Happiest Place on Earth!

After xmas, John and I went to Disneyland! I had not been for over 20 years and it was fabulous, if just a tab bit insanely crowded (okay more than a tad). Its their 50th year and everyone under the sun decided to go that week. It took about ah hour to get parking, find the shuttle and arrive at the entrance. Then we spent some quality time admiring the vast amount of people. Babs, CJ and the kids had decided to go that same week, and we met babs inside the park, the kids and CJ had spent yesterday at Disneyland and were spending that day at the Hotel pool. Judging from the crowds … smart move.

Disneyland was also kind enough to include directions on how to use the Tea Cups. 3 adults can make it go very fast. The ride was distaster free but in the future …. do not take this ride of you have just eaten. ThunderMountain was next, a nice little rollar coaster, and the line was not too bad. We were in the first car, it was cool. I screamed … a bit.

After that, it was time to use our FastPass. babs was kind enough to grab FastPasses for the Indian Jones ride while John and I went to Space Mountain. In the hour we has been on other rides, the line was now over an hour long. We then went thru the FastPass line, past the throng of cranky people. It took Maybe five minutes. Schadefreude ran rampant as we skipped along the barren and sparse FastPass line. We got into the first car (again, it was a theme that would be repeated several times during the day). This was my first time on the ride and I screamed …. a bit.

We rejoined babs. Next we decided to check out California Adventures via the Monorail. babs has learned a valuable trick and had a hotel pass, so we go into the platform first and stood in front of the first gate. There we looked hopefully, cute and happy. The Monorail arrived, the driver hopped out looked us over. He informed us that we had no poker face and that yes, we could sit in front. Wheee! He mentioned that this had been the busiest in about 5 years. We have impecable timing.

We checked out California Adventures and babs left to go back to the kidlings. John and I wandered a bit, rejected the cold rafting ride and attempted to win a few prizes from children. We lost and I grew sad. Then we decided to go on the Sun Wheel. This Ferris wheel has two very different kinds of rides. An exhilarating trip 16 stories in the air in stationary gondolas or for the real thrill-seekers try the swinging AND sliding gondolas that whip back and forth as the wheel rotates. We, of course, went on the sliding gondolas. As you can see from the pictures, John and I had different experiences (and expectations no doubt) from this ride. Poor babs called during the ride, right before it got scary and I screamed … a bit.