Had a busy weekend…

A couple weekends ago I finally got L to Disneyland. In his 35 years he has never been to a Disney park. I prepared him for the worst—“it's crazy, crowded, ultra clean and nary a vice to be found!” A couple of new things I learned while on this trip:

• You have to pay extra for parking. Wait, that $70 ticket can't cover parking?
• I got completely overwhelmed by the entrance—there are so many points of entry I couldn't hardly figure out how to get in and almost tried to go in the California Adventure side—oops!
• The fast-pass. Blessed be the fast-pass.
• Wear good shoes and trim your toenails. Seriously. I bruised my toes because of this issue and it's not pretty.
• Bring more snacks.
• L really does not like heights or roller-coasters. At all.
  

Before we really got into the park, we checked out a few of the shops and picked up some trading pins. I also got a few pictures of L in front of Disney and the mouse.



Our first ride was Pirates of the Caribbean. Somehow, I had worked myself up so much during this trip, I got really sick immediately after getting off that ride. So, a trip on the train around the park and a quick stop to "It's a Small World." That one is actually one of my favorite rides—but L was not amused. I actually think he had a look of abject terror on his face about 3/4 of the way through—“it just won't stop!” Our next stop took us to the Tea Cups and to be honest, I think I had more fun on those than just about anything. Initially, I was worried about my sinus problems making me very dizzy, but nothing happened.



We were able to get onto every ride we wanted to except the Indiana Jones ride. We had a fast-pass for Splash Mountain, but it was 4 hours out. At the end of the night that was one of our last rides and I warned L, “this one is really steep and long” and at the end of the ride, you keep going and he kept asking, panicky, “is there another slide?”



On our way out we tried to get into Indiana Jones, but the wait was an hour, and by that time, we were so exhausted we just said forget it.

The fireworks really are excellent at Disneyland, but unfortunately, those coincided with us trekking across the park to make our fast-pass ticket. The crowds that formed were nearly overwhelming, and though the employees make good way-finding directors, very few people actually listed to them. If you want to watch the fireworks, sit down, but please; get out of the lanes of movement. Really, my only down point for the entire adventure.

Overall, L's feedback on each ride:

1. Pirates of the Caribbean: lame. He thought they had really cheesy animatronics, though I liked the smoke induced Davey Jones.
2. The Disney Train: fun, but that's not the Grand Canyon. Hey, that dinosaur didn't exist with that therapod.
3. It's a Small World: weird, but really cool engineering. Personally, it's one of my favorite, and I love the updates to the ride.
4. Tea Cups: weeee. Did this one twice and the second time nearly made us sick.
   
5. Mr. Toad's Wild Ride: Awesome! I thought we were going to actually hit that train. And the "going to hell" portion reminded me of a motorcycle ride we took once, where we had to drive through a portion of a forest fire. Creepy.
6. Alice in Wonderland: really cool.
7. Rockets: His response; too high, too fast. I personally had a blast and am glad we took separate rocket ships.
8. Haunted Mansion. Those trees are creeping me out! So fun we did it twice.
9. River Tour: our tour guide, what can I say but it was clearly a long day for him. What a weird-o!
10. Autopia: No way am I standing in line to drive little cars that get in traffic jams—let's get out of here.
11. Splash Mountain: holy cow that was fast, steep, long, thought I was going to pass out.
12. Roger Rabbits Spin-Out: fun, but we had to wait nearly an hour and that was just too long. Couldn't get our car to spin very fast.
    
13. Gadgets Go-Coaster: L: “I don't like roller coasters.” I personally loved it. It's only 30 seconds long but it was fun.
14. Innoventions: Kind of lame, but we got to see an ASIMO demo. That was really fun.

Sunday, we drove to San Diego in the hopes of having lunch at one of our favorite restaurants, but not remembering it was Valentine's Day, we ended up searching for nearly 2.5 hours until we just decided to head down the Silver Strand and have lunch at one of our other favorite places.

All in all, it was a great trip, the cats behaved themselves at home and it took us a bit to recover—foot wise. I'm still bruised on my toes.