13 Jan

Day 3- Parks and Fantasmic!

 

Today we used the special Grand Californian entrance for extra magic hours at Disney California Adventure! We were in a large group of people, but as we predicted, when the rope dropped they all went to Cars Land while we headed to Paradise Pier and walked on the rides back there.

We did Toy Story first!

Toy Story selfie!

Kelly beat me. I won’t lie.

I love this room in the exit:

Then we rode Screamin’. I vowed not to take pictures on this ride anymore, no matter how tempting. I always feel nauseated after I do, so I was good!

But I apologize to you, loyal trip report readers.

Next we walked over to Cars Land for some racing!  And breakfast…

In the queue!

On the ride:

And off!

This is an awesome detail Tracey pointed out in Flo’s. It’s a ginormous rearview mirror!

Cars waffles are not Mickey waffles but they are an adequate substitute.

Flo’s also has quite the view.

After breakfast we waited in line to get our Olaf pager and then went to the Sorcerer’s workshop. Beast’s library!

We also shopped a little to kill time.

Lookie lookie! We’ve got a date to see the sisters!

Some of us decided it was probably not their fault that the Zoetrope was gone and we should not hold it against them.

Not all of us decided that…

Our pager went off and it was time to see Olaf! Yay!

This was really quite well done inside.

Olaf was working it.

He’s freakishly large, but still cute.

Finally it was time to go see Anna and Elsa!

Sisters and sisters.

The next picture will show up in Kelly’s trip report somewhere, I’m sure. Let’s say she expressed her true feelings about the sisters.  🙂

Next it was time for lunch. I was hoping I could find some sourdough bread, but with the bakery under refurbishment, they were only selling bread bowls with corn chowder and I’m not a corn chowder fan. Tracy had it! And he was very nice and gave me the bread plug for his bowl.  🙂

Apparently they had a lot of leftover Christmas cups.

There was a hidden Mickey on someone’s beer:

Now I have no pictures of anything we did between lunch and snack! We must have done something, right?

Oh well – snack!

We went to Clarabelle’s to customize our own ice cream. I chose chocolate ice cream dipped in chocolate and rolled in chocolate.

I won.

This paper is so cool!

Then we took a swimming and nap break! We ran into Russell on the way out.

The hot tub was great, the kids running around unchecked were not. Ah well.

We went back up to change and we all headed back to Disneyland feeling refreshed!

On the monorail!

When we got off, we noticed how gorgeous the light was and stopped to take some pictures.

Nemo selfie!

The girls were on a mission to meet Captain America next. Because Captain America. The boys were not and went off on their own way.

We went upstairs and found out the wait for the captain was 45 minutes! Good gravy! Okay, let’s go meet Thor.

Ironman!

Well hello, Thor!

Thor and the ladies.

Time well spent.  😊

Tonight we had late dinner reservations at Blue Bayou for the Fantasmic! package.  I didn’t even attempt pictures in here, it’s impossible.

After dinner I decided to walk back to the hotel and grab my big lens. I think everyone else rode Indy!

We weren’t sure how early to show up because we wanted good seats, so when I got back we waited for the ropes to open. I think we ended up sitting for about 45 minutes. We were front and center. I had loooots of time to play with my camera, so I am going to picture spam you now.

This one made me laugh. There were ducks very interested in us. Hoping for food I’m sure. Well this one photobombed me!

Well done, duck!

At some point I turned around to take a picture of how incredibly packed our section was:

Or not. Show time!

I concentrated most of my pictures on the mouse, but I took a few more during the show!

The second best part of the Disneyland show – Peter Pan and Hook fighting on the Columbia as she sails by! Not that I have anything against Pocahontas, but this wins hands down.

The best part of Disneyland’s Fantasmic? Murphy. Murphy the dragon is completely and totally amazing. I was gawking and not paying attention to my pictures, so they do not do him justice.

Yay!  Good wins!

What a spectacular way to finish the night! I feel like we did something else after Fantasmic!, but maybe not. When we got back to the room I packed a little and got in bed. I had to go home and be a responsible parent again!

Thank you for reading!

 

Disneyland With the Grown-Ups!

Day 1 – Drive to LA and Napa Rose
Day 2 – Don’t Touch Oswald! 
Day 3 – Parks and Fantasmic!