Disneyland!

On Wednesday 31st August Will and I finally made it to "The happiest place on earth". We decided it would be a real shame to live less than a half hour drive away from Disneyland for 6 months and not manage to visit. We were up nice and early to make the most of the day. In a happy coincidence, Jesus, our Uber driver grew up just around the corner from Disneyland and his dad used to work there. Jesus was in his twenties and said he was still a frequent visitor. A lot of Orange County and Los Angeles residents get annual passes so they can visit pretty much any time they like, bar some peak-season black-out periods. It was nice to chat with him on the way there and get his views on the various rides. 

It turns out we were visiting on a great day, being midweek with the schools having returned after the long summer holiday. There is a great fast-pass system in place meaning we had to do very little queueing. The Peter Pan ride doesn't have fast-pass and is the only ride we had to queue more than 5-10 minutes for. It was worth it though, it was a magical ride.

 

I LOVED the Mad Tea Party ride. Partly due to nostalgic reasons. Whenever I used to see pictures of Disneyland as a kid, it was usually either the teacups, or Sleeping Beauty's castle. I reckon Will looks way short of his 44 years in the picture below. Ten months of sabbatical is obviously suiting him! The video in the link is cool because you can also see some of the 'Paint the Night' parade go by.

The It's a small world ride was also rather sweet, although, being one of the longer rides, I was a bit 'over' the song by the end of it! In the video I've linked above you can see NZ's token contribution at a few seconds past the 9 minute mark...

I didn't feel the need to get my photo taken with any of the numerous characters... Partly what put me off is when your turn comes and you go up to them they give you a big hug and chat to you for a while! I hate to admit, I had to ask Will who some of them were... I always get my dogs mixed up, apparently this is Pluto below, not Goofy.

We loved the Splash Mountain ride. We were in the very front two seats so got absolutely soaked! Luckily, being California it was nice and warm and didn't take us too long to dry off. Photos which can be purchased are automatically taken on some of the rides. I did what most other people were doing and just took a picture of the picture on my phone. This photo cracks me up, the expression on the woman behind me is brilliant! I also like how Will just looks so calm and resigned to the fact that he is about to get totally drenched...

The Winnie The Pooh ride was a rather hallucinatory experience...

Will enjoyed driving our cute little car around the Autopia track...

And also shooting all the baddies on the Buzz Lightyear ride...

There's a lot to be said for a good old-fashioned carousel! You can see Will's reflection in the mirror as he takes the pic.

Compared to Universal Studios, where I actually didn't feel too flash by the end of the day, Disneyland was mostly 'nicer' more gentle rides which is more my cup of tea. It still has a few faster rides though, one of them being the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad which was great fun. Another was the Matterhorn Bobsleds ride. 

Other rides which we did included Indiana Jones, The Pirates of the Caribbean, and the two Star Wars themed rides: Hyperspace Mountain and Star Tours - The Adventures Continue which were both pretty awesome!

As well as the rides, there was also plenty to see just by wandering around. Everything in the whole park was Disney themed!

Sleeping Beauty's castle was rather impressive.

At 8pm we found a good spot to watch the 'Paint the Night' parade. This is a special parade put together to celebrate Disneyland's 60th anniversary, and it finished a few days after we visited. If you have a spare 15 minutes and feel the need for a bit of light in your life, the full video of the parade is here. It really is spectacular, and well worth the watch. Otherwise, here are a few pics.

The fireworks show was also a special edition for the 60th anniversary. This was absolutely magical, made even better by the projections on the Main Street buildings. The full video is here, and again it is well worth watching! My favourite part was when the 'snow' came down during the 'Frozen' segment (approximately at 10:30 in the video).

We had an absolutely brilliant day out, it was nice to feel like a kid for the day with not a care in the world! One day was (just!) enough for Will and I to do everything that we wanted to, mostly because we were so lucky with the queues. However, it is the type of place where we could easily spend 2 or 3 days with no difficulty. You never know, one day we might be back.