On our third day, December 16th we were at the gates of Disneyland by opening. We walked on to Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters not once, but twice in a row. I did absolutely horrible on Buzz this trip and could never get past Level 3. I think Zurg messed up my weapon or something this trip. He is so evil I would not put it past him!
We crossed the pathway and entered Star Tours next for a quick trip to the Moon of Endor. Unfortunately though, we had a rookie pilot and completely passed the Moon of Endor. We actually ended up helping Luke Skywalker and the Red Team bring down the Death Star! It was a totally thrilling experience that we all completely loved. The scariest part was the asteroid field we went through, but we did make it through safely. My knuckles only stayed white for a few hours after that portion of our excursion. One day we hope to make it back to Star Tours though and actually see the Moon of Endor, but this experience was simply incredible!
After our fantastic trip, and thrill of seeing the Death Star we headed for more milk pastures. We got on these little boats to sail the 7 Seas of the World and to our amazement there were singing children inside! There were children from almost every country there to serenade us while we sailed. It was very special to see China’s celebration of the New Year with their fireworks display. And to hear these children singing the chorus of Jingle Bells all in unison was simply incredible. Maybe if I take this voyage enough I can actually learn the words in Chinese, French or even another language. I will have to talk to Andy and Alex about making this voyage again to help with that quest. It was an incredible journey that filled us all with happiness as we sailed through all of these incredible countries. I highly recommend this short boat trip.
Upon exiting the 7 Seas of the World we headed to an incredible place called Adventureland. Here, Andy was actually able to participate in a few scenes from the Indiana Jones movies! What a special thing for him to do, and he is not even a stunt man! You know, he told me that he barely missed getting crushed by a huge boulder! Wow. That sounds like something I need to try next time.
While Andy pretended to be a stunt man, Alex and I wanted to see what the hullabaloo was over by the rafts to a nearby Island. It looked fun, but we decided to check out the area that crowds were flocking to. As we entered between the huge brick pillars we saw a skeleton on a pumpkin! What in the world had we gotten ourselves into? I was a bit worried, but Alex wanted to see more. Next we saw gravestones! Now Alex has never been to a cemetery before this, so I worried upon seeing this, but I shouldn’t have. Alex was a trouper, and still insisted on following the crowd. Finally the crowd led us into a small room. We were all crammed together when the lights went out! Oh my goodness, what will happen next? To my amazement pictures on the wall began stretching. How does this happen? Had we entered some strange universe or something? Still wondering about this when again the lights went out, and then on the ceiling was the head of the same skeleton we had seen outside! Freaky. Fortunately we were not locked in that small room forever. They soon opened the doors and we entered a long dark hallway. When we had entered this building it was sunny, but now there was a lightning storm outside! We were very happy to be safe inside and not have to worry about the storm.
We kept following the crowd until finally we reached a moving walkway. It was kind of like a slow moving treadmill. There was someone there who made us get into this little clam shaped vehicle, and then guess what? They trapped us inside! We were not allowed to get out, and boy was I worried at that point. It was quickly proven that we had indeed entered some type of parallel universe. We saw weird apparitions that can only be described as ghost-like. Every once in a while we would even see a – get this – a talking jack-o-lantern! The skeleton from outside appeared inside as well, and he was dressed as Santa Clause! What kind of freak is he? I was worried that Alex would have nightmares by this point. We passed under a man eating plant. We are so lucky we went under it quickly enough that it didn’t get a chance to sink those big fangs into us!
Then much to my amazement, the little vehicle drove us through what seemed to be an indoor grave yard. I have never seen anything like this before! It was spooky, but very pretty as well since it was covered with snow.
Then we ran into this big green monster. He called himself Oogie Boogie. Yuck. But he did provide us with presents! Alex and I were given the gift of Candy Canes – funny, but they did seem to look like dynamite. We accepted them anyway before another person showed up and let us out of our moving prison. Whew, I wasn’t sure they were actually going to allow us to leave after seeing all of that but they had no issue with us hightailing it out of that freaky place!
Fortunately the storm had passed while we were inside though, and it was nice and sunny outside again.
We met up with Andy who wanted to go to some Enchanted Place to see Princesses. Alex wanted to say high to some critters who loved to tinker with just about anything so again we split up. Alex and I headed to this place called Toontown. Here the houses were very colorful, and to be honest, I don’t think I saw a straight line in this town. I sure am glad we walked. I could not imagine driving through there! It wasn’t long before we reached the place Alex wanted to go. There were gadgets all over the walkway. We saw a HUGE toothbrush. I worried a bit after that – what could possibly be big enough to use that toothbrush? Fortunately for us we never ran into the owner of that gadget! We reached the end of the trail and were again locked into this weird vehicle. This one was much smaller and more cheerful looking. We were all connected by some cables and it seems to me that we were attached to some sort of steel beneath us. Within seconds we were off enjoying the feel of the wind in our faces, yet hearing screams from everyone around us. How weird is that? We were not scared at all. About 30 seconds after we left the dock we pulled in and the screaming stopped. They released us and then actually told us to have a pleasant day. It is kind of weird hearing that after they so rudely locked us into that little set of cars and forced us to careen around these metal tracks. Alex did enjoy it though, and he was laughing heartily as we left.
Andy called me as we were walking through this strange town to let me know that we had time before the Princesses would be accepting visitors so we decided to eat lunch.
We ate at the Village Haus even though every review on our site for this place is a bad one. Well, add another bad review to our site. The restaurant is very unique. It has the story of Pinocchio done with beautiful pictures on the walls. We got there before the lunch rush and there was only one family in line to order before us. When we got to the cashier we ordered two cheeseburgers and a cheese pizza for Alex. We also got a large chocolate chip cookie and a brownie to share. Much to our surprise our cheeseburgers were cold. Alex’s pizza was horrible! He would not eat it so Andy tried it and he hated it as well. Definitely not the same pizza we got at Daisy’s Diner. The only good thing about this lunch was the chocolate chip cookie and it was incredibly good. Like everyone I know who has gone there before me, I have to agree that this is not a good place to eat inside Disneyland.
After that horrible lunch we did head to the Princess Fantasy Faire. Here we waited in the line to see 3 Princesses, and got lucky because they were doing a shift change and so we saw 4! We saw Prince Philip, Princess Minnie, Cinderella and Pocahontas. Next we decided to watch the Royal Coronation Ceremony. This bored Alex, but the little girls in the crowd were absolutely in heaven. Finally we attended the Princess storytelling. This was incredible! We all loved it, and will definitely do this again. What a fun way to hear the story of a Princess. For more information and my review of this Faire just look on our website because I did put that up today.
Next we did the Santa’s Reindeer Roundup. We waited for about 15 minutes to see Santa and the line never moved – turns out he was on break. We decided to skip Santa and see the show. It was real cute, and we got to see Clarabelle the Cow. Alex and I also decorated cookies. Alex really enjoyed this, and his Christmas Tree cookie looked very nice. We actually brought it home with us!
Alex wanted to go shopping at this point so he and I headed to World of Disney. I used the stroller to hold our shopping bag and Alex kept getting up, making it all fall backwards. Somehow one of these times, he dropped Figaro, but we didn’t notice until I was paying. I asked the Cast Member if they have a lost and found and they sure do. He was going to call over to see if Figaro when we saw her on the counter! How lucky for us that she was returned, first of all, but returned to the cash registers we were using was even luckier. We then stopped by the Lego store where Alex was in love with a huge Lego R2D2. He refused to leave its side. Finally we left and headed back to the hotel to drop off our purchases.
We decided to eat dinner at White Water Snacks, so headed over there on our way to California Adventure. I had nachos, Alex had a hotdog (what else?), and Andy had a cheeseburger. All of it was very yummy. When we got to California Adventure we grabbed fastpasses for Soarin’ and headed to Mulholland Madness. We rode that twice. The first time there was a problem. They sat a single rider before us. She was in the front seat. Alex had to sit in back and was screaming. The cast members wanted to pull him off the ride because they thought he was scared of it. I assured them he was just crying because he had to sit in back. Andy had told the cm who sent us to the car, and she didn’t care – she said she had to fill the car. There was NO LINE. We were not happy! I felt sorry for the single rider since Alex screamed the whole ride. Once it was done we immediately went again and he was happy as a clam in the front seat.
Next we did something totally crazy, and it was my idea. Yep, I wanted to try the Sun Wheel, swinging gondola at night. It was amazing. Neither Alex nor I were scared. I figure it was because we couldn’t see the ground. So now I know when to ride that attraction! We had a blast.
My boys then did the Zephyr while I waited, and then we all did Soarin’ together. It was then time to head back to Disneyland.
Once there, we immediately headed for Small World. We were lucky our timing was great and we saw ‘colors’ three times before heading to Star Tours and took a quick trip in space before heading back to Small World for the Fireworks. Now for those of you that don’t remember, Alex hates the fireworks. The loud noises really scare him. Well, I had us facing Small World because I knew they did projections there, and he loved it! Not scared at all. As soon as they fireworks were over we hopped into line right away and rode Small World.
By this time we were dead. We decided to ride Buzz one more time (yep, I tanked) and then hoped the Monorail to Downtown Disney. We made a quick stop at the Lego store, then back to the hotel to pack before going to bed. Since we were not in the hotel when they tried to do the turndown we did get the chocolate and the Mickey treats again. We wrapped those in the saran wrap they used and packed them. They tasted even more yummy at home the next day!
Up Next – the last day, a craving that didn’t happen and more!
For the final installment of this trip report, click this link: http://www.disneymouselinks.com/Forums/Topic77064-4-1.aspx