It's a California Adventure! (with added Las Vegas) Day 14

[Lizzybear]

Pre-trip
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Day 10
Day 11
Day 12
Day 13

30th September 2008

Today was to be our last Disneyland day (booo!) and was also a 9am 'Magical Morning' (people with 3 day or more tickets are entitled to one on certain days of the week) However, I think the concept is sort of negated when the entire population of Anaheim are in the line for the turnstiles!! It was almost reaching DCA so there was only one thing for it: Run! Once through the turnstiles we did just that (well, more of a brisk pace if i'm honest!) towards Space Mountain and it was great, definitely the best Space Mountain i've been on. I bought our ride picture in the overpriced 3D frame (which has actually ended up being one of my favourite holiday souvenirs =) and we headed to the Matterhorn, Mad Tea Party and then Indiana Jones.

By now the park had officially opened and the line was really long so we ended up getting fastpasses for Indy then rode on Splash Mountain and bought another ride pic (cheaper frame this time..!)

On the way to SM we found Jack Sparrow with no wait for pictures, score!

There was a Halloween themed area near SM which had some awesome pumpkins so I had to snap a few pictures.

Toontown had just opened so this was our next stop, for the Roger Rabbit ride and a look around the character houses. The whole Toontown area in DL is much more detailed than the one in WDW, we didn't even scratch the surface!

Clearly a girl after my own heart!

 

[Lizzybear]

It was finally time for our Indy fastpass so we headed there next (awesome!!) then decided to have lunch at Cafe Orleans. Since we hadn't had breakfast that day we were starving, though of course this was all in the name of sampling the monte cristo sandwich (meat one for me, cheese one for Steve) and some pomme frites to share. Bill was $40ish and the meal was delicious but I had to admit defeat with the monte cristo and ended up leaving a small piece! We decided to have a break in the hotel again so we headed there, with me buying a Monsters Inc snowglobe on the way out. It was another reeeally hot day and tons of people were commenting on it (not just us cold blooded brits!) After a nice break we returned to Disneyland and had a look at the 50 years exhibit which was really interesting and the movie with Steve Martin and Donald Duck is worth a watch.

All these tickets were part of a private collection that someone had lent Disneyland, how cool!

There was a gallery bit at the end of the exhibition where you can actually buy the art on display, if you have a spare few grand!

I think this one is my favourite!

Next, we crossed over to DCA and went on Soarin' using the single rider queue then shared a frozen lemonade while waiting for the Pixar Play Parade to start. It was cute but the whole spraying the crowd with water thing seemed unnecessary.. Discouraging photography maybe?!

 

[Lizzybear]

After the parade we crossed back over to Disneyland and did some more Fantasyland rides as by this point a lot of the families with young children had called it a day and the lines were much more bearable. We racked up Alice in Wonderland (in DL they have 2 Alice rides, the teacups and this one which is similar to Snow White, Winnie the Pooh etc), Snow White's Scary Adventure, Peter Pan's Flight (where we encountered the most blatant queue jumping i've ever come across: When we were nearly at the front a woman and her daughter asked the CM if their SEVEN family members could join them and they let them in through the wheelchair entrance!! I think an adult taking a little kid to the toilet is one thing but 7 people?! I know CMs try to defuse/avoid conflicts with guests but it's a bit unfair when loads of other families were waiting, including many with young children) and Pinnochio. We decided to call it a day around 7pm and headed to Downtown Disney where I got a DCA T-shirt, pin, earrings, keyring and Christmas decoration (tradition for every Disney trip now!) from World of Disney before we went back to the hotel room. Steve got takeout from Millie's (brinner again!!) but I wasn't very hungry so I just got some snacks from the hotel store before we both flopped.

 

[mandymouse]

A great last day in Disneyland I love your parade photos

 

[natalielongstaff]

Great day Libby, love the pumpkin pictures

 

[mark&sue]

Brilliant parade photos


susan

 

[florida sun]

Fantastic photos and a brilliant day

 

[jjk]

fantasic pictures

 

[SusanEllen]

Can't imagine how you could have gotten more from a single day! Thanks for including the wonderful jack-o-lantern shots. They look like real carvings rather than molded resin decorations. Had there been a carving contest? You mentioned the Pixar Parade squirting water (or bubble machine on cold days) perhaps being included to discourage photos. If that's so, you did an admirable job of ignoring the discouragement--that's the most thoroughly documented I've ever seen that parade. You had a great vantage for getting those pictures.

I agree with you about Space Mountain and about Toon Town. So glad you got to ride Roger Rabbit, Indiana Jones, and the other Disneylad exclusives like Alice and the Matterhorn. Also glad you were able to fit in some time to see the artifacts and film about the first 50 years. You really did get a lot done, didn't you?