He Said:I was in bed by 6:30 last night and up by 4. Woke the kids up about 7AM to walk to the park for the opening at 8 and total chaos. It was packed! Today was the busiest (hopefully) and hottest day of the year. About 32 degrees and packed. We were early to the park and still barely made our 9AM reservation. I dunno - maybe I'm getting more jaded, but Disney felt a little off today. I love Disneyland. I love the attention to detail, the quality. They may charge through the nose but at least you're getting an exceptional experience. This time it doesn't feel that way. It's a bit disheartening. We usually love the character breakfast. This time we were sat at a table in the corner outside. After 35 minutes of watching characters through the window, only 2 had come by our table. To their credit when I went and asked, the supervisor started sending more our way; but I had to ask. Similarly - we never buy the picture, but they always take the pictures and come by to try and sell it. We were there almost an hour and they never came by our table. I had to ask on the way out and even then they had to dig for it. The Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom ride has been broken twice for indefinite periods. I even saw garbage!
But that's the complaining. Overall it was a good, slow day. We ate. We did Astro Blasters twice in a row - still our favorite ride. Shannon gets super competitive. I don't know what it is but I have a hard time doing it. I enjoy it, but my hands cramp so much I can't make it through the ride without switching back and forth. I think her current record is 84000, mine 83200. Then we wandered through the Star Wars experience, saw Chewbacca. He's a hugger but I gotta say: it felt good. After that it was Star Tours. Ryan started crying, much like he did on the airplane, screaming that he wanted to get off. Poor guy. I guess I didn't explain it enough. I don't know why he's like that. When he was 3 he want on all of these rides and loved them. Now we can't even talk him into Pirates. He starts to freak out like we're going to kill him. Gillian found a phone case she loved. It's kind of neat. They have a display of custom cases at Star Tours that you can get customized with your name (or anything), in either English or Arabish (alien language). It's not a sticker it's not 3d printed...I'm not sure what it is. Definitely not laser printing in the traditional sense. It's baked right in there. In any case she was positively giddy. It was great to see.
I was a little unimpressed with Halloween. I don't know what I was expecting, but I thought there'd be more. Pumpkins and orange lights, and I don't know - just more. For the most par you wouldn't know it was Halloween other than the bags and packaging. But Haunted Mansion, that's impressive. They changed everything in there. It's a completely new ride. We enjoyed that. As I say, it's incredibly busy though, so we had to do fast passes and only managed to go on it twice.
What else...It's a small world, Roger Rabbit's ride (wasn't that an R rated movie?), some window shopping, a turkey leg, and then we had to leave he park by 6, for the night's Halloween parade. We walked over to California Adventures which was equally busy, but G and M found a ride they wanted to try. Other than that we sat and waited for the World of Color. We took some bad advice though and the place we stood was not optimal. It was great for seeing the water show, but not for seeing the video they project ton the water. It was impossible to see. So I threw Mara on my shoulders and we tried to edge our way closer. I think she got a good view; I got a herniated disc. Gillian was a bit out of luck which was too bad.
Out by 8, a soak in the hot tub, and bed around 10. All in all a long, hot, tiring, but good day. Some ice cream, some frozen lemonade. Oh, and we did the jungle cruise! That is a well written ride, man. Really smart humour. It speaks to me.
She Said:
Again, not much to add. Yup, my back was sore - but still moving. By the end of the day, even my little purse was causing me grief. But of course, I lifted Ryan up on my shoulders to see the World of Colour. Cuz that's what mom's (and dad's) do for their kids. I'm not sure why Ryan got so freaked out about Pirates either. Maybe we explained it too much - should have said nothing and then just hugged him tight during the one spot where it's dark. Oh well.
Gillian got a Disneyland "fun fact" book out of the library last week. She was informing us of some of those facts all day. "Did you know they pumped vanilla smell into the ......" I forget the details. But during the Haunted House ride - when you go past the gingerbread house it smells like gingerbread! Cool detail.