USA trip 2010: Disneyland

Day 6 - 16/6/10 Disneyland, Anaheim CA

Today was our Magic Morning and we wanted to take advantage of entering the park an hour before it opened, so it meant an even earlier start to our day. Alex and I were up at 6am and he went out to McDonalds to pick up breakfast while I got us ready for the day. We let the kids sleep until 6.30am when he arrived back with the food. We had planned to arrive at the gates at 7am but we didn't end up leaving the HoJo till then. We walked back to Disneyland, arriving at 7.20am so we still had 40 mins before opening to do as many rides as possible.

We took advantage of the small crowds to take photos along Main Street.

The only rides operating for Magic Morning were the ones in Fantasyland, so our first stop was the Matterhorn Bobsleds

then we literally walked onto all of the rides in Fantasyland that had hour long waits the day before!

First up was Dumbo

then Pinocchio's Daring Journey, Snow White's Scary Adventures, Peter Pan's Flight

Mr Toad's Wild Ride

Alice in Wonderland

and It's a Small World

By that stage it was 8am and the crowds were starting to roll in so we headed over to Tomorrowland and rode Space Mountain again. Then Alex and the kids joined the line for the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage which had a 20 minute wait while I ran over to Critter Country to get our Splash Mountain fastpasses. Critter Country is as far away from Tomorrowland as you can get! It took me at least 20 minutes to get there and back and when I finally made it, they were at the front of the line, so we boarded the next submarine. After the voyage we wandered onto Main Street again

and then watched Mickey's Philharmagic before we walked up to Mickey's Toontown

We got fastpasses for Roger Rabbit's Toon Spin, then rode Gadget's Go Coaster which was the only disappointing ride at Disney. Then it was time for the big excitement, a visit to Mickey's house!

Where we met the main mouse himself!

The kids decided that they didn't want to line up to meet Minnie at her house, so we returned to Roger Rabbit to use our fastpasses but it wasn't operating and they didn't know how long it would be down so we decided to skip it and caught the railroad back to New Orleans Square from where we walked to Critter Country to use our Splash Mountain fastpasses. By that stage it was lunchtime so we left the park after Splash Mountain and ate lunch at Denny's before returning to the HoJo to play in the waterpark.

After a swim and a rest, we walked back to Disney's California Adventure for the afternoon Pixar Parade. First we caught Disney's Aladdin which was fantastic! The kids and I absolutely loved it and Alex took the opportunity to take a nap! Then we ran into a few characters on our way to the parade.

Then it was time for the parade. We got a position at the end of the route outside the Mission Tortilla Factory. The parade was awesome! I looked at Alex at one stage and said this was the highlight so far. Watching the kids seeing their favourite characters come past made all the stress, hassle and expense worth it!

We had a dinner reservation at ESPN Zone at 6.30pm, so the plan was to stay at DCA until closing at 6pm and then walk over to Downtown Disney. However, we forgot to bring Harry's insulin and had to go back to the hotel to get it. Alex volunteered to walk back while the kids and I stayed at DCA. We headed straight for Toy Story Midway Mania as we couldn't wait to ride it. There was 40minute wait which we would normally say no to, but we decided we'd wait and make it our last ride of the day.

It was definitely worth the wait, we loved it! By the time we finished riding it was park closing and time for us to head to Downtown Disney for dinner. We arrived at ESPN Zone right at 6.30pm and were seated straight away. We had a really nice time, nothing like the stressful meal of the night before! After dinner we grabbed some tokens to play the games. The best deal was $25 for 100+ tokens. We knew we wouldn't use them all that night but we were assured that we could use the credits at any ESPN Zone around the country. So we played a few games and went out to explore Downtown Disney.

The ceiling at ESPN Zone was amazing