The 3 of us flew out of Bellingham. It was a LONG day of waiting at various airports. Yay for snacks and tons of stuff to do.
On Sunday Josh was able to join us at the park. The weather this day was perfect. Overcast and not super hot.
Here Josh and Maddy are waiting in line for Autopia. A real 'old school' ride in Tomorrowland, but fun for the kids to get to 'drive'.
The last time we were in Disneyland "It's a Small World" was closed. We were happy to get a second chance at it.
Dumbo, one of their favourite rides. The kids know that I don't enjoy the heights so much, so they are sure to fly super high.
I just love this picture of Maddy skipping down Main St. as she held on to Josh. If only her life could always be so happy and carefree.
A chance meeting with Aurora the Princess.
Since Josh was with us on this first day, we decided to stay all day at the park and watch the fireworks. Here the kids were getting tired and less enthusiastic about posing. So Josh and I took a selfie. Feels like it's been years since we've done that! Ha!
The Casey Jr. Circus Train. We love Dumbo around here. This was our second day at Disneyland. We covered a lot on our list the day before, so we had the luxury of just revisiting favourite rides and hitting a few that we missed.
To get out of the sun at noon we watched a play from Tangled with Rapunzel and Finn.
On the 3rd and 4th day we went to California Adventures Park. I REALLY wanted to have the kids get to try the Radiator Springs Racers ride, but the line ups were crazy. So I had this master plan of getting there super early for the Magic Morning (where you get to go into the park an hour before it opens). I spent so much time preparing for this. We were up and out the door by 6:30 to get to the park by 6:45. Imagine my glee when I saw that we were third in line! Then imagine how much it hurt to find out that Magic Morning wasn't available on that particular day! It all worked out in the end. We were 6th in line to get Fast Passes for the ride and we were able do all 3 rides in Cars Land and see Mater and McQueen all before 10:30AM.
When seeing Mater and McQueen up close, Ethan asked me if there were real people inside these 'characters' too.
I had to snap this picture as proof that they weren't bawling their eyes out after the Radiator Springs Racers ride.
For most of the rides we were able to squeeze all 3 of us in. There were a few rides where I was able to swap riders and go on consecutively without having to line up again. Ethan was so cute waiting for Maddy and I to go on the bumper cars in Bugs Land.
The line up for Toy Story Midway Mania ride was 45 mins. long. Luckily a family behind us kindly took Maddy on the ride because they didn't have rider swap available.
Here is Ethan's "I'm having the time of my life, but this is just my serious game face on".
The Redwood Creek Challenge Trail was a surprisingly good place to beat the heat at noon.
Up until this last day, we hadn't set foot into a single souvenir shop on both of our Disneyland Trips. We decided to let the kids have a some money to choose something they wanted. Kind of like what we did at Christmas time and getting a present for one of us. It was pretty fun and the kids were really good if I told them something was "out of their budget". I may or may not have fudged on a few occasions to stop them from buying a craptastic, cheapo piece of junk.
The pool at the hotel was awesome. It had both a sunny side and an undercover side to get out of the sun. We spent some time there everyday except for the first day. Here is my 'pool boy' fetching me some water. It was hilarious to watch him inch his way back because he didn't want to spill any.
It was an awesome trip and very doable with the kids at this age. There were definitely a few things that made going to Disneyland with 2 kids and 1 adult manageable. Here's my run down:
- Shuttle bus to and from the hotel. Best $32 spent on the trip. They were never crowded, though we didn't ever really go at peak times.
- I didn't commit to spending the ENTIRE day at the park. Just played it by ear and when it was getting too hot and we finished seeing what we wanted to see, we left and headed home to the pool. This was usually around 3pm, then we hit the pool from 4-5pm, home showered and ready to go out for dinner with Josh. Helped to keep things balanced.
- I thinking milking the "you have to help mama by being good/patient/cooperative/agreeable" really helped. The kids did really well, especially in line ups. The tears came from the midday heat.
- Stroller for Ethan. Maddy was great about walking everywhere, but our little prince happily climbed in any chance he got. It was also great for carrying our gear.
- Having been to Disneyland such a short time before made things way easier for getting my bearings straight this time around. The parks are big and mapping the area out in your mind takes a bit of time. There was less walking because we didn't get as lost.
