My Disneyland trip report with photos **Updated with day 5**

[Bloodhound]

I hope you had a great Birthday.

 

[Bloodhound]

Hi, I hope everything is alright?

 

[Yzerbear19]

Sorry. I've been extremely busy lately. My mom had surgery on her shoulder at the end of May so my sister and I have had to go over there quite a bit to help. I have the next update typed, just need to edit it. Hopefully I can get to it sometime today.

 

[Yzerbear19]

California Adventure - Take 2

On Thursday we had another early 7:00 AM breakfast at the PCH Grill at Paradise Pier Hotel with Lilo and Stitch. We left our hotel a bit earlier than we had the previous day because we knew that Paradise Pier was a bit further away. We arrived at the restaurant with about 10-15 minutes to spare. They weren't open yet, so we just sat and waited. As it approached 7:00 a few other people arrived, but there weren't that many. The minutes seemed to pass fairly quickly.

When we were let into the dining room we posed for a photo with Daisy. I was happy to see Daisy because I was told the day before that she is pretty rare at DL. After our photo with Daisy we were seated at the table. My sister and I both opted for the buffet. And it was a strange buffet. There was salmon, and steamed rice, I think some kind of pasta, flantas (I think I spelled that right), and several other foods that didn't seem like "breakfast" foods to me. They did have the traditional breakfast foods like waffles, pancakes, fruit, muffins, etc. The fruit was VERY good. I also really liked the muffin thing. The pancakes were OK. Overall the food was OK, not great, but not horrible.

The first character to come visit us was Stitch. I love Stitch. He had fun messing with our lanyards and our pins. He was upset when he noticed that we didn't have a pin with him, but that was only because I couldn't decide which one I liked. We promised him we would go right after we left and get a Stitch pin. Next we met Lilo who was very nice. After that we had to wait a while before Pluto came out and stopped by our table. At one point during breakfast Minnie replaced Daisy at the place for the photos.

Before we left they brought out a Mickey shaped brownie with some kind of jelly-like goo on top. The brownie like part was kind of good, but I'm not sure what the goo was so I didn't eat that.

After breakfast we walked through Downtown Disney to the park plaza and waited in line for the security bag check. There was a large group of people with different bandanas who were doing some sort of strange scavenger hunt. We didn't fully understand what they were doing. Once we were let into the plaza we went over to the gates for California Adventure thinking we could use our magic morning, but when the lady explained it to us she didn't tell us that the magic mornings were for Disneyland only. So we were at the gate over an hour and half early. I had thought it was odd that no one else was lining up over there. So we just waited for 9:30 when they would let us into the park.

Once again when we got into the park we headed straight for Soarin. I wanted to ride it again since it is nearly impossible to ride at WDW. Again we asked for the back row and our request was granted. It was fine until I made the mistake of looking over to my right which meant I could see the ground once we were in the air. That sort of freaked me out. I still don't really like the fact that your feet are dangling in the air. I kept thinking about falling, which I know is stupid since my seatbelt was as tight as it could go, but I think seeing the ground really freaked my mind out.

After this we headed over for the Hollywood Studios backlot to ride Monsters Inc again. Since it wasn't 10:00 yet, we had to wait for them to drop the rope. Almost everyone was waiting to go on the Tower of Terror. Several others headed for Monsters Inc. Once we got there we had to wait for the cast members to find the "Screamer of the Day" by having all the little kids scream as loud as they could. That was kind of annoying. After this was done we were allowed on the ride. Again it was lots of fun and thoroughly enjoyable.

Since we didn't want to see Muppet 3D again we went to Bug's Land to ride Flik's Flyers again. There weren't too many people in line, which was nice. My sister only turned a slight shade of green. After this I managed to twist her arm and agree to go on Francis' Ladybug Boogie which is like the Tea Cups, but you don't control any of the spinning, it does it all for you. This was WAY fun. It spun quite fast. She turned a slightly different shade of green, but was a good sport about it. I couldn't convince her to ride again. Sigh.

After this we rode Heimlich's Chew Chew Train, which was quite pointless and very short. I guess for little kids it might be interesting, but it is really short.

By the time we were done with our train ride it was almost time to meet Flik and Atta from "A Bug's Life." While we waited we went to the pin trading store in Bug's Land. We then found a bench and waited for Flik and Atta. Poor Flik was trying to get to the location where they have the character greetings, but was mobbed by small children and their parents who weren't listening to the handler who was trying to keep Flik moving. He eventually worked his way to the spot and the children still tried to mob him. I felt so bad for him. The handler instructed everyone to form a line.

This is probably a good time for a rant about character greetings. At WDW the handlers seem to keep a better handle on guests and keeping things orderly. This wasn't the first time we saw one of the characters at DL mobbed. There were quite a few characters we saw that didn't even have handlers. And the ones who did no one seemed to listen to. And no one respected lines. They would just go up and push their child at the character no matter that others had been waiting patiently in line. It was very disorderly and I felt so bad for the characters.

So after we met Flik, not sure where Atta was, we headed for Hollywood Studios to ride Monsters Inc once more since this was to be our last day at CA and they don't have it back at WDW. This is one ride I wish they would bring to WDW.

After our last ride on Monsters Inc we headed for the Hyperion theater. My sister wanted to be in line by 11:30 for the 12:20 show. When we were at WDW in 2007 we wanted to see the new Finding Nemo musical, but the 12:30 show was "sold out" and there was already a long line for the show time after that. Needless to say we didn't get to see the Finding Nemo musical. This experience was in the back of my sister's mind when she told me that we had to line up at 11:30. We went by the theater, but they weren't going to let anyone line up for another 10-15 minutes so we headed over for the Tower of Terror gift shop. Neither of us had any intention of riding the TOT, but its always fun looking in the gift shop. We got some Photopass pictures taken in front of it. When we left the gift shop Mickey and Goofy were just standing there. No handlers anywhere in sight and no line of people. We asked if they would pose for some pictures, which they agreed to. We took several photos then left. A few other people stopped, but it was such a random meeting. Normally there was always a long line to see them.

By this point more people had shown up for the Aladdin musical. Of course my sister by this point tries to tell me she was right, but the theater was not anywhere near full. We waited and waited and waited in line for what seemed like forever. Finally we were allowed into the theater. We sat on the right side behind the railing where one of the cast members suggested. Then we had to wait for everyone else to get in and be seated. Normally I'm not a huge fan of musicals. In fact I fell asleep during Beauty and the Beast, which my sister always reminds me. The only musical I like is Wicked. So I wasn't too excited about this, but my sister was. The show was very good. The genie, though, was annoying. And the other complaint is that it was sooooo obvious when they were using the stunt doubles. Overall I enjoyed it. My job was to get photos, which was hard since you weren't supposed to use the flash and they were moving quickly around the stage, but if you look at the ones I posted, I managed to get a few good ones.

After Aladdin we hauled butt over to Golden State for the Magic of Brother Bear totem ceremony. We were both sort of hungry, but it was either skip lunch and go to Brother Bear at 1:30 or try to find something to do until 3:00 when the next showing was. We got there in time and found seats. The show is quite cute. Koda and Kenai are very funny. Afterwards you can meet Koda and Kenai, which means its a complete madhouse with all the children running up to them. We waited until it was clear and then got pictures with them.

After this we headed back towards Hollywood Studios to find some lunch. We saw characters from the Incredibles by the animation studio. First we met Frozone since we have never seen him at WDW and he is one of our favorite characters. Next we got in line for Mr. and Mrs. Incredible, but they were getting ready to go inside, but the handler allowed us to be the last ones to meet them when she saw my birthday button. We quickly got pictures with Mr. and Mrs. Incredible then went across the street to get lunch at Award Weiners. The hotdogs were OK as far as hot dogs go. Not as good as at the ballpark, but nothing is. Though I would say they were better than the ones we had in Salem, MA in October. They were cheaper than most of the other places at CA and quick.

After lunch we left and headed for Downtown Disney where we did some pretty serious shopping at World of Disney. We were in there for over an hour and a half and spent lots of money. We then had to haul our booty back to the hotel. We then rested, watched a DVD. For dinner we were sort of lazy and walked to the Subway down the street and took it back to the hotel to eat.

Up next: A crazy day at Disneyland!