California Adventure!

After our day in Disneyland, the next day was spent primarily in California Adventure.  (Although, we did spend some time in the main park, as you'll see below.)

Much like the previous day, we got there about 15 minutes before the park opened so that we could be part of the initial rush to our favorite rides.  We marched right behind the Disney employees and went straight for Tower of Terror.  (Tower of Terror was a huge reason for taking this trip, so it was very important.)  Everyone was rushing to get in line for the ride, but no one was getting fast passes.  So we grabbed a fast pass and then went straight to Soarin' Over the world.

Just look at that cutie ready to soar over the world.

That was the right way to do it.  The line for Soarin' was only 15 or 20 minutes, which made it perfect for us to come back to Tower of Terror to use our fast pass.

This is me about to enter another dimension.

It's important to take a picture of the picture.

Robyn was wearing her Captain America shirt, so obviously she needed to pose in front of a sign welcoming her.

 At lunch time we headed back into the Disneyland park for our lunch at Blue Bayou.  It was really neat.  I had order envy though, because my chicken was nowhere near as good as Robyn's Monte Cristo sandwich.

The LED lights in the lemonade were really cool.

The famous Monte Criso

Despite my order envy, the food was really good.  And the atmosphere was really fun.  It was just like being in the bayou at night.  (At least, I imagine it's what it's like.  I should say, it was just like being outside next to a river at night.  I've never actually been in the bayou.)

After lunch we went back to California Adventure.  Our longest line of the day was for the Toy Story ride.  The important thing is that I won.

Robyn made sure to tell me that she's still a better person than me, even though I won the Toy Story ride.  Also, she was quick to point out that she dominated me in Buzz Lightyear the day before.

 We had to buy Robyn a tiara, so she went from Captain America to Princess America.

By 4:00, we had ridden everything we wanted to ride except for the Cars ride.  The line for that ride was 4 hours long.  Fast passes had long run out.  (The line for fast passes was at least an hour until they ran out.)  Since we're old and tired, we briefly pondered, should we stay another 4 hours for 90 seconds of entertainment?  The answer was no.  I was really excited to get off my feet, so we went back to the hotel and relaxed.

Some may say that we didn't get our money's worth because we could have stayed in the parks for another 8 hours.  But I had a great time in the park, and I had a great time relaxing afterward, so I'm happy with it.

The next day we were off to Hollywood, so stay tuned.

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.