2nd day in Disneyland – even more magic

I am SOOO glad we didn’t decide to go to Disneyland at the beginning of our trip. What a way to end off! And we still have tomorrow, to go to all the things we missed/want to do again.

But this evening ended with a show to end all shows – World of Colour. OMG. It is the best thing we have ever seen, ever.

I need to start at the beginning (a very good place to start ). We actually took more than a little time to get away this morning. We supplemented the paltry hotel offerings with coffee, bagels and bananas from downstairs. I say ‘supplemented’ rather than ‘replaced’ because I actually did use some toast and butter.

I then did some washing and drying in the hotel laundry. Just $2 per load. This is the cheapest washing we have done on our trip. Meanwhile the kids were arguing about who got to use the Android and it was hard to get them out the door. Can you believe it?. Only my family could possibly argue over devices when we are about to go to DISNEYLAND for the day!

Once we finally got there I ran to get new splash mountain passes, Courtney got a set of trading pins, then we went over to California Adventure Park to get Fast passes for World of Colour and a ride we’d had recommended to us called ‘Soarin’ over California’. This completed our duties in the Adventure park for a while, so we went back to Disneyland but first I went back to the hotel to rescue the clothes out of the dryer (about a 40 min round trip with lots of running. All exercise welcome at this point, due to the aforementioned tight jeans).

When I returned I couldn’t find them, at our designated meeting spot, even though I got back in record time. I had no credit in my phone, and just had to keep looking around. Then I noticed my phone was connecting to a wireless network called Coatsy Jnr… so I knew they were close by!!! I eventually found them in the shady spot. Courtney had passed some time queuing up to have a photo with Minnie. There’s ALWAYS a queue for these things, very cute.

By the way, Disneyland really is the happiest place on earth. They pump out happy music from every speaker all day, and it’s impossible to be in anything but a happy mood.

Thomas decided that he also wanted to get some trading pins. This investment was SO worth it – it kept them happy and occupied for the next 2 days. There are all these cool rules and trading etiquettes to follow. I also thought Courtney needed some Minnie ears – since everyone else in the park seemed to wear them. Seriously.

After this we headed off to Splash mountain and got some lovely fresh fruit on the way. All was good until we passed the actual ride to get in the queue. C was getting cold feet (and they were to get even colder) and Thomas was joining in. We convinced them both to come on the ride with a promise that if they hated it we’d never make them go on anything again. I was pretty sure they’d love it.

Well, they hated it. We also got very very wet. At the end Courtney was still crying, Thomas was mad, Andrew was trying to keep up his spirits and all of us were soaking… but I had a terrific time! I was hot and needed to cool off, and I love those rides! Plus I even remembered it from when I was 12 years old!! So afterwards I was in a great mood and gave them lots of cuddles and gently ushered them over to the Winnie the pooh stand.

On the way to our next ride, we saw that there was zero waiting time for Jungle Cruise, so we hopped on again. We had a different guide and slightly different jokes. Then the kids went on Autopia – a simple go-kart-ish sort of ride, and this seemed to restore their moods. They have been earning HEAPS of nice points and sending us broke!

By the time we eventually had some lunch in toon town,  it was nearly 4pm! Club sandwiches/salad for us, hot dogs for kids. We have been very impressed at being able to eat healthily in Disneyland. I was expecting to have to live on hot chips for 3 days.

Kids were having such fun trading pins that we bought them another set of 7 pins each. They get to accost staff members to trade (most staff members have them) and the answer is always ‘yes’ to a trade request. Cool.

We got stuck going behind the parade trying to get out to go back to Adventure park for our Soarin’ ride, so we heard the Mary Poppins ending 4 times! This was enough! (Actually just once was enough)

I ended up going on the Soarin ride on my own, because we hadn’t read the ride description when we got the tickets, which cautioned those who suffer from a fear of heights or from motion sickness not to ride. But when I came out I convinced the kids to come back with me, because it really was so fantastic, and assured them it was just a gentle floating version of Track Attack at Questacon in Canberra. They loved it. (Phew.)

We hung around trading pins, having ice cream, tasting churros (disgusting) and watching the Tron dance show. This park seemed boring compared to Disneyland, but to be fair it is still under construction. I then went for my second lot of exercise back to the hotel to get jumpers etc, met back in Disneyland for the college band. It was fantastic and Courtney even featured in it for a moment. I’m very glad the video camera didn’t run out of battery, it was flashing red at me the whole time.

At 8pm we went over to Adventure park, thinking we would have a restaurant dinner and then queue up for World of Colour. But there was a HUGE queue to get in – I guess everyone had the same idea – so we got a quick chinese dinner and although we turned up at the allotted time we, seemed to be back of queue when we returned, and had to stand up for SOOO long. We thought we wouldn’t get a good spot but… we did! We were told not to try for the front because you get really wet. So we went further back and boy was it fab. So much standing and really stiff calves – but worth it!

It finished at almost 11pm and once again we had a ridiculously late night. But this is going to work in our favour as we try to adjust to Sydney time when we get back. The kids won’t get tired until about 4pm, and we’ll only need to keep them up for an extra couple of hours the first night or two. They’ll . In fact I’m very tempted to keep them in that time zone long term!