We didn't tell the girls where we were going, they only knew that we were going on a road trip (yes - we drove!) They knew we were going to go down to Salt Lake City for a few days so Mike could shoot at a GSSF match (where he came in first in one of his events!). The girls and I explored the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake while Mike competed on Saturday. They loved the bird show and since Alyssa's kindergarten class is studying birds this year, I felt like it wasn't so very bad that I pulled them out of school for a few days since we worked in something educations (and very cool!).
They had a great time and were happy enough with the Zoo and the hotel swimming pool. We probably could have called it good for a vacation there, but since I already bought the Disney Park tickets, we kept heading south.
We stopped in Las Vegas at Circus Circus on Sunday night. Mike donated some money to the casino and then on Monday morning we watched some acrobats and headed over to California. We were staying right across from the park, but the girls were completely oblivious. They didn't notice all the "Disney" signs and pictures all over the place (including in our hotel room), and since we wanted to sleep, we decided not to enlighten them until the morning.
When we finally told them, Alyssa was ecstatic. Katelyn, on the other hand, gave us a completely different reaction. She started crying. She didn't want to go to Disney - she wanted to go to Chuck-E-Cheese (we saw one the day before when we went to an In and Out Burger for dinner). She didn't let it go until we were in the park and we had gone on one of our first rides. Of course we didn't let it go, after most rides we would ask her if Disney was better than Chuck-E-Cheese :)
Our first park was Disney California Adventure. We had breakfast with the Princesses in the park the first morning. We found some characters like Pluto and Alyssa did the Limbo with Phineas and Ferb during their dance party.
Alyssa spotted the Incredibles when we came out of the Aladdin show and she shot off after them to get their autographs - she was really into all the characters.
While we met some characters the first day, for the most part, it was all about the rides. We got in Soarin' over California, Radiator Springs Racers (the fast passes were distributed in under an hour, but I convinced Mike to stand in line and get us four first thing in the morning, so we zipped through in the fast pass line rather than standing there for over 70 minutes), Mickey's Fun Wheel, Ariel's Grotto (a few times). Mike talked Katelyn into going on California Screamin' with him. Alyssa was ticked that she wasn't tall enough to go too. She is our little thrill seeker. Katelyn is not really into anything scary - this is Katelyn on the Tower of Terror (she was thoroughly unimpressed). And as you can see, Alyssa is having a great time.
The next day we entered Disneyland and it was almost all about the characters (which meant alot of lines). Ultimately we met almost all the princesses:
But we saw other cool characters too, like Winnie the Pooh and Goofy,
We also worked in some of the rides. One of the girls favorites was Star Tours - here they are sporting some pretty snazzy 3D glasses, getting ready to board:
The girls had a fairly good attitude even when we were standing in long lines. Overall, I was pretty proud of them.
We stayed all day in the park and watched the parade. I think the Parade may have been one of Alyssa's favorite parts of the trip. Disney was all decked out for Halloween, since we went in October -- so on the way out after the parade I snapped a picture of the Halloween pumpkin:
Our last day in the park was a nice mixture of rides and characters - the girls decided which rides to try again (they went on the Tea Cups twice - talk about making me sick -- I stayed on the sidelines and shot pictures of the action)
They also took a second ride on Star Tours while I waited in line for the Matterhorn. That was one Alyssa could go on. She went on it once with just Mike and then we all went on it as a family.
We also hit splash mountain for the second time and the Big Thunder Mountain Train. We did stop and meet a few more characters like Dale, Tinkerbell and Tink's sister, Periwinkle (I didn't even know Tinkerbell had a sister until we met her in the park. Apparently there is a new movie coming out about it toward the end of this month and you know we will be purchasing it!)
Although that was the last of our park days, we had breakfast at Goofy's kitchen the next morning and met several more characters - if anyone is heading down to Disneyland, I would highly recommend it, great buffet breakfast and you get to meet alot of characters - these aren't even all of them, I just figured you might be getting sick of all the pictures by now:
We were supposed to go to the Ocean that day after breakfast and shopping at Downtown Disney, but those plans were derailed by the flooded basement issue. We did manage to meet up with Mike's brother and sister-in-law for dinner that night (they live down in that area), and it was great to see them (although we were all exhausted by then, so I'm sure we were great company!).
On Saturday we started the long trek home, stopping over in Sparks, Nevada for a night so Mike could donate to another casino :)
It really was an amazing vacation and I can't wait to take the girls back again. I know the characters won't be as big a deal then (so maybe we won't have to stand in so many long lines) but then we can focus even more on the rides and it will be a vastly different experience - oh, the magic (and brilliant marketing) of Disney.
1 comment:
Thanks for sharing your vacation.. It looked amazing!
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