We're back at Disneyland! Our first day at Disney's California Adventure Pt 1 - 2022/06/10

Today is another special day! (We seem to have a lot of those). After years and years, we are finally coming back to the original Disneyland! Our last trip was back in March 2020, when I took the kids right before everything blew up with Covid. 

Now that things are getting more back to normal, and now that we're back on the West Coast, it's time to return! And even better, we've got visitors! Pop Pop and Gram from Colorado are out here with us and all set for some fun days at Disneyland!

Oof, parking fees hurt! $30 each day. At least we didn't get charged the Oversized rate of $35. I'm sure we were close. When we're pulling into the lane of cars to park, I'll always go down to the very end of a row, even though it's further away, in order to have space for The Beast to pull in, but more importantly maneuver to pull out at the end of the night. 

I received an interesting compliment from the cast member directing traffic who saw what I was doing with the truck and approved. 

Parking Cast Member - "I commend you for not having the mental capacity of a brick." 

Um, thank you, I think? 

You might notice that Gram is in a wheelchair at the moment. She had foot surgery a couple weeks ago and is supposed to take it easy. We've got a lot of walking to do, so a wheelchair is our best option.  

Hooray! We are in! 

We opted to start our day (and our reservation) at Disney's California Adventure. There are a lot of rides here that the kids have been looking forward to that are unique to this park. Disneyland has a bit of overlap with the rides at the Magic Kingdom in Florida, so we wanted to make sure we got these special rides in early. 

We were in no particular rush getting here either this morning, arriving just before noon. 

I love that the live music is back. These four were out there killing it with their harmonies, and I don't know how often we passed by this area, but we saw them performing a lot!

What should we do? What should we do? 

Well the first decision we had to make was "Should we purchase Genie+ for everyone?" It's a $20 add-on for each person, but it will help us get on more rides today. After seeing the wait times for the things we wanted to ride, we pulled the trigger and purchased it. Only problem is that the reservation times for coming back to the rides are a few hours off. We'll figure out some other things with shorter lines in the mean time. 

Like the Jessie's Critter Carousel! This was Alli's very first ride at a Disney park ever, back when it was theme as King Triton's Carousel of the Sea. 

And Alli's second ride ever was this one, Ariel's Undersea Adventure!

She's gotten quite a bit bigger since those baby pictures. 

The kids loved having their Gram and Pop Pop around, visiting Disneyland with us. 

Just a couple more minutes to kill before we can use our first Genie+ reservation. Why not another spin on the carousel. 

And then we can go ride Toy Story Midway Mania! Yes! With multiple loading zones, this one boards a lot quicker than the one in Florida. We actually don't go on the Florida one all the much because of it. 

Who is going to put up a high score this round? 

Ultimately it would be Theresa (with a little help from me) coming in at over 250k points! That's good enough to be the best this hour! 

While we wait for our next Genie+ reservations to come, we decided to hop in line for a ride that none of us has ever done. When we left, Avengers Campus was still being built! Now we can go on the new rides that have replaced A Bug's Land. 

The sign for Spider-Man Web Slingers showed 70 minutes. I know Disney sometimes fudges their numbers a little bit, so I was really hoping it would be better than that. 

Despite the heat, the kids got a ride with Gram through the queue, as we slowly inched our way to the front. 

I like the use of the full size screens that really make it appear like Peter Parker and Spider-Man are really there. 

Practicing their web slinging before we get onto the ride. 

75 minutes after getting in line, we are at the front and ready to go. 

It was a cute ride. Not bad for the small space they had to work with, but I would not wait 75 minutes to go on it again. 

Here's something they don't have in Florida. Swings!

Ian was really excited that he's tall enough to go on the individual swing by himself. 

Alli is tall enough, but not old enough to fly alone. She'll ride with Gram on the dual swing. 

And off we go! 

Look at all the fun they're having.

The Jumping Jellyfish are a pretty simple ride.

But the kids love it regardless. 

Aww, here's a good one, from back in 2017 when Ian had just turned 40" tall and able to ride Soarin. He was so proud of himself. 

He's loved going on the big thrill rides ever since. I don't think there's a ride that he's said No to yet!

And here's Alli from 2018, right when she turned 40" and tall enough to ride!

We're on the top row, though not exactly centered. Still, Soarin will be a good show. 

We all love the beautiful views that you see as you fly over all those famous world sites. 

But one of my favorite is flying towards the Eiffel Tower as the lights are sparkling. Probably because that was such a fun memory of when my family, Gram, Pop Pop, Patrick, and Megan, all took a boat cruise in Paris and just happened to time it perfectly to watch the Eiffel Tower light show while we cruised past on the Seine River. (Wow I'm behind on writing some of those bigger trips up. I need to get on it.)

It's not exactly dinner time, but I do think it could be snack time. One of our favorite places to go to get a filling meal is the Boudin Bakery. At 5pm I was expecting it to be slammed. 

But was quite surprised when I saw that we were among the only people here. 

I placed a mobile order for our bread loaf and was happy to see that the option is there to have them slice it. On previous visits (granted that was 2 year ago) they wouldn't let you opt for it to be sliced in the app. A full loaf of bread and all the butter you can fit in your pockets. The perfect midday snack. 

Plus it can be entertaining as well. The kids have fond memories of eating the bread and then feeding the crusts to the ducks in the water below. 

It's been a fun start to the day at Disneyland. We'll close out Day 1 in the next post!