Previously on Happiness is a Disneyland BTMRR FastPass: We wait forever to get into Aladdin, Asile posts a lot of videos, we have ANOTHER photo-op, and we ditch Sunny California for Imagination Land.
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On our way across the plaza to Disneyland (oh, how I LOVE park-hopping at Disneyland!
) we stopped so Becks could have her picture taken in front of her initial.
I'm so sad that there isn't an "E" in California.
Oh, and btw, this is where we go photo-less for the next few hours...for some reason, I did not take ANY photos from before the afternoon parade till the evening parade. I can't fathom why, I just didn't. I'll try and remember the sequence of events as best I can, and hope that my recap will be enough to fill you in on what we did.
So we entered Disneyland, and we decided to stake out a seat on the sidewalk for the parade which was to be starting soon. We had not seen Grandpa yet, but he had said he was in Tomorrowland and would be heading our way soon. We found a nice seat on the shady side of the street (it was hilarious; one side of the street was crammed with people while the other side, the sunny side, had only a few brave souls).
Since we had some time to kill, I decided to take Grandma and Becks to the Tiki Room and meet up with Grandpa here. We called him to confirm the change of destination, and off we went! There was a TON of people, all trying to go the opposite direction of us, it seemed, but we managed our way through the crowd as best we could.
We arrived at the Tiki Room, and Grandpa was not there yet. They were JUST starting to let people into the show room, and since there was a fair amount of people there I knew we couldn't just sit and wait for him, and waiting for the next show was not acceptable since we would miss the parade then. So we went in rather reluctantly, but I kept an eye out. More people flowed in, and still no Grandpa.
Finally, I spotted him making his way through the turnstiles. I ran up to the entrance of the show room and flagged him down, and made sure he knew where he was. Soon he'd made his way to our seats, and he and Grams sat together and Becks and I sat together, one row up.
The performance was very lovely, as usual, but I was getting a bit antsy because I was really, really worried that we were going to miss the pre-parade.
And why should I care?
Well, if you have any knowledge of Disneyland in the recent past, and if you've figured out at least one thing about me from these trip reports, it's that I LOVE Narnia. And in fact, that day I was in Disneyland, May 16th, was the day that PRINCE CASPIAN was coming out in theaters. And preceding their regular parade, Disney was having a pre-parade featuring none other than the Prince himself. I mean, what Narnia fan can pass that up?
I knew I'd have other chances to catch the pre-parade before I went home, but since it was opening day, I was really wanting to see it on THAT day, just to say I did. And the pre-parade is never on a set time schedule; it just comes out ten or fifteen minutes before the regular parade.
So, once the show was over, I BOOKED it over to where mom had been saving our seats, only to be informed that the pre-parade had come and gone not less that five minutes before.
Aww, rats!
But never fear! I was told that I could still catch the evening parade later in the day. Thank heavens for small blessings, I guess!
So we sat around for a bit until the parade started, which had nothing of notible interest except that they had to make an unscheduled stop to allow Rafiki to be helped off the Lion King float and escorted backstage...I can only assume that the poor CM got heat exhaustion or something of that ilk. It really was roasting by this time.
When the parade was over, we decided to exercise the perks that come with having a wheelchair and go on Pirates of the Caribbean. We walked from Main Street to New Orleans Square via Frontierland, and I'll have you know that going up that little hill in the heat while pushing a wheelchair was NOT easy. I was so winded by the time we got to Pirates and was temporarily out of water, so I had to just stand in the shade and cool off for a few minutes. Mom and Gramps and Gram ran into someone that they'd known a long time ago, so they stood around talking for a few minutes while I attempted to catch my breath and stay out of the way of people exiting Pirates (did I mention that's where we were?).
When they were finished talking, we went through the exit up to the unloading dock, and waited for a CM to let us on. It was nice not having to wait, although when you exercise wheelchair rights you can't be picky about what kind of seat you get. I definitely prefer the front row but we got seated in the third and fourth row, which was totally fine with me. What wasn't fine with me was who got seated in front of us, and I'll explain why.
We got seated behind a set of teenagers, three boys in the front row, three girls in the second. These kids were apparently bent on breaking as many rules as they possibly could. As we approached the first drop, the three girls stood up in their seats; I guess standing up on the plunge is more exciting, or whatever. Just as they were standing up, a voice came over the loudspeaker telling them to remain seated. They sat down right away, but when the boat was just about to go down the flume, they stood up again.
As we were traveling down that little stretch to the next drop, the CM on the loudspeaker came again and told them to STAY SEATED or he would stop the ride. By this time I'm starting to get quite peeved and hope that they listen and stay seated; what do these stupid kids want to do, get themselves hurt? Not while I'm sitting behind them, no sirree!
But you can only imagine my wrath when, regardless of the CM's stern warning, they STOOD UP AGAIN. I was FUMING.
We didn't end up getting stopped, but the ride was totally ruined for me. I sat back, took some deep berths and tried to calm down before I did something I might regret.
The rest of the ride past without any other incidents, and I'm almost embarrassed to post this, but you'd understand that I was just well, a teensy bit happy when we approached the unloading dock and there was a big burly CM standing there waiting for the teens. He ordered them out of the boat and drew them aside for a stern dressing-down. He and the group of kids were blocking where our wheelchair was, so I couldn't leave until they did, so I did catch some of the conversation. I was happy that there had been some consequences for their actions, and I could only hope that the stern warning they got would stick with them for the rest of the day, but judging from their demeanor afterwards it didn't look too promising.
Oh well.
After Pirates, we decided to head back over to DCA for the only showing of the new Pixar Pals Parade that day. We got a nice seat up near the entrance, and since I'd heard tales of how WET people got from this water-spraying parade, and since it was super hot, I was REALLY hoping I would get doused.
Guess what! I barely got sprinkled!
It's Murphy's Law, I tell ya...when you don't want to get wet, you get soaked, and when you DO want to get wet, you stay bone dry!
Oh, and the fire effect on Jack-Jack wasn't working either.
Once the parade was done, mom managed to snag a bench near the entrance of Condor Flats and she and Grandma elected to sit on it for the next few hours so we'd have a nice seat for the Electrical Parade. They switched out sitting there for the LONGEST time; at least three hours!
Once they were settled in, I decided to head back to Disneyland for the evening parade and took Becks with me so she could get her picture taken in front of the Castle. We booked it across the plaza, and staked out a spot near the entrance, right in front of the gate where I knew the parade would be starting out from.
Here's my video of the event...note the group of teens near us who provided some nice thematic whoops and cheers.
So once I had gotten that out of the way, we headed up to Main Street to the castle.
On our way up, I spotted Mary Poppins and Bert doing their little sing-along, so I took Becks over so she could get a photo with them.
This makes me laugh because they were in the middle of singing Supercalifragilistic and barely even stopped to smile; they were still singing even while I was taking the picture!
Once at the castle, I took Becks to a little spot off to the side, where there were less people but you could still get a nice shot of the castle.
Becks took this picture of me...she's not the handiest with a camera, but I LOVE this shot. I don't know why; I'm guessing it's because of the tilt of the camera and the fact that you get the whole castle in the shot and I'm just peeking out the corner.
After I was done with that, I was attempting to take a picture of both me and Becks in front of the castle while holding the camera when a guy walked up and offered to take it for us. I hesitated for a SPLIT second; after all we were alone, there was no one else around, and I wasn't sure if I was going to hand off my camera to a strange dude. He must have read my thoughts because he said that he was a CM (albeit in street clothes; day off or heading into his shift; I don't know) and showed me a badge. I would have let him take the picture anyway, but it was nice of him to offer up that information.
So there's the photo!
Next Up: Soarin to a Cotton-Candy-Soup Bowl Electrical Parade!
I only had 5 kids - what a fantastic mom you have!
It's nice to know that someone is reading this, lol!
), but that crazy Big Thunder Mountain FP always alluded me.
Sorry, I guess I'm just home teached! 
