December Trip: Last Day at Disneyland

We’ve got 2 videos for you today, so we’ll try to keep the text to a minimum. Tuesday was a little drizzly here and there, and we brought the ponchos with us just in case, but hardly used them (except on the Grizzly River Run whitewater rapids ride). As always, you can click on any of the images to see a larger version.

7:45: Left our hotel
8:05: Entered Disneyland. It was another Early Entry Day. Here’s a view you don’t usually see: The crowd waiting to enter Disneyland from the OTHER SIDE of the rope!

8:10: Alice in Wonderland
8:15: It’s a Small World
8:45: Buzz Lightyear
9:00: Haunted Mansion Holiday
9:25: Amanda and Joel rode the Indiana Jones ride while Maddy, Abe and I climbed Tarzan’s Treehouse.

Here’s a Hidden Mickey we found in the treehouse, on a wooden chest:

9:45: We ate breakfast at the River Belle Terrace in Frontierland—delicious:

10:15: We headed over to California Adventure
10:40: Toy Story Midway Mania (which we again rode twice within 20 minutes—gotta love light crowds!)
11:15: We rode King Triton’s Carousel

11:35: Maddy and Joel rode the Orange Stinger, a spinning ride.
11:50: Maddy, Joel and I rode the Grizzly River Run
12:15: We got Fastpasses for the Tower of Terror, though we ended up not going on it.

12:20: We headed over to A Bug’s Land and rode Heimlich’s Chew-chew Train
12:30: Amanda and the kids rode Tuck and Roll’s Drive ‘em Buggies (Bumper Cars)
Now is a good time to show you the first video for today. This video shows:
**holiday décor on Main Street
**a couple minutes from the Holiday Version of Small World (I especially loved the Mexico section, and Maddy loved the mermaids, who sang “Jingle Shells")
**a couple minutes from Haunted Mansion Holiday (The ballroom was awesome--and smelled like gingerbread, and the gingerbread coffin and corpse is really made of gingerbread—with some robotic enhancements—and I love the snowy graveyard covered with jack o’lanterns. )**Abe (and the rest of us) on King Triton’s Carousel
**Amanda and the kids on the bumper cars—you’ve gotta watch that part and see Joel’s devilish laughter.
**The snowfall near It’s a Small World
**The video ends with the Peter Pan Bedroom in Innoventions. Inside Innoventions (in Tomorrowland) there is a “house of the future” which has a kitchen, living room, and some bedrooms. The boy’s bedroom has a Peter Pan theme. We were looking around in there and one of the cast members cam it to show off the room. Abe was sitting on the pirate ship bed at the time, and was recruited to helm the cannon. The room interacted with the book as the cast member told the story. Be sure to watch—it’s pretty cool, and Abe loved shooting the cannon.
Back to our schedule:
We did some shopping, then at 1:35 we left DCA and ate lunch at the Rainforest Café. The sat us near a creepy monkey:

Amanda was scared:

So was Abe:

But eventually, he got the courage to defend us from the beast:

For dessert, we ate the “Volcano”:

We went back to the hotel until 4:30, then took the monorail back to Disneyland. We did some more shopping, then waited around for the snowfall near Small World (see video above).
5:40: Autopia—note, the kids were horrible drivers.
6:15: We headed into Innoventions, exploring the House of the Future. See above for video of the Peter Pan Bedroom. You’ll notice I kept turning the camera to look at the wall where Abe had shot the cannon. Cannonball holes were projected on the wall, but I couldn’t capture them on camera.
Upstairs at Innoventions, we played some of the games and looked at some of the Healthy Living exhibits, including this display of fat amounts:

7:15: We took turns riding Star Tours and did some shopping.
8:00: We rode Pirates AGAIN
8:25: Winnie the Pooh ride
8:45: Haunted Mansion Holiday
9:15: We watched the Holiday Fireworks, enjoyed the snow on Main Street, then headed back to the hotel.

Despite the rainy start on our second day, we had a really great time at Disneyland, and were so happy to be able to visit it at Christmastime. We’ll never drive there during December, unless we maybe live in AZ or something. And while the Holiday Small World was fun, it wasn’t nearly as enjoyable as the Haunted Mansion Holiday, which runs from October-December. So next time, we’re planning for an October visit, especially since this year, Abe and Amanda can get in free on their birthday as part of the What Will You Celebrate promotion—plus, by October, Amanda will have racked up even more free passes from her job at the Disney Store!
We’ll end here with the last video, which features the Castle at night, a little of Pirates, the Haunted Mansion building at night, and a couple minutes of the Fireworks display (as well as snow on Main Street.)


Next time, we’ll re-cap the trip home…if I feel I can confront that ghost from my recent past…