Disneyland Day 1

So I took my kids into Disneyland & Disney California Adventure for the first time today. We spent all day there & I just wanted to give a quick run down of what we did. We walked in to Disneyland when it first opened at 8am & just planned to do Main St. & ride the train once around but once we got in we immediately saw Mickey with Pluto, Donald, Minnie, Goofy, Alice & Mad Hatter, and Cruella deVille. Later on in DCA we saw other characters, mostly at Disney Animation which included Mickey in Sorcerers Apprentice outfit, Woody, Mr. Incredible with Elastigirl, Cinderella with Jasmine, Chip & Dale, Koda & Kenai from Brother Bear.

From Disneyland 2009

Anyway, we rode the train around Disneyland, walked up & down Main St. USA, checked out Sleeping Beauty's Castle, and headed over to DCA for it's opening (it opens at 10am). We got a fastpass for Soarin' Over California then made our way to Monster's Inc. ride. We were the second car on the ride that morning. Then we did Tower of Terror which Jennifer just loved especially since she got to go on it twice in a row. For all the rides with height requirements where Anna and/or Sara are too short, one of us would go on the ride with Jennifer who's tall enough for just about all the rides and then the other would stay with Anna then we'd swap & the second adult rider would just take the switch off pass down the "Fastpass" line almost right up to the front bypassing most of the people waiting in line.

We did Soarin', then while one of us did Grizzly River Run, the other let the kids play at Redwood Creek Challenge Trail. We all got nice & wet on GRR and Sara especially loved flying at Soarin'. We had lunch and spent time in Bugs Land where the kids had fun on Heimlich's Chew Chew Train (very short for the 15 minute wait), Tuck & Roll's Drive 'Em Buggies (same as last one and it's only slow moving bumper cars), Flik's Flyers, and the 3-D show "It's Tough to Be a Bug!" that had more effects & sensory elements to it than just visual, the seats sprayed you & made you feel things during the show related to bugs, fog machines, spiders dropping from the ceiling, etc

Finally we did Muppet Vision 3-D, another show like the last one but Muppet themed but funnier and no scary parts at all. All your favorite Muppets are represented except for a lack of characters from Dr. Teeth & the Electric Mayhem which meant no Animal but Janice rides by on the back of a bicycle with Scooter at one point. After this show we sat in line for a Broadway type showing of Aladdin with real actors & nice effects, sets, etc. We sat down in line & had dinner since we arrived to the show early enough to do so, about 25 minutes or so and there were already people there before us. We called it a day after that & now we're all tired. We did a bunch today, tomorrow we'll take it a little slower.