Our first ride was the Finding Nemo submarines. When we were kids, this was the Captain Nemo 20,000 leagues under the sea ride. It's much, much cooler now, although there is a nod to the old ride in some of the crew commentary. We did a little research prior to our trip and concluded that if we wanted to ride the Nemo ride, it had to be done first thing. Those tipsters were correct. Shortly after our ride, the line was over an hour long. After that, we headed to Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters. This is perhaps the most fun ride to go on. Not only can you control your car's turning (left and right), but you also get to shoot targets. This is another ride that usually has long lines. We were extremely lucky to basically walk right in and sit down in our cars. We split 2 and 2 so that each person would be able to have a gun. Yeah, we're totally violent like that.
After that, we walked through Fantasyland on our way to Toon Town. In Fantasyland, the peter pan ride already had a 45 minute line, so we walked right into the Snow White ride and the Pinocchio ride. We then walked right into the It's a Small World ride. In all, we got in 5 rides in different areas in the park in the first hour we were there. Back in Toon Town, we explored Chip n' Dale's treehouse, and got a fastpass ticket for Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin. We rode the Gadge Go-Coaster, which is a baby roller coaster (you have to be 35 inches to ride, Bubba is 36). We toured Mickey's house, and only waited for about 10 minutes to meet Mickey himself (photo to follow). Scooter was amazed that Mickey was wearing a suit, since every other time she sees him, he's only wearing yellow shoes and red shorts - no shirt. I told her that when Mickey has guests, he likes to dress up...?? Who knows.
When we were done meeting Mickey, Minnie was taking visitors in the street beside her house. The cast member who was working crowd control had already cut off the line to meet her, so we headed back to Roger Rabbit's ride. It started drizzling on our walk over. With our fastpass, we were able to walk right onto the ride. By the time we were done, it was full-fledged raining. Ben ran to get $26 worth of ponchos while the kids and I waited under a bridge. After that, we decided it was time for lunch and naps. We left the park and walked back to the hotel. After naps, it was sunny and beautiful out.
We headed back to the park, where we walked right into Pirates of the Caribbean and Scooter and I walked right into the Haunted Mansion. It started out scary (thanks, adult passengers), but turned out to be so fun that Scooter wanted to take her little brother on the ride again. We declined, and headed to Winnie the Pooh's ride.
We did some souvenier shopping, and ate some dinner, and enjoyed fire works and Casey Jr's train ride. We also hit Dumbo's flying ride and Mr. Toad's wild ride before heading home for the night.
The second morning was much like the first. On our walk over to the park, Ben removed his long-sleeved shirt from my backpack and I joked that I felt 10 pounds heavier. Scooter's response? "No. You look the same as you did yesterday, except your hair is frizzier." One thing about kids is that they'll always keep you grounded...
Tuesday at the park is an early-entrance day for certain ticket holders. That means that the park was already crowded when it "opened," and we had many more lines to stand in. We sucked it up and waited 30 minutes for the Peter Pan ride. We saw Peter flirting with park guests and running around while we were in line. After the ride, we spotted him again, and took off after him, but we couldn't catch him. It'd be cool to be Peter Pan. You never have to stop and talk to guests, and you're allowed to run in the park.
We hit up Autopia after our chase, and finished up what was left of Toon Town. We also hit the Jungle Cruise and the Enchanted Tiki room as well as got our fastpass tickets for Space Mountain before we left for lunch and naps. When we got our fastpass at 11am, they were already giving out return times of between 6 and 7pm. The wait in the regular line was 75 minutes.
After nap and some pool time, the park was still just as crowded as ever. We rode Space Mountain (Scooter, who "HATES" roller coasters LOVED it). Bubba wasn't allowed to ride, but we were able to use a baby-handoff ticket, which allowed Scooter to ride twice while Ben and I handed off our baby so we each could ride. They never confiscated our baby-handoff ticket, so in theory, we could have gone up the exit over and over again. We were honest, though, and did not.
Bubba could ride the Matterhorn with us, and he LOVED it. Scooter, surprisingly, was also impressed with the Matterhorn. Lovely! We filled our time with another ride on Pooh and then watched more fireworks and most of Fanstasmic, which I would highly recommend as a must-see. We snuck into Pirates again before the Fantasmic crowd rushed in, and then did some souvenier shopping and toured Sleeping Beauty's castle to round out the night. The one bummer was that about 1/2 way through Fantasmic, we realized that we were down wind from a couple of smokers who were lighting up in an un-authorized area. When Ben asked them about it, they were quite rude, and we ended up moving. Ugh. But overall, the Disneyland experience was all that we had hoped for. Wonderful!
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