Family Trip day 4: Disneyland!

It was finally Disneyland day!  Everyone did a great job of keeping it a secret from the boys.  Everyone that is except for me!  I had a minor slip up while in Sequoia, but ducked and covered pretty well.  

 I had made Cody a little book to read to Tyler to explain days new adventure. 

 

They were pretty excited once it started to sink in.  I'm not sure the really understood where we were going and what Disneyland actually was.

We finished getting ready and walked over to catch our shuttle to the park.

So cool! 

Tickets in hand we headed through the gates.

Seeing the magical castle as we walked down main street.

The rest of the Matterhorn...

We started in Tomorrowland and had to ride something!  So we jumped in line and rode the Astro Orbiter while we waited for everyone else to find us. 

Next up was Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters.  This was a ton of fun; you are thrown into a big video game and help to shoot Zorb's evil aliens.  They take your picture and you get your score at the end.  Eli was the big winner from our group!

Next was the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage.  While waiting in line we could watch the subs cruise by and they also had a buoy set up with the seagulls from Nemo saying "Mine, mine, mine." (Lucky us, this is one thing we are still randomly hearing from the toy room!)

We had fun "diving down" to see scenes from Nemo. 

Then we headed over for our 1st big ride, Space Mountain.  We utilized the Fast Pass system while we were at Disney, and I honestly don't know how you could do it any other way.  We jetted to the front of lines when our Fast Pass was ready and it made our day awesome!  

Space Mountain was fun, and fast, and a bit scary.  Tyler wanted to ride it again right away, I think Cody and I could pass! 

Uncle Stu playing with the boys and the giant water ball.  They loved sharing their day with him, and he was quite the trooper. 

Next we headed over to Adventureland.  As we were walking through there was no line for the Enchanted Tiki Room, so we went right in and the show started 5 minutes later.  That was a lot of fun, the boys really like the songs and we had a few minutes to sit and relax.  

Jungle Cruise was next on our list.  The tour guides completely make this ride, ours was awesome, and had great timing with her delivery and jokes. 

We took our only split from the boys after the cruise so that we could ride Indiana Jones.  Tyler was a bit too short this trip, so we decided it would be easier if neither of them rode it.  So they went off with Grandma and Grandpa to explore Tarzan's Treehouse.  They also visited the Sailing Ship Columbia pirate ship.  They said they had fun, but didn't report much else. 

Indiana Jones was fun for the bigger kids.  Not a favorite ride, but good effects and story.  

This brought us to lunch time so we jumped onto the Monorail and headed into Downtown Disney to have a sit down lunch and take a break.  We were able to ride in the very back of the Monorail for great views!

We walked around a bit and decided to try the Rainforest Cafe for lunch.  I've heard of them and have wanted to try it, but have never been around one.  The restaurant is very cool with animal statues everywhere and rain forest plants, aquariums and jungle sounds.  Every so often a thunderstorm erupts with lights and sounds and some of the statues move.  The food wasn't worth the price however, so we probably won't go back again.

We also had a chance to look at a few of the shops.  One cool place was Build a Ride, where you can build a custom model car and for more money you can turn it into a remote control.  They also had a LEGO store, so cool to see all the different series and the life size LEGO statues.  We jumped back onto the Monorail for more Disney fun!

We headed for Critter Country so we could meet up with Virginia and Eli for Splash Mountain.  This was Tyler's favorite ride!  Cody had fun as well, but he was in the very front and was soaked for a good hour later.  I loved going through the story and the small falls.  You can't see Ty in the picture, but he's in the very back with Eli, his hand are also up and he's squealing with joy "this is Awesome! "

We split again and went for the tamer Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.  The boys loved it, going through a book and seeing the story as we rode through. 

Then we headed over to New Orleans Square for Pirates of the Caribbean.  Stu kept the boys busy with many games of rock, paper, scissors while waiting in lines. 

Pirates was a lot of fun, once again, I love the stories.  They have updated this with some new Jack Sparrow parts with Johnny Depp added in, made it so we recognized some of the characters.


We headed over to Frontierland next and met back up with Grandma and Grandpa for the Thunder Mountain Railroad.  Ty was once again a huge fan, Cody had a good time as well, but we're starting to realized he might not be a huge coaster buff.

It was time from Fantasyland and It's a Small World.  The ride is beautiful, and a nice break from walking with a/c to boot! 

It's fun to see a lot of the favorite characters in doll for and hearing the different languages and native instruments.

Mad Tea Party was next on the list, somehow we folded Stu up enough to ride! 

Meeting up again with Virginia and Eli, we headed for Dumbo the Flying Elephant. 

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Virginia and Ty...

Eli & Cody...

Keith and I...

Mr. Toad's Wild Ride took us for a fun and crazy drive.

There were a few more rides in Fantasyland I had hoped to hit, but we ran out of time, next trip I guess....

We headed up to Main Street to catch Mickey's Soundsational Parade. 

This was a fun way to see some of our favorite characters in one spot!

Tyler really liked Tangled, so she's his favorite princess.

Tinkerbell has a lot of rolls at Disney as we found out later in the evening. 

I think after the parade we went through the Haunted Mansion to see the funny ghosts, the boys were okay with this one, reminding them it was all pretend.  Some of it was a bit scary.

This brought us to dinner time.  We all gathered out in Downtown Disney for a Mexican dinner.  It was wonderful and a much needed break!

We hustled back into the park so we could find a spot to watch the Fireworks.  This was such an awesome display . Our favorite part was seeing Tinkerbell flying by on the high wire to lead us through the show.

After the fireworks we headed over to the Rivers of America to get a spot for the Fantasmic Laser Show.  We had a pretty good place to watch, but that also meant sitting and waiting for almost 30 minutes.  Unfortunately this happened...

which was the conclusion of Ty's day at Disney!

So the rest of us relaxed and waited for the show.  It was beyond awesome!  Mickey guided us through the show of lasers, lights and fireworks.  We saw the characters come by again on river barges, a pirate fight on the big ship with Peter Pan and Hook, dragons and alligators in the water, and so much more.  Sooo glad we saw it!  

Keith and I went with Grandma and Tyler slowly making our way out of the park.  We hadn't had much time to smash pennies through out the day, so we took time and stopped at some of the places I had marked on my list.  Then stopped at a couple of shops so we could get shirts and light sabers for the boys.  Then we made our way out to the parking lot to wait in the RV for the rest of the group.  

Cody went with Grandpa, Eli, Virginia and Stu to try and catch Star Tours.  They lucked out and were able to get in, said it was awesome!  

We got there at around 8am and were back at camp around 1am, such an awesome day!  We can not wait to go back again and hit the few things we missed and take more time to see the shows and shops in each area.  And yes, we will go for 3 or more days next time!