Disneyland Adventure - Sunday & Monday
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First stop: Tomorrowland to get Fast Passes for the Star Tours ride for the dads (Star Wars). Meanwhile Van and I, Mike and Lily went on the Buzz Lightyear ride, AstroBlasters. So cool!! The riders each get a lazer gun to shoot the Evil Emporer Zurg and his alien minions. The car can turn and even keeps score for each rider - it was awesome, and only a 5 min wait!
On our way to Toon Town, where Mickey and all his pals live, we got to see the big castle! This has been in the top three of Van's Disney wish list for a while. He was pretty stoked, I must say. We even saw Snow White on the way, which made Lily's day, too.
Toon Town was lots of fun! We spent a good portion of the morning there. It was the first place Wesley could run around (after he woke from the morning stroller nap) and climb and play. He didn't want to meet the characters, but he just loved Goofy's house and garden, as well as the cars parked around town. Van and I headed straight to Mickey's! We got to go through the house (very cool) and then met Mickey "on set" for his new movie. For being so excited as he was, when we finally got in to see Mickey (it was only a couple minute wait) Van got shy! He said he'd only go up with me... so Mom got to meet Mickey, too.
Melissa and I and all the kids checked out Fantasyland while Josh and Mike headed back to Star Tours - they were quite excited. The line to meet Rapunzel was 90 min, so we opted for the King Arthur Carrousel instead. I've never seen such a beautiful carousel - beautifully lit, lovely horses and classic Disney music. We then mozied over to the longest line we would wait in: the Storybook Land Canal Boats. It was 30 min. The boys actually did pretty well! By the end they were rearin' to get on though! Just as we were boarding our boat Josh showed up! I was just going to hand him the bulky items (bag, camera, etc) but the attendant actually allowed him to line jump and join us - sweet!!
Okay... at this point, we parents thought we'd put in our dues and were allowed to get some more "big kid" rides in, so we headed off to New Orleans Square to go in the Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Carribean (my fav!). Lines for both looked long, but kept moving and weren't too bad. Van and Wes actually both had a blast on the Haunted Mansion ride - Van really liked the ghosts in the mirror at the end, which I remember being my favorite part when I was little, too. Pirates was soooooo cool though! The boat goes down a couple hills, there's a waterfall of mist to go through and, of course, PIRATES! "Mom! Look at all the doubloons!" said Van as we rode past a huge pile of gold and treasure guarded by a pirate skeleton. Ha! It was awesome - my face hurt I was smiling and laughing so much.
From here The Redmores all started to head back to the hotel for a little siesta, stopping to ride The Big Thunder Mountain Railroad coaster (Vassu was very sweet and watched the boys so Josh and I could go on together), while The DiGioias trekked up to Critter Country to find Pooh and friends.
Before going back to the park for the big fireworks show we had a birthday to celebrate - Van's!!! We made reservations to have dinner with Goofy & Friends at the Disneyland Hotel. So much fun! The buffet was definitely for kids: pizza, mac-n-cheese, mac-n-cheese pizza, nuggets and a huge dessert bar complete with gummy worms in cookie "dirt." Both boys actually ate. I anticipated very little eating with so many characters around and a big group like we had, but they each had a relatively decent dinner! We finally got to meet Chip, as well as Goofy of course, Pluto, Minnie Mouse, Sleeping Beauty - Aurora, and Snow White.
Dinner over, Happy Birthday sung, candles blown out and gifts opened, it was time to head back to Disneyland park for some nighttime rides and the much anticipated fireworks show over the castle. Van, Ahir, Vassu, Seth and I all fit ourselves into one teacup and spun around under the glow of the lanterns tucked up in the trees. It was crazy fun! Afterwards we hopped next door to enjoy Mr Toad's Wild Ride. This time I took Wesley (Van had to excuse himself), who seemed to really like it until the very end when it got a little scary and his grip on my arm got a little tighter.
We snagged a great spot for the fireworks! Unfortunately both boys missed the whole show because they fell asleep. And these fireworks lit up the ground like daylight and sounded like cannon fire!! They both didn't budge. Bless 'em both, I say.
Mike, Seth and Josh all met up after the kids were in bed to go ride Space Mountain, finally. They actually managed to ride it twice! After the first ride, someone told the Fast Pass line attendant that their wife had taken their Passes, so the guy let 'em on again. Smooth talkers!
Monday was a little more low key - no parks, Josh took the boys to explore Downtown Disney shops, and I went to the spa with Vassu and Melissa. We had wraps and massages followed by a little sauna time, and it was sooooooo wonderful - ahhhh. After a weekend of so much walking and kid-wrangling a little spa time was welcome.
At noon we were off to the airport and headed back to 'Rado! The boys had another stellar flight: Wes slept the whole time and Van and I watched Monsters Vs Aliens.
The whole weekend was such a wonderful, wonderful time. Four days was just enough, but we are already talking about when we can go again. The group we were with all traveled very well together, the kids all got along beautifully - couldn't have been better!
check out pictures HERE
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