I won’t be quite as wordy with all the days of our vacation as I was with our first day at Disneyland. I promise.
Our second day started incredibly early. One of the perks of staying at the resort is early entry days into the parks. This was our day to go in an hour before opening. That meant we could get into Disneyland at 7 am. And that meant, that we were out of our hotel room and waiting in line before 6:30.
It wasn’t even hard to get the boys up and ready that early, but Tommy didn’t appreciate being rushed through his breakfast!
Our goal was to hit Fantasyland and do all the fun kiddie rides before the park got busy. We did a pretty good job of it. We’d done 12 rides by about 10:30, maybe 11:00. The kids loved going from one ride to the next with only a 5 minute wait. The Peter Pan ride took closer to 20 minutes, as did the Storybook Boat ride, but they were perfectly happy chappies!
I got to ride on Dumbo with Ricky. You get to control how high your Dumbo flies and Ricky wanted ours as high as possible. I made a big fuss about being scared but there was no sympathy. He just told me to enjoy myself. Smart kid!
Kevin would only let Ricky and Billy ride with me on the Tea Cups. He seemed to think that I was going to make my cup spin fast or something.
I wasn’t able to get top speed by myself, but fast enough that we were dizzy by the end! See Billy’s arms up? A proud momma moment, right there!
Want to see me even more proud? Look who else was sporting “no hands” on the ride …
By lunch time, the boys were done. They stayed in the hotel and napped while Kevin did some homework. Mom and I went to California Adventure for the afternoon for a little bit of shopping and to see the Aladdin show. It was very well done and I wish the boys could have seen it, but it was much better for them to get some rest that afternoon.
That night we went to Goofy’s Kitchen for dinner. There is a nice buffet, but even better there are characters that roam around and visit you at your table.
For all the magic they found at Disneyland, my boys weren’t overly thrilled with the characters. They could take or leave them. Well, Tommy just wanted to leave them. From a distance they were fine, but up close … he was NOT a fan!
This little Minnie was great. She made the boys warm up to her. She even escorted us to our table!
I think Chip and Dale are great. For as little as they actually show up in Disney movies, they are some of the most playful characters at Disneyland.
I had to quickly explain who this next character was before he got to our table … Geppetto from Pinocchio isn’t a character we regularly talk about at our house.
Billy seemed to like him, though.
If I remember right, the Mad Hatter is pretty annoying in “Alice in Wonderland.” He wasn’t much better in real life. The boys weren’t impressed either.
The characters just weren’t as much fun as they’ve been in the past. I wasn’t sure if it was because my boys weren’t bouncing up and down to see them or if it was because my boys ate dessert first and were a bit sticky looking. After Geppetto and the Mad Hatter’s visits, I was pretty much ready to go. Tommy was staying as far from these characters as possible – my lap on the other side of the table …
Then Dale came and saved the whole experience for me. No fears about sticky fingers or a general lack of enthusiasm. He just came right up and loved on my boys …
It worked. They all got more excited. I got more excited. Then Dale got down on Rusty’s level and my heart melted.
See. Ahhhh…
You know it is a good character when Tommy even warms up a little …
Of course, then a princess had to come along. The boys weren’t out and out rude to Cinderella, they know better than that, but I wouldn’t exactly say they gave her a warm reception. Ricky wasn’t really thrilled to have his picture taken with her. The stinker.
It was fun to see all those characters and experience them. So much better than having to stand in line at the park to wait for your 15 seconds of their attention!
After dinner we couldn’t go to our rooms because the maid was doing her work, so we let the boys run around in a grassy area.
It is a secluded area with a gazebo. When we were there 3 years ago, a couple got married in that spot.
Having my mom along was a lot of fun. That night she offered to put the boys to bed for us so that Kevin and I could go back into the parks by ourselves. Mom is the coolest.
Kevin and I hit some of the rides including ones that the boys weren’t big enough for and we just enjoyed being together. I’ll just add that going on Thunder Mountain (perhaps my favorite ride there) while the Disneyland Fireworks are going off overhead is pretty darn cool!
