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Sunday, August 12, 2018

Disneyland - How's my hair?

Every week I'm trying to do something different with hat themes. This week's theme can best be described as Hair Hats. I typically collect plush style hats, but every once in a while, one of these hair hats stands out.
From left to right, I'm wearing a punk rocker Goofy hat with a blue and green mohawk. Each ear has both a gold and bronze earring. Ian's wearing what he called a "racing Mickey" hat with orange hair. Alli just loves her Rapunzel princess hat with a long braid of blonde hair. Theresa is wearing a jamaican inspired Mickey hat with black braids. Jacob is sporting a green Mickey ear visor with a wild rainbow afro.


The park opened at 8am this morning and every week we attempt to arrive around park opening. Before leaving last week, T and I renewed our Annual Passes. So it was a bit of a surprise when we tried to enter the park and her pass bonked, saying it wasn't valid yet. Last week, I asked them to reprint her old pass since the barcode was nearly unreadable, and after some investigation it turns out the pass they gave us back was only good after our renewal date. I'm glad I had her old one still on my phone that they were able to scan, and didn't have to hit the ticket booths first thing in the morning.

The four of us loaded into the Monorail to start our day inside Disneyland.

I like the views into the park from the Monorail track. I suppose the end of PixarFest is just around the corner. I don't feel like I tried hardly any of the special foods/treats that were offered. Anyone know if I'm missing out on anything special? That I really should try before it goes away.

Arriving early, it's good to get the Fantasyland rides out of the way. Alli really didn't want to see Alice, so she and Theresa went on the Storybookland Canal Boats, while Ian and I headed over to ride Alice.
Or attempt to ride Alice. We were 2nd in line to board when everything came to a stop and they announced it would be 25-30 minutes before everything was running again. Grr. I still haven't been walked off a ride here at Disneyland.

Ian wanted to check up on the White Rabbit.

He wasn't home though.

In keeping with the Alice theme, both of us rode the tea cups.

Afterwards, we joined up with Alli and headed over to the ninth wonder of the universe, Dumbo! They're waiting patiently on their numbers. No longer do you get to run to the Dumbo color you want. Luckily for Alli one of our numbers was pink!

It's Jacob!

Ian and Alli both liked riding Dumbo, and riding separate meant they got to fly Dumbo the entire time instead of switching back and forth.

Let's head to Toon Town!

Alli says she doesn't want to ride all during the walk up... But afterwards tells us how much she liked it.

I love how characters are just wandering around in Toon Town. Both Pluto and Goofy are regulars here.

Toon Town was not busy at all. Alli claims that Gadget's Go-coaster is her favorite ride, so we have to make attempts to ride it each visit. After the quick trip, the kids hopped out and sprinted around for  another round.

The four of us took the back carts and once we arrived back at the station, there was no-one else in line. All the people in the front carts got off, but the cast members let us stay on. We enjoyed a private coaster ride around the track.

Back at the station, more guests had arrived, but they were in the front carts. No one was queued up in the back, so we were allowed to head around again and again, a total of 5 times in a row!

In keeping with this coaster theme, Space Mountain was calling our name.


Everyone enjoyed the Haunted Mansion, but we're eagerly awaiting the transformation into Holiday Haunted Mansion.

Ian loves Splash Mountain, and lately he's been more bold, wanting to sit in the very front.

Of course, sitting in the front, you get a lot more wet. And it's not the big hills, like you'd expect. That little drop into the "Laughing Place" catches the water just right and sends a wave over the bow and onto the first couple seats.
[insert Splash Mountain photopass photo here. 48 hours and counting for it to show up after I linked it to my account]

Ian has been eyeing this "money machine" for a long time. "Daddy! Can we get some money!" On our last trip, Gram gave them both 51 cents, including a shiny new penny, for them to use in a penny press machine on their next visit.

Both enjoyed their new coins, but Ian wanted to know where his quarters went. Aha, now we're learning.

Pooh wasn't visiting with anyone, so on the walk out, both kids headed over to the rope and showed off their new pressed pennies to him.

This is how busy the park is at 11:45am on a Sunday. Awesome.

Three adventurers took a spin on Radiator Springs Racers.

And won.

I took the smallest adventurer for a spin on Mater. She's started grabbing onto the edge so she doesn't go sliding all over the place. Somehow I still end up sliding and squishing her though. :)

Lunchtime! Our new favorite, a loaf of sourdough and a handful of butter for less than $5.


T bought a pineapple spear, a pickle, and brought carrots from home. This boy wanted buttered bread, sliced pickles and pineapple, along with cut-up carrots to make himself a sandwich...

Doesn't sound good to me, but hey, he made it himself, and even more importantly he ate it all.

And then he made this with some of the leftovers.

Ian and I are great partners on Toy Story. Working together we can open up many of the hidden screens during the game. That usually means our scores aren't super high (mid 200s for me, just shy of 100k for him), but it's fun to have a goal and see something new.

On this particular visit, we rode in the handicapped accessible cart. Theresa excitedly pointing out that this particular cannon doesn't have a pull-string, but instead has a button on top. Faster shooting! Alli put up an impressive 36k points. Very nice!

Exiting directly into the gift shop, the kids learned an economics lesson. They could get 5 lollipops here for $7, or they can get 4 Ring Pops for a dollar at the 99 cent store. Lesson learned, they decided to save their money and get Ring Pops later.

Goofy's Sky School typically has an immediate fastpass return time, so I never understand why people are waiting in the 30 minute line.

One of the benefits to buying an entire loaf of bread is that there's usually some extra slices leftover for the ducks. Feeding the ducks will typically bring at least one other kid over too, and so far none of the parents have refused the extra bread slices I give them so they can feed the ducks too.

Time for our last ride of the day. Guardians of the Galaxy! Someone is a little stickler for the rules. Always raising his hands when he's told so he can get clearance, and asking "were we paying attention?" when Rocket appears and says "for those of you who've not been paying attention, the name's Rocket."

New milestone for Ian today too. Normally he'd ask me to put my arm on his shoulders so he doesn't float out of his seat. Today though he wanted to do everything all by himself, and afterwards he said he loved it.

Just another fun weekend at Disneyland!

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