arieljasmine
<font color=magenta>Who says these things pass you
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- Apr 12, 2004
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Laurs, Andy and bump do LA and Vegas, baby Day 12
Laurs 29
Andy 29
Bump 14 weeks
Tuesday 1 April 2008
We got up at 8 am and went off in search of some breakfast. When we got to the lobby we saw that there was free coffee available so we decided to take advantage of this. I was a bit tentative about having a decaf coffee as I had been unable to even bear the smell of coffee at the start of my pregnancy, but it was fine with lots of sugar in! (For info, coffee seemed to be available until 9 am each morning).
We took our drinks and went to the coffee shop where we bought two strawberry croissants and a chocolate one and a bottle of apple juice, and took them back to the room to eat. The croissants were nice but the chocolate one had chunks of chocolate in rather than chocolate spread so it was a bit much first thing in the morning.
We set off for the Disneyland park at 9.45 am (remembering our tickets this time!) Our first ride of the day was Mr Toad's Wild Ride. I can see why this ride is so well loved. We really enjoyed it, though it was so fast it was difficult to take in all the details.
We went to the Storybook Canal boats next where we waited 30 minutes to ride - the park was very busy and this ride loads very s-l-o-w-l-y. Whilst we were waiting in line, we saw Gepetto and Max get in with a boatload of guests, and later on we saw them sharing teacups with guests too. This was one of the things we loved about Disneyland, there seemed to be a lot more spontaneous character interaction. The ride is cute and similar to the one at Disneyland Paris.
We then rode Alice in Wonderland which is an enchanting ride, I loved falling down the rabbit hole.
We had a look round Toontown and visited the houses of Mickey and Minnie Mouse. I had a small accident when Andy was taking my picture next to Donald Duck's workbench - I went to lean and didn't realise that there was a gap which I promptly tripped down and badly bruised my arm. If you are visiting, please watch your step!
We were both keen to have lunch at the Blue Bayou but hadn't made an ADR because we didn't know what we would want to do from one day to the next. It seemed unlikely that we would get a walkup, but I thought our best chance was to get there at 12 and be nice! So that's what we did - and we were seated 5 minutes later! The CM said that they didn't usually take walkups but that we could have a table as long as we didn't mind where we sat. So it just goes to show that there's no harm in asking.
We ordered drinks, sprite for me and diet coke for Andy whilst we looked at the menu but we knew what we were having - we came here for the Monte Cristo! With every main course you get the choice of soup or salad to start included in the price, so we both ordered the salad with ranch dressing. The dressing was so good, I have never seen Andy eat that much lettuce in his life! The sandwiches are turkey, ham and cheese, dipped in batter and deep fried. The best way I can describe it is like eating a sandwich made with doughnut bread! The sandwiches came with cheese potatoes, broccoli and asparagus. The sandwiches were good, but sooooo sickly and the portions were huge - we agreed that we should have shared (you can do this, they charge a small fee for splitting a portion for you). The setting of the restaurant is beautiful, its like another world, and I imagine it's amazing if you can get a table next to the water (the Pirates of the Caribbean ride runs past this restaurant).
We waddled out of the restaurant and back to Fantasyland for a ride on the Casey Junior train. We waited 25 minutes which was predominantly because they only had one train running! Another cute ride and it seemed to go at a much more sedate pace than the one in Paris.
Whilst we were still in Fantasyland we rode Pinocchio and Snow White, which has a bizarre ending as the last scene is the one with the witch and the boulder - how do we know it ended happily ever after?!
We had picked up a fastpass for Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin whilst in Toontown earlier, so went back to use this. I was pleasantly surprised that ladies with bumps are allowed on this one. This ride was broken many times during our stay, so if you want to do this one, ride as soon as you can - if you come back later, it might not be open. I loved this, lots of spinning, and you can make your car spin more yourself if you choose, but we didn't spin ours much as Andy isn't keen on spinning and I didn't want to jerk bump around.
It was almost time for the afternoon parade, Walt Disney's Parade of Dreams, and we managed to get a great spot. I think this is my favourite daytime parade, I thought it was excellent. There were some more unusual characters (e.g. Simba and Nala), great music and a very inquisitive rhino!
After the parade, we decided to brave the queue for the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage. It wasn't as bad as it looked and we were on the ride within 35 minutes. I thought it was worth the wait. The way they make you think you are being submerged is very clever. We had to wait a few minutes after the ride before we could get out, and I fell asleep! Disney always has a way of wearing me out.
Next we went to get a pineapple dole whip and watch the Tiki Room show. Another tip, if you are doing both like we were, go into the waiting area for the Tiki Room and buy your dole whip from that side. We waited only a couple of minutes, whereas there was a huge queue on the other side. We enjoyed the show but (and don't flame me!) liked the one in WDW better - I think that's because the songs are familiar to us there.
We got our picture taken in front of the castle and then took the monorail to Downtown Disney. The Disney police were out in force (our name for CMs who seem to make up stupid rules) and Andy got told off for walking the wrong side of the entrance to the monorail (the CM made him go back through again so "I can count you"????!!!!) and I got told off for wanting my hand stamp on my right hand - for some reason you are only allowed it on your left. The hand stamp said Cinderella which I thought was cute. In honour of Monsters Inc, we nicknamed these "violations" 2319s - and said this at every given opportunity when we thought a CM was being petty!
We walked the short distance back to the hotel, arriving back at the room at 6.15 pm. We had baths and then headed back to the park. We had been going to take the monorail but the queue was very long and we decided it was probably quicker to walk, especially for where in the park we wanted to be.
We had a look at the map before we left the room and chose where we wanted to go for tea, Rancho del Zocalo. We got a coffee for Andy and a hot chocolate for me as it was a cool night again, and shared a four cheese enchilada platter and a beef taco platter - both meals came with rice, refried beans, lettuce, sour cream, salsa and guacamole. The enchiladas were nice but a little plain but the beef tacos were really good. I liked the rice best, it was really spicy.
After tea we had a ride on Winnie the Pooh as we hadn't done this one during the day, and we bought a honey crispie treat in the shape of a hunnypot from the Pooh shop. We rode Haunted Mansion and then waited for the fireworks, take two, and ate our krispie treat.
Luckily we got to see the whole fireworks show this time. It's a great display, if a little disjointed, with parts of WDW Wishes interspersed with the history of the Disneyland park. There was only one thing that puzzled me though - why were there heart shaped fireworks during the Haunted Mansion section?!
After Wishes, we rode Buzz, Snow White, Pirates of the Caribbean and Peter Pan, which was a walk on as our last ride of the night. We left at closing time again and walked back to the hotel.
We went to the Lost Boys bar where Andy got a beer and a gin and tonic, and I got a coke. We took our drinks back to the room and after finishing them went to bed at 12.15 am.
Laur's
Laurs 29
Andy 29
Bump 14 weeks
Tuesday 1 April 2008
We got up at 8 am and went off in search of some breakfast. When we got to the lobby we saw that there was free coffee available so we decided to take advantage of this. I was a bit tentative about having a decaf coffee as I had been unable to even bear the smell of coffee at the start of my pregnancy, but it was fine with lots of sugar in! (For info, coffee seemed to be available until 9 am each morning).
We took our drinks and went to the coffee shop where we bought two strawberry croissants and a chocolate one and a bottle of apple juice, and took them back to the room to eat. The croissants were nice but the chocolate one had chunks of chocolate in rather than chocolate spread so it was a bit much first thing in the morning.
We set off for the Disneyland park at 9.45 am (remembering our tickets this time!) Our first ride of the day was Mr Toad's Wild Ride. I can see why this ride is so well loved. We really enjoyed it, though it was so fast it was difficult to take in all the details.
We went to the Storybook Canal boats next where we waited 30 minutes to ride - the park was very busy and this ride loads very s-l-o-w-l-y. Whilst we were waiting in line, we saw Gepetto and Max get in with a boatload of guests, and later on we saw them sharing teacups with guests too. This was one of the things we loved about Disneyland, there seemed to be a lot more spontaneous character interaction. The ride is cute and similar to the one at Disneyland Paris.
We then rode Alice in Wonderland which is an enchanting ride, I loved falling down the rabbit hole.
We had a look round Toontown and visited the houses of Mickey and Minnie Mouse. I had a small accident when Andy was taking my picture next to Donald Duck's workbench - I went to lean and didn't realise that there was a gap which I promptly tripped down and badly bruised my arm. If you are visiting, please watch your step!
We were both keen to have lunch at the Blue Bayou but hadn't made an ADR because we didn't know what we would want to do from one day to the next. It seemed unlikely that we would get a walkup, but I thought our best chance was to get there at 12 and be nice! So that's what we did - and we were seated 5 minutes later! The CM said that they didn't usually take walkups but that we could have a table as long as we didn't mind where we sat. So it just goes to show that there's no harm in asking.
We ordered drinks, sprite for me and diet coke for Andy whilst we looked at the menu but we knew what we were having - we came here for the Monte Cristo! With every main course you get the choice of soup or salad to start included in the price, so we both ordered the salad with ranch dressing. The dressing was so good, I have never seen Andy eat that much lettuce in his life! The sandwiches are turkey, ham and cheese, dipped in batter and deep fried. The best way I can describe it is like eating a sandwich made with doughnut bread! The sandwiches came with cheese potatoes, broccoli and asparagus. The sandwiches were good, but sooooo sickly and the portions were huge - we agreed that we should have shared (you can do this, they charge a small fee for splitting a portion for you). The setting of the restaurant is beautiful, its like another world, and I imagine it's amazing if you can get a table next to the water (the Pirates of the Caribbean ride runs past this restaurant).
We waddled out of the restaurant and back to Fantasyland for a ride on the Casey Junior train. We waited 25 minutes which was predominantly because they only had one train running! Another cute ride and it seemed to go at a much more sedate pace than the one in Paris.
Whilst we were still in Fantasyland we rode Pinocchio and Snow White, which has a bizarre ending as the last scene is the one with the witch and the boulder - how do we know it ended happily ever after?!
We had picked up a fastpass for Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin whilst in Toontown earlier, so went back to use this. I was pleasantly surprised that ladies with bumps are allowed on this one. This ride was broken many times during our stay, so if you want to do this one, ride as soon as you can - if you come back later, it might not be open. I loved this, lots of spinning, and you can make your car spin more yourself if you choose, but we didn't spin ours much as Andy isn't keen on spinning and I didn't want to jerk bump around.
It was almost time for the afternoon parade, Walt Disney's Parade of Dreams, and we managed to get a great spot. I think this is my favourite daytime parade, I thought it was excellent. There were some more unusual characters (e.g. Simba and Nala), great music and a very inquisitive rhino!
After the parade, we decided to brave the queue for the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage. It wasn't as bad as it looked and we were on the ride within 35 minutes. I thought it was worth the wait. The way they make you think you are being submerged is very clever. We had to wait a few minutes after the ride before we could get out, and I fell asleep! Disney always has a way of wearing me out.
Next we went to get a pineapple dole whip and watch the Tiki Room show. Another tip, if you are doing both like we were, go into the waiting area for the Tiki Room and buy your dole whip from that side. We waited only a couple of minutes, whereas there was a huge queue on the other side. We enjoyed the show but (and don't flame me!) liked the one in WDW better - I think that's because the songs are familiar to us there.
We got our picture taken in front of the castle and then took the monorail to Downtown Disney. The Disney police were out in force (our name for CMs who seem to make up stupid rules) and Andy got told off for walking the wrong side of the entrance to the monorail (the CM made him go back through again so "I can count you"????!!!!) and I got told off for wanting my hand stamp on my right hand - for some reason you are only allowed it on your left. The hand stamp said Cinderella which I thought was cute. In honour of Monsters Inc, we nicknamed these "violations" 2319s - and said this at every given opportunity when we thought a CM was being petty!
We walked the short distance back to the hotel, arriving back at the room at 6.15 pm. We had baths and then headed back to the park. We had been going to take the monorail but the queue was very long and we decided it was probably quicker to walk, especially for where in the park we wanted to be.
We had a look at the map before we left the room and chose where we wanted to go for tea, Rancho del Zocalo. We got a coffee for Andy and a hot chocolate for me as it was a cool night again, and shared a four cheese enchilada platter and a beef taco platter - both meals came with rice, refried beans, lettuce, sour cream, salsa and guacamole. The enchiladas were nice but a little plain but the beef tacos were really good. I liked the rice best, it was really spicy.
After tea we had a ride on Winnie the Pooh as we hadn't done this one during the day, and we bought a honey crispie treat in the shape of a hunnypot from the Pooh shop. We rode Haunted Mansion and then waited for the fireworks, take two, and ate our krispie treat.
Luckily we got to see the whole fireworks show this time. It's a great display, if a little disjointed, with parts of WDW Wishes interspersed with the history of the Disneyland park. There was only one thing that puzzled me though - why were there heart shaped fireworks during the Haunted Mansion section?!
After Wishes, we rode Buzz, Snow White, Pirates of the Caribbean and Peter Pan, which was a walk on as our last ride of the night. We left at closing time again and walked back to the hotel.
We went to the Lost Boys bar where Andy got a beer and a gin and tonic, and I got a coke. We took our drinks back to the room and after finishing them went to bed at 12.15 am.
Laur's
I think we will be paying Rancho del Zocalo a visit as well.
