Day 2!
We went to Disneyland in January. January means less crowds, but it also means less rides are open and the hours are more limited. Disneyland while we were visiting, didn't open until 10 am and closed at 8 pm during the week. This meant there were less hours we could physically be at the park, but it also meant we didn't have to get up super early to be there before the park opened.
We got up, ate the hotel's hot breakfast (as a side note, what's the point of staying at a hotel if breakfast is not provided?) and I took a couple of kids across the street to Target to pick up a few more snacks and sunglasses. I actually left the Target without having bought myself sunglasses and had to turn around and go back! I also bought bobby pins (Bean wanted hair buns) and blister bandaids since my toes were already feeling funny.
Look at the style that resulted from our Target Run:
(She wanted Minnie Mouse Ears Hair)
Before leaving the hotel for Day 2 at the parks we customized a plan for the day from TouringPlans.com and copied it down onto a piece of paper. Each kid had a pouch with snacks and we put a smaller bag in our stroller for sunscreen and larger snacks like apples. (ooh, we bought those at Target too). We did not bring Squish's blanket which turned out to be a wrong choice.
It is highly recommended by the Unofficial guide/touringplans people that you get to the parks 40 minutes before opening. Our shuttle times could only get us there about 30 minutes before hand and that worked out fine at this slow time of year. Charming didn't want to wait around, but it is definitely good if you are close to the front of the ropes when they officially open the parks.
So Day 2 we decided on California Adventure again. I specifically picked days to go to certain parks based on whether they were offering early admission to other people. DCA does not offer early admission on Tuesdays, so we felt good to go. We got there at 9:30 and made sure someone took our picture in our matching outfits:
Laugh all you want, we NEVER lost each other.
Following our Touring Plan we went on Soaring Over California first. There was some kind of technical difficulty at first so we stood in line for longer than we should have and we almost got out of the line to get fastpasses and come back later, but it started moving and it worked out. I enjoyed this ride, but would probably not be sad if I never did it again. It was cool, but not so-cool-I-want-to-ride-it-all-the-time cool. We did rider swap on this ride also.
If I had thought about it, I would have given all the tickets to Charming so he could get us decent fastpasses for World of Color while we rode the ride. For some reason, I thought that the World of Color FastPass booth didn't open until later and when we did get Fastpasses, we got the blue section and apparently Yellow is the section you want. (Well, I guess what I you really want are the paid seats, but I wasn't going to pay for that). Anyway, while Charming rode the ride with Bean, I went and got fastpasses and also watched the Squish completely meltdown for no apparent reason. Crying that she wanted her blanket, she was barely comforted with the candy I bought at Target. That was fairly awful.
Next stop Paradise Pier! We hit the Little Mermaid Ride (Squish Loved it) while Charming took the big kids on the Silly Symphony Swings. When they came back we rode it again! We did Toy Story Mania and loved it even though we waited in line for 30 minutes.
Charming and Engineer and Serena decided to then ride the Grizzly River Run, with me of course forgetting to let them know the ponchos were in the stroller. Engineer had his poncho, and stayed dry, but no one else did. Charming's biggest beef was that his shoes got wet because water shoots up from the bottom. Put plastic bags on your feet I guess! (Unofficial Guide does suggest this). Spider, Squish and I rode Triton's Carousel.
Can I just say how much I like Paradise Pier? I just love the feel of it. I love the giant Mickey Mouse Ferris Wheel (even though I refused to go on it) and the pond thing and yeah, I like that place. I will say, California Adventure became my favorite park while we were there. On the way out from Paradise Pier we met Donald Duck. Enter second time little tears came to my eyes:
She is so freaking cute!
We then easily spotted (matching clothes!) Charming and crew as we met up at the Monsters Inc Ride. We did the Muppet's show where Bean lost her sunglasses and then picked a lunch destination.
For lunch we ate at the San Francisco style restaurant where Charming and I ate our lunch out of sourdough bread bowls. Charming had soup and I had a pretty good Chinese Chicken salad. Bean got a kids meal and we ordered the toddler mac and cheese for our other three kids. It was not enough macaroni and cheese for the 11 year old or the 7 year old (we were warned and so were they), but fortunately, Squish only wanted to drink chocolate milk (again) and eat the applesauce, so we gave her mac to the still-hungry children. This restaurant didn't offer a lot of kid's meals that appealed to my kids (I think they have a pb &j option but Bean is allergic and one other sandwhich choice and the toddler mac), but in general, I am impressed with the Disney kid's meals. They always include a drink and a couple of healthy sides so for $6-$7 for a kid's meal a good amount is included and it's not much more than a happy meal and McDonalds.
After lunch we did the Disney Junior Live on Stage show and the Animation academy where we all drew some fairly poor Agent P's from Phineas and Ferb. I think we must have gone back to Bugs Land and done a few things also. I know we got ice cream and apple freezes at the Cozy Cone.
This was the day that Squish started getting crabby and wanted her blanket. When I suggested we go back to the hotel to get it (the implied message being a nap) she said, "I don't want to go back to the hotel, I want to sleep in my stroller," and promptly passed out.
We waited in the line for storybook boats for freaking ever. I did bump into a friend from college days that I hadn't kept in touch with so that was fun and super random. The storybook canal boats feature miniaturized villages and places from Disney movies. I had a good chuckle when the regular sized ducks roamed through these tiny landscapes. Giant Ducks are terrorizing the Village!
We headed back to the hotel that night around 6, ate some bland-ish spaghetti and meatballs and got ready for bed. Our hotel did offer free dinner, as I mentioned before and while it was never gourmet, it was readily scarfed down by my kids. I swear they ate more of that free dinner then they would have eaten of expensive dinner we could have purchased somewhere else. This made the free dinner worth it to me.
Oh I should add, I decided to wash a bunch of clothes in the top loading washer at the hotel and our newly tie-dyed shirts colored many of our white things pink! Yay Vacation!
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