a disneyland christmas-day 3

Our second day at the parks was our first foray into California Adventrues (CA). I've been to Disneyland a few times in my life, but the past two times it was only for a day, so I actually hadn't been to California Adventures for probably 12 years. I was excited to see all the new things that had come about since I last visited.

I wanted to make sure I got breakfast this morning because the first day was not so fun skipping that, so I went with Mom, Stephen and Meagan to the Earl of Sandwich in DD. I got a nice little egg and ham and cheese breakfast sammie with some OJ. Man, those breakfast sandwiches keep me full quite nicely. Dad and G had gotten up early to do some roller coaster hound doggin' and the Arizonans came at their own pace. We knew there was a special entrance to CA from the Grand California Hotel that only Disneyland Resort hotel people could use, but we didn't know where to access it or how to get there from our hotel. So we went in through the front entrance.

California Adventures is built to be an homage to all things California. The "Main Street" if you will looks like old-time Hollywood with lots of 1920s film industry style. I felt like the buildings and style had been built up a bit since my last visit and the Christmas decorations just made it look even more fleshed out and festive. There was a giant Christmas tree in the main square/plaza area and lots of red bows and evergreen. After getting in to the park we met up with Bub, Michael and Jacqueline who were just finishing their breakfast. Then we decided our first ride should be "Soarin' over California."

Soarin' over California is one of the top three rides at CA. You sit in these gliders that are in front of a movie screen and they move while the film played flies you over all these different places in California. You really feel like you are flying. They also blow wind on you and make the air scented, when you fly over an orange grove it smells like oranges, when you fly through the mountains it smells like pine. It's so relaxing as well. I've read that they are making a Soarin' around the World for Epocot in Disney World, I hope they use it in CA as well!

After we rode Soarin', Dad and G had met up with us and they rode with Michael while we watched the baby. Mom and I went looking at the shop across the way and I'm glad I did because that's where I got my pins! I've learned that when you find a Disney pin you like, you should buy it then and there! Disney is really stingy with their pins, they only sell them AT the parks or DD. So it's not like you can get them online, because there are people who collect them and know what the really special ones are and what they are worth. I had a Jane (from Tarzan), Elliott (from Pete's Dragon) and Mulan pin from previous trips/mom. I was excited to find a Mary Poppins (with her coat and parrot umbrella), a Mary Poppins in her Jolly Holiday dress and a Dumbo taking a bath pin to add to my collection. I'm glad I bought them because Mary Poppins is one of my favorites and I didn't see them anywhere else in the park.

Once everyone was done with Soarin' we headed to California Screamin', one of the best roller coasters I've been on. On the way there we walked past Grizzly Rapids which is a water raft ride, Stephen wanted to ride it but no one would go with him because it was too cold for that. Screamin' is a fantastic coaster. You get music played in your ear the whole ride and it does a loop-de-loop that takes you upside-down. One of the best parts is that unlike a regular coaster that pulls you to the top of the first hill slowly, this one starts at the bottom and blasts you off! No time for breathing. We call it roller coaster hound-doggin' because our family has a penchant for roller coasters, and one time my dad called us roller coaster hound dogs because we couldn't get enough. Mom even went on it one time! She did get mad at dad though. When she was getting ready to head to her near certain death, before the coaster blasted off, she looked over to see Grandpa (who had stayed behind to babysit Jacqueline) standing on the pier slurping on an ice cream cone! How inconsiderate! It's really funny to hear her tell it. Another reason I like Screamin' is that it doesn't bang your head around like a lot of older coasters do. You get the thrills without having your noggin banged around. Also, more ride pictures!

After that we went on the (new to me) Toy Story ride-Toy Story Midway Mania. You sit in a car, wear 3-D glasses and you ride around to different screens and play different arcade-type games. There is a "cannon" on the front of your car that you use to shoot different things in different games, you get points in each game and your total is shown when you leave the ride. It was pretty similar to the Buzz Lightyear ride in Tomorrowland. I thought the ride was really creative, though I'm pretty bad at those types of games where you need aim. It also had lots of characters from all three Toy Story movies. Also, in the store on the way out I saw a mickey dressed up as Woody the cowboy, G wanted a Zurg. Tee hee!

Then we split up again, some people were hungry, some wanted to go on the silly symphony swings. There may have been another ride on Screamin'.

Somewhere in here we went to the Little Mermaid ride. It is similar to Haunted Mansion in that you sit in carriages while you ride around and look at different scenes. Only the carriages are clam shells. It was pretty good, I liked how they made you feel like you were going "Under the Sea" with the lighting and projections. The anamatronics have certainly come a long way as well. The songs keep you dancing and the "Under the Sea" room was pretty fun. Jacqueline loved it, lots of lights to look at.

Lunch this day was at Wine Country Trattoria, a fancy Italian place that is supposed to evoke Wine Country. Again, we did the meal with fastpass option, this time for the World of Color show. It was warm enough to eat outside and Stephen really enjoyed the ambiance of a vineyard. For starters they gave us foccacia bread and oil and vinegar to dip it in. Reminded me of Monica! I had a sleeping Jacqueline on me (I got her to fall asleep! Auntie Moo win!) so Bub fed me bread. Haha. For lunch I chose the braised beef ravioli, It was delicious! I was nervous about not having marinara sauce and cheese, but this was fancy ravioli and it was tasty. It was probably my favorite meal of the trip. When Jacqueline woke up she had some bread, ate some of her dad's crab and really enjoyed it, and entertained us by eating the table again!

I'm a little hazy on the rest of the afternoon-we looked at how they make the sourdough bread, sniffed the scent coming out of the Ghiradeli's ice cream shoppe, and made our way to the Monster's Inc ride. It was cute, you ride around in cars and look at different scenes from the movie. Then we parked it on a bench to wait for the bell ringers and the tree lighting. The bell ringers were fun, they sang songs and played their bells on Buena Vista street, they were dressed in era-appropriate holiday wear. We enjoyed it. And then the bench we were occupying needed to be moved for the tree lighting party but we got to sit back down once they moved it. It ended up being prime seating for watching the little tree lighting song and dance thing. I thought it was cute that Mickey and Minnie were both wearing 1920's outfits as they were in CA. Also we got some cute pictures in front of the Walt and Mickey statue in CA called "Storytellers."

Then I think we moved down the road to find a spot that had a bench to watch the Pixar Play parade. It was a cute and fun parade featuring the characters from Pixar. Jacqueline loved this parade too, and ALL the people/characters in the parade would wave at her and play with her. It was adorable. The weird purple fuzzy guy from Monsters University came up in front of me and Bub and then he jumped at us which scared us, cheeky thing! I loved seeing the Incredibles, Cars, Finding Nemo, Toy Story and even A Bug's Life, although, even though she's technically Pixar, Merida did not make it into the parade.

After the parade I finally go to Cars Land! They made the entire town of Radiator Springs from the Cars movie. They did a really good job. It was like you were in the movie. It was dark the first time I went so I didn't get as good of a look at things, but we did get to ride Racing Radiator Springs! It was my favorite ride this time around, (probably because it's new) and it was such a fun layout for a ride. You ride in a car (duh) that looks like one from the movie. Then you take a nice leisurely ride around the scenery and even look at a waterfall. Music plays in the background and it is so relaxing, a nice cruise. It was even better to ride at night with the pretend rock features all lit up. The ambiance was so great at night and you can see a little bit over CA. Then you go inside and you see a bit of the story of the movie "Cars." Mater takes you around and you even get to do some "Tractor tipping"! Haha! Then you drive through town and see some other characters and then you either get your tires changed at Luigi's, or you get a paint job. I rode this ride four times and three of the times I got the paint job, which was fun but mostly they just blow air on you. I liked the tire change better because they move you up and down and it's really like they are changing your tires! Then you meet up with another car and have a race! There is a stretch of the ride that is like a racetrack and there are turns and hills. It's so exciting! We liked to egg our car on and yell "go! go! Faster, they're catching up!" stuff like that. They would make each car pull ahead of the other and you keep racing until you see who gets to the finish line first. It's really fun and exciting. Also, they take your picture. The front seat is more fun than the back seat as well because it's more like you are driving the car. Disney has a home run with this ride, and I like how it combines the "ride" with the story/character elements as well as having a satisfying length to it.

Travel Guide Tip: since this is the newest ride at CA it is wise to go on this ride early in the day before the lines get long, or only with a fastpass. It's popular, it's new, so there is always a huge line. I saw wait times as long as 120 minutes. Also, I recommend riding this one at night. It's really cool all lit up.

After Radiator Springs we convinced mom to ride the Tower of Terror with us. Which was a huge score. I think we had fast passes for this one too. I like Tower of Terror, but it was later in the day and I was coming down with a cold, so it wasn't as fun for me. If you haven't ridden it, the premise is that you are at the Hollywood Tower Hotel and that it is haunted. You get in the elevator and it goes up and then drops unexpectedly. You go up and down a few times and sometimes the doors open and you get a great view over CA. We got Meagan to ride too even though she wasn't sure. As always, after the ride was over there were a lot of people laughing at themselves and their reactions. Then I heard someone laughing/almost crying and I thought "someone is losing it", and then I found out it was my mom! She was dying and almost going loony. Mom is never like this so we were dying watching her laugh so hard. I was going to pee my pants. We got her out of there but she laughed for quite a while and then when she calmed down again she started going batty trying to explain why she was laughing so hard. I guess she came out of her seat for a second during the ride and the thought came to her, "if the ride can make a fat old lady like me come out of her seat what is it doing to Meagan (my sister in law)?" and that thought had her in stitches. It was the funniest moment of the trip by far.

Then it was time to head to grab our spots for "World of Color-Winter Dreams." The fastpass thing worked a ton better for this show than it did for Fantasmic. We actually had good spots and I could see most everything. Part of that is because WOC is a bigger show and you are physically closer to it. Winter Dreams is the Christmas version of World of Color and I had no idea what to expect as the World of Color show is new since 12 years ago. It. Was. Amazing. Essentially it is a fountain show where they project images onto the water and have lights. But wait! It's Disney, so it is so much cooler than that. The images were a lot crisper than I thought they would be seeing as how they were projected on water. There were colored lights and then they also had some images projected on the circle in the middle of the California Screamn' coaster.They had a holiday themed show hosted by Olaf from Frozen. I think they used every Disney image related to Christmas, snow, holiday etc. They had Rex from Toy Story do a dance to Nutcracker music, Elsa sang her entire "Let it Go" anthem, and they even had sing alongs to Jingle Bells and "Feliz Navidad." I don't know how they got the rights to it, but they had the song "Believe" from the Polar Express during the show. It was a female singer and it was so familiar to me, it took me awhile to figure out that it was Heather Headly!! Heather is the original Aida from Broadway and I just loved her version. The whole show was so magical and Christmasy, I may have gotten a little teary eyes. And I belted out the entire "Let it Go" song with Bub right next to me. :) Sorry neighbors. After the show we walked out of the park and got to see a few fireworks that were going off in Disneyland for the fireworks show as we walked back to our hotel. Another successful day!!

a disneyland christmas-day 2

First day at the park! I got up early with Gretchen to go into Disneyland and get crack-a-lackin! Others in my family generously moved all our stuff from the Camelot hotel over to the Disneyland Resort hotel (where we stayed the whole week), and took care of all the checking in and out stuff for us. We are thankful they took the time, energy and effort to do that and realize they lost some precious Disney time doing so!

It was raining when we headed to the park so we donned our plastic ponchos and ended up wearing them almost all day. First, we had to get through security. This is a new thing-they just started it this Christmas season. It's unfortunate that they have to do it, but it's probably necessary. It slowed things down a bit because it was another line you had to wait in. Mom got pulled out three different times for a closer search and walk through a metal detector. The security tents kind of clogged up the aesthetic of the promenade between Disneyland and California Adventures. Next, we got in line to get our passes scanned to get into the park! Because we were guests of the Disneyland Hotel, we got to go into the park at what is called the "Magic Hour" where they let you in a hour before all the other yea-hoos and you can enjoy the park with fewer people. However, because the normal park opening was at 8 am, the magic hour started at 7, and to really get your hour's worth, you needed to be in line by like 6:30, which meant you would need to wake up at like 5:30 to make it happen. I'm sure at other times of the year, when the park opens a little later, it's more doable, but I think I only made it to the magic hour twice of the five days we were there.

G and I got through the line and I asked her what she wanted to ride first-Space Mountain!! Of course! We headed straight there.

Travel Guide Tip: always go to space mountain first, get a fastpass, then ride the ride, then ride the ride on your fastpass. It always gets so crowded as the day goes on. So get your rides done early in your day.

Tomorrowland was celebrating the "Season of the Force" as in Star Wars; they are using everything there to promote Star Wars, the movies, and keep the hype going until they can open the new Star Wars land. So Space Mountain became Hyperspace Mountain with a Star Wars theme. I loved it. Original Space Mountain is one of the best rides at Disneyland. It's essentially a roller coaster in the dark, Hyperspace Mountain adds in the Star Wars music and you zoom around space fighting whoever the enemies are supposed to be in Star Wars, and it's like you're flying through the galaxy. The John Williams music really gets your adrenaline going and almost everyone comes back cheering. And it's one of the rides where they take your picture, always fun. G and I rode Space Mountain and then waited for Stephen and Meagan to ride and then all got fast passes together.

After that we headed over to the Matterhorn to get another coaster under our belts. The very first time I went to Disneyland the Matterhorn was broken so I didn't get to ride. But I've been able to ride it since then. It's one of the very first coasters at Disneyland so it's kind of old and jogs your brain a bit, but I enjoy it. The theme is bobsledding in the Alps and there is a Yeti. They play polka music while you stand in line and I may have tried some yodeling. I like the Matterhorn, but for some people in my family, one time was enough, it gave them a small headache.

By then the whole crew had made it to Disneyland and we met in front of Sleeping Beauty's castle and took a few pictures in front of it in our rain ponchos. I wish we had taken time another day to take more pictures when it was sunny, but sadly we didn't make time for it. Also I wish I had gotten my pictures taken in front of the "Partners" statue so I could compare it to the one I have from 20 years ago. That would have been cute!

Sleeping Beauty's Castle decked out for Christmas and the 60th Diamond Anniversary, so pretty!

Next was Pirates of the Caribbean. Nothing special for Christmas, but always a favorite. They have added "Jack Sparrow" anamatronics to the ride in a few places but somehow I missed all of them the first time! I like POTC because the line MOVES. They can get a lot of people through that ride quickly. Also, Jacqueline got to ride, but she got a little scared at the small drop. I always leave singing "Yo Ho, Yo Ho, a Pirate's life for me!" and wanting to say "Yar!" a lot.

Somewhere in here (I can't remember before or after what rides...) we went to Aladdin's Oasis for lunch. Grandma had gotten a deal where you make a lunch reservation and they give you a fastpass for the Fantasmic show later that night. It was cold and wet at Aladdin's Oasis, but we had warm food and got fed. Genie was hanging out and we got some cute pics.

The Haunted Mansion is nearby to POTC so we went there next. This line also moves fairly well and there is a lot to look at while you wait. The Haunted Mansion is another classic Disney ride, but this one did have a Christmas theme. The Disney people turn it into "Nightmare Before Christmas," because I guess Disney owns that one? The decor gets put up for Halloween and then left up until after Christmas because it has both holidays. I hadn't seen the movie before so I watched it before the trip. It's not really my thing but I know a lot of people love that movie. I enjoyed the decorations, they were fun and festive. They know how to decorate. The ride was also changed, the different rooms were swapped out for the movie characters and themes and I think it worked pretty well. My favorite part was the ballroom where they had a gingerbread house made of playing cards and the room smelled like gingerbread! How Disney! I, myself, prefer the original ride. I missed the old song and the hitchhiking ghosts. But the decorations for Christmas were amazing.

Splash Mountain was next and it was a perfect time to go because we all had our ponchos on and could handle getting wet! It was fun to have Meagan with us because she had never been to Disneyland so we got excited to be with someone experiencing it for the first time. We made her sit in the front of the log so she got drenched! Zip-a-dee Do-dah!! I think we went through this line the shortest I ever have, but that's probably because it was raining and no one wanted to ride it. Also, more ride pictures!

Hahahahaha, love this one

One of our family's most favorite ride ever is Thunder Mountain. It's a roller coaster on a train through a mining town. Nothing super special happens, but it's a great coaster. Love this one. The rain was intermittent all day, but I think around this time it stopped for good for the rest of the day. Thankfully.

Then we took Mom to the much anticipated "It's A Small World" Christmas edition. Small World is her second favorite after Peter Pan and the Christmas version is so pretty! All the rooms are decorated for Christmas and the dolls have Christmas garb. They also (to G's dismay) spliced "Jingle Bells" with the Small World song to make it festive. And they even had "Jingle Bells" in foreign languages. On the outside of the ride when the clock chimes and the children come out they are dressed in holiday wear as well. The whole ride was beautiful and well done. Five Stars! I don't know how I'll handle the regular Small World after this.

Then it was time for our Hyperspace Mountain fast passes so we went and rode that quickly while the others waited for the Paint the Night Parade. So fun once again.

Paint the Night Parade
The Paint the Night Parade was probably my most favorite thing at Disneyland this go-round. It was awesome! It was styled in the tradition of the old school "Electrical Light Parade" where all the floats and characters are lit up, but it was done in a modern way with LED and black lights. It was nice that it got dark earlier in the winter because the parade was at like 5:45 pm; we didn't have to wait until really late for the sun to go down. They even turn the bigger lights off so you can get the full glowing effect. The parade marches to "When Can We Do This Again" by Owl City from the movie Wreck it Ralph, interestingly enough.

Mac the truck was cool, his eyes moved and blinked, such a great detail 

Miss Jacqueline loved the parade, she loves lights. I think she stared like this through the whole thing. Grandma did too!

Hyperspace Mountain again (can you tell we love it?!)-the one bad thing was with all the Star Wars things Tomorrowland got so crowded at night. It was hectic and so loud. There were times there was no room to move in there. By the end of the trip we avoided going there because we didn't want to get stuck in all the mess.

After that it was time for a snack, and finally time for dinner for me! The crew picked the Jolly Holiday Bakery on Main Street. I wanted there to be more Mary Poppins things in there but I did spot the penguin waiters in the windows and a nice Mary Poppins doll in her Jolly Holiday dress. My goal was to try the gingerbread at Disney and then I also saw this ginormous salted caramel mickey macaroon so of course I had to get that. The gingerbread was less a cookie than I wanted it to be and more actual ginger-bread. It was good, but I wanted more of the molasses and more of a cookie, this was very bready. The macaroon was delicious, I shared it because it was so sweet and sugary, the only downside was that the middle was a little frozen, probably because it was such a huge cookie and they had to freeze it to keep it fresh. But it was so tasty.

The entertainment for the night was Fantasmic! This is the water/pyrotechnic show on the Rivers of America and Tom Sawyer Island. I hadn't seen it since the very first time I went to Disneyland (20 years ago!) so I had vague memories of it, only that it was magical. You watch it from the sidewalks in front of Pirates of the Caribbean/New Orleans Square area. The Fastpass got us into a reserved area where we didn't have to fight everyone to get a spot or be there 3 hours early. You have to stand for the show, which hurts vertically challenged people such as myself. I did ok for most of the show until this dad stood up and got in my viewing window. Also, there are a lot of visual blocks because of the light posts and such so you are usually having to look around things. I did love the show though. It brought back some memories! Mickey is on Tom Sawyer Island and has a dream where he has all kinds of magical adventures. There are also fountains with light show projections on them and a symphonic Disney song about "Imagination!" Some characters come out on rafts/the paddle wheel boat/pirate ship. It's an older show, I noticed that there weren't any characters in the show newer than Toy Story. In one scene the pirate ship comes out and it's Peter Pan fighting Captain Hook and Wendy and the Lost Boys are fighting the pirates. It was so cool! In one part two rafts came out with princesses and their princes. I think it was Beauty and the Beast, and Snow White and her Prince. Another part had the paddle wheel boat loaded with characters, I spotted Mary Poppins with her chimney sweeps dancing on top. Mickey comes out again in his "Mickey and the Beanstalk" outfit and he fights Maleficent (good vs evil theme going on here) and then at some point Maleficent turns into the huge dragon. Mickey turns into his sorcerer's outfit and defeats the evil dragon. Lots of fireworks, flames, and fountains later Mickey triumphs, and then wakes up from his dream/imagination. Now, you have to remember, this is Disney. They do it well and they do it right. There was an audible cheer when Mickey defeated the dragon.

Then we walked back through DD to our hotel to get our luggage and find our rooms. We stayed in the Frontierland tower (there is also Adventureland and Fantasyland towers); the room set up was kind of weird. We had a suite of three rooms but they didn't all empty out into the same living room/communal area. You open up the main front doors and you are in a small vestibule and you can go right or left. To the left was a kitchenette/living room with a large bedroom and bathroom off of it. There was also an extra bathroom off the kitchenette. If you went right from the main doors there was a room with a single king bed with a bathroom. Then there was a door to the adjoining room that had two queen beds with a bathroom, however the main door to the adjoining room was in the main hallway even before you got to the fancy "suite" doors. It was weird and super confusing to figure out. In theory it was a nice set up, but we didn't spend too much time at the hotel. Plus the doors were heavy and noisy to open. The living room was nice when we had our "Christmas" and could sit around the small tree Grandma got for us. The best part of the rooms was the lighted headboards that played "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes" when you turned it on. The picture was of Sleeping Beauty's castle and the lights made fireworks behind it! That was fun. Also, there were small hidden Mickey's in the room such as the ears on the water faucets and the gloves being the sconces for the lights above the bathroom sink. We even found Mickey ears in the tile in the bathtub, but those were super hard to see.

We were very ready for bed by the end of our first busy day at Disneyland. And that concludes the first day at Disneyland for the Carr Family!