Wednesday morning me and Pat got up early, gathered up our things, and began the next portion of our trip, road trip style! We agreed to drive his moms car back to Oregon for her, but wanted to make it an adventure, so we picked a few stops along, or not so along the way, that sounded like fun to us. Originally we were interested in doing Napa or Sonoma County for some wine tasting, but pulled a 180 when we weighed our options and figured out just how expensive that would really be. Disneyland in Anaheim was our decision instead!
The drive was pretty quick and in just a few hours of minimal traffic and a lot of weird California freeway "veer left, veer right" instructions from our GPS, we arrived at our hotel, dropped off our stuff, and headed for the park to get our tickets.
Though Disneyland is not cheap, and we are in our mid twenties, we still love it and had a ton of fun acting like little kids.
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| [[ snow white. sleeping beauty's castle. me & pat. storybook land. the sword in the stone. alice in wonderland tea party. ]] |
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| [[ big thunder mountain railroad. ]] |
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| [[ pirates of the caribbean, our first ride. ]] |
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| [[ the haunted mansion. ]] |
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| [[ tomorrow land. buzz lightyear and my really low score. ]] |
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| [[ adventure land. indiana jones. turkey leg shirt. snakes! ]] |
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| [[ california adventure. cars area. route 66. v8 cafe. hollywood tower of terror. ]] |
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| [[ ice cream on the boardwalk. cars. bugs life. mad hatter. ]] |
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| [[ splash mountain. star tours. ]] |
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| [[ winnie the pooh. ]] |
We got in to the park around noon, walked through "Main Street" and decided to go right on Pirates of the Caribbean (one of my favorites). The good thing about having me around as a tour guide is that I have been here several times now with my family and am pretty good at figuring out Fast Pass tactics, so I made sure we got on everything. After Pirates we grabbed Fast Passes to Splash Mountain and Indiana Jones before stopping to eat some lunch. Next we went on Thunder Mountain Railroad, played around in the Storybook Land (with all of the little kid rides), got our picture taken in front of the castle (of course), went on The Haunted Mansion (another favorite), a Buzz Lightyear arcade shooting ride I am really really bad at, tried on some Mickey Mouse ears in the Tomorrow and Adventure Land shops, used up our Indiana Jones Fast Pass, and then decided to head for California Adventure until it was time to go on Splash Mountain.
I was feeling parched, so I insisted that we first head for the boardwalk area so that I could get us some frozen yogurt. Unfortunately the roller coaster was shut down at this time, so we pretty much just wandered around the park looking at all of the different areas (like the new Cars section which is really freaking cute). We made our way back in to Disneyland and had a few minutes before we could use our passes so we went on the Winnie the Pooh ride (super cute, I love little kid rides). By then it was finally time for Splash Mountain! YAY! Too bad we got stuck on it for about half an hour before finally going down the drop... and I sort of missed the mark on our muscle man poses for the picture... The good news was me and Pat were nice and dry, while the people in front of us got SOAKED! Our last ride of the evening was the newly revised Star Tours, which now has a 3D component and was WAY better than before. Then it was time for some dinner and drinks in Downtown Disney.
Two of the people who work with Pat live in Anaheim (mother and daughter), so they came to meet us for some dinner. We ended up staying at the Uva Bar until the parks closed, and then said goodbye and made the twenty minute walk back to our hotel to check in and get some sleep.
The weird thing about our hotel was the Murphey bed since we were in a studio. I had never even seen one of those before, and we had a hell of a time getting it down and situated. Eventually we were able to get some sleep.
I will post about day two tomorrow.
