Just Me, My Husband, and Ten Thousand Baptists--A June 2022, First-timer's Disneyland Trip Report [COMPLETE]

[Elizabeth Smith]

Welcome! Introductions and Our First Three Days in California​

Hello! This is not my first trip report, but it is my first for Disneyland! My husband and I have taken two trips to WDW in 2017 and 2019, but we've never ventured west and, honestly, we never had any interest in doing so. So what inspired us to make the trip? Well, the Southern Baptist Convention did. This year, the meeting was held at the Anaheim convention center. We've never attended the convention before, but due to a confluence of circumstances, we were interested in going. The fact that we could convert this into a vacation just made it more appealing!

We were in California from June 13th - June 19th, with our three Disney days being June 16th-18th.

Let me introduce myself! My name is Elizabeth, I'm 27 years old. I'm a long time roller coaster enthusiast and theme park fanatic. I like Disney, too, of course. My favorite rides at the Disney Parks are Haunted Mansion, Space Mountain, Expedition Everest, and Splash Mountain (the WDW version). I have new favorites from this trip that I'll talk more about later! My favorite characters are Winnie the Pooh, Dumbo, and Rapunzel.

My travel buddy is my husband Jacob, age 28. He became a theme park fan after marrying me; I dragged him into it kicking and screaming but he loves it just as much as I do now. Many of his favorites overlap with mine.

(This is my husband's favorite pic of us from this trip).

The week leading up to our trip was a little chaotic, but fun. My parents traveled to visit us for several days. Once they headed back home, we had just a few days to pack and prepare, which included cleaning our whole house again, since we would be having a dog sitter for the first time. I had a lot of anxiety around this since we've never left our fur baby with anyone other than family before. But we live far away from family now, so this was really our only option. It ended up working out really well! Philo, our dog, got along very well with his babysitter, so I was able to enjoy our trip guilt-free! Yay!


We departed on Monday June 13th, flying from Lovefield in Dallas to Long Beach in Orange County.

The weather when we landed was unreal. It was a little after 2pm and a little over seventy degrees, fully sunny with a perfect ocean breeze. If you live in Texas, you'll understand what a relief that was to us.

After we got dropped at our Air BnB, which wasn't quite ready yet when we arrived, we changed our clothes and hitched an Uber to Crystal Cove. We had an early dinner at the Shake Shack (not the chain, a local place), which felt more like a normal dinner time to us, considering the time change.

I loved the burger. It was really good and actually pretty reasonably priced. For the month prior to our trip, I had not been partaking of desserts to try and curb my terrible sugar addiction, but once we hit the west coast, all bets were off. I ordered a peanut butter milkshake and it fulfilled my every desire. It, however, was a bit overpriced. The view of the beach made it worth it.

After we finished our meal, we made our way to the beach.


We walked up and down the beach for hours. While we were there, we made our first Baptist connection, and a very personal one at that. In the distance we saw the pastor who preached at our church before my husband came and took the job walking with his family. He was in town for the convention, obviously, but the odds were still incredible that of all the beaches in Orange County, he'd be at the same one as us! We stopped and chatted for a while. This was actually the first time I got to meet him and his wife in person, so it was a really nice coincidence!


I fully expected to swim, but it wasn't very hot outside and the waves kind of scared me. The Pacific ocean is very different from the Atlantic or the Gulf of Mexico! But I enjoyed getting my feet wet.

Jacob did snap a picture of me representing Texas with my Buc-ee's bathing suit, though!
We watched the sunset on the beach, then headed back to our Air BnB to rest up for the night before the convention the next morning.




The next day, we used a city bus pass that we'd purchased to ride over to the Anaheim convention center, to save some money on Ubering. The five day bus pass costs less than a single Uber trip, so if we used it at all, it saved us money.
I won't bore you with the ins and outs of the Southern Baptist Convention Annual meeting, since SBC polity is barely interesting even to those of us who actually care about it. Suffice it to say, I was mostly pleased with the outcomes of all the voting, and we got to see several friends of ours from years of being involved in SBC churches and attending a Southern Baptist University.

The first day of the convention, we grabbed a quick lunch at Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles, which is down the street from the convention center. There was a long wait to get a table, due to all the Baptists, so I had to wolf it down too quickly to snap any pictures. But the flavor of the waffle was really unique and the chicken was likewise very well seasoned. We went with a friend from college and he also liked it, so it got thumbs up from all of us. It lived up to the hype, for sure.

That night, we had dinner at an Alumni dinner for our University. This was really nice, since we got to see a few other friends that we haven't seen in about three years. We also got to chat with professors and see both of the presidents that were in office while we were at school there. The food at the dinner was decent and my husband won a door prize! He got adorable socks with our schools mascot on them. I got more pictures of the dinner, but they have other people in them, so I'll just share this one of my husband looking put-out.


Day two of the convention was even less exciting than the first. We had lunch from a taco truck, which was decent. We got to chat with a friend from a church we attended in Kentucky for a long while, too. It was nice to reconnect with her. At this point, I was sleepy, so during the lunch break I took a little rest outside on a bench and I snapped this picture of the bright blue sky.


When the convention ended that evening, we walked to get Boba drinks then took the bus back to the Air BnB.


We ordered Door Dash and got some Hawaiian food.

The best part was the macaroni salad, but there were some pot stickers that were decent too. I was not overly impressed, so I ordered a dozen donuts from Randy's. I didn't get any pics of the donuts, but they were really good and served us well for the rest of the week.

That covers our first three days in California! We got in bed early that night to get ready for a rope-drop morning at Disneyland the next day.

P.S. Our Air BnB was kind of junky, to be honest. There was an air conditioning unit, but it was locked and the owner of the unit didn't know how to make it work. So we slept with the windows open and a fan on each night. This was a fine solution, but not as preferable as just having functioning A/C. Luckily, California isn't as blisteringly hot as Texas. Also, we asked for an iron in our room and, though we were told we'd get one, they never got it. Oh well. At least it was cheap!

 

[Elizabeth Smith]

Table of Contents
Welcome! Introductions and Our First Three Days in California
Rope Drop Disaster (Or not)
Our First Souvenir
Star Wars, Star Wars, Star Wars
Night Time Shenanigans
Single Rider, AKA the VIP Line
The Throes of Indecision
Taking It All In
Dampened Spirits​

 

[evilmommie]

Yeah!!!! Super fun pics. Following along.

 

[Elizabeth Smith]

Rope Drop Disaster! (Or not)​

Early on Thursday morning, we left our Air BnB to catch the bus to the Disneyland stop. We had gotten to bed at a reasonable hour the night before, so waking up early to take public transit wasn't too bad. Jacob ate a leftover donut from Randy's, but I skipped breakfast.
We waited at a security checkpoint for about a half hour before we were permitted to walk onto the Esplanade. We experienced another period of waiting, right near the turnstiles, of another half hour. Then, we got into the park.

We had only to wait another thirty minutes for the park to actually open.

Our top choice for rope drop was Space Mountain, so we waited by the Tomorrowland entrance. We also started securing our first Genie+ Lightning Lane of the day at this point. I don't exactly recall what attraction we chose. Many of our selections were irrelevant because the ride would go down at some time during our return window and we'd be given one of those "any time" Lightning Lanes. But we tried to squeeze as many rides in before our first Lightning Lane window closed. I wish you could pick your return time, as it worked with the Fastpass+ system in WDW. I also wish the app wasn't so annoying to navigate. But generally, Genie+ was worthwhile, and the included Photo Pass, in my opinion, made choosing Genie+ a no-brainer. We did not choose to pay for any individual LL, though, so you may be wondering why we didn't go to Rise of the Resistance first thing instead of Space. Well, my philosophy is that I'd rather get a ton of stuff done in the first hour and a half or so, rather than spend any time waiting for the headliner.

But, while we were waiting at the rope, we got the news that Space Mountain was down. So we looked to our left and saw the Matterhorn, adjusting our plans with little fuss. (So, it really wasn't a disaster at all).

I was surprised that more people didn't head that way with us.


Jacob's review: two thumbs up. Personally, I agree. A lot of people complain about how rough the Matterhorn is, but I find it fine. The roughness is about on par with Space Mountain in WDW and is nowhere close to as rough as just about any other rollercoaster I've been on that was designed by Arrow Dynamics. Some people say it's gotten worse over the years, but as someone who was riding it for the first time and feeling totally comfortable, I wonder if the riders are the ones changing (getting old) rather than the ride itself? Food for thought.

While we were in the general area, we rode Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters.

I absolutely suck at this ride, and I don't know why! I followed all the Youtube tutorials. I think I just have bad aim.


Next, we walked through the park toward the Haunted Mansion.




Of course, WDW's Haunted Mansion is a little longer, but this version features the Hat Box Ghost!


We noticed that Splash didn't have any wait at all yet, so we headed there next!

We had a nice, mostly uneventful ride on Splash. We were the only two in the boat.


It wasn't that hot outside yet, but we didn't really get wet at all so it was fine, even though our ride photo looks like we're in a great amount of pain.

It was a little after 9am after our first four rides. We made our way to Fantasyland next and we waited in our first line.

Though Snow White is by all means a pretty dinky ride, the practical effects in it are really good and I like the scene in the dwarves' home that smells like pie.



After this, we made our way to the next mountain!



Big Thunder was a ton of fun! I think this version is awesome. I really like the explosion effect during one of the chain lifts. I think it's also very smooth and comfortable. If I recall correctly, this was our first Lightning Lane usage of the day as well, which is why we left Fantasyland just to head back shortly thereafter. We had another LL for Indiana Jones, but it went down, and that I remember well. We got an anytime LL to use later, of course. We spent a good part of the day obsessively checking the app to see if Indiana Jones or Space Mountain had come back online.
So, as I mentioned, (after Jacob took a brief potty break, during which I saw Genie and he complimented my bright orange dress), we made our way back into Fantasyland. We were emotionally cleansed by singing dolls.

What an amazing view!



I enjoyed spotting the different Disney characters in this version of small world.

I definitely agreed with the sentiment of this postcard. California in June is far superior to Texas in June, anyway.


I think I'll leave this part here! We're pretty much at the end of what I would consider the "Rope Drop" period, since at this time of the morning, lines were beginning to build and we weren't walking on to everything anymore. small world may have been the last thing we walked on without a Lightning Lane. For reference, it was about 10am.

​

 

[Elizabeth Smith]

Yeah!!!! Super fun pics. Following along.

And thank you!

 

[CandyMouse]

Looks like a fun trip, great pictures! Big Thunder and Matterhorn are two of my favorites, I don't feel that Matterhorn is that rough and I'm in my mid 50s!

 

[Elizabeth Smith]

Looks like a fun trip, great pictures! Big Thunder and Matterhorn are two of my favorites, I don't feel that Matterhorn is that rough and I'm in my mid 50s!

Either we're super tough or everyone else is wimpy! Thanks for joining in and commenting!

 

[Elizabeth Smith]

Our First Souvenir​

Where we left off, we'd just had a baptism by song in it's a small world. The rope drop advantage was now moot and we had some time until our next Lightning Lane window. What we did next might seem random, but since we were nearby, we decided to catch the train at the Toontown station and ride up to Main St.

The reason we did this was to pop into one of the shops and pick up our first-time visitor buttons.

My first souvenir of the trip! The cast member very meticulously wrote our names on our buttons for us. It looked so cute! Unfortunately, as the trip went on, our names smudged clear off!
After this brief detour, we walked up the center of main street, back into Fantasyland.

We stood and watched the carousel for a moment because this marching band was playing while riding! It was really special to see and listen! After we soaked in the atmosphere, we got in line for a ride we had been really looking forward to!


Mr. Toad's Wild Ride is similar to Snow White's ride, but you get to go to hell in this ride, so that makes it truly special. (As a Baptist, that's the closest I'll ever get. )

I really tried to marinate in the unique flavor of this park, the little details in the building designs. Fantasyland, especially, has what I would call a very "quaint" feeling.

It was then time for a tour of Adventureland!
We started with Jungle Cruise.

Our skipper was alright. Usually, the first ride on Jungle Cruise of any trip is the best, because the jokes seem fresher, but I think we actually had a better ride at a later time.

After Jungle Cruise, we used the bathroom and waited for a showing of the Enchanted Tiki Room.

The scenery in the Tropical Hideaway area is immaculate. I relished in listening to all the Hawaiian gods introduce themselves. Many of the voices were familiar, their voice actors being recognizable Disney legends.


There was pretty much a full house, which always makes the show feel a little more special.
We then rounded out our time in Adventureland with our first trip on Indiana Jones adventure using a Lightning Lane. I only really got one picture while we were in the queue.

On this ride, all effects were functioning, including the rolling rock. I was blown away by this attraction, to say the least.
By this point, we were feeling pretty ravenous, especially me, since I'd had no donut for breakfast. But luckily, it was time for our Lunch reservation at Cafe Orleans.

It would have been nice to have a seat closer to the water, but we were well shaded, so I really can't complain.

Jacob ordered a Mint Julep, which is, to me, a nice minty lemonade. Since we've returned home, Jacob has attempted to make homemade Mint Julep, but his version tasted like a Ricola. Too medicinal. Oh well.
I didn't get a picture, since as I said we were very hungry, but we shared a famous Monte Cristo sandwich. I really didn't want to overdo it here. I was interested in so many different snacks throughout the park, so that's why we split the sandwich. Half was satisfying enough, though. I really loved it. Probably the best Monte Cristo I've ever had. Very crispy! The fries were super flavorful as well. Even though I don't have a picture of it, my mouth is watering at the memory.
After lunch, since we were by the river, we did something I was dying to try!

We did the Davy Crockett Canoes! I don't know how popular this attraction is, but I had a ton of fun doing it. Our canoe was full of go-getters, so we made our way around the river pretty quickly. Our guide actually complimented us on our rowing prowess.
Of course, all that activity worked up a sweat, so we headed to Hungry Bear for a refreshing beverage!

This is some manner of peach tea slush.

It sort of matches my look, no? Anyway, it was super refreshing and good. Not too sweet, which is nice in the middle of the day.

I think I'll end this part here. By my count, we had experienced twelve rides plus the Tiki Room by this point in the day, in addition to having Lunch and a snack. In case you're wondering, we had the peach tea slush at Hungry Bear at about 2PM. So far a very productive day, by my standards!

 

[Elizabeth Smith]

Star Wars, Star Wars, Star Wars​

By this time in the day, Space Mountain had also come back online and we had a Lightning Lane for it. So we went back to Tomorrowland. We had a bit of time, so we got in line for Star Tours.
This line was incredibly slow and miserable. It was posted at 50 minutes and took every bit of it. We were trapped in a part of the queue inside the building, before the real flashy part, for what seemed like an eternity. This is one of the spots where you really notice how tightly squeezed in all the lines are in this park.

Eventually, we made it on the ride and we had a fabulous time on it. I really enjoyed the sequence of scenes we got to see.

Then we finally got to ride Space Mountain!

I think this version is much better than WDW's version. It's smoother and faster. I do not like the Star Wars theming, really, but I'd be lying to say that the effects aren't cool. Watching the lasers blasting around you actually makes it feel faster and more exciting. It's incredibly well done.
We kept the Star Wars streak alive, heading into Galaxy's Edge.



We had a LL for Millenium Falcon Smuggler's Run to use.

I was an engineer, of course. We rode with a family with two kids, who chose to be pilots.

I didn't really enjoy it. From the engineer's seat, it's hard to see what's going on, especially since you have to look at the panels on the side all the time to try to hit your glowing buttons, or whatever. I wasn't really that impressed. For interactive flight simulators, I prefer Mission Space at Epcot. (Unpopular Opinion???)
Now it was time to face our longest queue so far, suck it up and wait for Rise of the Resistance. The posted wait was 90 minutes, and it was pretty close to that. Maybe more like 85. But the line kept moving, so it didn't feel that bad.



The line is also interesting. I didn't know much about the ride or the queue, really. There's actually a Star Tours-esque ride in the middle of the queue. It's really fun. The ride is neat, but the sets are what is really impressive. The track layout feels huge. My favorite scene is in a massive room with AT-ATs in it. The scale of the attraction blew me away. The best part of the actual ride is a little drop. I wish the drop were bigger and more thrilling. Pregnant women are advised not to ride, but I feel that it's pretty gentle. If they're going to say it's too intense for pregnant women, then they should really up the adrenaline factor. But that's just my opinion. Overall, it's well-done and even someone like me, who doesn't care about Star Wars at all, was able to get a lot out of it.
It was now about 6:30, so the next order of business was to get a corn dog from the Little Red Wagon.

I really enjoyed this "meal." I had been looking forward to a legendary Disneyland corn dog, and it did not disappoint. The batter was great and really stuck to the dog. They served it with a cheese sauce which was really nice, especially mixed with mustard.
We looped back into Fantasyland to ride Pinocchio's Daring Journey.

It was maybe the least interesting of the little Fantasyland movie rides that we'd seen so far. But the art was still good and the ride very well maintained.
At this point, we decided we really needed some castle pictures!



I believe that we ducked into Adventureland and rode Indiana Jones again at this point, since I snapped an incredibly blurry photo of the stand-by wait time. It was about 7:20 at the time.
By the time we got off, it was time to stake out a spot for the Main Street Electrical Parade. This day was the actual day of the 50th Anniversary! Which I didn't realize until two days later... But I think I'll leave all of the night time shows for the next part!

 

[fireworks fan]

Just wanted to say I’m enjoying your trip report. I’d like to try the monte crisco sandwich too, if it’s available gluten free.

 

[deejdigsdis]

Great report! Funny that you thought Pinocchio was the least interesting. That was my daughter's favorite ride of all in January. She was 5 at the time. She wasn't familiar with the movie. We just thought it was the oddest thing that she kept requesting to ride it. When I asked her what she liked about it she said she liked the beginning, when it shows the puppets. Out of all the things in the park to enjoy looking at...

 

[Elizabeth Smith]

Just wanted to say I’m enjoying your trip report. I’d like to try the monte crisco sandwich too, if it’s available gluten free.

I don't remember seeing a gluten-free option, but you might be able to ask. Thanks for joining in!

Great report! Funny that you thought Pinocchio was the least interesting. That was my daughter's favorite ride of all in January. She was 5 at the time. She wasn't familiar with the movie. We just thought it was the oddest thing that she kept requesting to ride it. When I asked her what she liked about it she said she liked the beginning, when it shows the puppets. Out of all the things in the park to enjoy looking at...

I'm not too surprised to hear that my interests don't align with a five year old's. LOL. Just goes to show how Disney parks have something for everyone. <3

 

[Elizabeth Smith]

Night Time Shenanigans​

We got ready to stake out a spot for the Main Street Electrical Parade.

But you may notice that we've had a bit of a wardrobe change! Before the parade started we were feeling really cold, which took us by surprise since it was, you know, June. But it gets cool at night in California! So we bought some sweatshirts, which really helped.

The parade started! We were watching from a location in Fantasyland, near the Tea Cups. It was really nostalgic. I watched a version of this parade in WDW when I was 12 years old. The song was probably my favorite part. It was so cute!








Our phone's batteries were getting pretty low at this point, and my husband needed to preserve his so we'd be able to order an Uber later, so all photos at this point were taken by me!
After the parade, we got into position for the fireworks show! We got a spot right in the middle of Main Street. Funny enough, when we looked over, we saw our old pastor from when we used to live in Tennessee. So we chatted with him while waiting for the show to start. Lots of Baptists in parks following the convention, so we never knew who we might see around!

I hate photographing fireworks, so I didn't get too many pics. I will say, I loved watching Tinkerbell fly back and forth over the castle. That part was very memorable and cool!




I really hated the way we were directed to walk after the fireworks ended. I understand that Disneyland is a smaller park, so crowd control is much more finetuned there, but it was still annoying to be pushed around without being told where we were going. At one point, my husband asked "where are we going?" and a cast member lectured him. We were genuinely just confused.
Anyway, now it was time to head to the river to catch Fantasmic!
We grabbed a couple of churros to munch on while we waited.

I also had a rough time trying to get any decent pictures of this show.

I love the dragon!
Okay, so that was pretty much the only decent picture I got and it was still blurry as could be.
Now the park cleared out pretty significantly. I believe we rushed over to Haunted Mansion, which was nearby, since we had a LL to use. The LL was totally useless, since there was basically no one in line.
After this, we rode Matterhorn again, this time on the other side.

Since we'd now ridden both sides of the Matterhorn, I can confidently say that it's really not that rough at all. I didn't notice a difference between the left track and the right track. If it's something you're worried about for an upcoming trip, just know that they're pretty similar.
We continued into Fantasyland to finish out the night.


The teacups were so beautiful at night!
We also rode the Alice in Wonderland movie ride through attraction, which was probably the best of all the little Fantasyland rides. It was certainly the most elaborate and the caterpillar cars are really cute. Jacob also got to ride in the color caterpillar that he liked most, so it was a great time all-around.
Finally, we ended the night with a ride on Dumbo!



Jacob snapped my picture next to the Mr. Toad poster on the way out of the park.

We waited awhile for an Uber, and when we finally made it back to the Air BnB and into bed, it was after 2am and our feet were absolutely killing us! But no time to pout, we had another rope drop day ahead of us at DCA.

 

[Elizabeth Smith]

Single Rider, AKA the VIP Line​

The next morning, I grabbed a blueberry cake donut from our box of Randy's donuts and a Gatorade from the fridge, and hitched a ride to the esplanade. I ate my donut while waiting for security to open up and before long we were standing at the gates of Disney California Adventure. We decided to rope drop Toy Story Midway Mania, which you may think is an odd choice and, yeah, it kind of was.

Anyway, we waited by this beautiful water fall until it was time to join the stampede into Pixar Pier.

To be fair, I think most people were actually headed to either Cars Land or Avenger's Campus, because we were mostly alone on our walk back.

We were some of the only people on TSMM.

As such, I easily got the "best in vehicle" score.
After this we got on the Pixar Pal Around ferris wheel, swinging side. I didn't take any pictures, but it was a highlight of the morning, for sure. The swinging was actually really fun and gave me that butterfly feeling in my stomach. I'm not prone to motion sickness, but honestly, I think it was fairly gentle. I think if you have a fear of heights, that would be much more concerning.
We next rode Soarin', which was on our way to our first LL at Guardians of the Galaxy.

We got some of the best seats in the theater, which was nice.

Then we hoofed it to Guardians.

The queue was well-done, in my opinion. I really felt like I was in the collector's museum.

Lots of fun details to be seen, like Star Lord's Walkman.
Of course, the ride photo was taken while I was scratching my nose...

I do "miss" the Twilight Zone theming that I have experienced in WDW, but I think this version is undeniably fun and I'm glad it was remade with the Guardians theming. I loved the music playing during the ride and I think this version is more intense, since the entire ride is just the drop tower.
Since we were in the area, we decided to try our hand at Slingin' Web. We were not paying for individual LL, so we opted to take the Stand-by Line. Which was an excellent choice.

Jacob and I were able to ride in the same vehicle together, so we basically got to skip the line for free, with no drawbacks!

Except, the other two people in our ride vehicle really phoned it in. Our scores hit 6 digits. I don't know what they were doing... My arms were tired, though. I don't remember if I was purple or yellow, but I'll just say I was yellow and got the highest score.

We went back to Pixar Pier and used another LL, this time for Incredicoaster!

I really enjoyed it, but I will say, as a roller coaster enthusiast, it doesn't really hold up to other roller coasters featuring launches or inversions. At Disney parks, roller coasters aren't the focus, so if they're going to do one, it needs to be well-themed. This one is kind of so-so in that department too, especially compared to one like BTMRR or Matterhorn. Overall, I'd say it's mediocre. I think Jacob liked it more than I did.
We got a LL for Goofy's Sky School immediately after that, so we rode another mediocre roller coaster.


After this, we had yet another LL to redeem, this time for Grizzly River Rapids. We took our time on our walk over there and I got this cute photo of Jacob on the way!


We were grouped up with a family comprised of two middle schoolish looking boys, their mom, and their giant dad. The guy looked like he might be like 6 foot eight and probably like 280 pounds. The weight distribution of our raft had me intrigued.
In the end, the guy's wife got the most splashing and Jacob and I were only mildly wet.


Unfortunately, most of the water landed on my lap/legs. I wore jeans to the park since I had gotten cold the night before, but the result was having my pants stick to my legs until they dried off.

We wandered around this area of the park for a little while, soaking in the scenery, but also feeling a little lost. Then we walked toward the Hollywood-themed area to ride the Monster's Inc. attraction.


We made a mobile order for Award Weiners, since it was mid-morning now and we wanted to have an early first lunch/snack.
While we waited for our food, we checked out the Avengers store nearby.


After wandering around the store for a few minutes, our food was ready!

We ordered the Asada Fries, which were quite nice! The meat was flavorful and the fries were perfectly crispy. I don't know if I would order them again, but they certainly satisfied me until it was time for our second lunch/snack.

Mickey's Philharmagic is right next to Award Weiners, so we ate while waiting for the next showing to start. Then we decided to trek into Cars Land.


The Junkyard Jamboree was a bunch of fun, as anticipated. We had to wait a few minutes for it, but I think it was worth it.
Next, we got in line for Luigi's Rollickin' Roadsters.

The outdoor portions of the queue are actually really well-themed and kind of pretty.
I don't know why, but Jacob and I were assigned two different cars?


I think it was a mistake and we were actually supposed to ride together. But whatever, it worked out fine. Between Luigi's and the Junkyard Jamboree, I actually liked the Jamboree better. I think the way the little tow trucks whip you around is more fun. I think Luigi's is better to watch as a bystander, though.
It was time for another use of the Single Rider line. If we did not choose this queue, we would have waited for Radiator Springs Racers for over an hour.

It was still a pretty long wait, even in the Single Rider Line. And unfortunately, we didn't get to sit in the same vehicle.

I was adjusting my hair, just in time for the ride photo. Good job, me.

Jacob looks like he had fun, though.
My car won the race! Jacob's lost. Such is life. I think this ride is excellent. The animatronic Mater was really impressive. I think that this version is much, much better than Test Track in Epcot. I understand why the line builds as much as it does.
Now we were hungry enough for second lunch. It was only a little after 1pm.

We got the Chili Cone Queso from the Cozy Cone Motel restaurants. It tasted good, but was waaaaaayyyy too messy to try and get a picture of. I think it's funny that the cones served in Cars Land are the descendants of an idea of Michael Eisner's. He wanted the Disney parks chefs to invent a food that could be conveniently eaten with one hand. They came up with the "Handwich." I hate to tell them this, but most sandwiches can already be eaten with one hand. And they're a lot less messy that the cone we had.
Anyway, before we left Cars Land, we got some photos!




I kind of hate to admit it, but Cars Land is incredibly well-executed. I'm not the biggest fan of the Cars franchise. I think a story about sentient automobiles raises far too many questions. Who made the cars? Or do the cars reproduce sexually? If they open their doors, will their internal organs fall out? Why is there a Popemobile? Was there a Car Jesus? What happens when a car "dies"? Are junkyards cemeteries? And so on. As much as I think the Cars franchise is just a cheap way to sell merchandise, I cannot deny how well it translated to a theme park. I really felt like I stepped foot into the world of the movie. I did not feel like I was in DCA.

I think I'll leave this part here so we can all be haunted by the implications of the Cars universe. Next time we'll cover the rest of our day at DCA!

 

[Elizabeth Smith]

The Throes of Indecision​

We didn't really have much to do until our dinner reservation, so it was time for an easy afternoon. I was enticed by the Ghirardelli store in the Pacific Wharf area of the park.


This celebration sundae was beyond ridiculously over priced. It was like $15. But it had Mickey ears and the hot fudge in it was incredible. I'm really critical of bad chocolate sauce, and unsurprisingly, Ghirardelli knows how to make the good kind.

We then got in line for the Little Mermaid.



It's a cute ride! The animatronic Ursula in DCA is not as good as the version in Magic Kingdom in FL, which surprised me.

We cycled back to the Hollywood area to do the Animator's Academy thing


We drew Zero from Nightmare Before Christmas. My drawing was pretty good, but I was really impressed with Jacob! I actually enjoy drawing and it's one of my hobbies. Jacob, not so much, so his rendition of Zero shocked me with how good it was. I guess the instructions were really good! Since I like drawing, I had a lot of fun with this.

After our drawing lesson, we went to the bathroom and then I lay out on a bench by a water fountain for a good long while. Our feet were absolutely killing us at this point. I didn't quite fall asleep, since the bench was concrete and all, but it was still pretty relaxing. We kind of argued over what we wanted to do next, since we had basically checked off everything on our to-do list. I wanted to do another round of the Animator Academy, but since Jacob doesn't like drawing, he said no. I should have just gone without him while he sat on a bench or shopped around, but I didn't.
Anyway, we got some pictures around the area and browsed some shops.

We walked toward the middle of the park and watched a bit of this performance. They were celebrating black musical artists, or so they said, but then they sang Bad Guy by Billie Eilish, and she's about as white as you can get.

While we were watching this performance, we had a really good interaction with one of the citizens of Hollywood, an eccentric journalist. Jacob impressed her with some clever word play. She was really nice and fun to talk to.
A random Photo Pass photographer was standing in the area and asked what we wanted to get a picture with, so we got some pics with this statue.


We also got some pics in front of Carthay Circle.



We had a LL for Soarin', so we rode that again, with worse seats than the first time, but they still were more centered than most.

I think we also rode the Silly Symphony Swings at this point, but I'm not entirely sure. We just rode it randomly, but it was still really cute and a relaxing ride. I love swing rides but whenever I'm at amusement parks, we usually have bigger e-tickets to do, so I rarely get the opportunity.

This whole period of time that I've covered in this part of the trip report was totally wishy-washy. Anytime we were walking, we were really just wandering with no real destination, but we still had a nice afternoon, just taking in the sights. It was tough because we had a dinner reservation at 6, so many of the things we might have liked to do a second time, like Guardians or Incredicoaster, had a line built up and we wouldn't be able to get off in a comfortable amount of time. Besides, our feet were tired and we just wanted to sit and chill.

After killing some time, it was time for our dinner at Carthay Circle.


I ordered some manner of Raspberry Lemonade, which they kindly made with flat water instead of sparkling, since carbonation hurts my baby esophagus. Jacob basically got an Arnold Palmer, but they called it something else. Both of our drinks were really nice.

We ordered the bread and the potato croquettes. The bread was nice, but nothing really remarkable. The potato croquettes were really, really good. I love crispy potatoes in every form, so it's no surprise that I loved them!

The sauce they were served with was perfectly creamy. And look at those bacon bits! Yum!
I'm not big on steak or seafood, so the entrees here didn't really appeal to me, but I checked the menu before I even made the reservation to make sure there was something I'd like. I ordered the cheese stuffed chicken arepa.

This is on the appetizer menu, but it is absolutely massive. It was really flavorful, but kind of hard to get the perfect bite with chicken, arepa, pickled onion, and sauce.
Jacob ordered a steak.

I'm not a major carnivore, so I don't know what cut this was. He really liked the way it was seasoned and it was cooked how he wanted, medium-rare.

We didn't get dessert at the restaurant since none of the offerings really intrigued us, but we got this Strawberry Banana shake at Schmoozie's.

It was alright. It was kind of a runny milkshake and the banana flavor was overpowering, as it often is. The chocolate sauce was nice and thick, though! And of course, it was very cute.

We got ready for World of Color now. I was beginning to get cold, even though I wore long pants. I didn't bring my sweat shirt with me, since the park was only open until 9pm and I didn't think I'd be cold long enough to make it worth hauling the thing around all day. I think it was the right choice. I sat on the concrete sidewalk where I was staking out our spot to watch the show and the warmth from the ground felt nice. While I held our spot, Jacob went to grab a Jack Jack Cookie Nom Nom from near the Incredicoaster. This cookie was also warm and nice. It was perhaps my favorite sweet treat of the day.

I didn't realize how much of our view would be obscured by the trees.


I didn't get many pictures, in part due to the bad view, in part because I knew they'd do no justice to how pretty the show is! Even with a less than perfect view, the show was beautiful. One of the most interesting parts was the Pirates of the Caribbean section of the show. There was a lot of cheering for Jack Sparrow... Hm. I wonder why?

We made our way out of the park and got a ride home, preparing ourselves for our final Disneyland Day.

 

[evilmommie]

Super cute couple pics! Did you get much CM recognition with your 1st visit pins?

 

[Elizabeth Smith]

Super cute couple pics! Did you get much CM recognition with your 1st visit pins?

sort of! Our waiter at Carthay Circle, for example, asked us how our first visit was going. That was pretty much the extent of CM recognition, just asking how it was going.

 

[Elizabeth Smith]

Taking It All In​

If you recall from our first day at Disneyland park, we were pretty darn productive! In fact, there were only two items on our whole to-do list that we hadn't gotten to see yet: Winnie the Pooh and Peter Pan's Flight. Winnie the Pooh was missed on our first day because it was continuously breaking down and we just didn't have time for Peter Pan. So as long as we accomplished those two things, our trip would be complete. Do you think we can pull it off with only 16 hours of park time?
Anyway, we waited by Tomorrowland for rope drop again.

We didn't get to the park as early this day as the previous two, but we were still pretty close to the front of the crowd. And since we were unable to rope drop Space Mountain on our first day, we decided we'd do it first thing this time around.


I know we had already ridden Matterhorn twice, but we couldn't resist another go on it.

Then we walked further into Fantasyland and we rode what we came there to ride, snapping some selfies on the way.



We enjoyed our trip to Neverland! We didn't feel that the Pooh situation was that urgent, so we took a sort of scenic route to get there, walking through the Sleeping Beauty Castle display.

There isn't much to it, but it's still really well done and pretty in there! I'm glad we didn't skip this.

We had another diversion at BTMRR.



Then the long-awaited ride on Winnie the Pooh!

The ride vehicles were so cute! I was surprised that this version is notably better than the WDW version.

Critter Country is not far from Galaxy's Edge, and though I'd had another Randy's donut that morning, I was beginning to feel peckish. So we mobile ordered a breakfast Ronto wrap for a second breakfast.

We also got this specialty tea there, and it was really nice and refreshing. The Ronto wrap was one of the better things we ate on the trip, which is really saying something since all of the quick services were especially good.
We were really just there to browse around the shops, take in the sights, and eat breakfast, all of which were very enjoyable, but we noticed that the wait time for Rise of the Resistance was "only" 50 minutes, so we got in line.


The sign and the app were filthy liars. The line was closer to 70 or 80 minutes, and it moved at a snail's pace the whole time. It felt like there were fewer people in line in front of us on this day as opposed to the first, so the 50 minute wait time appeared believable. But there must have been a billion LL people, because it was miserably slow. I don't regret riding it again, but I hated this wait. On this third park day, I was tired and it takes a lot of stamina to wait in a line like that.

Anyway, when we got off it was a little after noon, so we headed back to Main St. for lunch. We ordered the grilled cheese and tomato soup from Jolly Holiday as well as the Raspberry Macaron.


Both were good. The grilled cheese was somewhat basic, but well-executed, and the tomato soup was really nice and creamy. The macaron was more of a standout item with very balanced flavor, not to mention it's very cute. I would highly recommend this dessert!

I wanted to get some more photopass pictures this day as well. So we stopped in front of the partner's statue and took some photos.


There was a showing of the Lion King state performance happening soon, so we decided to watch that.
While we were waiting for the amphitheater to open up, we got another special tea drink from the stall nearby.

This was another big hit. We also had a cup of water to stay hydrated!

The Lion King show was good! Talented vocalists and dancers, but I wish the costumes were more animal-like.
By the time we left this show, it was about 2 in the afternoon.

I think I'll leave things here for now! I believe next time I return will be the dramatic finale, so stay tuned!

 

[CandyMouse]

Looks like a great day so far, love all your pictures! My DH and I also tried that Raspberry macaron, it was very sweet but good.

 

[Elizabeth Smith]

Looks like a great day so far, love all your pictures! My DH and I also tried that Raspberry macaron, it was very sweet but good.

Thank you! I like sweets a lot, so it's rare for me to find a dessert to be overly sugary.