and the kids were a little groggy, but perked up pretty quick once we got there. This park seems to get better with every visit and we were glad that there were no ride closures this time!

Starting off at Toy Story Midway Mania. There were no lines so we were able to do this popular ride a couple times back-to-back.

I rode the carousel with the kids while Dave and Brent went on California Screamer. Sophie is really looking forward to the day when she will be big enough to ride the big coasters too!

Next up was Cars land. Radiator Springs is prone to breaking down so we were glad to ride it early before it had any problems. It was one of Sophie's favorites, even though our car lost the race both times. 

After a few more Cars rides (that Davey was sadly to little to go on), we went over to the Bug's Life area, which was perfect for our kids. Davey wasn't too thrilled to be left off bumper cars, but he was able to ride everything else. 

We took a break half way through the day for the Frozen show. Sophie begged for a treat and Uncle Brent was nice enough to get her some popcorn - it pretty much made her day! 

Monster's to the Rescue!

After Soarin', it was warm enough to take a ride the Grizzly Peak rafts. I hung out with Davey in the shade for the first run, and then joined Sophie and Brent for the second run. 

Sophie was just a couple inches over the height limit for all the big rides (except Screamer) and it was really fun to watch her try them all for the first time. She was often the youngest one there. Her bravest moment came when she agreed to ride the new Guardians of the Galaxy ride not once, but twice!

Flying on the Silly Swings

Staking our our spot for the Pixar parade, while Sophie went on one last ride

Finally meeting Mickey! Last time we were here, Sophie was not quite two and Mickey had to leave before it was our turn to see him. She was devastated, but this time it worked out. 

THINGS TO REMEMBER:

• We were glad to have our jackets for the morning. Dave was fine without, of course, but the park opened at 8 am and the kids and I kept ours on for the first hour or so. 
• Midway Mania is great, but hard with a lap child. Davey's head was banging all around and 
• We did not go early to get seats for the Frozen show at the Hyperion and I think it was a good choice. We went in about 10 minutes before show time, got great seats in the balcony, and the kids did not have to wait any longer than necessary. 
• Child swap came in huge for us, especially combined with fast passes. We went the day after Memorial Day, and yet never waited more than 20 minutes for any ride and Sophie was pretty much able to do every ride twice. Whoever was waiting with Davey, also went to get the next Fast Pass so we were always fully stocked and made our way around the park very efficiently.
• Our double umbrella stroller does not have a ton of storage space, so we also brought a camel back along. It held a ton of water and we loaded it up with ice so it stayed cold forever, and kept our sandwiches chilled until lunch time. 
• I also left my good camera behind since we were short on storage, and while better pictures would have been nice, cell pics worked just fine and it was nice to not have to lug the Canon around all day. 
• The Disneyland app was awesome for checking ride wait times/closures, locating characters, and looking parade times. 
• We brought a back up battery pack for our phones and it did come in handy. Between checking the app and taking tons of photos, it drained my phone way faster than normal. 
• We did not stay for the night show, but made sure to get front row seats for the Pixar parade. The kids really loved the parade and it was a great way to end our day.

Disney Trip - Part 3

TUESDAY: Today was California Adventure park. We arrived early again and were able to snag fast passes to the Cars racing ride before going over to the 3D Toy Story ride, which always gets long lines. Some of the bigger riders were closed, like Soaring Over California & Grizzly rapids, so we had no trouble fitting in everything we wanted. Our day here was almost perfect - the lines were short, the weather was a bit cooler, and we ran into several characters for Sophie to meet. She had no fear and ran right up to say hello and give hugs every time we met someone. It was so cute to see her face light up! I meant to take a video, but it didn't work out, so pictures will have to do instead. 

There is a whole "Frozen" land set up at California Adventure, but we didn't want to fight the crowds so Sophie enjoyed this picture of Elsa instead

On the Toy Story 3D ride. This is one of my favorites and we did it twice. The first time we had Sophie sit between us, which was a mistake. She was too little to reach the gun and her head banged the back of the seat every time the car moved. The second time she sat on my lap which worked a lot better. 

We were trying to make funny faces for the camera on California Screamer - I think Dave won this contest

The carousel is right next to Screamer so Sophie got to ride this several times with me and Grandmari while people took turns riding the roller coaster.

On the cars ride - clearly we need to get better at taking selfies

Meeting Donald Duck - she loved him so much  

 On the Little Mermaid ride with Nat and Brodie

Anne and Sophie (in matching shirts again) hanging out in Bugs Life land while we went to ride the Tower of Terror

After lunch we met Sulley. We had just watched Monsters University a couple days before so she knew who he was. This was her favorite moment of the whole trip and she keeps telling us how she gave Sulley a hug and a high five.

We went to the Aladdin show during her nap

Enjoying a ride with momma

Meeting Woody

Silliness with Uncle Brodie

Family picture - at least Mickey is in focus

Great view for the Pixar character parade

On our way out of the park we saw Mickey and ran over to say hello, but he wasn't available to greet guests. Sophie was devastated, but just around the corner we found Goofy and Pluto! They saved the day. Goofy had to leave as well, but gave Sophie a hug on his way out. 

 Behind Pluto's whisker is a smile :)

Thanks for the great trip Disneyland - we hope we can come back soon!