Honeymoon TR Day 2: Disneyland!
After a MUCH needed good night's rest, I woke up the next morning feeling so much better and more relaxed. The only issue I had when I woke up is that my ears were still very blocked from the flight the day before. We woke up around 7 for a 9am park opening and got to the gates right as they were opening. It was really chilly that morning and we headed straight to Starbucks for a breakfast sandwhich and some coffee. I don't think I mentioned this before, but on top of my cold/blocked ears, I was also having some wisdom tooth pain (because I'm stubborn and am too scared to have them pulled out) so it was really hard trying to eat my breakfast sandwich, but the coffee was amazing and just what I needed. With happy bellies, we made our way to Tomorrowland for another ride on HyperSpace Mountain. We loved it just as much the second time!
With this being our second trip out to Disneyland, we knew that the only way to get everything done that we wanted to in one day was to rope drop, and we really did luck out this day. Even with the park opening later at 9AM, we still got a good 5-6 rides out of the way in the first few hours there. After HyperSpace, we headed towards Adventureland for another favorite--Indiana Jones. This is such a fun, cool, and unique ride and I'm really sad that we don't have it in Florida. Then again, it makes me appreciate it so much more when we do get to go out to California. After Indy, we went to Haunted Mansion for a fastpass, went to ride Pirates of the Caribbean (again, so much better than the one in Florida), then back to Haunted Mansion to use our Fastpasses. I've said it once and I'll say it again, I will never tire of riding Haunted Mansion Holiday. We love it so much and wish we could go to Disneyland every Halloween/Christmas season just to ride it.
By the time we got off Haunted Mansion, we were starting to get a little peckish. With no lunch plans made for the day, we decided to head over to the Mint Julep bar for beignets and our favorite mint julep. This time, we each got our own. George got the plain beignets and I got the seasonal ones, which had candy cane powder on them. The peppermint flavor was just subtle enough and were really, really, good.
After finishing our mid-morning snack, we headed towards Fantasyland because I REALLY wanted to ride its a Small World Holiday. I had seen and heard so many amazing things about this version of small world and it was one of the things I had been looking forward to most this trip. I know everyone says to ride it at night to get the full effect of all the lights, but I wanted to see it during the day too, so we agreed to do it once in the day and once after dark.
Pretty holiday castle on the way to Fantasyland
Just seeing the Small World mall at Disneyland is incredible in itself. It is so stunningly beautiful and picturesque that it doesn't even matter if the actual contents of the ride suck (it doesn't, I'm just saying). I had to stop and take some pictures before getting in line for the ride. It was also at the top of the hour and these little figures came out of the clock, which was really neat. I didn't notice on our last trip that they did this.
The line for small world was pretty steep--35 minutes, which to me is a lot, but I knew it would be worth it. I was so happy standing in the outdoor queue for this ride. The weather was seriously perfect out and I was really enjoying the day, despite not feeling 100% (though much better than I had the previous day). After 30-ish minutes in line we finally made it onto the ride and I just loved it so much! It was so perfect and Christmassy and I absolutely loved the incorporation of the Disney characters into the ride.
Had to take a picture of the Hawaiian part, given where we were going next
After small world, we went to George's favorite ride--Mr. Toad's Wild Ride! It had a little bit of a wait, but we decided to wait anyways. To kill some time, I went to check my Facebook since I had been neglecting it the last few days and saw that we had been tagged by our wedding photographers in a post. Could this be a sneak preview of our wedding photos??? I excitedly clicked on the link and sure enough it was! I literally squealed in excitement and told George to get on Facebook so we could look at them together. Not only was this a sneak peek, but it was 41 gloriously amazing photos! We were seriously BLOWN AWAY by the pictures Cricket had sent us and it made us so happy and giddy that I don't even remember riding Mr. Toad's because I was so caught up in the high of seeing our amazing photos.
When we got off the ride, we saw that Mr. Toad's cart was out! We had wanted to get photos on the cart for our engagement pictures the previous year, but for some reason it wasn't out during our trip that time, so we took some then and sent them to Michelle, who did our engagement pictures. George even had his Mr. Toad tsum tsum packed in his backpack. Lol.
With no real game plan after that, we walked out of Fantasyland and to the castle to get some pictures there. I mean, did you really even go to Disneyland if you didn't take pictures at the gorgeous castle? We also didn't realize it until we were in the parks that day, but it was Walt Disney's birthday! So we had to get some pictures with the man himself.
George was starting to get hungry and wanted to eat lunch. It was already starting to get sort of late and we had dinner reservations so I didn't want to eat a big meal. George suggested we go to Café Orleans to see if they had any lunch availability so we walked over there. The woman at the door told us unfortunately there were no more reservations for the day, but when George went on the Disneyland app, he found one for 2:40, which was a little over an hour away, so he made it. With some time to spare, we went over to Big Thunder Mountain and rode that. We really love Disneyland's version of this ride as well (a common trend, it appears). While its mostly exactly the same as WDW's version, which is one of our favorite rides to begin with, there's this mine explosion scene at the end of Disneyland's version that is just really cool and gives it the edge over WDW's.
We still had some time to spare after riding Thunder Mountain, so we just walked around some of the shops of Main Street until it was time for a lunch reservation. I don't think I actually bought anything this time around, especially since we went so overboard during our last trip during the 60th celebration. I was on the hunt for a nice Disneyland sweatshirt that I saw a bunch of people wearing around the park, but didn't end up getting it because it was only in men's sizes and even the small was huge on me. Oh well, more money to spend on souvenirs at Aulani (and spoiler alert, boy did we).
At 2:30, we checked in to Café Orleans for our lunch reservation. Coincidentally, we were sat at the same table as when we ate there on our first trip. This time, I did not make the mistake of ordering the nasty monte cristo sandwich (I know I'm in the minority here). I actually didn't have much of an appetite at all, but I was craving the insanely addicting pomme frites, so we ordered some of those to split. George got a blackened chicken salad and I just got a cup of French onion soup, since I wasn't starving and didn't want to spoil my appetite for dinner. Mint juleps were also had, of course. Everything was incredible and those pomme frites continue to be one of my favorite things at Disneyland. So addicting.
After lunch, we walked back over to Tomorrowland to check out the Star Wars Launch Bay. I thought it would be exactly the same as ours but it actually had all different exhibits. They also still had a Darth Vader meet and greet, as opposed to Kylo Ren, which is so much better. We got in line for a picture with Vader, but the line was moving really slow so we just got out and continued to explore the Launch Bay for a little longer. We also got our picture taken at the famous Star Wars wall, before it was a huge Instagram thing, I think.
After the Launch Bay, we went to get FPs for Indiana Jones again, but the FP return time wasn't for several more hours, so we decided to walk over to DCA for a little bit. We had heard that the Three Caballeros were doing a meet and greet and since we've never seen them before, we wanted to get a picture with them. When we got there, we saw that the characters rotated every 30 minutes or so, and we had just missed them, so it would be about 45 minutes until they were back. We decided to just wait, since we didn't want to rush around and come back. We sat through the Goofy meet and greet, then there was Mickey and Minnie dressed in their Mexican holiday attire. The photopass person suggested that if the line for Mickey and Minnie started to get long, that we should just get in line then because we would probably miss them and get the Three Caballeros, so that's what we did. However, the line ended up moving fast and we ended up still meeting Mickey and Minnie. They saw our "Just Married" buttons and got excited for us.
The Cast Members also saw that and told us we could get to the end of the line and they promised us that we would get to meet the Three Caballeros. They were really nice and were asking us so many questions about our Disney wedding, what it was like at Disney World, and then about the 501st (after seeing George's shirt). The line moved SO slow for the Three Caballeros but as promised, we did get to meet them, and we were the last ones of the evening too.
After that time suck, it was dark out and starting to get really cold. George wanted to ride California Screamin, but I sat this one out because I was already really cold and didn't want to get colder. I held all his stuff while he went on the ride and ended up calling my mom and dad while I waited. After he got off the ride, we had to rush back to Disneyland for our Indy fastpass. We made it with no time to spare. After Indy, we walked back over to Fantasyland for our nighttime ride on Small World, but not before stopping for the dreamlights on the castle!
As we got into Fantasyland and then turned the corner towards Small World, my jaw dropped. If you thought the Small World mall was gorgeous during the day, it is actually breathtaking in the evening when its all lit up. We didn't end up going to the ride again because the wait had jumped up to an hour, but we did spend a good 30 minutes just staring at this area and being mesmerized by it.
After being utterly mesmerized by the Small World, I really wanted to ride the Alice in Wonderland dark ride. We had a little bit of time to kill before our dinner reservation, so we got in line. We waited for 30 minutes and just as we were about to be next to be boarded, the ride broke down and the passengers had to be evaced. We waited about another 10 minutes to see if it would be back up again, but when it wasn't, we decided to leave since we wanted to check in early for our dinner reservation at Blue Bayou.
We made the walk back over to New Orleans Square and were anxious for our dinner at Blue Bayou. We ate here on our previous trip to Disneyland and it was our favorite meal of the trip. We once again asked to be seated by the water, if possible, but they said it would be at least an additional 45-minute wait for a seat by the water. Since this was our only day at Disneyland this time, we politely declined. We ended up getting seats all the way in the back near the kitchen, which kind of sucked because the atmosphere was nowhere near as amazing, but the food was still excellent and I'll definitely be back again. We each got the same thing--the surf and turf meal, and we split a pumpkin crème brulee for dessert. Yum!
After our amazing meal, we rode Haunted Mansion one more time. We couldn't end the trip without one last ride on our favorite. We then peeked in some stores on Main Street and then went to secure a spot to watch the fireworks. We went to the Hub and it was so insanely packed, but I didn't want to be too far from the castle. We waited for about 30 minutes and then an announcement came on saying that the fireworks would be delayed by 10-15 minutes. We waited and thankfully the fireworks started. Unfortunately, it was so crowded and I was so cold that I couldn't see anything and wasn't really enjoying it, so I asked George if we could just leave. He was fine with that so we started to walk back towards Main Street and out of the park. He stopped and watched the last few minutes as we made our way out of the park and I'm glad we didn't stay. They weren't really anything spectacular and I'm glad we beat the crowds out of the park.
Before walking back to the Grand Californian we popped in a few shops in Downtown Disney. George really wanted to go into D-Street and ended up getting some Star Wars Stance socks that he had been looking for. I wanted to go in Wonderground Gallery and lusted over the Mary Blair-style Her Universe skirt that had just come out, but I refrained, especially knowing I could get it at home with my AP discount. We then made the short walk back to the Grand. George ended up getting another nightcap from the Hearthstone Lounge, while I waited in the lobby enjoying my cozy surroundings.
We didn't have much packing to do since we had only been in our room for 2 nights, but we did that and laid out our clothes for the following morning since our shuttle would be picking us up early for the next leg of our honeymoon! Stay tuned as we travel to HAWAII!