The One Where the Elephant Farts

And the video that made it all worthwhile…

I am dying all over again....

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OMG! they allowed this picture?!?!? Am i the only one who sees it?!?!
 
Loving the DL adventure!! If I ever make it out there, I will need some serious help. I'm like you; I need a set plan. I do not do well in chaos, controlled or other wise. Going with the flow is not really an option for me.

And yeah, what is up with the rotten kid in front of you guys?! How did that slip by the CM?? I was given a legacy FP, years ago, to ride Splash again cause our photo was not shown due to a profane gesture. DL is slippin!
 

It’s here where I have to admit that I completely failed to keep my kids on a food schedule during this trip. I can’t for the life of me remember what they had for dinner this night, and I can’t find any photos of proof that we ate. To be honest it might have been popcorn… I know my sister was on a search to find a pretzel that night, and never found one. I really do better with laid out plans of when and where we are going to ride and eat, and I did not do well at come what may!

After some swimming, where my mom and Jen came down at some point, we decided that it was time to head over to Disneyland. My mom was really feeling the effects of all the walking, so she decided to stay behind in the hotel.

I really didn’t take a ton of photos this night, so you will be basically flying blind with me… which is how I felt that night. Here is where I make the worst rookie mistake I could have made. I assumed that because I knew how to navigate the WDW Magic Kingdom, that Disneyland was a no-brainer and that is where I was very wrong!

When we arrived on Main Street it was just getting dark. And here is my very blurry proof of that:

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I almost cried walking under that sign!

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Main Street was crowded for the parade and fireworks, but we were not concerned with watching the fireworks or parade, as we had plans to do that in a couple days. Instead we just wanted to ride some rides.

I assumed that the Paint the Night parade followed the same path as the MSEP and went from Main Street took a left and went through Frontierland, so we headed into Tommorrowland. Now my photos for this night are not many, it could have been that I was disoriented or overwhelmed, but I will have to put tonight together from memory in between the photos.

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We headed into Tomorrowland, not sure what we were planning to ride, and everything seemed to have a long wait.

The big ball didn’t though, and the kids spent a lot of time here!

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As soon as Ethan saw Autopia, we were not going to get by without riding it. Since I avoid the Tomorrowland Speedway as much as possible, I wasn’t excited about this ride, but since there was next to no wait, we went ahead.

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Turns out the DL version is supremely better. I like the change of scenery and the “off-roading”. The kids loved it, and so since there was no line, we got in line and rode a second time.

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We considered riding Nemo, but the line was astronomical and we never saw it with a smaller wait. Instead we made one of many bathroom breaks and decided that the Matterhorn’s wait didn’t look too bad. The wait was about 20 minutes and we loaded into our bobsleds.

I had no idea what to expect with this ride, to be honest the only thing I did know about it was that there is a basketball hoop inside at the top. My sister sat in the back, behind me and by the end of the ride she was laughing so hard she was crying. I had no idea what was so funny, what I did know is there is no way that my mom should ride that ride with her back problems.

The reason my sister was laughing? Well apparently I was being very vocal about the ride without realizing it. My sister said that it sounding like someone was poking me in the side the entire ride and I was making hilarious sounds. I will admit the bobsleds were not my favorite! The yeti was cool, but the ride was just too uneven and jerky. The kids loved it however.

When we left the Matterhorn, we headed toward Small World, where we quickly learned that I had made a mistake and the parade was holding us hostage. We could go backwards back into Tomorrowland or wait. We really had no interest in Tomorrowland at the moment, so we waited in a very heavy crowd.

As soon as the crowd let up we headed straight to my favorite ride, It’s a Small World. The ride front is just amazing at DL, so pretty! I love that it starts outside as well, although I am not a fan of all the outside lines at DL.

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I was so excited to see the addition of the Disney characters into the ride. The wait was basically nothing, less than 5 minutes and we were sailing on the happiest cruise ever to sail. As you can see from my very blurry photo.

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My mission this trip was to try to find and capture all the Disney characters on film… we rode this several times this trip so we will see how I do! First off let me say that I love how the characters have been inserted into the ride so tastefully. If you weren’t looking at times you would definitely miss them. Secondly, I do have to say that even though I love WDW’s “grander” version, I think that DL has it on nostalgia.

First up: Cinderella

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Mulan and Mushu

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Lorelai and Ethan were really enjoying it!

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Simba and Pumba on the left, although a bit far away.

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Donald and the three Caballeros

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Ariel, Lorelai was thrilled with this addition

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Dory and Nemo

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Lilo and Stitch

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For a while I thought this might be from the Jungle Book, I haven’t seen it in ages, but now I realize it is in WDW’s version as well, so nope.

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I just love the little hula dancers!

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Woody, Bullseye and Jesse

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I want to mention that when we rode this I noticed that the one of the saloon girls’ leg wasn’t kicking properly. The next day when we rode, it was perfect, I noticed many things that weren’t working at WDW’s Small World, and throughout our entire trip they were never fixed. DL shows how well they take care of their park!

After IASW, we planned on heading toward Frontierland, but we were blocked in by something, and I can’t remember what, and we wanted to ride the train over, but it wasn’t running, either because it was down or because the fireworks were starting. We were wondering what to do when the fireworks started and IASW came to life. It was really amazing! We didn’t have a great view, because we didn’t plan it out, but we were able to see the projections and it was really cool.

The kids were growing tired of standing where we were so we headed toward the train station again, but stopped and sat down on the ground with the crowd to watch the fireworks above us. It was almost silent around us, and everyone had just stopped and were sitting in the middle of the walkway looking up. It was something that I don’t think would happen at WDW.

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After the fireworks we finally headed toward Frountierland with the crowd, via New Orleans Square. And here is where I made my second mistake. Who’s idea was it to put Fantasmic on the Rivers of America and clog up traffic horribly?

Jen was getting frustrated with the crowd, so she said she would meet up with us later and she went to look for a pretzel and a DSA. The kids and I happened onto POTC and the wait said it was only 15 minutes, so we jumped in line… as did 2000 other people it seemed. After a very long 35-40 minute wait, we were finally boarding our boat.

So now I can officially say that DL’s POTC blows WDW’s away. Even with the smaller feel in the area with the boat fight, it was just amazing. There is just so much more to it. Going through Blue Bayou, the added scenes, the extra drops… it was just better than WDW’s version. Although I am not sure how we got from a New Orleans Bayou to the Caribbean, that one I never quite got.

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After our journey with Pirates, and saying goodbye to Jack, I called Jen and she said she would meet us at the Haunted Mansion, so we headed that way. It was packed along the waterfront but we did see Peter and Captain Hook fighting for a brief moment.

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Finally we met up with Jen and headed into the Haunted Mansion with no wait at all.

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I cannot compare WDW and DL on this one. I love them both so much! I love the feel of the outside of the house at DL more, but I love WDW’s queue. The rides are both fantastic. It is easily in my top rides and seeing the Hatbox Ghost was really awesome!!!!

After the Haunted Mansion we were all feeling pretty worn out. We walked through Frountierland and considered riding Splash Mountain, but either the wait was too long or we couldn’t find the entrance. To be honest I think it was the latter!

Instead we came across Winnie the Pooh which the kids did NOT want to ride, too babyish for them, but Jen and I did, so we pulled them along. There wasn’t any line at all so we were in our honeypot in no time and we were along for a blustery ride.

Let me emphasize that we were all really tired at this point and were laughing at just about anything when we came the Woozles room. I am borrowing Google Images here because I didn’t take one dang photo…

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And when we passed by the Woozle Elephant with the moving colors behind her, we all swear we heard her fart. I have no idea where the sound came from, but we all heard it and we could not stop laughing. Ethan claimed the Elephant Fart ride as the best ride in all of Disneyland and his favorite forever. We were laughing so hard we were crying, people must have thought we were crazy!

At that point we knew it was time to call it a night. It was late, our feet were done fore and we had an early morning at DL planned, time to get going. We headed over to the train station to catch a train to the front. We headed all the way to the front of the train and sat right behind the front row.

The kids were falling asleep in seconds and we struck up a conversation with the guy in front of us, who turned out to be an off duty CM. I cannot for the life of me remember his name, but he was so nice. He had started work at 4am (I think) on the Mickey and Friends trolley, then when he got off work he changed and spent the rest of the day at DL and was ending his day just riding the train. He was huge Disney fan and loved working at Disneyland and had nothing but wonderful things to say. It was a lot of fun to talk to him!

The walk home seemed A LOT longer than the walk there, and by the end we were all ready to fall over. Especially since the kids were about to fall asleep walking. We were very hungry so we stopped at the 7-11, and found that it is a hopping place late at night. The line was around the store, but we were starved so we waited to buy our food.

We drug ourselves upstairs to find out that if you use the pull out sofa in the room with the bunk beds, it takes up the ENTIRE floor. Luckily my mom sleeps like a rock and the kids climbing over her to get into bed didn’t disturb her at all.

I set my alarm and was asleep in seconds!
 
I am completely finished with writing my trip report, it is just getting the time to match up the photos with it. I am going to try my hardest to finish it up this week so that I can start on our Thanksgiving WDW trip report. That one might be finished by the time we go back to WDW, which looks like it will be in 2017. This year we are taking a break from Disney (gasp) because we are trying to move and financially Disney is a lot more than a week in Cancun. I would trade a thousand trips to Cancun for one to Disney, but alas my family wants a beach vacation and Ethan and Erik do not want to cruise. If I could find a way to fit in a cruise with just Lorelai and I we might have a bit of Disney sooner than we thought....
 
Simba and Pumba on the left
Please tell me you mean the right??? otherwise i cannot find them!

He was huge Disney fan and loved working at Disneyland and had nothing but wonderful things to say. It was a lot of fun to talk to him!

OHHHHHH I ADORE talking with CM's! So insightful!!!

I set my alarm and was asleep in seconds!

Funny how DL/WDW can do that isn't it?!?! HA HA

I think you have swayed me into going to DL...
 
Please tell me you mean the right??? otherwise i cannot find them!



OHHHHHH I ADORE talking with CM's! So insightful!!!



Funny how DL/WDW can do that isn't it?!?! HA HA

I think you have swayed me into going to DL...


LOL, I wondered if anyone would notice, and I was too lazy to fix it when I saw. I put the wrong photo in, it should have been this one:

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Which has the pair on the left, but I put the one where they were almost out of the frame on the right. Either picture is bad, lol.

I love finding CM's who really love their job. This CM was so protective of DL, he really loves it.

I was so exhausted on this trip!

I can't wait to go back and visit again with my husband!
 
ah, yeah, the parade is definitely a different beast at DLR than at WDW - we wound up watching the projections on It's a Small World as well - it is a pretty neat show

I agree that IASW is much better at DLR and I liked the addition of the characters (I know not all Disney purest do) - but I love how stylized they are so the just fit well. Also agree that it (and all the rides) are much better maintained there

There is just no comparison as far as Pirates. Oh, and my understanding is that a lot of the theming is around the Pirate Jean Lefite who had his base of operations in/near New Orleans so that is how the Pirates and New Orleans fit together

It is so true that the walk back feel soooo much longer than the walk to the park. Sounds like a fun - if tiring - evening!
 
Just finished reading so far. Great report. I'm taking notes mentally for our DL trip in December.
 
Ohh! that's a better picture! you get the whole scene! Including the laughing hyenas! LOVE IT!!
Anything that deals with a picture i will catch it!!! LOL
 
Love your reports........I'm sure when we go on Winnie the Pooh I will be listening closely. LOL
 
ah, yeah, the parade is definitely a different beast at DLR than at WDW - we wound up watching the projections on It's a Small World as well - it is a pretty neat show

I agree that IASW is much better at DLR and I liked the addition of the characters (I know not all Disney purest do) - but I love how stylized they are so the just fit well. Also agree that it (and all the rides) are much better maintained there

There is just no comparison as far as Pirates. Oh, and my understanding is that a lot of the theming is around the Pirate Jean Lefite who had his base of operations in/near New Orleans so that is how the Pirates and New Orleans fit together

It is so true that the walk back feel soooo much longer than the walk to the park. Sounds like a fun - if tiring - evening!

I finally was able to start reading your DL TR, and love it!

Thanks for the info on Pirates. You can almost feel the history at DL!

Just finished reading so far. Great report. I'm taking notes mentally for our DL trip in December.

:welcome: Thanks for joining!

Ohh! that's a better picture! you get the whole scene! Including the laughing hyenas! LOVE IT!!
Anything that deals with a picture i will catch it!!! LOL

I took a better one on one the later days, but now I can't find it. LOL

Love your reports........I'm sure when we go on Winnie the Pooh I will be listening closely. LOL

:welcome: Thanks for joining! Let me know if you hear anything!! LOL

I am determined to wrap up this report and begin my new one by the end of next week. I have it all written, but photobucket is being a pain so it takes forever to load the photos.
UP NEXT Day 2 at DL!
 
So when I dump my photos into Photobucket it is taking them and mixing them all up, which makes it a bit more time consuming to add all the photos to the text… seems like Photobucket is testing my patience.

In what felt like seconds my alarm was going off and it was time to get up and go, unfortunately we didn’t feel like going… any of us! Our goal was to get up in time to get breakfast at the hotel’s free breakfast and then head over to DL since DCA had early entry that morning. Unfortunately we were already running late… a theme.

We did make it to the breakfast room where they had a HUGE selection, part of the reason why I chose this hotel, but we didn’t have time for any of it really. The kids grabbed bowls of dry cereal and the adults all grabbed a pastry of some sort and we headed out. I vowed we would wake up early tomorrow for a good breakfast.

We all were a bit more refreshed this morning than the previous night, so the walk wasn’t horrible.

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Ethan was in love with taking selfies this trip:

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And from his phone:

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I loved the posters, the feeling you get at DL is very nostalgic.

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First stop of the morning was to get some ears.

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Then we had to stop for Pluto because he is Jen’s favorite character, and unlike WDW there was NO LINE! There wasn’t a Photopass Photographer either, so you win some you lose some. Jen was super excited! It was fun to see my sister and mom experience Disney for the first time.

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Pluto got a lot of attention from us, and since there was no line behind us, we did many different combinations.

After Pluto we looked at more ears since Mom and Lorelai hadn’t made their mind up yet. It was killing me that our early morning was being spent this way, but I bit my tongue and explored a bit while they looked.

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Lorelai was the hold up and after trying on every style in the store.

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She came out with these:

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Mom picked the same style as Jen, which seems to be a popular choice lately. I love my sequined ears, but they are scratchy. The fur ones are so soft!

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For some reason we didn’t head down Main St. but instead headed across the street into the Emporium to waste more time.

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I really wanted a 60th Anniversary shirt, but I just never found one that I was in love with.

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While we were shopping Chip and Dale came out and my mom was like a kid and jumped in line. Although this is her first trip to Disneyland as an adult, she has been to both WDW and DL as a child in the 60’s and 70’s, she doesn’t remember much of it… but she does have a photo of her and Chip and Dale together and she was so excited to get another.

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Chip and Dale were fantastic as always!

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Lorelai got in on action.

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FINALLY we were ready to go go go!

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According to the timestamp on the photo, this one was taken at 8:29am, so all of our dilly dallying only took a half hour. It felt like so much more!

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Our first stop was Star Tours, a family fav!

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And it was, well Star Tours.

Then on to a ride that at WDW is not a favorite of mine, but surprisingly at DL was one of my absolute favorites… Space Mountain.

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I look terrified but it was only because Lorelai was squeezing my hand and I thought she was scared. Turns out she was squeezing my hand to signal to me to let go… I didn’t get that. As you can see from Jen’s face, it was her favorite ride!

I don’t know how the rides at DL and WDW can be called the same and be so different. DL’s version of Space Mt. is thousands of times better than WDW. It is smoother, the effects are better and the soundtrack is awesome. I showed the kids the new Star Wars overlay and they want to go back, NOW!We all loved it, and we grabbed a FP, before we left the area for a ride later on.

We were still pretty early so the line was really quick, but that queue is soooo long, and the top part is in the sun. YIKES!

After Space was a stop at the big ball… because that is what we do.

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And a selfie:

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We bypassed Nemo again with hopes that we would find a shorter line later… yeah right.

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Instead our goal was IASW for my mom.

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We passed an artist kiosk and I fell in love with the work after he did Lorelai’s name, of course we had to buy it.

The samples:

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Drawing Lorelai:

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I also ordered our last name to pick up later, and mom ordered her name. We will pretend like we already have them, and didn’t pick them up hours later, because here they are…

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Then we stopped and got some silly photos taken… but we didn’t ride the ride.

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Finally we headed into IASW in the dazzeling Cali sun! Come on, that is just beautiful!!!

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A couple I missed the night before…

Alice and the White Rabbit

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Jasmine and Aladdin

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Pinochio

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And they exiting to the blinding sun:

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I just love the façade at DL, it is so pretty!!!!

We weren’t working on a touring plan, and we didn’t want to head too far away from Tommorrowland, so we just went where we wanted, which ended up being the Teacups, which had no line.

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Ethan and I rode together in the “cool” cup… i.e. the one that spun the fastest.

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After our mad tea party, we headed back to Space Mountain where I attempted to document the time and the wait time… looks like 45 minute wait maybe? Our time stamp says it was 10:23am.

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Glad we had a fast pass!

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We were all getting a bit hungry now, and since we were going with the flow I hadn’t made any plans, but I did suggest the Hungry Bear, which was approved all around. We jumped on the train, to head over toward Frontierland.

Some of us were feeling a bit goofy…

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It was kinda funny when the kids were surprised at the dioramas on the train, they had really been out of it the night before. I loved the train at DL, so cool!

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It was getting pretty crowded:

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My photo taking skills were off this day, but I am pretty sure that we grabbed Splash FP’s before we headed to lunch.

Finally we made it to Critter Country, which I would not have known was a land to be honest. I am so use to the set up at WDW, but it does fit better with the name Critter Country. We headed up to the ordering stations at the Hungry Bear Restaurant with no wait, and turns out we had great timing because right after we ordered the lines exploded and the wait was easily 15 minutes to place your order!

I knew what I wanted!! The Fried Green Tomato Sandwich. Which isn’t even served there any more, it was moved to another restaurant in New Orleans Square I believe, and to be honest I think I know why. It was okay, the ratio of bread to tomato was off. Too much bread for sure, and I am a bread lover. Plus the tomato wasn’t well seasoned. If they are able to do the sandwich better justice at another restaurant, then it was a good choice. I love fried green tomatoes, I make them often at home, and although like mine more than anyone elses, I have had great ones at restaurants, this was not one of them.

As I said, it was OK, not at all something I would rush back to try again. I also got the special drink, the Honey-Bee Frozen Lemonade, no whip cream (yuck), with the honey flavored stick. It was delish!

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Can I digress and ask why does EVERYTHING now have whip cream on it nowdays? Restaurants will put it on just about everything, I have ordered so many things that you would never think come with whip cream on it, and yet there it is. Why would you want whip cream on lemonaid?

The hit of the table were the crispy chicken sandwiches, which my sister and mom LOVED!!!

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Scratch the hamburger sandwhich from yesterday, now I remember. It was here that I ordered Ethan a plain cheeseburger kid’s meal and they gave me a chicken sandwich instead. The receipt did say the cheeseburger, not a chicken sandwich, but maybe they are so use to serving so many chicken sandwiches, it was second nature to throw one on there. They replaced it with a burger, but told us to keep the chicken sandwich as well. I tried the chicken sandwich, and agree it was better than my tomato sandwich. Lorelai claimed the fries I believe.

Here is the proof of both the burger with the grapes and carrots and the chicken:

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Lorelai got a powerpack kids meal of course.

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After our meal we were all ready for bio breaks, and it took us a while to figure out there was a downstairs and that is where the restrooms are.

Our Splash Mt. FP’s weren’t ready yet, so to pass the time we rode POTC. The line was pretty long, but we waited in it, and it kept moving so it wasn’t so bad. Ethan was not happy to be in line at POTC again!

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Even though I don’t have photographic proof, I am almost certain that we rode the Haunted Mansion next.

Finally, Splash Mt. was calling our name!

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I don’t really care for the single rider logs at DL, but as always the ride was great.

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If I had to compare WDW to DL, I think that I prefer WDW, the kids certainly do as they insisted we ride it more than a dozen times in November.

My two cuties!

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We were all getting a bit hot and ready for our midday break so we headed out… but we had to stop for some family photos!

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Not sure about this:

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We did have to stop over in Fantasyland to pick up our artwork so we got another angle of the castle.

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As we were heading down Main Street I thought I recognized someone so I called out “Danielle!” and sure enough it was her, IheartDDuck on here. It was a very quick meeting and I have no photo proof. L

As we were leaving we hopped over to DCA for two reasons. 1) Ethan HAD to get Oswald ears, and they are only sold in the Oswald shop there. And 2) I wanted to pick up FP’s for World of Color that night.

I deposited everything on a park bench in the entrance with Mom and Jen and left them to go grab the FP’s.

While I was gone Ethan and Granny met this guy!

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Rabbit Ears!

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Ethan’s favorite character is now a tie between Donald and Oswald!

When I got back Ethan and I headed into the Oswald store to get his ears. I am not exaggerating, it felt like 1,000 degrees in there. The family of 5 in front of us were signing up and paying to do the 60th Anniversary savenger hunt thing, individually. It took about 30 minutes in line. I almost gave up on buying the ears, I was drenched and about to pass out, but Ethan really really wanted the ears.

This photo says it all!

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I would do it again, to see how excited he was to finally have Oswald ears!

We truged back to the hotel where I took the kids swimming and Jen went looking for a coffee shop. She did come back with Starbucks after about an hour, no idea where she found it.

After some swimming and everyone resting a bit we decided it was time to head out for dinner. Here is my adorable boy! I obviously had already spent $25, I have no clue on what and bought the Disneyland backpack.

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This was my treat tonight and we were heading to the kid’s favorite, Rainforest Café. We were NOT walking to DTD, so we called a cab to pick us up. The fare was very cheap, less than $10 I think.

Hello DTD!

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Since we are Landry’s Select members the wait wasn’t that bad and before long we were seated.

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Not in a great location, but we had a great time. Our waiter was FANTASTIC and after spending a good 5-10 minutes at our table introducing himself and taking our drink orders, and just entertaining us, he covered his name tag and ask us his name.

None of the adults had any clue, he turned to Lorelai and without a missing a beat said, “Peter!”. It sure was!

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The meal was a lot of fun we us adults had a few Margartitas each, so we were all feeling a bit better!

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We headed out into DTD and enjoyed a bit of the music as we walked toward DCA.

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Our first stop inside DCA was Soarin’ since we really wanted to try and get row one. The wait was only 10 minutes, if that and we were able to wait an extra ride to get the first row! We had a bit of fun while waiting:

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Pretty!

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Since we had spent so much time at dinner and then DTD, we really didn’t have time to do much else in DCA. I had tried to explain that to my mom earlier in the day, the longer the breaks, the less time at the parks, but she has a one track mind. She also has other issues and doesn’t deal well with emotion and so after Soarin’ she was more than a little upset that we weren’t heading to rides, but instead we were heading to watch World of Color. I didn’t know this at the time.

As we were heading to find our line for the WoC FP, we passed a vendor selling the magic paint brushes and ears. The kids decided to spend some of their gift cards to each buy one of the paint brushes and I bought some ears.

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Finally we found our FP line and after a moment we were ushered to our viewing area. We managed to get pretty close, although we were in the wet zone.

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My mom was becoming visibly upset and it was then I found out she wanted to ride the carnival type swings and she broke down in sobs over it right there. She was having a hard time and I didn’t know what to do. We were surrounded by people and the swings closed down for WoC, so there was no way to ride them that night. She did calm down but it put a really cloud on the evening.

WoC was amazing though! The family in front of us were all teens and adults so they let the kids stand in front of them right against the railing. When the first wet part hit, the teen daughter screamed and jumped back past me and ended up stomping on my mom’s foot twice. She didn’t apologize or anything. Needless to say it was time to call it a night!

It was at this moment when I realized that it is really hard to plan for other people than just your immediate family. I was getting nervous about our last day, when we were adding my cousin and her daughter to the mix.

I grabbed a few shots of Cars Land at night as we headed out.

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This would be my last time in DCA, and I really don’t feel like we did half of what was available. Most of all I really regret not seeing Aladdin, as I heard it is AMAZING and now it is being replaced and we will never get to experience it. I know that DLR only sells 5 day tickets, but I really think that my family could make a 6-7 day trip out of DLR easily!

We walked back to the hotel and I tried to pack up as much as I could before we went to bed. I set my alarm for early the next morning since we had a lot to get done, packing, loading it in the car and breakfast before we headed to DL to meet my cousin.
 
What an amazing update! Loads of FUN pictures and Good times.. along with some break downs, But hey that happens!

i am not going to lie. I am SO TORN in what we are going to do next year! WDW or DL!?!?
 
What an amazing update! Loads of FUN pictures and Good times.. along with some break downs, But hey that happens!

i am not going to lie. I am SO TORN in what we are going to do next year! WDW or DL!?!?

Disneyland!! I am dying to go back!!
 













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