Disney California Adventure

Photos

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

We were both up about 6am. Breakfast is served at Desert Palms Hotel on the 5^th floor at 7am to 10am. Disneyland opens at 9am. We were upstairs for breakfast a little after 7am. It was a zoo with about 50% of the room's population being children. Don't they go to school? They had scrambled eggs, sausage patties and hash brown potatoes. They had hot and cold cereal, pastries, yogurt and toast and make your own waffles. It was not luxurious, but it was certainly an adequate self-service breakfast. People were fairly tidy and considerate. They had seating indoors and outdoors. We were in.

It was bright and sunny all day with a bit of a chill breeze. It actually started out warmer and got cooler as the day progressed which was weird. Clay had brought a jacket but I did not and we had to return to the room at sunset to change clothes to get warm enough to make it through an 8:15pm World of Color Winter Dreams show.

So we walked about 15 minutes or so to get to the gate. We got right through the turnstiles where they changed our home printed 3-day park hopper tickets for small card ones and had us sign them. Mine had Tow Mater on it, and Clay got Snow White. We walked in a ways and then came to the ropes inside Disney California Adventure. We chose DCA for the reason that World of Color was available to us tonight with a FastPass that we could get in the morning here. We had to choose which way to go once inside DCA and I chose to go toward Grizzly Rapids to get World of Color fast passes for tonight at 8:15pm. The crowds seemed light enough that I thought we could get on Radiator SpringsRacers later. I was right. We got the blue group for WoC.

We walked on RSR in about 8 minutes in the single rider line and we were still in the same car. I got the front passenger seat and Clay was sitting right behind me. It was almost a mistake for me. It does come with a motion sickness warning and we watched and it was fast and dipping and sharp turns, but it looked doable. Anyway, I lost my horizon on the last dip and turn I had a single visual cartwheel and just about lost it, but then I saw the finish line banner and held it steady in sight and I knew the ride was all over. I just had to get my equilibrium back.

We then walked over to Luigi’s Flying Tires in Cars Land. It also had a motion sickness warning but we watched it and it looked pretty slow. We stood in line about 15 minutes to ride the silly floating bumper cars for about 1 minute. It was the slowest ride ever and we laughed about how anyone could ever get sick on it.

Next up, the Little Mermaid, or Ariel's Undersea Adventure. I am not sure of the exact name. 

I had checked the schedule when we arrived and wanted to see Russell from Up doing a Wilderness Explorer Ceremony in Redwood Creek Challenge Trail at 11am. I wanted to see the play Aladdin at 12:40pm and we wanted to go by Monsters, Inc. and near House of Cards get a free photo with a character courtesy of my Disney Chase Visa card between 10:30am and 1:30pm. The last is the only thing we didn’t get done. First, we waited about 45 minutes in line for Toy Story Midway Mania and then Aladdin lasted 40 minutes and they started later than the time posted in the schedule, so we didn’t get out of there until after 1:30pm. Too late. We’ll go another day. Aladdin was great. I loved it. We saw a lot of Mater and Lightning McQueen in Cars Land today. We had photo ops with Russell and Dug. They were great.

We also rode Little Mermaid, Toy Story Midway Mania (where I doubled Clay’s score with half his accuracy! I was pulling that string like a woman with Parkinson’s tremor!), and Monsters, Inc. We also went to Disney Animation and went through about half of it, we watched It’s Tough to Be a Bug and got soaked. Our glasses were so dirty later!

We ate a late lunch at Lucky Fortune Cookery and had rice bowls. Clay had spicy Korean beef and I had chicken teriyaki. I really liked it. We ordered edamame to share but they were out of it. Clay ate all his and part of mine so either he liked it or he was really hungry. He said his was very hot and spicy. We went to Ghirardelli after. They gave us each a free peppermint bark for entering. We checked the menu outside first and decided before entering, a good thing because once you get in there it is just cash registers and no menu or counter until you pick up after the registers. Clay got a double scoop cone. I got the Lombard Street hot chocolate. They had at least 4 choices of hot chocolates! It was suddenly cold when we came out of Aladdin. We ate sitting in the sun, but it was still a chilly wind. The Lombard Street hot chocolate was like a submarino from Argentina. It was steamed milk with 4 bars of Ghirardelli milk chocolate fudge-filled bars. I put them in and stirred it up and added a raw sugar and drank it down. Delicious! 

I saw a lot of people today wearing pins that said they were having a birthday or 1^st visit. Clay finally asked the family of little boy wearing a 1st visit pin where they got it. They said to go to City Hall on Main Street and just ask for the pins. (So, I now see from the link I just posted that we could have gotten our pins in DCA too. Live and learn.) Maybe tomorrow, since we only went to DCA today. Tomorrow Disneyland. We may go back to DCA tomorrow to try to get our Chase Disney Visa free character photo. We’ll see.

We happened to come out of the Animation Building just as they were roping off for the Pixar Parade in DCA. We found a spot on the curb where we could sit and lean against the trash cans. We decided to stay for the parade. I liked it. I usually hate parades, but maybe it is only Christmas parades that I hate. This was a nice little parade.

We walked back to the room about 5:30pm to bundle up. We saw a Tony Roma’s across the street and Clay wanted to eat dinner there. We got bundled in layers and went back out. We crossed over and ate at Tony Roma’s. Clay said he is done with them. The prices keep getting higher and he says the ribs keep getting worse.  I had chicken fingers because I wasn’t too hungry and it sounded like the lightest and cheapest meal. It was huge! I couldn’t even eat half of it. Mine tasted fine and seemed a good value, but Clay hated his and didn’t even finish it, he said it was that bad and he wouldn’t go again.

We walked back over to the park and reentered to get in a huge line with the 100's of other blue fastpass holders to jockey for viewing positions. We finally settled at the top of the stairs in the center. I could still only see the top and not the water level fountains over the 100’s of people in front of us. We could have gotten right on the water, but I didn’t want to get wet. So, all the rail spots were taken and we wound up where we did. It wasn’t bad though the show Winter Dreams was a little lame and Olaf is crazy annoying. The fountains show was like the Bellagio on steroids. Clay thought Bellagio was better coordinated to the music. Oh, I loved the giant floating snow flakes that were being launched to drift over the crowds towards the end of the show. I couldn't find the machine that was doing it, though I tried to look for it as we left. I think there might have been 2 of them near the back of the crowd and I guess that would only really work if the wind was blowing from the back of the crowd. Anyway, it looked like a thick layer of soap bubbles in a snowflake shape. They were probably larger than Frisbees and were just fascinating.

Anyway, we are back in our hotel room now and dead tired and aching from being on our feet since 7am to 9:30pm. It is going to be a short night and a long, hard 3 days in Disneyland! More later.

Doesn't Clay's new Olympus Stylus SH-50 take great photos? And it fits in his pocket without all that lens changing nonsense.

Photos