I've learned that some of the funnest memories I have are from experiences that have left me physically sore. This would be one of them...
After a whole five hours of sleep, we were up again on Thursday morning around 6:30am with sore, stiff legs, ready for another long day. We did the same morning routine, but arrived to the parks closer to 8am. We were surprised the difference in crowd level going through security and the ticket counter compared to the morning before. This day we went to California Adventure.
I don't know if it's because this park is smaller, with fewer rides and such, but it felt a lot more crowded than the day before.
Tom and I played a fun game the whole weekend where I'd get a point for every Utah apparrsel I saw and he'd get a point for every BYU apparel we saw. He won the day before something like 7-5. But apparently all the BYU fans were in California Adventure that day because he was up 4-0 within the first few hours.
We immediately got Fast Passes for Soarin' aroud the World (used to be Soarin' over California), then got in line for Toy Story Mania. I want to say the line was about 25-30 minutes long. Then we did the single rider on California Screamin' Ironically, we were on the same coaster, but just sitting by different people.
We did a few rides then headed to Cars Land, we love this place!
We did the single rider line again, this time for Radiator Springs Racers, and made it in the same car, again just sitting by different people. I want to say the wait time for that one was two hours, but we got on in about 20 minutes doing single rider.
Our furnace was still not working, so we finally told Eric to call someone to come out and fix it. That evening, someone came out, but the cost just added to all the other expenses we've had to pay lately to fix things around the house.
It was hard to picture sitting in a cold house when we were out enjoying the hot sun.
One of our favorite places in CA is the Animation Studios. We learned how to draw Scrooge McDuck. Interesting fact; before Christmas, the animators always do Scrooge with a sad face, but from Christmas day, until the new year they draw him with a smile.
The whole reason we decided to do this trip (besides the fact that we love going on trips together and we love Disney), was because they are shutting down the Hollywood Tower of Terror and changing it to a Guardians of the Galaxy ride in January. So we suffered through the hour long line (which wasn't too bad since we'd play games together on Tom's phone while in line) to make sure we got on it. We also had a Fast Pass, but it wasn't valid until that evening.
We are the dorks with our hands up.
We got our picture out front since it too will be changing.
In fact, the outside of the building was already under renovation. They'd taken down the sign and had the place wrapped in some sort of cover.
For lunch, we got a turkey leg and corn on the cob to share. It was nice to just sit and enjoy our food and each other's company. I was really enjoying our date.
We waited in a lot of long lines (average 45-60 minutes). We decided to try the single rider line again for Screamin', but it too was really long. It gave us a chance to call the kids and see how they were doing.
We still managed to do all the rides and shows we wanted to do, and several more than once. We even made it to the new Frozen show (it replaced the Aladdin Show that we loved). I wasn't really excited since I feel like Frozen has already overstayed it's welcome, but I actually really enjoyed it. The talent in the show was just amazing.
Several of our Fast Passes weren't good until that night, so we enjoyed Radiator Springs Racers and Tower of Terror at night.
In fact, after dark the Tower of Terror does the entire ride in the dark and called it "Late check-out". You could still hear the ghosts beckoning you, but couldn't see anything. It was kind of creepy, but super fun.
We went back to the Animation Studios to draw Goofy this time.
We ate dinner at Flo's cafe and shared a plate of ribs, walked around the shops and such.
We even saw Mickey, who didn't have much of a line, so we stopped for a picture.
My legs were beyond sore and my back was really starting to hurt. But we wanted to do Soarin' one more time before we left. The line was always 90-100 minutes long, and the Fast Passes were all out, so we waited until that evening hoping the line would be shorter. We wanted to get there during the World of Color show, but didn't realize the show ended at 9:30 and as we were approaching the ride, all the people from the show were flooding out and getting in line for the rides again. The park was to close at 10, but they said as long as we were in line for the ride by 10 we could get on the ride. So we walked over to Soarin' and saw the wait was still 65 minutes. We decided to do it anyways. We really were counting on getting to bed earlier, and knew we wouldn't even get on the ride until 10:30, so that was a bit of a bummer. And my back was killing me. So when a guy and his son walked up to us, shortly after getting in line and asking if we wanted their two extra Fast Passes, I couldn't have been more grateful. We skipped the 65 minute line and were in our seats, ready for the ride within 5 minutes of getting those passes. We thanked the guy again as we walked out of the ride and started our walk back home to our hotel. We were in bed about the time we would've been getting on the ride had we waited the whole hour. It had been another fun, yet exhausting day.
Friday was our 17th wedding anniversary (that deserves a kiss).
We woke up to rain that morning. We'd planned on the rain and hoped it'd scare the crowds away, and it was definitely our best day as far as crowd level goes. I want to say it was at 65% capacity. Plus, we got to the park earlier that morning than the other mornings and used our magic morning again, this time for Tomorrow Land.
We felt like we were in a real rain forest while waiting in line for the Indiana Jones ride.
In fact, no one wanted to go on Splash Mountain in the rain, so we walked right on. (Which I don't get. You're wet anyway.)
We managed to do all our favorite rides again. And the sun even came out for a few hours.
By about 4pm we were feeling pretty satisfied with what we'd accomplished that day, and we were getting hungry since we'd only eaten snacks again for lunch. The only thing we didn't get to do, was eat dinner at the Blue Bayou. Since that day was our anniversary, we wanted to eat at a nice restaurant, but we didn't realize how far in advance we should've booked a table. So we did a little bit of shopping as the clouds came back, the temperature dropped and the rain started to fall again, and decided to head home. So instead of a nice romantic dinner at the Blue Bayou, we ended up stopping at a fast food Chinese restaurant in a strip mall with the worst Chinese food I've ever had. Made for a memorable story though.
It's funny, I thought I'd be sad skipping out early on our last Disneyland day, but honestly, I was so excited to shower and get into my pajamas and just relax. We made it back to the hotel about 5:30 and enjoyed watching TV and recouping a bit from the week. I fell asleep by 8pm for the night.
It was a good thing we went to bed so early, because at 3:30am our alarm went off. Anyone who knows me knows that going to bed by 8pm and being up by 3:30am is so NOT me. Not to mention it was the morning of New Year's Eve, so we still had a long day ahead of us. Ironically, I'd gotten more sleep Friday night though, than I did any of the other nights of our trip.
Our shuttle picked us up a little after 4am and took us to the Long Beach airport. Our flight wasn't out until 7, but with the shuttle we used, it wasn't very flexible with the time options, so we got to the airport so early, they weren't even open yet. So we just waited.
It was so weird being around all the palm trees and Christmas decorations at the same time.
It seemed like forever before the sun came up. Once we could check in and go to our gate, I went and found a place to get some breakfast while Tom took a little nap.
Once we got on the plane, I zonked. I slept the entire flight without any problem.
So by the time we got home around 10:30am, I felt pretty well rested. Originally, we were just going to go home and nap before picking up the kids, but we decided to just get them that morning.
Jeff and Cedric had had so much fun with their cousins, Kate, Tag, Marcus and Hunter. They spent most of their week out in the snow building forts and sledding.
Lily had a blast at Sammy's house. She said she felt like a grown up, since Sammy's siblings were gone and her parents both work full time. The two girls walked to the nearby shopping center, saw a movie and went shopping by themselves.
Sophie had a great time with Charlotte, Lorelai and Maren.
They even went to a salon and got their nails done!
We are so grateful for Eric, Maren, Jeremy, Cheri, Bryce and Sara for taking care of our children, house and pets while we were away. Knowing things are well at home always make the get-a-ways more enjoyable.
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