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Published: April 12th 2014
There's a bear in there
Had to google search to find out who this was!Hello again from sunny California! It's 9:00am on Friday and we've just awoken from our first decent nights sleep since Tuesday night. And we feel good, dada dada da so good..so good.. Yesterday was a long but great day with lots of fun.
It started with Lisa waking at 3.10am, obviously her body not quite syncing to the time difference yet and a 5:15am wake up call. Showered and dressed, donning the sensible shoes so that we could get to the Disneyland Hotel for breakfast in Goofys Kitchen at 6.30. And don't the Yanks know how to do a breakfast! We weren't too sure whether to have the donuts, peanut butter and jelly pizzas, enchiladas or mousses so for starters had omelette, eggs benedict and scrambled eggs (and that was just Gman) plus bacon and sausages. Then while the adults had a bit of fruit, the kids (well, Scarlett) then went for the macaroni cheese, jelly, lollies and chocolate mousse! Breakfast of champions!
While we were eating breakfast several Disney characters came to our table to say hello and have their photos taken with us. There was Goofy (of course as it was his kitchen),
Chip and Dale (LVS- not too sure if it was Chip & Dale, I think it was just an apron change with the new name on it), Princess Jasmine, Beloo (from The Jungle Book), The Mad Hatter, and Pluto who tried to do a runner before seeing us and was chased down by Lisa (LVS-silent but rude he was, I almost tackled him to the ground). Next time he tries that we'll have to stick a lead on him. He's not even a real planet! Apart from Pluto (who may have to be neutered) all the staff were really friendly. In fact niceness is something all the staff do really well.
Having stocked up on our huge breakfasts we were ready to face the parks. There are two parks at Disney, Disneyland and the California Adventure Park. We thought we'd start with the latter.
We queued up for around 5 minutes, had our photo taken and were in (no fingerprints req'd) It probably doesn't need to be said but the parks are massive! This park is split into seven areas and we started with Paradise Pier, home of the California Screamin' Roller Coaster. We
Wheel of misFortune
Lisa and the kids car sliding around on the Ferris wheel were prepared for some long waits but while Lisa held the bags (I'm always the bag lady & not a fan of rollercoasters or rides that make your guts feel like they are dangling around your ankles) the girls and I joined the queue. Well 5 mins later we were on the coaster, not even time to build up any real fear. It was fantastic but definitely not recommended after a breakfast of omelette, eggs benedict and scrambled eggs! But we were hooked and this started the day off with us trying to get on every ride. Throughout the park there were characters ready for photos or autographs, mini concerts and events. There was so much to take in.
The longest wait we had was for a ride called midway mania which the girls did themselves and talked mum and dad into trying. It was basically an arcade game on wheels where you shoot at interactive screens. Lisa was most pleased that she achieved the highest score and we thought we'd hook into that bravado by getting her on the Ferris Wheel, in the sliding cars! There's two types of cars on this Ferris Wheel, the normal
Tower of Terror ride
Scarlett is never ever ever going back on this ride ones that don't move as the wheel turns or the ones that can slide (and swing) as the wheel turns. Lisa wasn't too sure but having called her a coward and other such names she finally agreed to go in this car, so off she and the girls went. I stayed behind to mind the bags!! Heights just aren't my thing!( & he calls me names...I can think of a few in return). The trip started off well, then as they got about a third of the way up the car started sliding. Oh, what joy. It slid to the end and swung violently. I could hear the screaming from where I was sitting. Brilliant!.. thanks G for the vote of confidence...all I'm gonna say is I'm thankful I wore black pants!!
Having recovered from that we sat out while the girls rode a few of the tamer rides and we started to wander around the park. It was about this time we cottoned onto the Fastpass system. Basically, you go to a ride and get a ticket for a future time block. When this time comes you go back to the ride and walk past the
Calming remedy
To clam Scarlett down Lisa took on this little kiddies ride queues to the front. The longest we had to wait using the Fastpass was about 5 minutes although we must say the longest wait for any ride we went on was only about 30 minutes which we thought was great considering the number of people. There were some rides that had queues waiting 75mins...bugger that! We had read up on it previously but only started to use it after a couple of hours.
Around 12:30 it dawned on us how big the park was as we hadn't left Paradise Pier. We still had six areas to see! During the day we slowly wandered around and that's when we ended up at the Hollwood Tower of Terror! Charlize was adamant she was going on and was joined by Scarlett. Having been on the the Batman ride at Movieworld last year they were pretty confident it would be similar. However when we were met by a crying Scarlett at the end we knew it was different! The premise of the ride was that a hotel had a terrible elevator accident and that they were going to ride the same elevator. What we didn't know was that they showed a
Night Vision
The park looked great lit up short film before the ride explaining that the accident involved a family with a little girl. This sent 8yo Scarlett into hysterics before she even got on the ride! With the help of another rider she got through it but declared that she wasn't going back on EVER! Charlize said that the ride was great but that the movie was creepy.
Slowly but steadily we got around to most areas and funnily enough got back around to Paradise Pier again. So what did we do? Back onto the roller coaster of course. Then we had a bite to eat, then back onto the roller coaster,this time in the dark.
The park is amazing during daylight but is breathtaking at nighttime. All the lights and colors on the rides reflecting into the water on the lake is stunning & beautiful.
Earlier in the day we got some fast passes for the World of Colour show at 9.45pm, but after lining up for 20 minutes and securing a viewing spot we were all suddenly exhausted; in fact Scarlett fell asleep on the footpath. As we had started the day so early and the
Exhausted
A big sleep was had by all after the day at California Adventure Park day had been so long that 30 minutes before the show was going to start we got up and walked home. We can always come back.
Back at the hotel 9.30 pm Lisa fell asleep (up and about for 18 hours solid), the kids watched some crappy tv and I had a couple of beers. A great end to a great day!
Day 3, and what a day I was looking forward to. A day trip to Walmart! It started with a leisurely sleep in then we caught a cab to the Anaheim Plaza where we decided that we couldn't shop on an empty stomach so strolled off to find a cafe. We ordered Danishes, smoothies, croissants and large coffee and were charged a grand total of $15:00. America definitely is the land of the free; the free breakfast! Back home the coffee alone would have cost $6.
Right. Off to Walmart. Hang on, let's just pop into this shop first. What? This wasn't part of the plan! So we ventured into Forever 21 to re-emerge three hours later! And what did we have to show for it? Lisa had nothing
Criminal Activity
If you're going to forge a signature at least make a decent attempt! and I had four pairs of 96 cent socks! So who spent all the money then? Those two girls of ours went berserk. They thought they were Paris Hilton and Miley Cyrus, obviously without the drug problems or sordid videos (or rich parents)! They even knew how to forge a signature on the credit cards.
Right, now we're off to Walmart and after such a long wait I was drooling with anticipation....And was I disappointed? Well, yes actually, I was. It was so...normal! I couldn't see a single gun for sale or any person worthy of a photo on the People of Walmart website. Although there were a couple of nominees a bit later in the day! (Hey, wait a min Gman, while waiting for you to complete your multiple laps of this fine establishment I overheard a lovely little boy call out to his mum that she was a MF Bitch!!) The only way I could deal with being let down was to join the girls in spending money. We finally staggered out of Walmart at 6:30 having also loaded up on some beef jerky, lucky charms and Kool Aid. We decided against the Golden Graham's
Happy customers
The girls walking down the street after making their purchases at the last minute.
Talking of Walmart, and Disney, and anywhere else one thing the Americans do really well is mobility scooters. They are friggin' everywhere. We loved seeing people ride their scooters up to rides, hop off, go on the ride, then hop back on again to scoot off. At Walmart I was pleased to see some scooters with the own shopping carts, supplied by Walmart. I have to get one of those!
Home for dinner at Mimi's was nice and rounded of with a couple of cans of Bud. Tomorrow, we're back to Disneyland....
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Flemo's
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Our kids are jealous. So am I (Andrew) you are obviously enjoying your time there. Loving the blog updates including the pics. I was expecting more from the Walmart visit though. ie. crazy pics. Look forward to the next episode. Cheers from the Flemo's