Today we have an organized chaperon day at Disneyland with my daughter’s Cheer team. We all meet up at the Rainforest Café for a special breakfast buffet. The folks at the Rainforest Café close off the entire top of the restaurant for the team breakfast. They setup 2 buffet lines and a beverage line to make it easy to get everyone their food quickly. The food is outstanding! A good variety and very tasty. Even the coffee is good, which is a plus! All the girls liked the animated animals and the rainstorm that occurs every so often. A unique kind of place.

Me and my brother in-law head over to the Disney Vacation place to pick up our AAA freebies. We end up getting travel mugs from one place and a lanyard and pin set from another. We were able to get free drink refills with them at certain locations within the park. They were rather large sized which made it a pain to carry around. We had purchased water bottle lanyards last trip which were very useful. After breakfast is over and we waste a good hour, we group up and head for Disneyland! The group we were in charge of turned out to be smaller than we expected since more parents showed up for the trip. Upon entering the park we immediately see some of 50^th year decor with the ears and Mickey himself on the grass by the railroad station. We are finally in the park!

First order of business is we get a fast past to Indiana Jones. Since it is already 11pm the park is jam packed. We grab the passes and head over to Splash Mountain since this is ride the girls want to do first. The line is long but not too bad considering the day and time. I get stuck up front of the grownup log which ends up to be pretty heavy with all of us. This creates a rather large wave of water which gets us all fairly wet. Awesome ride though! Good detail and story line. After this we head over to the Haunted Mansion which is not offering fast passes today. This was my first time in the house when it was not decorated for Christmas. Very different ride, I actually must say I like the Christmas one better. It is a good ride, but I just like the story line and more colorful decorations of The Nightmare Before Christmas theme one.

About this time it’s back to Indy for our fast pass. Great ride once again! My daughter got scared last time we were there of this ride, but she enjoyed it a lot this time. Well it’s off to Tomorrowland for lunch. We grab fastpasses for Buzz’s Astro Blasters and some for the girls for Autotopia. We decide to grab a bite at Buzz’s Space Port. They offer a decent variety of food; burgers, chicken, and deli sandwiches. The food tastes good considering it’s fast and prepared in mass quantities. The atmosphere is on the "hip" side with a live DJ and Buzz making an appearance every 15 or so minutes.

Before we head to Autotopia we get to witness the rededication ceremony with Mickey Mouse climbing the top of the Matterhorn and placing the flag on top. Cool event to watch! Of f to Autotopia to get the girls their licenses a little early. It’s fun for them to be able to control the cars around the track with a lot of steering involved. The girls have a blast driving on the roads of Autotopia, then it’s off to blast some aliens! What a fun ride! Astro Blasters is a great ride for the kids and the real "kids". Very interactive and addicting ride, since I wanted to better my score each time I finished. You can even send home your picture to your email when you are done. Everyone liked this ride, although my daughter got a little frustrated with her aiming. After another quick ride on Splash Mountain it was time to break up the group. My wife’s sister’s family and mine take a trip on the Mark Twain around the lake.  Nice break in the action and fun ride.  The girls enjoyed taking the float around the island.  After that my siter in-law decided she was done for the day so we dropped them off at the hotel and headed back to the park.

Time to watch Fantasmic! This time we make sure we get there in time to get a decent spot near the railing. We end up about 2 rows back from the front which is a big improvement over our last trip where I had to hoist my daughter up to see an obstructed view. The show was great, we were happy we decided to come back to watch. The pictures I took did not come out very good considering the darkness and no flash. The only real bummer though was the Fireworks display was canceled due to prevailing winds! 3^rd time this has happened to us in our trips to the park. I love fireworks, might decide to do this type of work when I really grow up, 20 or so years from now.

Well at this time I am starving again and very tired! We decide to walk over to Downtown Disney and grab a bite to eat. We decide on Naples Pizzeria since there is no line. We order a family size pizza, big mistake! The pizza was huge! We should of just ordered the large. It would of been more than enough. We eat more than we should and leave about a 1/3 left on the table. The pizza is very very good. Thin sliced wood oven pizza with fresh toppings. It is a little greasy but that’s what makes it taste so yummy! The restaurant has a casual dinning atmosphere with an open kitchen just like a normal pizzeria.

Off to the hotel and right to bed, another big day lies ahead.

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