Disneyland Adventure

My good friend Emily and I have been talking about taking our two youngest daughters to Disneyland for quite sometime. Ellie and Gwen are great little friends and both were thrilled at the idea of going on a trip to Disneyland together. Before you jump to conclusions, Ellie has never been to Disneyland. The rest of our family went when she was just a few months old and we decided it was best to leave Ellie with family. So instead of taking everyone back to Disneyland, we agreed that it would be okay for Ellie to go. Of course there were some “she is spoiled” comments, but for the most part, all of her siblings were excited for her to go.

We decided to fly instead of drive. Since it was just the two of us, it was fairly affordable and saved us two days of driving. Ellie and Gwen insisted on sitting next to each other on the plane while Emily and I sat on the other side of aisle. They were eating treats, writing in their journals and talking about Minnie Mouse the whole flight. It really was very cute.

We arrived around 1:00 in the afternoon and knew that we had two full days of Disneyland/California Adventure which meant very little beach time unless we did it the first day we arrived and so we headed down to Newport Beach (just like on our trip without her) and let the girls play for a while. I was really nervous. The waves were enormous and little Ellie doesn’t have much experience with waves. She fell over and got washed ashore more than once. She loved it though and kept asking to go back.

Afterward we went back to the hotel, got checked in, and then I took Gwen and Ellie down to the pool while Emily and her mom, Marva, who also came with us, went to the grocery store.

The next day, Monday, we planned to attend Disneyland (following the same itinerary as our family vacation). Emily loves to shop and she bought the girls super cute matching outfits for each day. Day one consisted of Elsa shirts, matching shimmery gold pants, and each of them had a cute Elsa braid in their hair. Their cute, sassy selves got more than a little bit of attention.

We started the morning off by meeting with Aerial and getting her autograph. I’ll be honest, I thought Ellie would be more excited to see all the princesses, but that wasn’t really the case. I probably waited a year too long to bring her to Disneyland. She was more excited to ride on all the scary rides than to see the princesses.

The park was busier than expected but thanks to Emily and her ability to plan everything perfectly, we were able to get fast passes for all the rides that had especially long waits. Megan told Ellie to ride the tea cups for her so all Ellie could think about was the tea cups. I know that secretly Megan wanted to punish me by making me go on that awful ride that goes round and round in circles. 🙂

Little did I know, Emily isn’t a big fan of rides. Her mother Marva, was a better sport, but still preferred watching on the bumpier rides. That left me to take the girls on most of the rides by myself. That was okay though. I wouldn’t have wanted to come if I wasn’t going to have some fun with Ellie on the rides. She loved everything magical about Disneyland. The Indiana Jones ride was the only ride that scared her, surprisingly. She love space mountain, roller coasters, you name it, but there was something spooky about the snake and boulder that freaked her out. She was such a good sport. Meanwhile, Emily want ahead and got us seats for the big parade. The weather was perfect, overcast and not too hot which made waiting in the lines bearable.

We made it back to our hotel around 10:30 that evening. We filled the day with just about everything we could. We rode on a lot more rides and even made it to the evening parade before heading home. Ellie fell asleep, completely exhausted, in my arms on our way back to the bus.

Tuesday we went to California Adventure (just like before). Here are more cute matching outfits for the girls!

We had plans to attend Goofy’s Kitchen that morning so we could meet a bunch of characters all in one place. Truly, it was disappointing. It is probably my only regret of the trip. The restaurant was very expensive and there were only a handful of characters. We had to remind them several times to bring the characters by our table. Thankfully Minnie Mouse showed up, which made Ellie’s day. Mission accomplished.

After breakfast we made out way into the park. Again, we saw very few characters but it wasn’t a big deal. Ellie was just thrilled to go on the rides. I was told to take the girls on California Screamin’ while Emily and her mom got fast passes for the Cars ride. The girls were so excited. I am no daredevil so it is saying something when I am the brave one they send out with the girls on the crazy rides. When we got to the front of the line, they informed us Ellie was about 1/2 inch too short. She couldn’t go. She was devastated and started crying. I told Gwen I would take her but Gwen got less brave when I offered so we skipped it and headed to the ferris wheel. The girls thought it would be a good idea to pick one that swung…remind me not to do that again. We were all scared. 😦

We soon met back up with Emily and Marva and went on several tame rides. Then we headed to the Car’s ride. It was so fun. It was under construction last time we came. It was probably my favorite ride of the trip. Off to more rides. Of course, the girls insisted we do Tower of Terror. Emily would have nothing to do with it, so it was up to me to the girls. The ride doesn’t really scare me but I always feel a little woozy after riding those types of rides. The girls were so excited so I knew I had to do it. They were brave and although Ellie and Gwen both go nervous once they were on the ride, they did great. Afterward Ellie said, “Mom, I was scared because my butt kept lifting all the way off the seat!” That wasn’t the case for me, but I can imagine why that might be a little freaky to a five year old.

Next, Emily and I took the girls on a river rapid ride. We knew we would get wet, but it was pretty warm so we figured it would be a good thing. It was a blast! Ellie got the worst of it and I came in a close second, but we laughed so hard that it made it worth it.

We also went to the Aladdin play and a Frozen sing-a-long. Then off to souvenir shopping and more rides. We finished the night off with World of Color and made it back at a reasonable hour.

Ellie was pretty tired when we got back to our hotel. She asked if she could play the Ipad while I packed up our stuff since we were heading out in the morning. About fifteen minutes after I gave it to her, I found this:

She had fallen asleep with her finger still pressed up against the screen. I would say that pretty much sums it up. We were exhausted. We fit everything we could into two days at the parks. We had a ball – great friends, great bonding, and forever memories.