Monday, March 16, 2015

Disneyland

On the Tuesday, Feb. 17th we went to Disneyland as a family.  
Waiting for the park to open.  
Disneyland was just a short walk from the hotel.  
The one thing we were bummed about was that they were doing construction on Sleeping Beauty's Castle.  We just go to see a cardboard box!  That just means we will have to take another trip out there to see the castle.  





We headed to Fantasyland.  
Our first ride was Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.  



Matthew went to get some Fastpasses, so we rode King Arthur's Carousel.  


Next was Dumbo!


They still have the Snow White's scary adventures so we rode that.  
Look who we ran into - The Evil Queen!
She was very much in character.  Evan was scared of her.  



Disneyland and Disney World has some similar rides, but there are a few just at Disneyland.  We enjoyed this cute ride called Storybook.  
It has replicas of all the princesses' castles.  

Disneyland still has Toontown and the kids enjoyed it.  



While waiting on the afternoon parade we found some friends.  

We found a great spot for the parade.  
One of the kid's favorite ride was the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage.  
We didn't get around to riding It's a small world until late in the night and it was so cute.  
It has different Disney characters mixed in with the country they would be in.  It was so cute we rode it twice to make sure we saw everybody.  
One of my favorite rides was Alice in Wonderland  

Before heading to watch Fantasmic we headed to Toontown to see Mickey.  


You have to get a Fastpass to watch Fantasmic and we ended up getting the last show.  We had to get there 30 minutes before the show started, so the kids were tired and fell asleep while waiting.  After the show we headed back to the hotel and found a surprise waiting on us.  
Cookies and milk!  Lisa & Victoria came back earlier and room service brought these.  It said for Michael.  Lisa told them there was no one named that in our room, but they insisted they had the right room.  So good night to us!  

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Disney California Adventure

On Monday we headed to California Adventure.  Our hotel has a separate entrance, so we got early access and just walked right out of the hotel to the park.  

We headed straight to Cars Land.  Let's just say this is the best Disney area ever.  It feels like you are really in Radiator Springs.  









Getting ready to ride Radiator Springs Racers.  We rode it back to back before it got too crowded.  
It was a nice little scenic ride in the valley and then we start racing.  
We were not expecting it to be that fast or have that many little drops.  Ellie wasn't a fan.  
 This little girl loved it!  

Evan & Charlotte really like roller coasters now, so while dad and Evan were riding California Screamin' we rode the King Triton's Carousel and rode the Ariel ride.  


Dad & Evan walked up just in time to see Donald.  
Disneyland still uses the old fast pass system, so while waiting on our time we went and rode Luigi's flying tires.  



For lunch Ellie found her favorite.  

We saw a few characters we haven't met before like Dug from the movie Up.  
 This was our first time meeting Anna and Elsa.  
Matthew & the kids went back to the room for a little while and while they were gone I got to meet my favorite.  He was impressed with my shirt.  
I found the perfect spot to watch the parade.  Matthew & the kids made it back in time.  
After the parade we rode the Mickey Fun Wheel  

 Earlier in the day we went to the Animation Academy and learned to draw Marshmallow from Frozen.  Later that night we got our picture with him.  
The kids enjoyed the Bug's life area, but before the night was over we had to go back to Radiator Springs.  
 We rode Mater's Junkyard Jamboree


 and loved looking at all the neon lights.  

 We had a fast pass to ride the race car racers for the 3rd time, so we waited in Flo's.  


 Matthew & Evan rode California Screamin' one more time before we left.  Me and the girls soaked in the Mickey fun!
Evan on the front row of California Screamin'
 
It was a very fun day and definitely worth the plane ride.