One Year Later: Part 3 of 4

My brother Koltyr was able to get an internship at Disneyland from September through January. Scott and I love Disneyland and hadn’t been there since our Honeymoon in October of 2009, so we decided in light of the previous year we’d had, we deserved a nice vacation. So we took our second road-trip as a married couple (Blanding being the first) and drove down to California! We had an absolute blast! We arrived around 1:30pm in the afternoon and were pretty hungry. We couldn’t check in to our hotel room yet so we decided to go out to eat! We went to Joe’s Crab Shack – the exact same one we ate upon arriving here on our honeymoon! So that was really fun and yummy!

Afterwards we went and checked into our slightly ghetto hotel room. The room itself was…well, the bed was nice and big. We had a stain in the carpet of someone’s foot. I should have taken a picture of it but was too grossed out to go near it. So we wore socks around our hotel room the rest of our stay. Because we’d woken up at 4am in order to head out, we decided to take a quick nap before heading to an Angel’s baseball game! Wootwoot!

The Angel’s game was a blast and we actually had pretty good seats! They played the Red Sox and the Angel’s won! It made me miss having major league baseball close by. We also made it on TV when a homerun landed right in front of us. That was pretty cool! We’re famous! ;)

  
The next three days were spent at the most magical place on earth! Scott and I spent the first day just in Disneyland, going on all our favorite rides and getting our fill of returning to one of our favorite places. I was pretty sad to find out they’d closed down The Haunted Mansion the day before we came! I thought we’d come early enough to beat them, but alas, we were not. The Haunted Mansion is my favorite Disneyland ride so I was really very bummed. 

I tried not to let it show but it made me really sad! They closed it in order to renovate for Halloween. We were still able to enjoy the day though and it was fun to go to our favorite spots! We did meet up with Koltyr before he had to go to work. There wasn’t much time to do everything we wanted, but we did go on a couple of rides and it was fun to hang out for a couple of hours! 

After Koltyr headed off to work, Scott and I decided to ride on the Mark Twain steamboat. As we approached the dock, a gentleman at the gate greeted us and he asked about my bag. I had a Lake Powell bag that I’d bought on our trip in July. Apparently this gentleman vacations there with his family every year and he was excited to see that we were Lake Powell lovers as well. He then said that no one had asked to ride in the wheel house yet and we were welcome to it if we wanted. We weren’t entirely sure what he meant, but we said okay. After waiting a few minutes, the boat returned to the dock and this gentleman came to find us. He took Scott and I separate from the rest of the group clear to the top of the boat where the private quarters are for the captain. He knocked and the door was unlocked for us and he led us into the little room where we saw a ladder leading to the floor above.

 

 

So we climbed this ladder and found ourselves as high as you can go on the boat where the wheel is. The view was fantastic! We were directed to the bell and whistle and told how to operate them – there’s a very specific way in which they are sounded. Unfortunately I can’t remember how it goes, but it was pretty cool! The gentleman was very nice and told us a lot of cool things about the park and how he came to work there. Sounds like a pretty cool job to take after retiring! When the ride was finished Scott and I earned our Pilot’s Certificates, signed by Walt Disney ;) It was a cool experience and we really enjoyed it!

We ate at the Hungry Bear for dinner, which is by far our favorite restaurant. We ordered a side of onion rings and they gave us a side of fries instead. Because we had to wait an extra, oh I dunno, 45 seconds for them to correct this slight error, they gave us a free dessert! It was very unexpected and kind of them and reinforced the positive atmosphere of the park. Customer relations (from our experience) has always been top notch! And the dessert was super yummy!

So we got to ride every ride we loved (that was open) and it was a really good day. The major downside was my feet began aching. This was a problem throughout our entire stay. I brought several pairs of shoes and ended up destroying two of them (they were old and on their last leg anyway.) But my feet gave me major issues…we returned to the hotel very exhausted and we sure slept well! 

OH, except I started hearing chirping that night. Scott was too exhausted to stay awake long enough to hear it, but about 10 minutes after the lights went out I started hearing what sounded like a cricket. I got up, turned the light on and followed the noise to the armchair in our room and as I touched the chair the noise stopped. I was grossed out so I moved all our stuff away from it and got it off the floor, making sure our bags were zipped. I turned the light off and got back in bed. A few minutes later the chirping started again. I did my best to ignore it but the chirping noise continued the rest of our stay. I still don’t know what I was. My best guess is cockroach or cricket – neither of which thrills me.

We spent the second day at Disneyland with Koltyr! He got to spend the full day with us, and we stayed all day in California Adventure. 

 

Before Kolt got there Scott and I ran into Minnie Mouse over by - you guessed it - The Tower of Terror!

Koltyr works over in California Adventure so he’s really gotten to know his way around! Can I just say California Adventure has been completely transformed since our Honeymoon! When we were on our honeymoon we couldn’t even spend HALF the day over in California Adventure. This time around I think we spent more time there than Disneyland itself! Or at least the same amount. They’ve added so much and made it feel much more part of the Disney family. Remember how I was so disappointed about The Haunted Mansion? Well Cars Land made up for that ten fold. CARS LAND IS AMAZING. Cars has always been one of my favorite Pixar movies, mostly because I cannot get over the gorgeous scenery they created. As we walked into Cars Land I think my mouth was just hanging open in amazement! It felt like we were in Southern Utah or at Lake Powell. They made you feel like you are actually in Radiator Springs! It’s just astounding! I mean I’ve always been amazed with Disneyland and their Imagineers, but this absolutely floored me! There’s a feast for your eyes everywhere you look. We could have spent the entire day just walking around! I could go on and on, but I won’t. 

 

 

  We wanted to ride the Radiator Springs Racers ride. In all the times I’ve gone to Disneyland I don’t think I’ve waited more than an hour for any ride…maybe once. For this ride we were in line for – I believe – 2 hours. My. Feet. Killed. By the time we got on the ride all of us were thinking, “This darn well better be worth it!” Well, to give you the answer to that, we waited in line for 2 ½ hours again that night just to ride it a second time! IT WAS SPECTACULAR!!! And there’s no way to describe it. I mean…it feels like you’re in the movie, with the characters and its all so REAL. And we made friends with the people in front of us both times we waited in line and ended up racing them on the ride! The first time we lost, but the second time we won. It was the highlight of the trip. That probably sounds silly but I cannot get over my love for that ride.

 

We walked along main street in Cars Land and couldn’t get enough of the sights! Again, it felt like we were in the movie! We ate lunch at Flo’s Café, which was sooooo yummy! Later in the evening we got ice cream cones (best soft serve I’ve ever had!), and churros at the Cozy Cone. They also had "Pop-cone”, “Cone-coctions” and "Cone-queso”. Hahah it was awesome!

 

 

Along with Cars Land, we did a lot of other things we’d never done before, like going on Ariel's Undersea Adventure, which was new, Grizzly River Run, Mickey's Fun Wheel and Soarin' Over California. We also did some old favorites like Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and California Screamin'. We also went to the Aladdin show, which again, was FANTASTIC. They fit the entire Aladdin cartoon into a live musical and it was so well done! The Genie – who I was a little worried would disappoint – was by far the best character, but all of the actors were fantastic and it was so nice to sit and rest my poor achy feet!

 

 

 
We also got fast pass tickets to see World of Color, which was still under construction the last time Scott and I were there. We went an hour early and ended up right in front. I was so excited because I’d heard so much about it, and once again I wasn’t disappointed! This was like Fantasmic on steroids. It was just so beautiful. I couldn’t get enough! And Disney sure knows how to tug at your heartstrings! I definitely went through the full spectrum of emotions! It was just so amazing. Definitely worth the wait!

 

 
After we watched World of Color we decided to do the Radiator Springs Racers for the second time. We practically ran over there and were like little kids, even though we were all exhausted! It was a good thing Koltyr was with us too – we ended up being in line so long we missed the last shuttle to our hotel! But Kolt offered to drive us home! Like I mentioned before, we made friends with a woman and her two kids in front of us. She wasn’t sure waiting was going to be worth it and we told her we thought the same thing but here we were for a second time. You could tell her son really wanted to ride it (his favorite character was Fillmore!) and we talked her into waiting. At one point her daughter had to go to the bathroom, so rather than losing her spot, she asked if we could watch her son while she took her daughter. We were surprised she’d trust total strangers, but we happily agreed because she’d already been in line for over an hour and we hated for them to miss out! So we talked to her son for awhile and did everything we could to ignore how exhausted our feet and bodies were by focusing on how excited we were for the ride.

 

I forgot to mention, one of our favorite things about Disneyland is all the thought put into the waiting line. There’s so much to look at while you’re waiting in line. This particular line is also extremely misleading. You’d think you were almost to the front of the line when you’d come around the bend and see another stretch you had no idea was there. That was a little disheartening but at least the second time through we knew what to expect!

It was fun to go on the ride during the day and at night, because they’re very different experiences. We had so much fun and the family was very glad they’d decided to wait. It was a fun time! As promised, Koltyr drove us to our hotel – turns out it wasn’t far from where he was staying so it wasn’t too far out of his way. Scott and I collapsed again in bed, so exhausted!

On our last day we spent time in both parks, trying to get our fill of all the favorites before having to say goodbye to the park. We actually decided to drive this day because we didn’t want to rely on the hotel trams and we wanted to walk through Downtown Disney. Although we never buy anything because everything is highly overpriced, it’s still a lot of fun to walk through and enjoy the atmosphere!

 

 
We rode on the “Pirate Ship” as well, which neither of us had ever done. It was really cool too! They fire off their cannon and below deck they have it set up like real merchant ships back in the day. I can’t believe how cramped the spaces were! I wonder if people were generally smaller back then because I’m pretty short but even I’d have a hard time fitting in some of those bunks! I can’t imagine trying to sleep in them! We also wanted to do Splash Mountain. As we were getting in line we realized it would be about a 2 hour wait, so we were about to get out of line when a man approached us and asked if we wanted two fast passes for it. We said sure and they were usable right then, so we got on the ride in about 15 minutes. Talk about good timing!

 

Another fun thing we’d never done before was ride the train! It goes all around the park and I wish we had decided to use this the first day! It makes stops in all the major areas of the park, so we could have saved our feet some precious walking time and maybe they wouldn’t have ached so badly by the end of the trip! It was cool to see the park from the train though and we’ll definitely be using it next time we go! 

 

   
Over at California Adventure we did a few small things like walking through Redwood Creek Challenge Trail (I wanted to meet Dug, but he wasn’t there!), before heading over to where Koltyr worked. We wanted to see him in his “costume”. He’s such a cutie!

 

 

 

Scott and I were pretty exhausted that last day, so we took things pretty slow. We just enjoyed our last day! And of course we ate dinner at The Hungry Bear. We decided to end the evening by watching Fantasmic! but it didn’t end up too well. We were both exhausted by the time the show started so we kind of just found some standing space. A couple ended up pushing right in front of us and the girl climbed on her boyfriend’s shoulders so she could see better. There was also a large family (and I mean LARGE in every sense of the word…) so we were extremely squished and since both Scott and I are slightly vertically challenged, we couldn’t see anything anyway. We got fed up being pushed and shoved that we gave up and decided to call it a night. I knew I had blisters on my feet by this point so we took it slowly. Luckily both Fantasmic! and the fireworks show were going on, so the crowds were thin. We stopped at a few stores to get some last minute souvenirs before watching the fireworks finale from the entrance of Disneyland, then heading out. Needless to say, we were both grateful to make it back to our hotel room and collapse in our bed!

Its always sad leaving Disneyland, but driving home was a lot of fun! It went by pretty quickly too. We bought the Disneyland soundtrack so we listened to the sounds of Disneyland all the way home! We both had a wonderful time and as soon as we made it home, wished we could go back. Oh well, we’ll try to make it back soon enough!