Whoo boy! I'm gettin' just a tad behind here!
I might be a bit more brief than usual. It's either that or I don't comment for a few more days, and that just will not do!
Princess Willow visited with Snow White first.
Wait, what??
Oh, there she is.
Willow, your mom's silly.
And we got one of those above-and-beyond PP photographers who actually took pictures of the interactions instead of just the posed pics.
Shouldn't they
all do that?
Yes. They should.
So we were going to head towards the front of the park (where we needed to be before long) and get something to drink - it was crazy-hot and very humid (again - really???? - this is SoCal, NOT Florida, people!). But almost immediately, Princess Willow spotted another princess she had to visit!
A young girl's visit to a princess shall not be denied.
That's a rule.
Two redheads??? In
one day????
And this Merida was NUTS! In a good way, of course. She was the highest-energy princess I have ever seen at any Disney park. She was goofing around with all the guests and having a great time. She tried to get Willow to teach her how to curtsey, but nearly fell over instead.
That's so great! Bet Willow had a lot of fun with her!
Willow: I wish I could be there in a few weeks! But Im going there this summer!
Wouldn't it be fun if you guys were there at the same time as me?
Willow: I wouldnt because I like spinning rides.
Well then, I'd wave each time you went by. How's that?
You could have fun on the ride and I could have fun not losing my cookies.
"To all who come to this happy place: Welcome. Disneyland is your land."
(Okay - this one is not a movie quotation, but its a VERY apt quotation and one that Im sure some of you can get without Googling.)
Neil Armstrong!
Pat Sajak!
Miss America!
No?
We found it and checked in for the Walk in Walt's Footsteps Tour - something we were both VERY excited about.
As am I, to read all about it!
Willow, however, was complaining that her feet hurt - she had insisted on wearing these tennis shoes that I had thought were too small, but she had said were fine. Yeah, they were too small. 
So we stopped in a shop and picked up some flip-flops for her. No way did we want to start a 3.5-hour tour of the park with sore feet! 
No. You definitely do not! What fun is a tour if you're too busy concentrating on your hurting feet?
Good call on taking care of that.
At about 2:30, our tour guide, Mychal, introduced himself and gave us all our earpieces, and we were set to go!
Is that pronounced like "Michael"?
If you would rather not know, just scroll past. 
Are you crazy??? Of
course I want to know!!!
One of my absolute favorite things about the tour was that, at various points, the audio would switch over to a speech that Walt made. In fact, at the very beginning, we stopped right here and listened to Walt's opening day speech at Disneyland.
You.
Had a speech.
From Walt....
I'm pretty sure I would've lost it, then and there.
Mychal also told us about how when Walt was a boy, he saw a production of Peter Pan and immediately went home and built a harness so that he could fly. I loved that little anecdote because it just highlighted how imaginative Walt was and how he was kind of a go-getter from the very beginning.
Wow. Can you imagine anyone from this generation of "always with smart phone in your face" kids doing that?
That just blows my mind.
And totally doesn't surprise me in the least.
(That he
would do it... not that he
did do it.)
We made our way down Main Street and into FL with Mychal sharing information along the way. When Mychal wasn't speaking, there was usually appropriate music playing through the earpieces.
Did you get a lot of funny looks from people since you all must've had huge grins the whole time?
Wait. What am I saying?
It's Disney!
Huge grins are the norm here, right?
However, PP is one of the attractions that this particular tour experiences (at least this time anyway - I think this is pretty standard). So our guide kindly took us through the exit so that we could experience this long-time favorite attraction without the wait.
Nice!
Oh, sorry, we really enjoyed Peter Pan!
One of my all time faves!
Very close with BTMRR and HM.
Is it any different from Florida's?
Our guide shared with us how Walt and a friend, when in the Army, had talked about one day building a raft and going down the Mississippi River like Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer. But when Walt got home, his girlfriend had gone off and married someone else, the friend was busy getting married, the dog they had shared had died or something along those lines; anyway, things were kind of bleak, and the Mississippi River dream looked dead. Of course, we're talking about Walt here, so the dream didn't really die - when he built Disneyland, he created his own version of the dream right there in Disneyland with the rafts and paddle boat.
Can you imagine that?
"Well, I kinda wanted to raft down the Mississippi... guess I'll just build my own."
"What? Raft?"
"No. River."
Our guide showed us the beautiful (?) petrified tree that Walt once gave to Lillian as an anniversary present.
Yeah, but how do you put it on a ring?
we learned that Pirates was originally going to be called Blue Bayou something (sorry - memory fading here)
Interesting. Did not know that.
And nor, apparently, do you!
Similarly, the Haunted Mansion was going to be the House of Weird and was also going to be a walk-through.
That one I knew. I've seen the drawings, too.
No where near as good as it turned out, I think.
Then again, it would be nice to be able to stand in one spot and admire everything for as long as you'd like.
(And I will note that Willow, although only 7 years old, was paying enough attention during this tour that she brought up this topic while we were in line for HM in January 2015, so that we talked about how this was originally going to be a walk-through. So I dont think these types of tours are lost on young children at all.)
A tour that interests all ages. Not easy to come by.
I remember, when I was a kid, there were gondolas that went over the park and through the Matterhorn. Well, I guess the gondolas were there first, but they required this big tower in the middle of the park. Walt didn't care for that too much, so while on vacation in Switzerland, he had the idea to create the Matterhorn to cover up the tower. And then, of course, he felt that it was necessary to use that space, so they had to dream up a coaster-type ride that could go inside it. Love it!
Cool story!
(Yes. I'm loving reading all this. "Scroll past", indeed!)
Can't wait! Thanks for the updates!
I love that Merida was so into it and so much fun. It makes such a difference in the experience.
