Theresa and Rita both get sick on the swings, so it's just Aubrey and me! She surprised me by taking her camera with her! Good girl! Always carry your camera!
These are the best kind of photos!
After a quick spin on Goofy's Sky School (single rider all the way!), we stopped for a quick photo in front of Mickey' Fun Wheel.
Aubrey's photo of the three of us.
This area has quite a few beautiful flowers. Aubrey really seems to be liking taking photos of flowers. That gives us an idea for tomorrow... Tune in to a future trip report for what we did on Sunday.
Looking back towards Mickey's Fun Wheel.
And Theresa even found a pomegranate tree that she's never seen before near the Wine Country Trattoria.
On another note, some people wear some interesting things to the park, not all of them good. This one was so bad that as we were walking behind them, a cast member who was walking along with us looked over at us and said "I'm sorry you had to see that today." It made us laugh pretty good.
We had intended to ride Monsters Inc, but when we arrived, we were greeted with a 25 minute wait. Really? For Monsters? I can't remember the last time I've seen the queue extend this far back. We jumped in line anyway, but after 5 minutes they announced the ride went down.
Alright, let's go see what this Dancin' with Disney is all about.
It's 3:50pm on a Saturday and the dance floor is dead. Seems like everyone is surrounding the walls as far from the dance floor as possible. The chairs and benches are definitely getting some use, but very few people are actually using the space for what it's intended, dancing.
Cruella loved seeing Aubrey with her camera and came over and struck quite a few poses for her.
A few of the more rare characters are here dancing, including Clarabelle.
And Clarice.
Some people on the Micechat message board suggested trying the frozen chocolate covered banana. I'm happy to try a new snack at Disney, so I gave it a shot. I was a little wary because you never really know what kind of banana you'll be getting. Too green? Old and mushy? Luckily this one seemed just about perfect. My first frozen banana ever and it was delicious! Not good for those with sensitive teeth though. Biting off chunks was a little bit of a challenge.
We're wanting to see the 4:45 Aladdin show but we've got 30 minutes to kill. The Animation Building lets you explore at your own pace and it's close by. Perfect!
Now I come into the lobby quite often during my normal visits, but it's been a while since I've explored the other areas inside the building. Back in the Beast's library, we all took turns finding out which Disney character we were most like. Is this another case of the Pixarification of the parks? Aubrey was most like Eve (from Wall-E), Rita was Mrs. Incredible, and myself, who always enjoys a good villain, was like Syndrome.
In the next room, we gathered around Ursula's lair and sang along to A Very Merry Unbirthday and The Bear Necessities. It's was a fun interactive exhibit that I haven't done in a really long time.
Time for Aladdin!
How these actors keep doing these shows over and over again and still giving quality performances astounds me. I can't count how many times I've seen this shows, and I have never had any complaints about a lackluster performance.
Touch nothing but the lamp!
The Genie always steals the show, and this time was no exception. It's always fun watching after not having seen it for a while, because there are brand new jokes!
Once they got to the Whole New World scene, I was really hoping to see the Flying Carpet soaring over the audience. Way back on Sept 25th, 2011, the carpet flipped over during the show, causing the actors to dangle by their safety harnesses until they could be lowered. No luck for us today though; the carpet was no where to be seen.
Which is why I was totally unprepared when at the end of the show, Genie flew out over the crowd. Odd they would cut one of the best scenes in the show when the carpet looks to be working fine.
As we were exiting the theater, I noticed that there is a really good view of the Tower of Terror from the balcony here. Perhaps another visit here closer to sunset in the future.
Time to head over to another favorite ride at DCA. Toy Story Midway Mania! Along the way, Aubrey got a free ride. Pretty lucky. I don't know many other 12 year olds who get carried like this.
I had been worried about the parks being crowded earlier this morning, but it truly hasn't been that bad. Toy Story only had a 20 minute wait.
The best part! I won, though T did have a problem during the Dino Darts section. If I wasn't right beside her watching it happen, I would have said she was making excuses, but I was there and verified that she was pulling the trigger, but there were no darts coming out of the cannon. It was all fixed by the next scene, but that still left her tens of thousands of points behind. Looks like she still had fun though.
So, having done most everything we wanted in DCA, we asked if they'd like to go to Disneyland now, or ride Radiator Springs Racers one more time. Without hesitation, they both said they wanted to go back to Racers!
Again, the single rider was a good idea, and sometimes you get lucky and put in the same car anyway.
The first time they got to see Ramone and Flo, the second time got to see Luigi and Guido.
As we exited, the neon had come on all around Cars Land and that combined with the beautiful sky made for a beautiful view.
Aubrey decided to take her first photo set. All the signs around Cars Land.
Very nice Aubrey!
For dinner, we headed over to the Pizza Port in Tomorrowland. I really enjoy the Count Down Chicken Fusilli. They load up the plate with pasta, and if you sprinkle some red pepper flakes on it, it's a spicy, flavorful and definitely big enough to split.
We had great timing and hopped on Buzz Lightyear as the fireworks were going off. The line was so short, we went on it twice!
Ever wonder how people post those massive scores? On the floorboard, near your foot is a small unassuming button. It's not in every car, but if you happen to get in the car that does, if you hold it down while you're going, all of Ranger 2's points count for Ranger 1's score! Look for the button and try it next time!
Both riders still have to do pretty well to get your score to add up to the top 10, but this trick makes it so much easier to accumulate points fast. That's us at the number 2 position!
And.... I was totally lying about that button thing. I got about 550k points and T got 400k points. We were both shocked when we went to email our picture to ourselves and saw that my score didn't count at all, and hers was a glitch of some sort. Oh well. Makes for an interesting story though.
To round out the night, Aubrey wanted to go on Winnie the Pooh. She described it as the ride that you get to go in the candy shop when you're done. Good, only a 2 minute wait. That 30 minute wait just a few days ago was crazy.
Time for something sweet for Pooh bear.
And it's time for something sweet for us too.
T's favorite snack in the park? The milk chocolate and caramel covered marshmallows. Mmm.
Right after leaving the candy store, we decide to call it a night. Aubrey has had a long day of walking around so I decided to give her a ride on my shoulders, starting back at Splash Mountain. I was thinking maybe we'd get to the trams and I'd get to take her off my shoulders there, but after walking all the way to the trams, we saw quite a line at both the first loading zone and the second loading zone. It would be at least 3 cycles before we "might" get on the tram. So what to do? Keep walking I suppose.
Along the way, a couple saw me carrying her and gave me props for carrying my "daughter" back to the car after a long day at Disneyland. Finally we made it back to the structure, but should we take the escalator or the stairs? We're parked on level 5. If you said stairs, then you win! Up 5 flights of stairs, then the long walk across the structure to the car. Being curious, I decided to map it out. In all, it was close to 1.5 miles carrying Aubrey from Splash Mountain all the way to the Mickey & Friends parking structure. I'm going to take +5 for that. So who's a good uncle?!?
We had a really fun day at the parks. I think we got in 12 big rides including Radiator Springs Racers twice, Soarin, and Toy Story. We also saw Aladdin, explored the Animation Building, and saw down twice to eat. Pretty good for only being in the park for 10 hours.
Time to get home and go to sleep! Tomorrow, we've got another adventure planned!
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