Disneyland brain dump

Today we started with an extra-magic-hour in Disneyland, which turned out pretty great. In that hour (reserved for hotel guests and people on longer park hoppers), we were able to knock out Dumbo, Peter Pan, Mr. Toad, the Tea Cups, Alice in Wonderland, and Storybook Land. At 10am when the park opened to regular guests we went to the Matterhorn. The lines were so short that we didn't use the baby-swap passes, we just went through the line twice so Emmett and Luke rode twice, once with me and once with David.

After the Matterhorn we went over to Space Mountain to give it a try. Luke was willing and Emmett was eager. In the end, Emmett loved it but Luke did not - he was sitting next to me and I could tell that his head was getting rattled around a bit. I wish I had put my arm around him to help him stay anchored in the car - you can really rattle around when you're so little. He didn't want to do it again, but didn't seem traumatized.

We had lunch at the pizza place right near Space Mountain and decided that Emmett and David would go ride Indy while I took Luke and Henry back to the hotel to rest. It didn't work out so well - Henry had just napped so I knew he'd just play in the room, but since Emmett was in the park it was impossible to get Luke settled enough to sleep. He watched TV for a while (less than an hour) and we went back to the park.

While we were out, David and Emmett rode Buzz Lightyear, Indy, the Haunted Mansion, and Splash Mountain. They also got fast passes for Splash, so Luke and I rode it immediately upon returning to the park. I was a little worried that Luke's experience with Space Mountain would spill over onto the other mountains in the park, but it didn't. I showed Luke a couple of logs going down the final drop and told him about the ride - it's mostly a slow boat ride, with a few small drops and that one big drop, and he was perfectly willing to ride it. He had a great time. We got a little wet, of course, but he told me he didn't get any water in his eyes because he closed them! Just a few months ago, he refused to ride the log ride at Knott's because he might get splashed. Swimming lessons have really changed things for him.

While we were on Splash, David, Emmett, and Henry rode Winnie the Pooh so after getting off Splash, Luke and I rode it together. Then David and Henry waited while Luke, Emmett and I went on Haunted Mansion with the Nightmare before Christmas overlay. It was great - they both loved the ride and it was much less spooky than the mansion is normally, because there is so much Christmas-y stuff everywhere. I think experiencing the mansion in this form may help prevent them from getting spooked by it the first time they see it. At the end of the ride where you usually have hitchhiking ghosts, Oogie Boogie (villain from Nightmare) is standing there talking about what present you'll get and if you've been naughty or nice. When David went with Emmett, they got a stocking but when we went we got a few sticks of dynamite - lit, of course.

This was the hardest part of the day - it was still pretty hot and the kids were tired. Emmett hadn't eaten much lunch and wanted to eat tons of candy instead, so we went to Bengal Barbecue to get a snack. David got food while I took the boys through Tarzan's Treehouse. After the snack, I tried to get Henry to fall asleep while David took Emmett and Luke on Pirates (which was supposed to be closed according to the Disney website - we lucked out!). Henry didn't fall asleep, so we decided to take the train all the way around the park from New Orleans Square. Even with a 20 minute train ride, Henry didn't fall asleep!

At this point the only major attraction we hadn't been on was Big Thunder Mountain (and it was about 4:30). We wanted to get that in just in case we had to leave due to tiredness. Emmett, Luke, and I rode it while David tried again to drive the stroller in a boring way to get Henry to fall asleep. This time it worked, so David, Emmett, and Luke went on Big Thunder again while Henry was sleeping.

By 5pm the heat of the day was finally wearing off, but the kids were still pretty tired (with the excepting of Henry, who had just woken up), so we decided to have dinner (at the Mexican restaurant adjacent to Big Thunder) to rest and refuel and try to get in a few more rides. It worked like a charm - dinner was definitely rejuvenating, and after that we went on Jungle Cruise and then saw the Tiki Room, of course getting some Dole Whip ice cream on the way in.

Henry loved the Tiki Room so much it was just adorable. He was dancing, waving his arms, and he drummed along with the tikis during the drumming part. He clearly was having a blast - I was so glad we were able to do it.

By this time it was 6:30 so people were lining up for the parade (at 7) and we crossed the hub to go on Buzz Lightyear and Astro Orbiter. When we were entering the park in the morning, Luke had pointed on it and said he wanted to ride it. I told him we'd be at the park all day - we'd certainly go on Astro Orbiter at some point, and we were finally back to do it. At this point the parade was nearby so we stopped to watch it. While waiting, Luke started to get upset about something but when I asked him what was wrong, he said, "I'm just tired" and came over and sat with me. I was amazed all day, actually, at the cooperation, lack of fighting, and pretty good moods despite being over tired and hot.

In DCA, the Pixar parade was awesome - great costumes, characters, puppets, acrobats, stilt walkers, etc. The Disneyland Street Party parade was not. It was music and dancers and characters on uninteresting floats. The good part was that they encouraged lots of kids to come into the street and dance at one point, which Emmett did and had a great time. Otherwise, I can see why people have been complaining about this parade.

After the parade we were going to head out, but Luke wanted to hit Buzz Lightyear one last time so we did. David thought I was nuts, but I pointed out how excited Luke was. David said that wasn't excitement, it was exhaustion turned to hyper convulsions (or something like that). I thought they looked like happy convulsions.

We exited the park, returned to our room, and got the kids in bed and asleep pretty quickly. Emmett was in the park from 9am until 8pm - very impressive.

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Thanks, Emmett.