The Merriest Place on Earth

As faithful blog readers know, I'm a Christmas baby, born on the 23rd, and it's always been my favorite holiday.  I'm always looking for fun things to do around the holidays, and thankfully, Chris generally puts up with being dragged to one light show after another, all around town.  With the move to California, we had an entirely new set of holiday experiences to discover, and we were ready to make the most of them.

Since we've officially entered that phase of our lives where doing and eating things make better presents than getting more stuff, I asked Chris if my official birthday "present" this year could be a trip to the nearby Disneyland Resort in Anaheim.  Although I'm not a crazy Disney person (you all know who you are with your Mickey ears and bumper stickers and whatnot), after growing up in Florida and having grandparents that lived near the parks, I have visited all of them over the years.  I've also explored and had a great time at the Universal Resort in Orlando, several Six Flags parks across the country, Knott's Berry Farm, and even a handful of second and third tier theme parks in my time (Splendid China, I'm looking at you).  Overall, I guess I really enjoy a good theme park every few years, so it seemed like a great time to visit the grandpappy of them all, especially since we now live so close (about 20-30 minutes away, depending on traffic).

After doing my research online, I mapped out a strategy for us, made an itinerary and studied the park map. I grabbed some discounted gift certificates at Sam's Club (about $6 off $150, but hey, it's Disney, every bit helps).  I bought our tickets for the park online, made reservations for lunch and dinner, and even pre-purchased our parking pass.  We were ready!

Finally, the first Monday in December came around, and it was time to go!  Since we're early birds anyway, I figured we'd hit the park at opening time, as it tends to be quieter then, before all of the other tourists have finished eating their pancakes and putting on their socks with sandals (mmm....pancakes).  We were in line at the parking garage at 8:30, ready to ditch the car and hit the ground running!

Yup, we really did park in the Goofy lot.

Check it out, Mom!

Vehicular madness, ya'll.

While we were waiting in line to park, Chris and I found our newest hero.  A mom was in a small SUV in front of us with her two kids, both in car seats in the back (a little girl who looked to be 1 1/2-2 and a little boy who was a bit older, maybe 4), and her mom in the front passenger seat.  As we slowed to a complete stop, both ladies jumped out of the front doors; Grandmom got the little boy out of the back, changed his shirt, tied on his shoes, and gave him snacks before both of them hopped back in their side of the car.  Mom, for her part, got Little Sister out of her car seat, opened the back hatch of the SUV, replaced Sis's diaper, changed her out of her jammies and into her park clothes, fed her snacks, combed her hair, deposited her back in her car seat, shut the hatch, and then hopped back in to drive, all before our line of cars started moving again.  Chris and I just sat there in shock, fully impressed by this unique specimen of Uber Mom.  She was amazing.

Anywhoo, we eventually got parked and headed out of the garage to take the tram to the front gates.  We originally anticipated walking to the front gate of the park (it's only .5 miles or so), but construction on the upcoming Star Wars Land in the park closed off the access; thus, it was onto the tram!  After disembarking the tram, we hopped into another line, this one for bag check.  After that was done, it was into the actual park and off to find the lockers, so we could ditch our heavy coats and secondary bags of snacks (I brought some triscuits and leftover celery sticks from Thanksgiving - more on those later) and water bottles before getting on our first ride.  This bit took us longer than anticipated, as the card readers on the lockers were down, so it was back to the entrance to find an ATM (because why would we already have cash on us?), then it was back to the lockers to drop our crap.

Finally, it was time to really start this voyage of merriment!

With the castle, all decked out for the holidays!

Per the advice of some of the blogs I'd been reading, we headed through the castle and to Adventureland to grab a Fast Pass for the Indiana Jones ride.  After that, it was back to Fantasyland to hit up the classic rides; while we didn't end up riding Peter Pan (the shortest line we found was for 40 minutes, which was too much for us), in quick succession, we did Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, the Mad Tea Party (spinny tea cups!), and Alice in Wonderland.

"Slow down, you maniac!"

Getting ready to spin!

Once 10am hit, our one hour Fast Pass window for Indy opened up, and that also allowed us to grab another pass.  We first went to Tomorrowland to grab passes for Star Tours and Buzz Lightyear (Buzz actually isn't on the same system as the other FP's in the park, so you can hold it plus another pass at the same time - insider tip!).  In heading back to Indy, we decided it was time for an official Disney snack (I'd already been eating celery sticks whilst in the queue for Mr. Toad, but I'm hungry all the time anyway).  To the Jolly Holiday bakery cafe!

The Jolly Holiday is Mary Poppins themed,

and this painting inside lists all of the song titles...

...including my favorite!

Let's go fly a kite!

Our raspberry macaroon from the bakery.

Although it was $5, it was decent sized -

we split two of them in different flavors -

and they were both absolutely delicious.

Snack time being over, it was time to ride Indy!  We both enjoyed the ride, even though it was one that jerks you around quite a bit.  Our FP time for Buzz Lightyear was coming due, so it was back to Tomorrowland to score some points shooting at Zurg and saving the day.  

Heading into Tomorrowland.

No George Clooney in sight.

Sad, that.

By this time, we were ready to hop on Star Tours, which was a blast.  I'd ridden the MGM Studios (pretty sure it's not called that anymore) version many, many years ago, but the one at Disneyland was revamped recently to include the option of running through as many as 40 different Star Wars worlds, so almost every trip is different.  For our particular adventure, we ended up in the middle of a pod race on Tatooine, which was fun (and obviously the ONLY redeeming part of Episode I).  Since we'd used another FP, it was time to claim a third, and we decided to see if Space Mountain still had passes, or if they'd closed out for the day.  Thankfully, we ended up with one for 3pm, which would be a great way to spend part of our afternoon.

Since about an hour had elapsed since we last ate, it was time for lunch!  Whenever I'm in the parks, I always get a bit overwhelmed in counter service spots - something about all the people shoving with food in their hands and having to find a seat gives me moderate level anxiety - so I grabbed us lunch reservations at the River Belle Terrace, a place that has southern/comfort/BBQ food.  The River Belle was next to the Rivers of America (not shocking, that), and our table was right on the patio, so we enjoyed relaxing and being waited upon, watching the world go by while we dined.  Overall, we really liked our lunch, and we were pleasantly surprised with the quality.  While it was on the somewhat expensive side ($50 or so for two appetizers - the pimento cheese dip and a house salad - one split fried chicken sandwich, and two drinks), the food was all quite good, particularly for inside a theme park, and our service was outstanding.

Chris enjoying our pimento cheese app.

He laughed at me for bringing the leftover

celery sticks from home, but as you can see,

they came in handy when we ran out here.

A shot of the crowd wandering by from the Terrace.
You can barely see Big Thunder Mountain in the background.

After lunch, we hopped in line for Pirates of the Caribbean, as it was decently short (about 30 minutes), and it was right next to the restaurant.  Although it's not the most enthralling ride, it's been around forever, and it more than makes up for any drawbacks with the nostalgia factor.  During the ride, I noticed that the boat in front of us had an entire row of young ladies wearing mouse ears, and their silhouettes were really cute. Although it didn't turn out perfectly, here's my attempt at capturing this:

A little blurry, but you get the idea.

After Pirates, we headed to New Orleans Square to grab a FP for the Haunted Mansion.  Apparently, the HM doesn't normally issue FPs, but from Halloween to Christmas time, they overlay the normal ride with a Nightmare Before Christmas theme, and it becomes even more popular.  While we still held FPs for Space Mountain at this time, if your FP time is really far in the future, you can grab another one in a few hours, and we were happy to utilize this loophole.  While we waited for our time to come up at the Haunted Mansion, it was time for dessert!

Mickey beignets from the Mint Julep Bar.

While they were pretty good,

they weren't Cafe Du Monde quality

(but, really, what is?).

Snacktime over (until the next snacktime...), we wandered over to Frontierland to ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.  In perusing the Disney site as our visit drew near, I was bummed to learn that starting the day we were scheduled, Thunder Mountain would be closed for a few days for refurbishment.  For some reason, Thunder Mountain has always been my favorite Magic Kingdom ride, so to go and not ride it was kind of lame.  However, the refurbishment must have been rescheduled, because it was running without an issue.  We stood in line for just a little bit, and then enjoyed the ride (I took the opportunity while in the queue to call the vet and schedule an appointment for Kaylee the next morning - someone had been eating things she shouldn't in the yard and had worms - awesome)!

By this point, it was time for our wander through the Haunted Mansion, and we really enjoyed the Nightmare Before Christmas overlay.  I have to admit that I'm a total wimp when it comes to scary stuff, so even something as benign as the normal Haunted Mansion gives me nightmares (the doors that knock on their own and bend toward you as you pass - the heads that pop up in the cemetery - the hitchhiking ghosts - all terrifying to me).  However, with the Nightmare changes, I didn't have a problem at all, and the scenery was really fun to travel through in our doom buggies.

It was moving toward time to ride Space Mountain, but first, we made a quick stop at the Matterhorn sleds:

Matterhorn selfie!

The Matterhorn is a CA only Disney attraction, so it was brand new to me, and I have to admit that I wasn't a huge fan.  It was on the older side and kind of jerked you around, so it wasn't my favorite.  I'll pass next time.

From one of my least favorites, we then moved on to one of the greatest Disney attractions known to man, whether on the east or west coast:  The Enchanted Tiki Room!  Chris has never done the Tiki Room, and I only fell in love with it thanks to the family on the last Magic Kingdom trip I did with them a few years back.  We grabbed a Dole Whip while we waited for the show to start, and we polished it off while listening to the "safety" briefing from our enthusiastic cast member.  As the lights went down, I turned to Chris and said, "you have no idea what you're about to experience."

"At the Tiki, Tiki, Tiki, Tiki, Tiki Room!"

Not my picture - thanks, internets!

While I'm not sure if he loved it as much as I did, Chris could honestly say he hadn't expected all of that, to be sure.

Finally, it was time to hit up Space Mountain!  While Star Wars land is being built nearby in the park, Space Mountain has become Hyperspace Mountain, and we think it really made the ride.  I've never been a huge fan of the original Space Mountain - I love rollercoasters, but the dark, enclosed spaces always freaked me out some.  However, with the Hyperspace Mountain setup, you get to become part of a squadron of X Wing fighter pilots on a run sanctioned by Admiral Ackbar.  It was so much fun flying around with other fighters zooming nearby and shots being fired by all parties all over the place.  I'm sure this will convert back to regular Space Mountain eventually, but I think it'll be a bummer when it does.

By this point, it was starting to get dark and the temps were dropping, so we made a swing by our locker to grab our heavy coats and drop the souvenir we'd acquired (a metal replica of Darth Vader's tie fighter for Chris to build later - sensing a theme here yet?).  As it turned out, we ended up timing our locker run with the very end of the holiday parade as it finished up on Main Street.  While it was a zoo crossing the road after the parade ended, afterward, we ended up at the Storybook Land Canal Boats ride right as it was reopening (it closes during parades, apparently).  While the ride was not particularly thrilling, it was fun to see the cute little models made of the towns and castles where all of the characters from the movies lived, and it was certainly relaxing.

There's Aladdin's castle!

From the internets...

After the boats, it was back to Tomorrowland to catch the monorail to the Downtown Disney area for our dinner at Catal. While Catal is located in the Disney area, it's not Disney owned; regardless, it was delicious!  It specializes in some tapas-sized items and paellas, and we really enjoyed our dinner.  We split the calamari and ahi bruschetta to start, the suckling pig paella for our main, and the chocolate cake for dessert.  We also had a few drinks each, and it was nice to sit and relax, off our feet and in a space that was more adult- than child-friendly.

A shot of Catal, again from the internets.

We sat on the left side, against the low wall.

Since we would only be at Disney for one day (and tickets are so f*ing expensive), we fully planned to head back to the park after dinner to ride more rides and see the fireworks at 9:30.  However, after our dinner, we both were ready to head home; I hadn't slept well for the past few nights, and the lack of sleep was really catching up with me, aided by the aforementioned adult beverages (for his part, Chris was done, full stop, with theme parking).  Although we did need to go back to grab all of our final things from our locker, we headed home right after.  I did take one last shot of the castle, done up in all of its holiday splendor:

Yes, Getty Images, I am available for hire.

Please contact my agent.

All things considered, we had a great day in the park, and I would go back again, albeit in a few years or so (after Star Wars World has been open for awhile and that madness has died down).  Although we didn't ride everything we wanted to (we missed the Astro Orbiter!  And It's a Small World!  And the Jungle Cruise!), we had fun.  As an added bonus, I ran my Suunto during our walking time here, and we ended up logging around 5 miles of strolling, about 4 miles less than we did at the Magic Kingdom a few years back (yes, Disneyland is substantially smaller, distance-wise, than the Orlando parks).

I love maps like this.

It looks like a radioactive spider
hopped up on pills made this.

So, from the merriest place on Earth, later!

Amy