Disneyland Journal, Part 2. Are You Sure You Can't Wait

After a really cool night on Monday, we woke prepared for a full day in Disneyland. How did the day greet us? Completely cloudy and rainy. The following is a timeline of our first day in Disneyland.

9:00 - Twenty minutes before this, it had stopped raining and the sun had shone through the clouds. As we leave the hotel, the clouds are back and it proceeds to rain hard on us for the 1/4 mile walk we have to the gates of Disneyland. Fortunately, Shannon had the foresight to pack us ponchos. Unfortunately, the ponchos only covered the top half of our bodies and our pants got soaked. To add to the joy we were experiencing at this point of our day, Logan was highly frustrated that we made him get in his poncho and ride in the stroller. He is not a baby. He informed us of that many times and felt it a personal insult to have to get in that stroller. For anyone familiar with Logan's grumpy face, that is the look he had the entire ride to Disneyland. Boy are we getting off to a good start.

9:20 - Arrive at Disneyland. Just at the point where we are able to reach cover from the rain...it stops raining and the sun comes out. This is a good thing, but you still find it hard not to ask why couldn't it have come out twenty minutes before.

9:30 - We decide our first ride of the day will be Buzz Lightyear. As we get going, Logan begins to understand that this ride is going to take place in the dark. Not crazy about that idea and also a little intimidated that a full size Zurg is shooting at him. Logan's view of the ride...We don't need to go on that one again right now. Meanwhile Abby and Braden rode in their own car and spun that car continuously while on the ride. Their score was abysmal but they sure enjoyed getting dizzy on the ride.














9:45 - Next we went to Fantasyland and went through the newly opened Sleeping Beauty's castle. We arrived at the entry at the exact same moment as some other folks and being raised by goodly parents, we extended the courtesy of letting them go in first. In retrospect, I should been like most everyone who lives in Southern California and shoved my way in front. To understand, this attractions is a narrow darkened hallway with stairs that goes through the main Sleeping Beauty Castle while providing different windows that have scenes from the movie Sleeping Beauty. When someone is ahead of you, it is very hard to get past them. The people we let go ahead of us decided it was important to get a digital picture of every single window and effect. If a window had two or three effects, they would get a picture of all three. Also, the lady taking the pictures needed to make sure that every picture was perfect so there were repeats at several points. Meanwhile, Logan is again not crazy about the dark and the longer these people in front of us take, the more people are backing up behind us wanting to move forward. Also take into account most of these people had experienced the same rain we had and it was starting to have a nice musty/wet dog smell. I don't think I have been that close to wanting to be rude in a Disney park since Shannon barely stopped me from putting a lit cigarette into the pocket of the man in line in front of us to get food at Disney's Animal Kingdom after he smoked it right there in line and then dropped it on the ground still smoldering. I had picked it up and was right there when Shannon made me stop. Anyway, I was about there with these folks.














10:00 - Small World. Logan begins to loosen up. I think he realized darkness was going to be a part of just about everything we did and it wasn't necessarily all bad.














10:20 - We head to Toon Town. Logan gets to meet Mickey. Just like with Braden before him, this is one of the highlights we will never forget. Complete awe.

10:30 - We go on the Toon Town roller coaster. Logan loves it. Braden did not want to go and begged not to go until we made him get on. Once it was over, he said, "That was quite fun" and begged to go again.

11:30 - We decide to get the kids pizza in Toon Town. Shannon decides to join them and gets some for herself. I choose to hold out for better food later. This would come back to bite me.

12:30 - We ride Thunder Mountain Railroad. Logan laughs the entire ride and begs to go again. If you ask him today, he will tell you this was his favorite ride of the whole trip.

1:15 - We can put Braden off no longer and go to ride the rockets. In case you are not keeping track, we are not doing a very good job of staying in one part of the park very well. That equates to a lot of walking.

1:45 - In keeping with the tradition of walking all over the park, we then go to Pirates and Haunted Mansion. Kids give them the thumbs up.














2:15 - We get our first Churro of the trip. I love Churros. I don't care that we spent $45 on Churros while we were there, they were worth it. Isn't it amazing how out of whack your financial sensibilities can get while at Disneyland? Following this, Braden is done asking. He now demands that we ride the train.

3:00 - While trying to get on Splash Mountain, the guy at the front of the ride tells us that Logan is probably too short so he sends us to the loading area for them to test him again. When we get there, they tell us he is fine and to wait right there. They then put us on the next log. AWESOME...SPLASH MOUNTAIN, NO WAIT! Abby and Braden don't like it and Logan doesn't care for it either. But his reasoning is that he got wet. He demanded we go back to the hotel immediately and change his clothes. How about the long drop? No big deal, but in case we missed it...he is wet and this must be addressed immediately. He is quite irate when we choose to not deal with this pressing matter.

3:45 - Logan was not crazy about going on Haunted Mansion again, but Shannon, Abby and Braden want to. So I am now going to take the opportunity to get some good food while they go on that ride and I will keep Logan with me. I get Clam Chowder in a bread bowl and as I sit down to take my first bite...Logan needs to go pee. I finally find a table away from everyone else very near a restroom. I run into the restroom, hold Logan up to the urinal and pull his pants up the second he is done to get back to my food before they take it away. I think we pulled that off in less than 90 seconds. Awesome. I then sat down to my delicious lunch. 10 bites in, Logan says, "I gotta go poop." "Can it wait?" "Noooo." So back we go into the restroom. There will be no rushing this and when I return, my breadbowl and wonderful soup are gone.

4:30 - We had told Abby she would have to ride Indiana Jones when we went. She was very nervous about this, but the time had come. I took her and we got in a 25 minute line. After waiting for a half an hour, we get to the front of the line and...it breaks down. We ended up waiting it out and it only took an additional 15 minutes, but still. She is now a nervous wreck. As it turns out, this ends up being her second favorite ride of the trip.














5:45 - Nemo followed by the monorail. Both big hits except that Abby is freezing in the monorail because you can't roll the windows up.

6:45 - We leave the park for the day and go to dinner in Downtown Disney. As we pass under the railroad track, the train is there getting loaded for its next run. Braden calls out to the engineer, "I love your train."

7:30 - Time to head back to the hotel. Logan is cold and so we wrap him in his blanket and put him in the stroller. Funny, he isn't near as opposed to it now as he was earlier. No more than fifty yards and he is asleep.

7:45 - Each night, I would take a different child and let them pick something they wanted and just spend some time together. Tonight it was Abby's turn and we set off. We had discussed getting her some pins to do pin trading, but Downtown Disney has a huge Build a Bear workshop and she decided a new outfit for Tara was more important. So we hung out in the Build a Bear store and eventually, Tara got a Camp Rock shirt with a denim skirt and tennis shoes.

8:00 - Abby and I stop at the Haagen Daaz store and eat some of the best ice cream EVER!!! It was freezing and we were really cold but who cares. It was awesome.

8:30 - Shannon's shoes had let water in during our walk to the parks that morning. They never dried out. When she finally took her socks off, white prunes were attached to her ankles. A bed has never felt so good.