VaycayDay 4 - Disneyland, Princess Adventures

This was it.  The day we go to Disneyland and meet the princesses.  We didn't know how close our hotel was to Dland, so we drove - turns out we were about 500 yds from the parking structure.  So yeah, we walked the last two days :-).  But here is Ellie SO patiently riding the tram to the entrance.  I learned something about my daughter this day - when she is stoked and excited she does NOT bounce around with big smiles.  She internalizes everything.  I couldn't distract her focus.  So we get in for Magic Morning and right inside the door are Mickey, Minny, and a few others.  We ran and got a autograph book and went back in line.  Calm, cool, and collected :-).  Pretty soon they whisk away the characters and we just start walking towards the castle.  After about 30 minutes my type-A personality had HAD it.  I cannot just wander around, I need a map and a plan, Dangit!   So FYI the only places maps are at are at the entrance gates.  So back to the gates, and then back to Fantasyland.  After Peter Pan ride we decide to go wait in line for Princess Fantasy Faire.

We showed up 5 minutes before it opened and we were second in line.  I was bouncing off the walls trying to pump her up, but she was too cool for school.  She told me to be quiet and leave her alone.  First up Cinderella - who had enough brains to ask her who her favorite princess was.  You get what you ask for, and Ellie said, "Ariel".  Her face froze in a smile and her eyes stopped smiling.  Serves her right!  The other two were sweet.  All around good experience.

After  being done in 15 minutes from we decided to go and see Rapunzel and Flynn who were in their new tower meeting everyone.  There was already a long line there before it opened.  We were in THAT line for 45 minutes before we got in and realized WHY it was taking so long.  They were SO sweet and so talkative and spending lots of time with each visitor.  Flynn was so sweet and made sure to tell Ellie if she wanted long hair she needed to brush it every single day.  It was cute.  Since we were in princess mode and it'd been and hour I realized that back at the princesses they would have rotated to a new batch so we sprinted back over there.  The employee in line pulled a few strings and had us be one of the last ones in this rotation before they rotated and brought back ones we'd already met.  This was AWESOME.  Because the lines were so short they seemed more relaxed and not in a rush.  They spent time talking to Ellie for a minute or two at each stop.

So we have now been in the park almost four hours and have met 7 of the 8 princesses.  Wowza.  We were ready to move on.  On to Small World, where we treated Ellie with her very first cotton candy.  We know how to live it up.

On to Toon Town, which in retrospect, was the best idea.  We started the roller coaster with the kids Toon-Town little one, with Darik holding on to her tight.  After we started with that short but fun ride she was willing to go on every single rollercoaster after that.  It was so great.

We hopped a train on over to Tomorrowland and rode the cars first.  That was maybe a 10-15 minute wait and we met this sweetest family from Northern California.  We had a great time in line with them -- and we just happened to run into them about 6 more times over the next two days.  It was great to feel like we were there with old friends :-)  We both went straight from cars to Nemo, which isn't as cool as the buzz.  Space Mountain was closed and Ellie was not interested in any of the displays or michael jackson movie, so we went on the Toy Story ride and space ships.

While we were in Tomorrowland I believe the guy at Pixie Hollow told us we could grab Jasmine and Aladdin over at Adventure land, which we ran over and got in line for.  I couldn't believe we got all 8 princesses in just a few hours.  We went back to finish Fantasyland before going over to CA to watch the Aladdin musical.  My SIL Alyssa (who grew up a block from DL) said not to miss it because they were going to shut it down soon and bring something new back in its place.  We went back to the hotel a little after the sun went down.  We weren't prepared for how chilly it was and both D and El were ready to be done for the day :-).  Our first day in Disneyland lived up to it's promise.  I think we really were the happiest and stress free we had been in a long time.