Disneyland!

Robyn and I decided to do a little trip in between Christmas and New Years this year.  It was somewhat spontaneous.  We decided to go a few weeks before Christmas.  For us, that's spontaneous.  I know most people would consider spontaneous to be deciding to go within 24 hours of departure, but we are normally planning trips far enough in advance that you can't even buy the plane tickets yet.  So we're calling it spontaneous.

The destination we selected was southern California.  There were 2 main motivators.  One was that Disneyland was closing (has closed, as of the time of this writing) The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.  The other was that we wanted to see Harry Potter world in Universal Studios.

We flew out the day after Christmas, and got to Disneyland bright and early on the 27th.

Robyn did a dance of joy in the hotel room before our departure.

We woke up early to get to Disneyland before it opened.  They let people line up on Main Street before the official time.  At 8 AM sharp everyone made a dash for their favorite ride.  They're pretty smart though because they have employees come walk in the front of the crowd so that people don't trample each other.

We went straight to Star Tours to get a fast pass and then got in line for space mountain.  Space Mountain is now Hyperspace Mountain and it is Star Wars themed.  The moment the ride began and Star Wars music was playing, my heart filled with glee.

In line for Space Mountain

One of the most important things to do in Disneyland is to try on the various hats in the various stores.

Wearing funny hats

Wearing funny hats

I also really loved how much Star Wars has taken over Disneyland.  There has always been Star Tours but now it permeates everything.

Star Wars Launch Bay

We rode all the classic rides, Pirates of the Carribean, Haunted Mansion, Matterhorn, Jungle Cruise, etc.  One of my favorite things was how many rides had been made over for Christmas.  The Haunted Mansion was completely redone with Jack Skellington taking over.  Even the Jungle Cruise had some Christmas touches such as monkeys wearing Santa hats.

Of course, the Buzz Lightyear ride has a separate Fast Pass system from everything else, so you can have infinite fast passes to that ride.  Naturally, we rode it like 3 times.  Robyn was the best robot killer.  She beat my score every time.

Selfie with Buzz Lightyear

After it got dark, we decided to ride It's a Small World.  It was another one that had been done up for Christmas.  They have them singing Jingle Bells in various languages.  (The mermaids even sang Jingle Shells.  They really understand all cultures.)

It's a Small World

Selfies are important

While we were in line for Small World, the electric parade started.  They stopped the ride and we ended up having pretty good viewing from our vantage point in line.  It was a little weird because people crowded around us to watch the parade, so once it stopped it was a bit confusing figuring out who was in line and who wasn't.  But we got it all worked out and successfully rode the ride.  It's not as exciting as some of the other rides, but after a long day of standing in line, it's pretty nice to just sit in a boat for 15 minutes.

We got back to the hotel and instantly went to sleep.  I was a tired boy.

I know you're thinking, "Wait, but you said that Tower of Terror and Harry Potter world were your main motivators and you haven't even done those yet!"  Don't worry.  We did them both on this trip.  So stay tuned for those posts.