Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Disneyland








Well, we are back. Disneyland was a blast. Hayden's first time and he was in Heaven! We left on Thursday night, flew down to LAX and then shuttled to the hotel. Next time we will drive. We could have just about done it in the same amount of time and then I could have packed a cooler with lunch stuff and things so that we could have saved some money. Disney has gotten EXPENSIVE!
Anyway, Friday morning we went to Storyteller's cafe for a character breakfast: Chip-n-Dale, bears, raccoons, etc. It was fun. We rode the Matterhorn, which Hayden did not like because of the "monster", went to Toontown, Pirates of the Caribbean (they have completely re-done that ride so that it is very much like the movie, really cool). Friday night we had dinner at Tortilla Joe's in the Downtown Disney District. This is my first time there since they built that (2001) and it was great. Neat little shops and good restaurants, expensive but convenient. We went back to the park and waited in line for "Finding Nemo". This is a new ride and had the longest lines. It was consistently a 75 minute wait. I just wanted to get it over with. We waited in line for about 45 minutes, which I thought was good. The ride was cool and one of the longer rides, so you didn't feel too cheated about the wait.
Saturday was more of the same, we spent alot of time in Critter Country and New Orleans. We took the boat over to Tom Sawyer Island and watched a Pirate show. We then toured around the island and found the treasure. And guess who came to greet us there? Captain Jack Sparrow! This guy is a ringer for Johnie Depp. See picture below. That evening we went to Ralph Brennen's Jazz Kitchen. Would not recommend it. Too expensive and the food was fair.
On Sunday, we went to California Adventure. We went on the Monster's, Inc. ride (big hit!) and then we went to do "Turtle, Talk with Crush". It was SO cool. It is basically an animated turtle on the screen that talks to the audience. You can ask questions and he will answer your specific question. There must be a guy behind the screen that is doing the talking. It was super cool. Crush picked Hayden out of the crowd right away and started talking to him. Hayden got shy, which NEVER happens. And then Crush asked who his parents were and talked to Greg. It was SO funny. Crush told my husband that he had some sea moss on his chin. Look at the picture below. It is his "attitude" patch as he calls it. I was rolling!!!! It was hysterical! As we were heading to the Bug's Life 3D movie, we caught up with Mr.Incredible, Mrs. Incredible and Frozone. Hayden really liked that.
A Bug's Life Movie was neat. Hayden kept pulling his glasses down to see if the bugs were really coming at him or not. The chairs moved, poked and misted. Spiders came down from the ceiling and we got blasted with fog. Too cool. Disney has really got their stuff down! After that, we just walked around the place. California Adventure is more for older kids, most of the rides were 42" or above to ride.
We went back over to Disneyland and hit Buzz LightYear's Astro Blaster (Hayden's favorite ride) and saw the Jedi show. Hayden LOVED that. They were picking kids from the crowd for Jedi training and he really wanted to do it. They did not pick him and he was so sad. Maybe next time! We saw the "Parade of Dreams" at 3:30 and then ran over to California Adventure for the "Block Party" parade. This parade figures all the Pixar characters: Buzz, Woody, Sully, Mike, Bug's life, Boo. This was a big hit with Hayden, as he loves all these movies. We hung out there a while and then went to dinner at Naples Italian Pizzeria. Lastly, we made the "Lights above Disney" parade. Excellent fire works show.
On Monday, we had an early entry pass into ToonTown. We were able to get into the park an hour early, which was an hour before ToonTown opened. We went to FantasyLand and hit some of the rides that had long waits the previous days : Mr. Toad's wild ride & Peter Pan, both excellent kids rides. We then headed over to ToonTown for the entry. This was by far the best "extra" that we got with our vacation package. We got photos & autographs from Micky, Minnie, Pluto, Donald Duck & Chip. Goofy & Dale were there too. It any other time at the park, the characters were mobbed with people and long lines to have your photo taken with them. After the parade, we went on the roller coaster and played at Minnie's house before heading over to Critter Country to see if we could get Pooh's Picture. Eeyore was there, so we got Hayden's picture with him instead. Rode a few more rides and then headed back to the hotel so catch our shuttle to the airport.
Disney was great and I am already planning our next trip, maybe same time next year. This is a good time of year to go, as the park is not too crowded. My advise is to go early, when the park opens so that the lines have not formed yet. The longest we waited was for "Finding Nemo" which was 45 minutes, other than that we didn't wait longer than 20 minutes for anything and most were about a 5 minute wait.