San Diego Part Two: Letting Our Disneyside Out!

This a very fitting 200th post, a celebration of sorts in blog form! 

Yesterday we let our Disneyside out.

Yes, we got our Disney freak-on in Anaheim. Kevin’s parents gave us the amazing gift of passes to the parks for the day and my parents paid for our night at Disneyland’s Paradise Pier Hotel. I’m not going to sugarcoat this; it was probably the most expensive 24 hours of my life.

Was it worth it? Ah, hell yes! 


We checked into the hotel, made our character breakie reservations and then were on to Downtown Disney.

Lets just be clear right now, there have been a lot of white lies in the past couple of days. Not the dangerous kind, the saving money kind. The worst part is that cashiers are total enablers; during our trip to the USS Midway they convinced us that we were students.

At Disneyland they assumed we were celebrating something, Kevin said my birthday was coming up and BOOM they gave me the birthday pin. EVERYONE in the park said “Happy Birthday” to me for the next 36 hours. They gave Kevin an “I’m celebrating” button as well, which he is with his recent military news, but he refused to wear it. Princess Aurora even sent me down a “Happy Birthday” signed photo; it is embarrassing how happy this made me.

Downtown Disney is the perfect place to have a date night. We did a quick trip down, checked

 everything out and made our dinner reservations and then did something ultra-American we try to do every time we go to the States… we went to Walmart.

 

I’m kind of kidding here, but it is different. Going to Walmart and McDonald’s is something we do every time we cross the border; it is like they are on steroids in America when you compare them with their Canadian siblings.

Also, I find it super entertaining. Everything is so cheap and so large. We even managed to find old Ed Hardy clothes at the Walmart we visited in Anaheim, I’m not sure if someone was just embarrassed to be wearing Ed Hardy and ditched what they were wearing for Walmart duds or if they are really selling it. Regardless, American Walmart is a fun and cheap excursion.

Date night at Downtown Disney was great. We had our favourites at Rainforest Café (I totally hid that damn birthday button so that no one would sing to me). After our trip to the jungle we went to ESPN Zone and played the most advanced sports arcade games.

I was a little disappointed that they no longer have the hockey shoot-out hockey game, but they have all kinds of new games since we last visited.

Kevin set the daily record for the hardest pitch at the pitch cage. He got a free game for his impressive pitching and then broke his own record… twice. He struck out A-Rod!

I was not so good at any of the games, but was kind of addicted to the Quarter Back passing drill and the putting station.

Next we were onto Disney’s California Adventure and then Disneyland in the morning. We got up and did some character dining at the hotel and were greeted by Mickey and then Minnie, Pluto, Stitch and Daisy joined us. At this point cost had gone out the window, considering we had paid so much to stay the one night at the hotel. The breakfast was decent, the same as the character dining inside Disneyland at the Plaza but not worth it if you are going for the food. I learned long ago that with Disney your not paying for top-notch whatever, you are paying for the experience. When you get character dining out of the way you do not need to worry so much about lines for character experiences when you get in the park. More on this craziness later…

We arrived for our extra hour of magic in the park at 9am.  We were excited that it was an extra hour in California Adventure rather than in Disneyland because we had done that one our first trip in 2011, this gave us time to get everything in (including the new Car’s Land) in California Adventure.

We were really excited about Car’s Land; Radiator Springs was being built when we last visited. Unfortunately, during our magic hour nothing was open yet. The racer cars already had a 30-minute line and were not yet operational (remember, the park has not officially opened yet) and the fast pass machines were not open. This was the only ting we didn’t get to do during our whirlwind day at Disney.

We dominated both parks all day. We started at 9am and did not sit down more than 10 minutes, not even to eat (note: we are both paying for it today). Our day at Disney had a rough start though, one of the first rides we went on was Grizzly River Run. The last time we visited the park it was the last ride we went on, it had been closed our entire trip but we managed to get one run in. This time we got to experience it in the light. 

We have both learned a valuable lesson about me on rides; I am a total jerk. I duck whenever water is involved and hold on to whatever is near (hands, shoulders etc.) for dear life when on roller coasters. As we spun down this (what I call) flume style ride I saw that we were going to catch water from behind, so of course I ducked into Kevin so he would absorb all the water (again, I am a jerk) and BOOM fist in the face. Kevin totally (accidentally) punched me in the face. Giving me a wonky eye all day. 

Now, I am a huge fan of everything Disney. Walt Disney is in my list of heroes, but every time I visit Disneyland I am blown away by people who take it to the next level, I’m not sure how they have the ability to spend so much of their paychecks on the paraphernalia in the parks (let alone how they find mates to procreate with, that also blows my mind).

For me, I am not sure what will happen when I actually get to Disneyworld. I am a little disappointed by the amount of characters out in the park at Disneyland. We got in line to start waiting for a meeting with Merinda, it was half an hour and after two minutes we ditched. If you think that is bad the line for Elsa and Anna from Frozen was never under two hours while we were there. That is just straight crazy.

Our perfect day in the park was highlighted by a trip to Car’s Land to ride the new tire bumper cars. We were waiting in line when a two year old little girl with hair as white as mine was when I was a kid started talking to me. She was adorable and so smart! Unlike 90% of the kids in the park she was not in a stroller and she was forming full sentences. We were so unimpressed when we saw a kid about seven or eight in the hotel elevator point to the poster on the wall and ask her mother, “What dat says” (what was worse was no one seemed phased by her not being able to read or talk at all). This kid was a small blond blessing, faith in humanity restored.

Kevin started calling the little girl “Little Kate”. We boarded the ride and learned the controls for this new cool contraption; it is essentially like bumped cars without having anything but your body to steer. As soon as the ride started going Kevin made it clear he wanted to hunt down “Little Kate” and bump the crap out of her. I could offer little resistance if I wanted our tire to travel anywhere. Next thing you know we see “Little Kate”, her face lights up as she waves (I of course wave back) and then BOOM!

Our favourite food in the park, pomme frites! 

Unfortunately our day did not last too much longer at Disneyland. I think I may have hit my peak for ride tolerance, everything seemed darker and bumpier than it did last time. The entire day was spent fighting headaches and bouncing from rollercoaster/intense rides to less intense/story rides. Yup, I am turning into a big baby. After about nine hours in the parks we had enough. This was mostly my call, I felt sick the entire room home after our trip on Goofy’s Sky School rollercoaster. The entire ride home I had to fight the pukes.

With that being said, it was still an incredible day. I’m not sure what was wrong with me; I think I was just not ready for all the carby foods combined with the rides.  I am quite sad that we did not get to see World of Color (my favourite part of a day at California Adventure), but next time!

The gross sickness even interrupted something I absolutely love doing, driving down the highway listening to the radio! When we finally arrived back in La Jolla after the most expensive 36 hours of my life, nothing was open for food so we went to bed hungry. I was not impressed! There were not any real low-carb options open after 9pm!

PS. Subway does not count, it is absolute garbage… there is a sub in the States that has Fritos in it! Healthy my ass…

We sure are not going hungry tonight! We just had amazing veal chops with roasted cauliflower and sweet potatoes; and wine of course (hence the sass on the Subway rant).

My next Kate’s California Adventure blog will talk about Balboa Park and misty surf days in La Jolla!