After thinking that we might have to scrap our three-day Disneyland tickets, we decided that we had nothing to lose by giving it a try 24 hours after Kaeden had antibiotics in his system. If we went and ended up having to leave, we were no worse off than if we never went at all.
Luckily things went great, and we were able to enjoy three days in the park. Well...actually only two. The third day we got there, paid for parking, realized it was rather busy, and left about an hour later.
Confession: Jeff and I are not huge Disneyland fans. I know. I'll leave an address to send your hate mail below. Don't get me wrong: It's a great place. It's fun to watch the kids enjoy it. But as far as vacations go, our first thought is not, "Hey! Let's go to Disneyland!" It's more like, "Hey! Let's go to the beach, oh, Disneyland is there, I bet the kids would enjoy that."
That being said, we will never be the at-the-gates-the-second-they-open or leave-the-park-as-they-are-ushering-you-out people. It's fun and magical for the kids and all, but Jeff and I just don't get those die-hard Disneylanders. And yes, I know I just alienated myself from pretty much every other human being on earth.
When we showed up for the third day of festivities and the park was much busier than the prior two days, Jeff immediately started in with his complaining. Yes. He is worse than a kid. As I mentioned before, no stamina. Or patience.
We had also made an epic Disneyland mistake late afternoon the day before, which didn't help my pleas to get my family to stay just a little bit longer. After riding pretty much every kiddie ride umpteen times, Jeff and I stared at the park map to see if there was anything we had missed. That's when we decided to measure Kaeden and see if he was tall enough for any of the rides with height requirements. To our surprise, he was over 42" tall, and actually could ride every ride but a handful. We happened to be standing next to Space Mountain during this discovery, so I told Jeff, "Why don't you go ride that with him, then we'll switch, you can watch Carter and I'll ride with him."
Anyone reading this can probably spot the mistake. Yes, we sent Kaeden on Space Mountain as an introduction to the "big kid" rides. Jeff said he took the ride rather well, and never actually cried. He just kept saying over and over, "This is not good. This is not good. This is NOT good."
Needless to say, I never got to go on the ride with him. In fact, every ride after that point was, "too fast." We even tried to get him to ride Pirates of the Caribbean - one of his favorites- and his reply...."No, it's too fast." Any one who knows Pirates knows it's probably the slowest moving ride possible. I think you actually gain more speed on It's a Small World than you do on Pirates. Oh well. Chalk it up to a parenting fail.
So on our third day I realized I was the only one really trying to make an effort to make our last day fun, and mostly just because I felt like it was such a waste to not use our tickets to the max, and the fact that we had just paid $15 for parking. Since that's not really too much of a reason to fight my kids and child-like husband all day to have "fun", I gave in and we left.
No big deal. We were able to pack in pretty much everything we had wanted to do in the two days before.
The first ride we went to was the Teacups. Kade loves the spinning rides. Luckily Jeff can stomach them. Ever since the first time I was pregnant, my body cannot handle any sort of odd motion. Teacups for me are a no-go. But that's okay, because it allows me to capture fun pictures like this one.
Kaeden also really loves the Ladybug ride in the Bug's Life area. Probably because it is nothing more than the teacup ride with bright red ladybugs instead of pastel teacups. This ride is a little slower and a lot shorter, so sometimes I'm able to enjoy it with him.
We also got to try out a couple of new [to us] rides that were either not available or Kaeden was not tall enough to ride when were were here just over a year ago.
Winnie-the-Pooh was a cute little ride for my boy who is semi-obsessed with bees.
And the bumper cars in Bug's Life were fun and new too. Even though Kaeden was terrified to steer. I didn't know a kid would ever pass on the chance to control a vehicle. Mine did.
Since we are always stuck riding kid-friendly rides, Jeff and my favorite rides tend to be the interactive ones. That is why the Buzz Lightyear ride is also a fun one. The line always moves quick, so we ride this one a bunch.
Jeff is very competitive on these rides. He always blows everyone in our family out of the water, so for him it really becomes a competition between him and all the other riders on the ride.
Notice his skill in playing the game and non-visually wrangling Carter. Parenting at it's best.
I love, love, love this picture from the game. Look at Carter holding his own gun. So funny! Little fella never scored a point, but I love that it looks like he's determined to defend his space capsule nonetheless.
And please note the seriousness of my face in this one. See those lips tucked in and set in a hard line. That's how you know IT'S ON. I pull that face any time something requires me to give it my all.
Another huge hit this trip was the Little Mermaid ride. Last time we were here it wasn't open. This time we rode it probably 354654893221 times. The best part of the ride was that there was NEVER a line. You'd walk right on every time.
Growing up in the height of the Little Mermaid fame, I thought the ride was cute and did a good job sticking to the story line. I also liked that it didn't have an overly dark theme like all the rides over in the classic section of Disneyland. Seriously, what are they thinking with those rides? They are for kids, right? I know. I just alienated myself some more.
Kaeden loved the Little Mermaid so much that he'd ask me to take pictures of everything. Since there is so much motion and I was shooting without a flash, pretty much nothing turned out but these. Maybe I should buy him the movie sometime. Might be better than these blurry pictures.
For the most part, Carter was really good. He handled the waits rather well. We were able to keep him entertained in line, and most of the time he would just sit and play on the dividers like this:
I joked that it was because this was technically his second time visiting Disneyland, but Jeff is convinced that being in the womb does not count.
We were even lucky enough that our I-only-sleep-in-my-crib-at-home child found some time to do this without any sort of fuss. It was a Disneyland miracle. See, I do have some Disneyland spirit!
At one point Carter was taking a nap, so we were looking for something for Jeff to do with Kaeden to maximize Carter's sleep time. Jeff and Kade rode the raft over to Pirate Island to see what was over there. I figured it would be about 10 minutes and they would be back. 45 minutes later, they finally returned and Kaeden was begging me to go back with him.
Kaeden now has his most favorite part of Disneyland -- Pirate Island. Jeff said that Kaeden was amazed with everything over there. When he found the treasure map with an "X" on it, he was determined to find the treasure. Jeff, who was not familiar with the island, said that they spent forever exploring around. It was so hot over there, and Jeff was thinking that there was no treasure, so he resorted to drawing an "X" in the dirt when Kaeden wasn't looking. But Kaeden didn't buy it. Just as they [read: Jeff] was about to give up, there it was: the treasure! Kaeden was in HEAVEN. So much so that as soon as they came back on the raft, we all had to load up and go over again.
Carter thought it was pretty cool too. Kade was angry that his brother was trying to touch "his treasure."
How Jeff managed to miss this large pile of treasure for so long on the first trip over is beyond me.
On our second night at the park, we had tickets for a character dining experience. When I booked the dinner, I was a little hesitant to drop $100 on something I was 75% sure would be a disaster. Last time we were in Disneyland, Kaeden loved seeing all the characters, but only wanted to observe them from afar. Anytime we'd go up to talk to one, he'd shy away and cry. So booking a character dinner was a gamble. We talked about it a lot, and he was actually pretty pumped for it.
So off to Goofy's Kitchen we went.
And you know what? Kaeden actually wanted to take pictures with the characters and they came by.
Oh my gosh. Cutest story ever. So Kaeden had been wearing these two Disney Hawaii stickers that we got earlier in the day from some people trying to get us to listen to a time share meeting. When Belle came over to say hi, Kaeden got all shy and whispered, "Mommy, I need to tell her something." So Belle bends down to him, Kaeden pulls off one of his stickers, hands it to her, and says, "This is for you." Cute Belle looks at it immediately starts playing over in her mind how she can accept the gift. She obviously couldn't just stick it on her uniform, but she was determined to not let him down even though I kept saying, "It's okay, you don't have to keep it."
So sweet Belle turns the backside of her apron over and tells Kaeden, "I need to keep it in a place that is very safe and very special. I'm going to stick it here so that only you and I know where it is." Kaeden thought it was the most special thing ever. Kudos Belle, kudos.
Overall I was sorely disappointed in our dining experience. The fact that the food was pretty much horrible was besides the point. I expected that. But once my son showed interest in seeing the characters - you know, the thing we were there for the most - I expected to see some characters. Sadly, the pictures above were all the characters we got to see.
We were sat in a corner, by ourselves, that was largely forgotten by the characters coming by. Our table also sat right next to the doors where the characters would make their exit after making the rounds from table to table. You would think this would be good, right? We'd see each character on their way out. Not so. Most those characters were so set on going through that door that by the time they came by us, they'd just walk right out. Kade was standing next to our table waiting for more characters to come by, and most the time they would just walk on by and exit. Very disappointing, but one of those things where you live, you learn. At least I got to see my shy little boy open up and enjoy the few characters who did come by.
After dinner we went out to ride a few rides before heading back to our hotel. We ended our night with a ride on Dumbo. It was a great way to end the night.
Before abruptly leaving the park on our third and final day at Disneyland, Kaeden got to go spend the $20 his Grams had given him for the trip. All three days we'd been scoping out possible things he could take home as a memento. In the end he chose a cute pair of Mickey ears.
He got to watch his name be stitched onto the hat,
And then show it off with pride.
So fun!
And thus ended our epic ordeal to enjoy three days in Disneyland. Up next....our final days in California.
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