Family Vacation 9-10 Part 3

Disneyland's California Adventure-

Disneyland really is magical. The kids seemed to be memorized from the moment I walked back from check in with balloons and buttons for them. We walked around downtown Disney on Sunday night listening to the music, getting showered with cast members blowing bubbles and looking at costumes. The kids already loved Disneyland- and they had not been on a ride yet.

Monday was a classic case of my bad luck. I have bad luck. Really bad luck. Which is why when we booked a room in the hotel on the resort with Disneyland so we could be back and forth for naps and meals, we still had to walk and extra mile to get there because of construction. My bad luck is why the monorail was broken forcing us to walk another extra 2 or more miles a day. It is also why all this walking occurred in 113 degree - the hottest temperature ever recorded at Disneyland. Yes this is my luck. It was so hot obviously. That is an understatement. Had I known it was 113 degrees outside, I would have surely not allowed my children to be outside, but would have forced us all inside for the 1st day of our vacation for fear of heat stroke. So I guess it is good we didn't know until later that night. Thankfully it cooled down to the mid 90's for the rest of our trip.

The 1st thing we did was Ariels Grotto.
Character Dinning with Ariel, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Belle and a singing Prince. Complete with crowns to decorate, and family style platters.
This was our big splurge for the trip, and I was so worried we would be let down.
But we were not. We will be doing a meal at Ariel's Grotto every time we go until Kate doesn't like princesses anymore (which will likely be never).
Even Sam was into meeting the characters and was flirting it up.
The kids loved this, and seeing them having so much fun made us love it too.
Kate had been telling everyone for 6 weeks (since I made the reservation) that she was going to eat at Ariel's Restaurant.














After our bellies were full and we had spent time with each character we were ready to finally ride some rides.

The Ferris wheel and carousel were the 1st rides we tried with absolutely no wait. We even got to ride a few times without getting off.



We ran into a few characters. Including Mickey, Goofy, Woody, Buzz and the Toy Story Army.


This is actually a picture of Goofy pushing Sam around in a stroller but it is hard to tell.



We got a nice Austrailian family to take a family photo for us.
I feel like the parks were full of Austrailians.
Australians, Mormon families from Utah, and people who were so obese they were using a wheelchair and got to cut to the front of the line because of it. It really irritated me.

We spent some time in the Bug's Life World, and on the few other rides our kids could do. If you see Kate anytime soon, ask her to make the ladybug face from Bug's Life.
We also spent a couple of hours resting and rehydrating mid afternoon.
More rides, some dinner and then it was time to wait in line for World of Color.

After his nap this 1st day, this guy got up, and went straight for his shoes then loaded himself in his stroller. He was ready for more.

World of Color was a movie music compilation projected on the water feature at California Adventure's Pier. We waited in lines for more than an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening to see it. It was interesting, but I don't think we would ever do it again. My advice would be to skip it, use those waiting hours for rides, and get home early so you can be rested for the next day. We didn't get home until almost 10:00. It was hard to keep the kids entertained during all the waiting- hence the cotton candy and glow sticks.

Day 1 of the theme parks was a success.