Return from Hiatus - Part 1

It's been a about 3 weeks since I've had a chance to visit AnD. It's been one thing right after another during this time. So, here's what was going on (if I can recall all of it)

Disneyland

Day One -  It all began with our final Disneyland trip of the year. It was our fourth time since last November. This time we met up with another family from SF area, whom we went down with on our first trip. We were all making use of our final week of our annual pass. We drove down on Wednesday and made the most of it. Eight hours on the road door to door. Not bad considering some traffic driving through LA and a few stops for food and stretching. On the way down, we value the Carpool lane, which saved us at least 30 mins minimum. During one of the slow downs, we were able to see the Goodyear Blimp practice taking off and landing. Pretty cool thing to see, sorry no pixs available. The wifey thought I was crazy. She knew I wanted to blog it. But, oh well, maybe she can drive and I take pix next time. :) We made it to the park, in time for one "It's a small world" ride and then luckily, we jumped in line for the new Nemo submarine ride. We've heard horror stories of 2 hour waits, luckily for us, we waited about 15 mins!!! The ride was...OK. It was like the old submarine ride, but they added the Nemo theme. I can elaborate more, but it may ruin your experience if you go. Anyways, the park closed at 8pm...no parades or fireworks until Friday.

Day Two - We got up early as we had reservations to one of those character meals at Goofy's Kitchen. This meant that we were going to a buffet breakfast and some of the Disney characters would visit your table for photo ops and autographs (no, not for me...the kids) We had visits from Pluto, Chip, Dale, Pocahontas and of course Goofy. This way, you get time with the characters without chasing them all over the park and then battling a mob for the same purpose of getting a pix and signature. It was much more mellow and food was decent...you know...eggs are eggs...muffins are muffins. We met up with our friends in the park and spent most of the time in Fantasyland and Toon Town.  

Our daughter is all about Princesses and our son, "it's a smal world." I think within the year, we may have ridden "It's a small world about 20+ times. Yes, the song is an "earworm". We went to Mickey's house and took pix with him too.

The rest of the day was doing rides and Princess faire. Because this was our fourth time in the year, we didn't have the need to do everything, so our trip was like a walk in the park where we really didn't have the "We gotta do this and this" mentality. It's kind of nice.

Day Three

This was the long day and night as this day (Friday) was the official kickoff for the Holidays at Disney. For the holidays, Disney is transformed with holiday decorations and some of the rides also are treated with holiday themes. It's kinda of nice, there is something about the combination of Disney and the Holidays. We started the day on the California Adventures park, doing a few rides in the Bug's Life section. For those who don't know, Disneyland and California Adventures are two parks that face each others and with the annual pass, you can hop back and forth between parks. CA has more of the Pixar movie themes with many of the sets borrowed from various California landmarks...i.e. when you enter the park, you see a Golden Gate Bridge replica. As we went in early into the park, there was practically nobody around in the Bug's Life. My daughter and I were the only ones who were riding the rides. Weird feeling, but cool. It's like super celebrity status where they close the park just for us. Close to lunch, we had reservations at Ariel's Grotto, another character dining experience. This one, you get Disney Princesses as opposed to Mickey and gang. We walked in and our daughter was in awe when she met and sat with Ariel. We have a fair amount of her shocked looks. When we were seated, a costumed courtier approached our table and told us that everyday, there is one family chosen to be the "Honorary Royal Family"...today...it was us!!! I was in shock, but flipped on the camcorder and just followed along. We walked up to the front and he gave us a formal introduction that we were the HRF and from a scroll, we had to read out loud to the entire restaurant that the first princess of the day was...Cinderella!

She led us to our table holding our daughters hand. After reviewing the video, we have this great shot our our jaw-dropping, wide-eyed daughter as Cinderella walked out and came towards us. As the next Princesses came out, we were the first table they'd greet. Out came Belle, then Mulan and finally her favorite, Princess Aurora a.k.a. Sleeping Beauty. Not forgetting our son, he just had this "whatever" attitude. He's a good boy for going along with these Princess things for her big sis. After lunch, we hopped back to DL for more rides (can you guess which one?) then came the first parade of the holiday season. The kids totally loved it. Then, we hopped back to CA for the Block Party parade. Surprisingly, our once shy daughter got up and joined in the parade and danced to some disco with the performers. We were shocked, but loving it.

After that...back to DL for the same holiday parade, but not it's dark and everything is lit up. One thing that DL and Las Vegas have in common, it's much better seen at night. Finally, we waited for the first fireworks show of the holiday season. Yes, we hit the park hard today as this was our last full day at Disneyland. Seeing the kids having the best time of the four trips, there is something magical there.

Day Four

We went into the park for a few last ride...yes, It's a Small World...for the last time before they close it down. They are closing it down to renovate and refresh.  It's the first time they are doing that since it opened. This could mean that this is the last time we were going to see it in its original form. Well, we left for home at about 5pm and made it home at 1am.

I'll stop here for now...I'm tired and so are you from reading all this. I really didn't have intentions to write so much. Anyways, thanks for reading.