MrsKin2004
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- May 1, 2005
My mom, myself, and my best girlfriend had just spent a week on a fabulous Mexican Riviera cruise aboard the Diamond Princess. We disembarked on the morning of March 19th in Los Angeles, then checked into our hotel in Long Beach. Since we all LOVE Disney, we made plans to rent a car and drive down to Anaheim to go to Disneyland. My mom, who grew up in Southern California, had been there nearly 40 years ago - this was the first trip to Cali at all for me and for Audra, my friend.
I printed out Mapquest directions from our hotel prior to the trip, and they were right on the money. We were a bit leery of the traffic in LA (we're from Oklahoma), but it turned out to be no big deal at all on a Saturday afternoon/evening. We arrived to the vicinity of Disneyland about 3:00 p.m., and decided to grab a bite to eat at a nearby Subway before entering the park, since we planned on having a late dinner there. (To be quite honest, our original plans were to go straight to the park, but Mom missed her turn and we spied a Subway - worked out great!)
Anyway, we arrived to the Mickey & Friends parking garage around 3:45 p.m., and we caught the tram over to the park. It ended up being very chilly that afternoon, and I was wishing I had brought a jacket. When we got to the entry plaza, I was wishing we had our hotel reservation at the hotel right there (is that the Grand Californian?)! We bought our tickets for the evening, and were given information on times for Fantasmic and the Magic in the Sky fireworks. We entered the park, and Mom had a "reminiscent" moment when she saw the flowers in the shape of Mickey's head were just as she had remembered from her childhood! We took some pictures, and went on into the Main Street area. Okay, having been to WDW twice, I have to confess - I just didn't get that *magical* feeling when I entered this park like I did in Florida. Maybe it was because I was exhausted from the cruise, but I was kind of sad the Cinderella castle wasn't the first thing we saw. (Has it always been pink?) Oh well, enough about that, because we had a blast anyway!
We started out browsing through the shops on Main Street, then decided we would check into reservations at the Blue Bayou (the restaurant in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride). Our tablemates on our cruise had recommended that restaurant, along with the mint juleps from New Orleans Square. We looked at the Blue Bayou menu before making reservations, and decided that after a week of incredibly rich gourmet cruise food, we were ready just for a burger and fries or something...so we opted out of that choice.
We made our way around that side of the park, riding the Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, the Winnie the Pooh ride, and some others. The characters were out in full force, but so were the little kids, so we didn't want to wait in line. We took the riverboat around Tom Sawyer Island, and saw a flock of newborn baby ducks swimming with their parents in the river. Too cute! We went over to New Orleans Square and had our requisite mint juleps, along with some fritters and chocolate chip cookies - yum!
After that, I decided it was too chilly to keep going without a jacket, so I bit the bullet and bought a $45 Minnie hooded sweatshirt. It's cute, but not $45 worth of cute - oh well. We then stood in line for the Thunder Mountain Railroad - by the time we got off that ride, it was starting to get dark. We grabbed a churro from a vendor (yum again!), then we rode the Matterhorn bobsleds, and went over to Tomorrowland and rode the Star Wars ride, along with the spinning rockets.
By the time we finished with the rockets, we decided it was time for dinner, so we went to Club Buzz and had burgers and fries. I think it was about $8 for a meal - not bad. (Can you tell the trend yet? I joke that we ate our way through the park that night!)
After dinner, it was time to head back over to get ready for Fantasmic. We discovered we still had some extra time, so we walked through Frontierland - there was so much there that we didn't have time to go through! We then went back over to the viewing area and it was packed! We were sooo tired, all I wanted to do was sit and watch the show, but we couldn't since it was standing-room only. Fantasmic was great, but I really would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't been a walking zombie by that point. The fireworks were immediately after, and it was a great show.
We all decided we were too tired to go see the rest of the park, so we walked back down Main Street with intentions of going back to the car. However, we spied the Gibson Girl ice cream parlor and had to make a stop! (Oops!) That was seriously some of the best ice cream I've ever had. I also bought my husband some of the Disney shortbread (his favorite) to take back to him since he was spending his spring break week at home. (Hey, it was by choice - he was invited!)
We finally made it back to the car and back to the hotel in Long Beach. It was a great day, but I don't feel like we got as much out of the park as we could have because we arrived so late and because we were so tired. So, next time, we'll start early and hit both parks, as well as the Downtown Disney area. I'd really like to ride the rides in California Adventure.
I printed out Mapquest directions from our hotel prior to the trip, and they were right on the money. We were a bit leery of the traffic in LA (we're from Oklahoma), but it turned out to be no big deal at all on a Saturday afternoon/evening. We arrived to the vicinity of Disneyland about 3:00 p.m., and decided to grab a bite to eat at a nearby Subway before entering the park, since we planned on having a late dinner there. (To be quite honest, our original plans were to go straight to the park, but Mom missed her turn and we spied a Subway - worked out great!)
Anyway, we arrived to the Mickey & Friends parking garage around 3:45 p.m., and we caught the tram over to the park. It ended up being very chilly that afternoon, and I was wishing I had brought a jacket. When we got to the entry plaza, I was wishing we had our hotel reservation at the hotel right there (is that the Grand Californian?)! We bought our tickets for the evening, and were given information on times for Fantasmic and the Magic in the Sky fireworks. We entered the park, and Mom had a "reminiscent" moment when she saw the flowers in the shape of Mickey's head were just as she had remembered from her childhood! We took some pictures, and went on into the Main Street area. Okay, having been to WDW twice, I have to confess - I just didn't get that *magical* feeling when I entered this park like I did in Florida. Maybe it was because I was exhausted from the cruise, but I was kind of sad the Cinderella castle wasn't the first thing we saw. (Has it always been pink?) Oh well, enough about that, because we had a blast anyway!
We started out browsing through the shops on Main Street, then decided we would check into reservations at the Blue Bayou (the restaurant in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride). Our tablemates on our cruise had recommended that restaurant, along with the mint juleps from New Orleans Square. We looked at the Blue Bayou menu before making reservations, and decided that after a week of incredibly rich gourmet cruise food, we were ready just for a burger and fries or something...so we opted out of that choice.
We made our way around that side of the park, riding the Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, the Winnie the Pooh ride, and some others. The characters were out in full force, but so were the little kids, so we didn't want to wait in line. We took the riverboat around Tom Sawyer Island, and saw a flock of newborn baby ducks swimming with their parents in the river. Too cute! We went over to New Orleans Square and had our requisite mint juleps, along with some fritters and chocolate chip cookies - yum!
After that, I decided it was too chilly to keep going without a jacket, so I bit the bullet and bought a $45 Minnie hooded sweatshirt. It's cute, but not $45 worth of cute - oh well. We then stood in line for the Thunder Mountain Railroad - by the time we got off that ride, it was starting to get dark. We grabbed a churro from a vendor (yum again!), then we rode the Matterhorn bobsleds, and went over to Tomorrowland and rode the Star Wars ride, along with the spinning rockets.
By the time we finished with the rockets, we decided it was time for dinner, so we went to Club Buzz and had burgers and fries. I think it was about $8 for a meal - not bad. (Can you tell the trend yet? I joke that we ate our way through the park that night!)
After dinner, it was time to head back over to get ready for Fantasmic. We discovered we still had some extra time, so we walked through Frontierland - there was so much there that we didn't have time to go through! We then went back over to the viewing area and it was packed! We were sooo tired, all I wanted to do was sit and watch the show, but we couldn't since it was standing-room only. Fantasmic was great, but I really would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't been a walking zombie by that point. The fireworks were immediately after, and it was a great show.
We all decided we were too tired to go see the rest of the park, so we walked back down Main Street with intentions of going back to the car. However, we spied the Gibson Girl ice cream parlor and had to make a stop! (Oops!) That was seriously some of the best ice cream I've ever had. I also bought my husband some of the Disney shortbread (his favorite) to take back to him since he was spending his spring break week at home. (Hey, it was by choice - he was invited!)
We finally made it back to the car and back to the hotel in Long Beach. It was a great day, but I don't feel like we got as much out of the park as we could have because we arrived so late and because we were so tired. So, next time, we'll start early and hit both parks, as well as the Downtown Disney area. I'd really like to ride the rides in California Adventure.
