We are back from Disney, infact we've been back for a few days but I just haven't had time to write this since!
The weekend started off with a nice easy flight into Orange County airport. We were afforded an absolutely spectacular view of Mt Rainier after taking off from SeaTac and it was clear all the way to California. The weather, upon landing at 8pm, was warm and had that lovely smell that only California air has.
We had a car to the hotel (which first dropped us off at the wrong hotel!) and settled down for the night - getting up early to get a shuttle at 9am into Disney. Dylan was so excited, it was his birthday. He opened up his presents before going and was promised lots more when he got there. In typical Dylan manner the 'pressure' of this seemed to make him a bit moody but he did soon cheer up.
Neither G nor I had expected to enjoy being at Disneyland particularly, we've both been before and I'm not a huge fan of theme parks. We were pleasantly surprised therefore, to enjoy ourselves thoroughly. I guess it's the difference when seeing it through the eyes of your children. Thanks to the 'fastpass' service they now offer on the rides at Disneyland we managed to go on lots and lots on the Saturday, stopping for lunch and drinks and toys (millions of plastic disney related toys) and balloons. Both kids absolutely loved the rides. We stayed and watched the parade at 7pm.. having walked 10 thousand miles before getting the shuttle back to the hotel at 8.15pm.
Next morning (with sore feet from the day before) we went back and this time went over to the California Adventure park which is opposite Disneyland in the park area. Our ticket allowed us to visit both.... and this one wasn't quite as good in that there was none of that special excitement that Disneyland itself offers thanks to the atmosphere it creates with the music and the characters and all the little attractions to compliment the various rides. This one did, however, have some pretty cool rides and we managed to pursuade (bully) Dylan into trying some and he ended up going on everything including a very scary roller coaster which went upside down. Harry went on a few things too and we ended the day by going on a new ride in that park called Monsters Inc (after the film).
One of the things we'd enjoyed about Disneyland was that after lining up for however long it took, the rides weren't over in 3 seconds and that you actually felt you got value for your queueing. Monsters Inc was the longest queue, due to being new, and it was an hour long. Someone in the line behind us promised us that it was well worth it so we stuck it out - Harry taking a nap in Gareths arms as we snaked up and down towards the front. When we finally got on the ride we were very disappointed, it was nothing special at all... the only one that wasn't in our whole weekend.
Because we had some fancy 3 day ticket deal we were allowed to enter the park an hour earlier than everyone else on Monday morning, so we arrived there bright and early at 8am (!). In that hour we actually managed to go on loads of rides, some twice! It was well worth doing, no line ups whatsoever. We also managed to go on the Thunder Mountain roller coaster (twice) and Splash Mountain (also twice), the log flume type ride. We had to leave at 2.30pm to go to the airport but we did more in those few hours than we had done in the previous two days combined! Fun!
Both kids had a splendid time enjoying the rides. Harry really loved them, especially the Buzz Lightyear Astroblaster ride in which he got this hair-dryer style laser gun and was able to shoot things as he went along. Dylan's favourite was the Matterhorn, a bob-sleigh style roller coaster which he went on twice. I liked Splash Mountain and Gareth liked everything!
Coming home from The OC airport was an experience. Because of all the gazillionnaires in Newport Beach they have noise restrictions and we were warned of their 'different take off procedure' as we taxi'd down the runway. Gulp. The plane took off very quickly and almost vertically and then they cut the engines and it felt like it dropped out of the sky..... until we reached the ocean and the engines were powered up again. Bloody scary!
All in all though, a fantastic weekend, really enjoyed it, really enjoyed the 85 degree sunshine, and really enjoyed the whole birthday weekend experience. Dylan finished up the weekend by saying 'This is the best place I have ever been to in my whole life'.
Posted by katie at February 17, 2006 01:30 PM