mzzzh
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Aug 20, 2004
- Messages
- 121
The cast:
Me - The Aunt, turned 48 the day before, am I crazy to think I can do this?
The Mom - my sister, mother of Tmac
Tmac - my 11 year old nephew (has been to Disneyland once before and Disney World once)
Lil cous' - my nephew's 8 year old paternal cousin (never been to Disneyland or Disney World before)
The Mom tells me before going on this trip that by the end we'd either be insane or dead. You see Disneyland is the last of our Southern California amusement park trip marathon (our visits to non-Disney parks not covered here)and we will spend 2 days here. Tmac and Lil cous' for the most part get along pretty well as long as they both agree that Tmac (being the older far more experienced cousin, ahem) knows it all.
Disneyland is due to open at 8:00 a.m. We are driving in from Escondido for a 2 night stay at Ho Jo Anaheim. I knew beforehand that our crew was not going to get up early enough to do the drive to make opening time. We get away about 9:00 a.m. and our drive up I-5 is pretty uneventful. Lil cous' slept most of the way and Tmac was quiet. Our Mapquest directions tell us to get off at Harbor Blvd. Signage on the freeway tell us to get off on Disney Way, who'd have thunk? We throw the Mapquest directions out the window (not literally) and get off at Disney Way which takes us straight to Disneyland and the Timon parking area. We arrive about 10:30 a.m. when the morning marine layer is just about burning off. We get on one of the transportation trams when Tmac announces that the boys have left their lanyand/pins in the car (Tmac has his from a prior trip, the Mom bought a starter kit for Lil cous' on Ebay). Back to the car we go. Back on the tram we go and off to the gates!
We have Southern California City Pass tickets (NOTE: a great deal if you're also doing other So Cal amusement parks). We go to the ticket takers and are informed to go back to the ticket booths to trade in for real tickets. We do this and it doesn't take long. The cast member in the booth is very nice; tells us not to miss Soarin in Calif Adventure and the ESPN arcade in Downtown Disney. In no time we are back at the gates with our real tickets and we're in Disneyland, yea!!!
Our plan is to go and get Indy Jones FP's first which we do. Our FP time is about couple of hours of away, no big deal. We then do the Tiki Room. You have to understand that I am a huge fan of the two cheesiest DL attractions, Tiki Room and Its a Small World. Jungle Cruise is next and just as fun and just as cheesy. Time for lunch which we get at the Hungry Bear cafe. I grab the table and wait, wait, wait for the Mom and boys to bring over the overpriced hamburgers and fries. The boys get plastic souvenir lunch pails, great, more things for the Aunt to carry.
After lunch its time for our Indy Jones' FPs. Even though we are in the FP line, there are still quite a few people in line but it moves quickly. And then.....we get to the preshow and the boys bail...big time. Seems our two little tough guys do not like roller coaster rides. So we take the fraidy cat exit, no harm done. The Aunt doesn't especially like roller coaster rides either. The Mom is disgusted with us all.
Next we do the Aladdin story attraction. The boys sit on the magic carpets near the stage and enjoy the show. The Aunt and Mom sit in back and yawn alot. But we have fun later taking turns saying "Jafar" and gasping. Next is grabbing FP's for Buzz Lightyear and then hitting Toon Town to get some character autographs. Somewhere along the way we created a pin trading monster in Lil cous. Lil' cous is not overly shy but he is much more of an introvert than an extrovert. Not on this trip. He went up to any cast member he saw with a lanyard and asked politely if they would like to trade. He did this on his own and didn't need the Mom or Aunt to accompany him. He quickly decided that he was trading for Disney Olympics pins (I have no idea why, they just appealed to him). Tmac did not like this change in Lil cous', he was supposed to be the outgoing one. Fortunately, the Mom did not allow this cousin friction to go on but still for the remainder of our trip it was Lil' cous and not Tmac who initiated most trades.
But I digress. We go back to Buzz at our appointed FP times. Not to brag or nothing but I got the highest score. The regular lines for Buzz are pretty quick (less than 15 minutes) so we do Buzz again. And the Aunt once again is the high scorer, but beats Mom by only 100 points. Over to "Honey, I Shrunk the Audience" which I guess is showing it's age but I still find it to be fun. The boys do Star Tours while the Aunt and Mom do some shopping. We have dinner in the Pizza Port (yep, overpriced pizza) and are beginning to wear down. We have planned to go over to Calif Adventure for the Electric Light Parade but we have some time to kill. So we go over to my other fave, It's a Small World. More pin trading and more shopping and then we head over to Calif Adventure and grab a piece of sidewalk for the parade. The parade route is not that crowded and we have a good spot for viewing the parade. Since the route is not that crowded we see no ugliness that marred our trip to Disney World a few years ago with adults shoving other people's kids out of the way. The boys have fun playing with their "glow" (lightchasers and light up Mickey head pins I bought BEFORE the trip) before the parade starts. The parade proves to be the perfect end to the day.
I've skipped over some of the things we did this day for the sake of brevity (!). In summary, it was a great day in the Happiest Place on Earth. The crowds were not too bad, the boys for the most part got along and nobody in our crew had a melt down. What more could you ask for?
Me - The Aunt, turned 48 the day before, am I crazy to think I can do this?
The Mom - my sister, mother of Tmac
Tmac - my 11 year old nephew (has been to Disneyland once before and Disney World once)
Lil cous' - my nephew's 8 year old paternal cousin (never been to Disneyland or Disney World before)
The Mom tells me before going on this trip that by the end we'd either be insane or dead. You see Disneyland is the last of our Southern California amusement park trip marathon (our visits to non-Disney parks not covered here)and we will spend 2 days here. Tmac and Lil cous' for the most part get along pretty well as long as they both agree that Tmac (being the older far more experienced cousin, ahem) knows it all.
Disneyland is due to open at 8:00 a.m. We are driving in from Escondido for a 2 night stay at Ho Jo Anaheim. I knew beforehand that our crew was not going to get up early enough to do the drive to make opening time. We get away about 9:00 a.m. and our drive up I-5 is pretty uneventful. Lil cous' slept most of the way and Tmac was quiet. Our Mapquest directions tell us to get off at Harbor Blvd. Signage on the freeway tell us to get off on Disney Way, who'd have thunk? We throw the Mapquest directions out the window (not literally) and get off at Disney Way which takes us straight to Disneyland and the Timon parking area. We arrive about 10:30 a.m. when the morning marine layer is just about burning off. We get on one of the transportation trams when Tmac announces that the boys have left their lanyand/pins in the car (Tmac has his from a prior trip, the Mom bought a starter kit for Lil cous' on Ebay). Back to the car we go. Back on the tram we go and off to the gates!
We have Southern California City Pass tickets (NOTE: a great deal if you're also doing other So Cal amusement parks). We go to the ticket takers and are informed to go back to the ticket booths to trade in for real tickets. We do this and it doesn't take long. The cast member in the booth is very nice; tells us not to miss Soarin in Calif Adventure and the ESPN arcade in Downtown Disney. In no time we are back at the gates with our real tickets and we're in Disneyland, yea!!!
Our plan is to go and get Indy Jones FP's first which we do. Our FP time is about couple of hours of away, no big deal. We then do the Tiki Room. You have to understand that I am a huge fan of the two cheesiest DL attractions, Tiki Room and Its a Small World. Jungle Cruise is next and just as fun and just as cheesy. Time for lunch which we get at the Hungry Bear cafe. I grab the table and wait, wait, wait for the Mom and boys to bring over the overpriced hamburgers and fries. The boys get plastic souvenir lunch pails, great, more things for the Aunt to carry.
After lunch its time for our Indy Jones' FPs. Even though we are in the FP line, there are still quite a few people in line but it moves quickly. And then.....we get to the preshow and the boys bail...big time. Seems our two little tough guys do not like roller coaster rides. So we take the fraidy cat exit, no harm done. The Aunt doesn't especially like roller coaster rides either. The Mom is disgusted with us all.
Next we do the Aladdin story attraction. The boys sit on the magic carpets near the stage and enjoy the show. The Aunt and Mom sit in back and yawn alot. But we have fun later taking turns saying "Jafar" and gasping. Next is grabbing FP's for Buzz Lightyear and then hitting Toon Town to get some character autographs. Somewhere along the way we created a pin trading monster in Lil cous. Lil' cous is not overly shy but he is much more of an introvert than an extrovert. Not on this trip. He went up to any cast member he saw with a lanyard and asked politely if they would like to trade. He did this on his own and didn't need the Mom or Aunt to accompany him. He quickly decided that he was trading for Disney Olympics pins (I have no idea why, they just appealed to him). Tmac did not like this change in Lil cous', he was supposed to be the outgoing one. Fortunately, the Mom did not allow this cousin friction to go on but still for the remainder of our trip it was Lil' cous and not Tmac who initiated most trades.
But I digress. We go back to Buzz at our appointed FP times. Not to brag or nothing but I got the highest score. The regular lines for Buzz are pretty quick (less than 15 minutes) so we do Buzz again. And the Aunt once again is the high scorer, but beats Mom by only 100 points. Over to "Honey, I Shrunk the Audience" which I guess is showing it's age but I still find it to be fun. The boys do Star Tours while the Aunt and Mom do some shopping. We have dinner in the Pizza Port (yep, overpriced pizza) and are beginning to wear down. We have planned to go over to Calif Adventure for the Electric Light Parade but we have some time to kill. So we go over to my other fave, It's a Small World. More pin trading and more shopping and then we head over to Calif Adventure and grab a piece of sidewalk for the parade. The parade route is not that crowded and we have a good spot for viewing the parade. Since the route is not that crowded we see no ugliness that marred our trip to Disney World a few years ago with adults shoving other people's kids out of the way. The boys have fun playing with their "glow" (lightchasers and light up Mickey head pins I bought BEFORE the trip) before the parade starts. The parade proves to be the perfect end to the day.
I've skipped over some of the things we did this day for the sake of brevity (!). In summary, it was a great day in the Happiest Place on Earth. The crowds were not too bad, the boys for the most part got along and nobody in our crew had a melt down. What more could you ask for?
