A Fun Day at California Adventure with a Surprise (**Spoiler Alert for those that have not experienced Ariel's Undersea Adventure)

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After a disapointedly crowded Magic Morning (a special perk with some tickets that gets you into Disneyland an hour before gates open, but is limited to only certain sections of the park), we turned in our park hopper tickets for Annual Passes and headed from Disneyland to spend some time in California Adventure.

As we walked to the back of the park to Paradise Pier, there was a long line of people at the recently finished Little Mermaid ride Ariel's Undersea Adventure that was not to officially open for another 4 days. What was going on? We just had to stop and ask.

To our luck, they were having an Annual Passholder Sneak Preview for the ride. So before it officially opened, we got to join the very large crowd of annual passholders already in line to ride the ride. The line twisted and turned and crossed and double backed for almost a 1/2 mile it seemed. I have no idea how long it took, but the time went by fast with looking at all of details of the outside of the ride and talking about how fun it was going to be to tell our grandkids (or kids in our son's case) about how we got to ride this ride before it was opened. We had been waiting for 2 years for this ride to be finished so there was just a little bit of excitement as we got closer to getting into our shells.

The ride itself was amazing. With so many new animatronics and details to enjoy it was impossible to see everything on just one ride.

The best part of the ride is the fish room with the "Under the Sea" song. I think that the Imagineers knew that this would be a favorite so you actually get to travel around the outside of the room in a half circle instead of just going straight through. This allows you to see more of the room and enjoy the song and the atmosphere for quite a bit longer than the other parts of the ride.

I can't wait to go back in October to ride it again. With October being part of the slow season hopefully we will be able to go through it a number of times without too long of a wait.

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Photos

A closer look at the top of the ride
For those that visit Disneyland, the Triton figure may look familiar. It is the same statue that was in Disneyland at the dancing water of what is now Pixie Hollow.

One of the beautiful outside windows
Notice the wonderful choice of plant life on the outside of the ride