California 2014 - Disneyland Park

i love disneyland, seriously i do. because i love disneyland, i wanted to absorb it fully when we’re here. the citypass gives a 3-day entrance into disneyland, i added another day. i had many comments about how long that would be, how it would be a waste, how one wouldn’t need that long to visit disneyland. but i know our pace, our moods, our temperaments, our interests. so i carried on with a 4-day outing at disneyland.

i scheduled 2 days at disneyland park and another 2 days at disneyland california adventure park. i studied the maps and the places to eat religiously for months so that we could utilize the 4 days and not go away with any of those ‘darn…i wish i…’ moments. ok maybe 2 days at california park would be a bit too much, so we have a bit to spare in case we needed to back to disneyland park again.

so far our 2 days in disneyland park have been absolutely great. on the first day it rained heavily in the morning. my plan to leave at the crack of dawn, ie 9am, had to be shelved. the hotel front desk did warn us about the weather and they were right. the silver lining about it being a rainy day, according to them, is that the crowd would be thin.

we headed for the park at almost midday. we were planning to stay until the fireworks, hopefully 9 hours in the park is sufficient. we were still worried about the crowd though, thinking it would be hugely packed since already half of the day have passed. but we saw there was no queue at the entrance, and no queue once we’ve gotten in, and no queue when we walked up the steps to the railway.

we targeted to stop at mickey’s toontown and make our way down as the day passed towards main street. but once on the train, we decided to make the whole circle and then take the stop at mickey’s toontown. i love watching the whole of a theme park form the top and seeing where to go and where to avoid. again, it doesn’t look too packed for the christmas season, maybe the front desk was right after all.

once we got to mickey’s toontown, we let the boys run from one house to another – from goofy’s to mickey’s to minnie’s. much to their surprise as they walked in mickey’s house, the mouse himself was waiting for them inside. akmal was still a bit iffy about characters but we got him to stay the furthest away from them and be separated by me.

we walked all around toontown because its so beautiful. we also ran into pluto and goofy and the queue to see them were really, really short. i think at one time there was maybe 5 families in front of us and we had to wait less than 10 minutes to see each character.

we left toontown and made our way to fantasyland. i knew we’d be spending a huge long time here with all the rides appealing to the boys. i kept looking towards it’s a small world and got a bit scared looking at the line so we went to watch a show first, mickey and the magical map. fresh from meeting mickey at his house, akmal was all wide-eyed with mickey came on stage. its a lovely and warm show put up by mickey and mulan and pocahontas and tiana and the dancers.

when we left, there was no avoiding the 'its a small world' crowd. either we brace the long line or forget all about it. but to our surprise, the wait time at the starting point of the queue was only 10 minutes. u huh…i didn't believe it so i bought a couple of popcorns just in case 10 minutes was actually 100 minutes. i was right, it wasn't 10 minutes - it was less, actually! we walked a short while in the queue and got in our boat and enjoyed one of the most beautiful rides in all of theme parks in the world. i'm so happy because i missed this ride both times i was at disneyland paris because of the queue.

when we walked out of the ride, we made our way to the main part of fantasyland but saw that they started to cordon off the path towards main road. the christmas parade was about to start. we chose a good spot and chowed down the popcorn while waiting for the parade to start. again, with the thin crowd we got to sit right in front at a really good spot.

after the parade we went to have late lunch at the village haus. the kids menu at disneyland is really good. the boys had either mac & cheese or pizza to choose from and they came with apples and carrots and chocolate milk (or coke for asyraf…only this time, asyraf!). for us its slightly more difficult as there's bacon in almost all meals so we usually stick to salad and simple sandwiches.

after lunch, with the 4 boys full of energy, we went on every single ride in fantasyland - dumbo, alice in wonderland, pinocchio's daring adventure, mr toad's wild ride, peter pan's flight, the carousel, matterhorn bobsleds. we went on everything and the boys were on top of the world. no queue was longer than 10 minutes initially but peter pan's flight had a 25 minutes queue, the longest we had to wait the whole day.

it was starting to get dark so we moved on to tomorrowland. we had to finish that today to be on schedule. we got in 3 rides there - astro orbiter, star tours (i love that ride!) and the finding memo submarine voyage. we wanted to go on the autopia ride but it was almost 8.30pm and we hadn't had dinner yet so we went to get a quick pizza and made our way to the main street for the fireworks.

it was absolutely beautiful, the fireworks and the music and the crowd and the snow falling at the end. absolutely breathtaking, even the boys were feeling all warm and fuzzy.

we made our way back to the hotel stopping by a couple of shops to get the photos taken during the day and to get some souveniours.

our second day at disneyland was ok. we started very early, we left the hotel at 8.30am. along the way we can feel that the crowd would be big, we can see families after families coming out of the hotels along harbor blvd. the queue at the entrance was long and it was a bit difficult to walk around after the entrance. we wanted to have breakfast with minnie at plaza inn but the queue went on until the street so we had a quick bite at the bakery in front of plaza inn.

then we made our way immediately towards adventure land. we saw the tiki show first and then took the jingle boat. the wait was much longer today, the queue for a simple ride was 30-40 minutes long and the queue for the major rides went on for 90-130 minutes. we only went on the jingle cruise, up tarzan's tree house, took the winner the pooh ride and the boys went through the haunted house before stopping for an early lunch at the french market.

then we took the raft to pirate's lair on tom sawyer's island and took the columbia sailing ship around the river of america. simple rides for today but we expected that when we planned.

the boys wanted to take the autopia ride so we walked across to tomorrowland. the queue was 50 minutes long but they were willing to wait. akmal & i alternated between sleeping and watching the jedi academy show while waiting for them. fangirl moment for me as darth vader walked on stage.

i took the boys to star traders after that hoping that baymax was around. the boys were jumping when they saw him and hiro at the back of start traders. we had to wait over half an hour but it was worth it for them.

then we waited for another half an hour to meet the disney princesses at the royal hall. i got to meet 2 of my 3 favorite princesses - cinderella and ariel. fangirl-ing again.

before we left, we took in a show at the royal theatre. the boys weren't too happy because it was beauty and the beast but i thought the show was wonderful.

we left the park at 5.30 today, didn't think we would last 9 hours in the crowd but we did. we had a quick dinner at denny's across the road from the park and went home soon afterwards.