In honor of J's big 0-1, we made another trip down to the happiest place on Earth (ok, I'll wait for the cynical people to finish passing judgement -- hey we have season passes, so we want to squeeze every opportunity in possible). This time, the four of us flew down on Saturday morning while Oma, Opa, and Uncle Bri made the drive. Amazingly, the travel went super smoothly from the on-time pick up by Uncle Mark, the perfect kids on the flight, and the bus trip to the Grand Californian Hotel -- which was a huge hit with both kids, especially since the Disneyland Express had a life-sized picture of Lightning McQueen on the side. Not long after a late lunch, the rest of the fam arrived and we spent the HOT afternoon (a toasty 93) in the awesome pools. We all loved it...the wading pool, the hot tub (of course, E can't pass up a hot tub no matter what the air temperature), and playing Motor Boat in the big pool. Though the biggest hit for both E and J was the kiddie slide that they rode by themselves. We had a nice pizza / pasta dinner and actually got to bed just after the kids in preparation for the parks, crowds (spring break), and heat.
We managed to get into Disneyland around 9am and immediately hit Autotopia -- it's one of E's must-rides and that line is hot and long on a normal day, so we wanted to get to it before misery set in. Sure enough, it was a hit. E rode with Opa behind Lisa & me and he's still telling anyone who'll listen that one time, Opa thought the pedal was the break instead of the gas and they bumped Mommy & Daddy. While J napped and E rode the rocket ships, some of us grown ups rode Space Mountain and Thunder Mountain. Before lunch, we also did the Mark Twain river boat. Both kids ended up napping for an hour and we all relaxed / strolled along main street.
Once everyone was up, we went to Bug's Land to beat the heat a little. E got to do the bumper cars for the first time -- and thus, another line item to his must-ride list. The next stop was Carsland. No matter how many times I go, I'm still always taken aback by how amazing it is to walk down the perfect rendition of Pixar's Radiator Springs. A long time was spent visiting "Timmy the Tractor" at Mater's Petting Zoo, as well as riding the slightly-scary tractor ride (E was a bit hesitant to ride this time around, but agreed to go if his tractor had blue eyes).
While we were waiting for the Pixar Parade to start, one of the most amazing things happened in all my...well, extensive theme park experiences...which are designed to distract you with thrills while sucking your wallet dry. E really wanted some popcorn. When he saw the souvenir Lightning McQueen container he really, really, REALLY wanted that. Lisa explained to him that it was $14 versus $4 for the regular bag. To be fair, it was spectacular as far as popcorn containers go. Lisa proceeded to take a picture of Lightning and told E he could look at it later, but that we couldn't buy the container. He must've made some impression on the vendor, Josue, because as they walked away he stopped them, handed E the Lightning container and told him, "Have a magical day." Seriously, a move like this cost Disney a few pennies (at most) and gave us parents a memory that will generate goosebumps for a long time -- in addition to more trips. This, friends, is marketing genius.
After dinner, we dropped by the room to give the kids a quick bath before meeting up with everyone else for the Fireworks Spectacular. Some lady told Oma that it was only 4 minutes, 44 seconds long -- a time I scoffed at. "Disney doesn't have that short of fireworks. Come on." They promptly started at 9:25 and were, as advertised, spectacular -- if a little scary for the kiddos. Obviously, I was forced to eat my statements, since promptly at 9:29:44, the finale ended with smoke drifting over the castle and a mass of people trying to exit. E kept pointing out the Tinkerbell didn't fly across the sky this time. Oh well, they were still great and honestly, probably just the right duration for a set of exhausted kids (and parents).
Monday morning was early since we had a 7:50am character breakfast reservation at Mickey's Surfs Up restaurant at the Paradise Pier hotel. Oma offered to treat us all on her Super Bowl winnings -- in which she made out like a bandit. Even with that generous offer, I felt guilty since I doubted any of us could eat enough to cover the cost. Here's what I learned: you can't eat that much, but I would gladly pay double -- triple that -- to experience those memories again. ANOTHER highlight to any of our Disney trips. Being so early meant the place was fairly empty and we had Mickey, Minnie, Daisy, Pluto, and Stitch mostly to ourselves. Neither kid was deathly afraid of the characters, in fact, J kept pointing at them and doing her grunt (translation: I want that). They'd come by the table as we were eating, for pictures or to play with E's Mickey ears or let J pet their noses. The best of the best, though, was every 20-ish minutes, they'd have a beach dance party with the characters up front. Since there weren't too many kids there yet, no one was dancing with Mickey and E took the opportunity to show the mouse how to get his groove on. I will never, ever forget seeing them up there together -- and I doubt I'll let him forget it either ;) The video makes me laugh out loud and I bet it will do the same for his future prom dates.
Much of the (still hot) day was spent in California Adventure, checking off our must-rides --Tower of Terror, Caterpillar Train, California Screamin', etc. -- and generating J's list of rides --Toy Story Mania, Lady Bugs, Little Mermaid. Both kids passed out after lunch and despite our best efforts, we could not wake E for the Soundsational Parade. On the other had, J pointed / grunted (see translation above) at everything. Toon town was a pre-dinner hit and we thought about seeing Fantasmic -- even dressed the kids in their jammies -- but decided to ride the Jungle Cruise and the Disneyland train to avoid the herd of people trying to see the show. Bummer, but smart.
On the way back to the hotel, J fell asleep and we decided to let E have his early b-day present from us, even though it was hours past his bedtime. We hit Ridemakerz -- where you get to build your own car. He got to pick out his own frame (surprise, surprise: Lightning McQueen), tires, and rims. With a little help from me, we used the an electric drill to assemble the whole thing. He was so jazzed that it still took about 30 minutes to settle enough for him to sleep. I can safely say, it took me no where near that long to zonk out myself.
Getting packed on Tuesday (Happy St. Patrick's Day) was a little stressful / chaotic but we managed to get into Disneyland by 9-ish. We headed to the monorail to make sure we checked that off E's list...and man, am I glad we did. The Tomorrowland station was so empty that they let E, Opa, Uncle Bri, and I take the full loop in the very front with the "captain." I sure hope it's one of E's first memories, because it was so, so cool. He had a lot of questions for the captain including, "Are we flying?" and "Is the monorail electric?" Yet another magic memory for the vault.
A quick stop at Fantasyland where E rode Dumbo and Casey Jr. while J napped. Then we added the Teacups and Storybook Boats to both kids' lists before we did one more stop through Carsland and the Little Mermaid ride. We grabbed a quick lunch outside the park and hopped on our Lightning Bus back to the airport. Upon exiting the park, Lisa commented that J must have left her "clingy mommy" phase at the park and traded it for the "don't touch me, I'm an independent woman" phase. She was a handful on the bus and through the airport, but gave us a break by napping on the flight. I really think we were all just beyond exhausted. That said, we made it home with everything checked off our must-ride lists, plus a handful of magical moments we could've never anticipated.
No comments:
Post a Comment