It was fun to see the park with out the masses of humanity. I wish I had more time to enjoy it, but we were rushing to get on Peter Pan, ASAP! We power-walked down main street, snapped a few selfies in front of the beautiful castle and got in line for Grandma's favorite ride.
proof that I am scruffy when I vacation
We hoped that our early bird-ness would help us catch the worm, but we still had about an hour's wait in the Peter Pan ride. Jacqueline was excited to be in Disneyland on her first Christmas Eve and she looked like a Disney cupcake in her pink Minnie ruffle dress and complimenting mickey/Christmas bow. She was uber prepared!! Also, she was super entertaining.
Couldn't you just eat her up!!
The Peter Pan ride was recently refurbished with some nice new touches. There were more special effects that made it more magical, like fairy dust twinkles or lights that made the river glow. You still ride around in a pirate ship and fly over London to Neverland. My favorite touch was they had some kind of projection on the clock face of Big Ben and you can see Peter and the Darling children land on one of the hands. I forgot how short a ride it is, I wouldn't say it was any longer than 2 minutes. Grandma just loved it, and I love to egg her on. The line for Peter Pan is one of the worst in Disneyland though. It does not move fast, you can see the line the entire time and there isn't any entertainment or decor to to interest you while you wait. But it's definitely worth it!
After Peter Pan we went on King Arthur's carousel nearby. I spotted "Jingle" who is a special horse made to celebrate the anniversary of Mary Poppins/for Julie Andrews. There are images of Mary Poppins things and they painted it in Julie Andrews' favorite colors. I wanted to ride it, but I couldn't find it when we got on the carousel. I felt "so Disney" on the merry-go-round, and I captured another cute family photo and our little Disney princess' first carousel ride.
Dumbo was next door and the line was super short, which is unheard of! We usually skip it, but I wanted to ride. I got to ride with Bub and Jacqueline; it was fun although I think Jacqueline got a little dizzy. Not her favorite.
Storybook land came next, which is in Grandma's top ten of favorite rides. It is kind of a peaceful ride. Jacqueline was asleep by this point so she didn't come. I love all the detail of the different "lands". It's kind of a cheezy ride, but it's a Disney original. They have taken out the windmills and put in "Arendale" from Frozen, complete with Wandering Oaken's Trading Post-Yoo Hoo, big summer blow out!
I wanted to ride the teacups next, because it too is "So Disney." I remember being little and seeing a "Disney Sing-Along Songs" video where they ride the teacup ride. Bub and G came on that one with me. Stephen is not allowed because he has a more delicate constitution and can't handle the spinning. We got to ride this one without a lot of wait time either. Wee hoo!!
Then it was time for our fast passes to Star Tours. I hadn't been on the new version of the ride, so I was excited to see the new updates. I liked the old Star Tours ride and the new one was fun as well! I ended up in the back row, sitting close would have been more fun. I knew they had updated the ride, but they had the new black guy from the Force Awakens in it as well. It's kind of fun because someone is "chosen" to be the imperial spy on the ship. On the ride you are given a "mission" and you fly around and avoid the aircraft that are shooting at you. There are also different versions of the ride to try. The ride tilts and turns with the movie and you get jiggled a little. I enjoyed it a lot. A few family members got a little seasick, or "spacesick" if you will.
After Star Tours some of us thought it might be good to go back to the hotel for a nap. We had gotten up early for the "magic hour" and were going hard since then. The goal was to take the monorail , which is in Tomorrowland, back to the hotel. It would save us a lot of walking and be a little rest. When we got to the place where you get on the monorail we found out it was down and would probably be an hour before it was back up and working again. Bummer. So we decided to go on Finding Nemo to do that ride while waiting for the monorail to work. I went to Disneyland once in college and the Finding Nemo ride had THE longest line ever. I never understood the hype, you just go underwater for the ride on a submarine, I guess a lot of people think that's cool? I enjoyed the ride a lot more this time though. You go on this "submarine" and float by scenes from the movie. Jacqueline loved the bubbles that float past the windows, she was entranced. It's a calmer ride, and would be very cool if you were at Disneyland in the summer.
It took us around an hour to wait in line and ride Finding Nemo, and after all that, the monorail STILL wasn't working. So we sucked it up and hoofed it back to the Disneyland hotel. We had naptime, which was good for all those involved. Personally, my feet needed a rest. We did so much walking and standing, by this day my feet started out the day hurting a bit. I felt like a wuss, but Michael's fit bit tracked us at 9 miles the first day. So there. After nap time, the goal was to try the monorail back to Disneyland and get a spot for the Christmas parade. We got to the monorail station and thankfully it was working. However, they only had like two trains running and apparently not that many people can get on the monorail at one time. We waited probably about 40 minutes to get on and ride that thing to Tomorrowland. It was worth it to save our feet and energy, but we learned the monorail was not built to be a people mover. Frustratingly, not too many people would get off at the DD platform, possibly they were just riding it to have a ride? It was tough, we were on a schedule people!!
We got to Tomorrowland right at 3 pm which was when the parade was about to start; it was ok since it takes a little while for the parade to go on the route. The rest of the family were saving us spots along the parade route next to the Plaza Inn restaurant but it was so crowded by the time we got there we just tried to weasel our way to a viewing spot. It worked out ok, and all got to see the parade.
This afternoon parade was the Christmas celebration parade. It was a lot of fun with Christmasy music and decorations. To me, it wasn't quite as cool as Paint the Night parade, but still really fun. Grandma got to see Santa Claus as well!
poor Eyore!
This right here is why we went to Disneyland
Grandma had reserved Christmas Eve dinner at The Blue Bayou. This was a BIG DEAL. It's the restaurant you see at the beginning of the POTC ride. It's pretty fancy, and I'd heard that when you eat there you can't' really tell you are next to the ride. The ambiance is all about being outdoors near a bayou in the south. I had never eaten there and it's one of those legit Disney things everyone wants to do some day. My cold was in full swing by this meal so I think I didn't enjoy it as much as I could have. My whole family had a really good time at dinner though. I wasn't too adventurous with my meal but I did try my first gumbo as a starter. I thought it was pretty good! Others had fancy things like lamb, fillet mignon, fish, and jambalaya. The bread was really good, I think it was some type of focaccia. Some of us got these fancy drinks that were some kind of sprite, fruit, syrup mix. They had these plastic light up "ice cubes" in the drinks that were shaped like diamonds. They made the drinks glow in all sorts of colors. Towards the end of the meal a few of the ice cubes were fished out of the glass to see what they were. So they were sitting on the table for miss Jacqueline to grab one and put it in her mouth (which is what she does with everything). But these diamond things were huge and she got the whole thing in her mouth, and with them glowing it looked so hilarious!!! We couldn't believe she fit the whole thing in her mouth. She is half-Carr for sure.
Got a whole one in her mouth!
After a great meal, some of us went on POTC again. I like that ride and I made sure to find all the Jack Sparrows.
Then came Indiana Jones ride again, I think with fast passes. Always a good time. It doesn't scare me like it did when I was little.
By that time we were ready for some dessert, so we went next door to The Enchanted Tiki Room and I had my first dole whip! Dole whip is pinapple soft serve and is Grandma's' favorite thing at Disneyland. I'd never had it before and this was a goal of mine for this vacation. It was so tasty! And my burning throat loved it. The Tiki Room was fun as always, and we had the best introduction to the show I've ever heard. The Cast Member was so funny when he was reciting the rules to the show over the PA, kind of like airline attendants, but he made them all into jokes. Some of the things he said were in this tribal type voice that didn't use full sentences a la the chanting masks in the show. He said things like put your stuff in the "trashy trashy" etc. I know, I'm not making it sound funny, but it was hilarious. This guy could have just recited the rules and it would have been totally normal and fine, But it's things like this that make Disneyland so fun, even as an adult. Jacqueline enjoyed the Tiki Room and watched the entire show. There were lots of lights and fountains and singing birds for her to keep her big eyes locked on! I don't think her mom let her try Dole Whip though.
Dole Whip!
Jacqueline so cute in her red coat and wintery hat!
I think we went to Space Mountain again, probably had fast passes. The whole thing takes time though. Walking all the way there, some of us going, some stay with the baby, switching out when the first group got back, etc. It was a bit chilly this night as well. Also, it gets kind of dark in Disneyland. You'd think there would be more lighting, but I think they like the ambience. I thought Adventureland was particularly dark as they try to light everything by tiki torches.
Hahahahaha, Michael's face
Our nighttime goal was to watch the fireworks so we stayed until they would have started the show. But it was too windy above the castle to do fireworks so there was no show. It would turn out that we would miss the fireworks during this vacation. It was sad, because I really wanted to see the projections on the buildings on main street, and the show is supposed to be amazing. Waaaahh. Oh well. Then we went back to the hotel to do our "Christmas Eve", Dad read "A Moose in the Hoose" and the Nativity story and fudge was provided by Michael. You can take the Carr out of Christmas, but you can't take the Christmas out of the Carrs! After a long day, we were all ready for bed. Again. Disneyland really trashes you.
