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Part 5 – Disneyland – (Day 2)

What I love about Disneyland (in addition to the great cast members and intimate feel) is the ease of going on rides.  The park can get crowded, but not Disney World crowded.  You can also get paper FastPasses here, instead of having to plan your trip months in advance like at Disney World.  The cast members are really helpful and seem happy to help you.  Its like the difference between visiting a small town versus a big city. 

We managed to go on a number of rides that had been closed or that we missed on our previous trip.  The first one was the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage.  The ride was interesting because we had not done it before.  It reminded me of the Nemo ride in Epcot.  There are lots YouTube videos you can view to get a feel for it, but basically you travel on a ride vehicle that looks like a submarine.  Each guest gets their own window for a view into an undersea world. 

  We also really enjoyed riding Space Mountain with the Star Wars overlay (Hyperspace Mountain).   The seats here are side by side as opposed to bobsled-like, which makes it easier to get into.  The Star Wars theme was outstanding and really added to the enjoyment of the ride.   Sound is piped in right behind your head, so you get a great audio effect as well.

We also made sure we visited the Storybook Canal Boats.  This wasn’t quite as interesting that I had hoped, but it was relaxing. 

Also, you can’t tell me this isn’t nightmare fuel.  Anybody got stories about kids losing it when this happens?

We explored Mickey’s Toontown again (the girls love it since the one in Disney World disappeared) and made sure to ride It’s a Small World.  Yes, the song can be annoying but we don’t care.  We love the ride and especially the fact that the entire queue and load area is outside at Disneyland.  The main issue we had in California was the heat.  It wasn’t Florida hot (98 degrees and 100% humidity) but it was still hot during this trip. 

We were able to see the majority of the park on this day, including most of Fantasyland.  Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride is long gone from Magic Kingdom, so we always ride it at least once.  We also made sure to do the walkthrough of Sleeping Beauty’s castle as well as visit the Wishing Well —  we’d missed both of these on our previous trip.  We usually also spend time on Tom Sawyer’s Island, but it was closed because of the work on Star Wars Land.  

We have a few pictures of some of the food we had during the day.  Disneyland and California Adventure always have, in our opinion, much better food that anywhere in Disney World. 

Our favorite part of this day was getting to see the Paint The Night parade.  We don’t usually spend too much time watching parades but I was so happy we saw this one.  What a great parade!

 

After the parade, we made our way out of Disneyland and back to the hotel.  We might have normally hung out a while more, but we were exhausted from the late arrival and long day in the park. 

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