Our plan was to hit the park at opening time of 8am, so we were up early and at Mimi's Cafe for breakfast when it opened at 7am. After breakfast we wandered up the street and joined the crowds heading for the gates of Disneyland! It had been 20 years since my last visit to Disneyland so I was just as excited as the kids! We exchanged our vouchers for our 3 Day Park Hopper tickets and went through the gates!
We all love rollercoasters so our first stop was always going to be Space Mountain. We headed for Tomorrowland and got our first FastPasses of the trip then joined the line as the wait time was only 15 minutes. As expected, Space Mountain was a huge hit and we were all looking forward to using our fastpasses a little later. The wait times were still small so we hit most of the Tomorrowland rides including Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters, Autopia, Astro Orbiter and Star Tours.
We grabbed FastPasses for Buzz Lightyear, then watched Captain EO
before riding Space Mountain and Buzz Lightyear again with our fastpasses. Then we left Tomorrowland and headed towards Adventureland, stopping to see Walt and Mickey on the way
We grabbed Fastpasses for Indiana Jones, then joined the line for Jungle Cruise as it didn't have much of a wait. Then it was off to Critter County and the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
We saw Pooh and Friends posing for pictures but the lines were huge and the kids weren't that interested, so we walked over to New Orleans Square and joined the line for Pirates of the Caribbean. I think we waited around 20 minutes which wasn't too bad. After that we split up for a little while as Emily and Harry wanted to ride the Haunted Mansion but Sammy didn't, so I lined up with them while Alex took him for a walk.
We decided to just grab pretzels from a street vendor for lunch and do as many rides as we could. I think we rode Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and then wandered into Fantasyland where the lines were huge. The only one that had a shortish wait was Storybook Land Canal Boats, so we rode that then went to Main Street to watch the Celebrate A Street Party parade.
The parade was fantastic! I think I may even have had a tear in my eye!
Our first sighting of Mickey Mouse!
and Minnie
When the parade was finished we left the park and headed back to the HoJo to rest. Well the plan was to rest but the kids were desperate to try out the water playground so Alex took them down there while I stayed in the room and did some stuff online. After their swim, we got ready for dinner and called a cab to take us to Downtown Disney. Mistake number 1. The reason we didn't just walk was because we were in a hurry. With Harry's diabetes, he has to eat on schedule and it was getting late for him. But the cab took forever and we realised that we could have walked faster! Anyway, we finally got our cab and arrived at Downtown Disney without a dinner reservation. Mistake number 2! I had tried to book ESPN Zone but you needed to do it 24 hours in advance but I figured there are so many restaurants there that we wouldn't have a problem. I thought wrong. Everywhere was booked out with waiting lists hours long! I started to panic as Harry had to eat so we ended up at the only restaurant that promised to seat us quickly which was the fine dining room at Catal which also happens to be the most expensive restaurant at Downtown Disney! At least they had a kids menu so the children didn't have to eat fine dining, but I was stressed and upset with myself for not making reservations somewhere more appropriate.
Anyway, during dinner we all started to get really tired. I realised it had been a mistake not to get a rest in during the day. The plan was to catch the monorail back to Disneyland after dinner and watch World of Color at DCA as it was the only night during our stay that it was showing. We walked back to the Monorail Station after dinner only to be turned away as it was broken down. At that stage I thought I was going to drop from exhaustion so I decided to skip World of Color and go straight back to the hotel. I didn't get any arguments as everyone was just as exhausted. So we caught another cab back to the hotel and were asleep before WOC even began!
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