Disneyland Vacation

DISNEYLAND!! was totally awesome!  Thomas and I had so much fun being there together! Obviously we couldn't help but observe lots of families there.  Some with tiny babies and toddlers and others with teenagers.  We pretty much decided it would be best to go back when Whitney is 6 and the next little one is 3 (and me not expecting yet). And then maybe again when Whitney is 9 the next is 6 and the youngest is 3 (again and me not expecting yet). :) But only in a perfect world though right!?  Because it's way way expensive!  We stayed in a cheap hotel 10 mins from the tram to the park and didn't buy much food or souvenirs and only went for 2 days!    We also decided it would be more fun if we stayed for 4-5 days! haha.  Oh man did my feet get tired, in fact by the end of the 15 hour day, the pain made it to my back! Crazy. But don't worry, I was fine the next morning.  Oh yeah you heard me 15 whole hours at Disneyland on our second day there.  From 8AM to 11PM.  The first day we spent driving to Disneyland from Las Vegas and got there around 12pm then got to California Adventure around 1pm and left at 10pm (when that park closed).

Our hotel, the Travel Lodge, wasn't terrible actually just kinda cheap which is okay for us now. The elevator wasn't working so we hauled our luggage up 3 flights of stairs (well mostly Thomas did haha).  Our key card didn't work at first and it took a while to figure it out.  It was also pretty darn warm when we got there! It's a 10 min. walk up hill both ways...jk...it's up halfway and down the other half and oppsite on our way home obviously.  We had to cross the street to walk on the side walk then cross it again to get back to parking garage to find the tram.  The tram dropped us off right at the begining of DownTown Disney. 

It's been 6 years since my last trip and it's been 9 years since Thomas has last been.

The first day we decided to just spend at California Adventure.  I love the Soarin' Over California ride!  We actually saw a family we know there! Cool!  It seemed liked we walked around a lot trying to figure out what line would be best to wait in.  Of course we got a couple of fast passes which are awesome but you always get that "cheating" feeling. 

 This was Thomas's first time on Tower of Terror which he loved.  Screamin' California was way fun too.  Aladdin is the best show ever!! I could watch it all day long.  Anyways like I said we mostly walked around because we had no idea where to start!

Thomas bought me a light-up rose! When I was a kid though we never bought anything like that.  Which I'm glad my parents stood strong against our begging, we did get a certain dollar amount for souvenirs, what ever it might have been.  They didn't buy us food either, we packed our little fannie packs full of snacks for the day. I'm not sure what Thomas did because he went with his friends' family that one time.

  We saw some Tron thing, saw the World of Colors show. Found some yummy cream cheese filled pretzels for a late dinner then went home.

Normally my family goes for like 5 or 6 days so we can go on all the rides as many times as we want.  But this trip was very short so we only got a few good ones which was still fun.

We finally made it to Disneyland! Getting there in the morning was awesome because there were no lines!  We were a little confused on what would be the best, but eventually we decided to just go for it and get on the rides instead of walking around all day! haha.   

 First was Pirates of the Caribbean, then my fave of all time Indiana Jones!! Then  I think we headed over to Space Mountain and when the sign says it's a 20 min wait, they really mean 30-40 mins, at least that seemed to be the trend.  Tomorrowland was the most popular throughout the day.  We also went on the Finding Nemo Submarine ride which was both of our first times. It was kinda stuffy in that sub. Thomas got a big burger for lunch and I got some yummy pasta! 

 Everything got really busy and we finally figured out how to use the fast passes, kinda.  The longest line was probably Star Tours.  I don't know why cause that ride has always and still did! give me a headache and stomachache at the same time. 

We didn't even bother with the Matterhorn because it doesn't have fast passes and the line always wraps around the whole mountain.  We also went on Haunted Mansion, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and Splash Mountain.  I got so wet on splash mountain that I never did dry completely even though it was about 5pm when we went on it. 

 I'm surprised how much stuff we got to do in one day! 

 We found dole pineapple whip yogurt in adventureland! We waited in that line twice because we love it so much! haha.  The second time it took 20 mins and was pretty much that long or longer all day!  Crazy.  We also bought some cotton candy because when you see every other family with it you just gotta have it! 

We also got a pretty good spot for the pararde, which was Christmas themed.  It was pretty good except they just kept playing the same song over and over again.  After that we went on the teacups! Love it! That was the one and only "little kid" ride we went on.  (Video at the end)

We got another cream cheese filled pretzel to eat.  My thinking about buying sovenirs was that if I wouldn't use it at home, then I didn't need it.  So no expensive shirts or mickey mouse ears for us! 

We made it up to toone town for maybe 5 mins before turning around.  The line to It's a small world was ridiculously long.   We hung out around Main Street USA then made our way up to see the fireworks. We walked around the huge crowd of people while watching the fire works and made it to Fantasmic just in time to get a decent spot.  Looking through peoples heads for 30 mins while standing is really tiring. 

By the way, Peter Pan and Woody were pretty much my fave childhood movies, I know they aren't princessey, but whatever.  I love the whole concept of Peter Pan and never growing up, heck if I were Wendy, I'd have stayed in Neverland! haha, but she's stronger than me.  As for Toy Story, well, I pretty much always imagined my toys were alive. In fact I knew they were playing as soon as I left the room and could here me coming back in so they quickly stood still!  haha, at least it was fun to imagine that anyway! 

We then went on one last ride...Jungle Boat Cruise!!  It was only about 10 min. wait. Our boat guide was so so funny! We were laughing the whole time!  I told Thomas that it was my dad's favorite ride and afterwards he's like, I can definitely see why it's your dad's favorite! haha.  It really is just his kinda humor!  It was a great ride to end our day with! 

We ended up sitting on a bench near the exit gate because we were so warn out!  lol.  We eventually made it to the tram to walk back to the hotel and crashed!  Of course I did text my mom and she told me all about how Whitney was. 

Whitney did great by the way!  Except her not sleeping through the night at all for my poor mom.  And all the barfing but other than that they had lots of fun.  We are glad we didn't take her on this trip.  Probably wouldn't be able to do anything we did if we had her, plus she would have been way bored! 

I'm so glad we were able to go on this trip!! Thomas and I had an amazing time! We held hands the whole time which I loved! And we pretty much never disagreed on anything!  It was so worth it!