Los Angeles. Day 2. My, oh, my, what a wonderful day.
“Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay
My, oh, my, what a wonderful day
Plenty of sunshine headin’ my way
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay!”
Well, the night was something. I’m pretty sure the girls got up around 5. We brought them in our room and tried to keep them quiet.
It didn’t really work but what are you going to do? We started getting up at some point, maybe 615, I don’t even know. Always nice to see the sun rise over Disney.
We got dressed and headed to our character breakfast, which was downstairs in Storyteller’s Café and features Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Chip and Dale. It was so great. The girls had the best time. When Madeleine saw Minnie she was so so happy, as was Hallie. And now we don’t need to deal with any characters in the park. So, mission accomplished. Also, breakfast was good, but the best thing was the Mickey waffle as usual. I don’t know, it’s just always the best.
Finally it was time to head into the park. We went into Disneyland and were engulfed in magic. The first thing we actually did was get a picture in front of the castle. We have Genie + which is where you pay extra to be able to book the fast passes to skip lines for rides, which used to be free. At least in Disneyland you also get all of your professional photos with Genie +, which is nice, because in Disney World you don’t. Pro tip – whenever you take photos you need to show your QR code from the Disney app so the photographer can scan it. There’s no Disney app for Apple Watch, but in about 30 seconds Tzvi managed to screenshot the QR code and turn it into a watch face, so every time we took photos they just scanned my watch. Cool.
We rode a lot of rides. We started with the Carousel, which Madeleine enjoyed. Then we went on Mr. Toad, which neither Hallie nor Madeleine enjoyed; Hallie cried and Madeleine was just scared, though to be fair it is a literal drive through hell. Next we did Small World which both girls loved. I like the Small World here because it has characters from all the Disney movies sprinkled around in each land, so like China has Mulan and Hawaii has Stitch. It’s cute.
For lunch we couldn’t decide what we were going to eat and finally got on line at the Alien Pizza Planet restaurant where we got pizza and pasta with impossible Bolognese, which was actually pretty good. Hallie didn’t like the small round kids pizza and wanted to eat Tzvi’s regular slice, so she took off all of the cheese and ate half of it, then said she was done, which killed Tzvi. Madeleine napped through all of this.
After lunch we rode Buzz Lightyear. With Madeleine on my lap I managed to score only 3100, which was not that much worse than Tzvi’s 4100. [Tzvi: There must’ve been something wrong with mine.] Robyn scored the highest at 40,000, but to be fair, she’s the only one with real weapons training.
After that it was time for Star Wars Rise of the Resistance. We had to pay $20 to get the Lightening Lane on that one (it’s not included in the regular Genie +), but it was totally worth it. Such a phenomenal ride. It’s the same as Disney World, and they’ve really recreated Galaxy’s Edge the same as Disney World as well. We found another photo pass photographer and he started asking us to do all these different poses and it ended up basically as a whole photo shoot. I should have brought outfit changes. It felt kind of like we were on a cruise ship.
We met back up with the girls and did the teacups ride, then mobile ordered a dole whip, said hi to Alice (in Wonderland), rode Winnie the Pooh, and finished off with Splash Mountain. Hallie was excited to go on Splash Mountain but then we got on and there are a bunch of little drops and Tzvi kept saying ‘this is the big one’ and she kept getting scared, and by the end she was just crying, so she didn’t really enjoy it. Its like he doesn’t even follow Big Little Feelings (which he does, and should know better.) And also we got soaking wet, probably the wettest in years. So Hallie wasn’t thrilled, but then when Robyn asked her how it was, she said it was good. Anyway, I walked around the rest of the night in wet denim. It was pleasant.
For dinner we had scheduled Blue Bayou, but our reservation wasn’t until 7pm and we weren’t going to last until then. So we went at 5pm and they ended up taking us pretty quickly. We shared a salad and we both had the seared tuna, which was delicious. There was nothing for Hallie so she ate strawberries, but she did have some tuna and liked it, which is a win. Madeleine had pasta with broccoli and liked it. For dessert we had crème brulé and chocolate cake, neither of which were that good, but I still love the Blue Bayou. Hallie and Tzvi were having an argument the whole time about whether the restaurant was inside or outside. (Blue Bayou is designed to look like you’re outside after dark on the porch of a house in New Orleans.) The restaurant just recently reopened after a months-long refurbishment, but the only thing different since the last time we were there is that they’ve gotten rid of the salmon.
After dinner we all rode Autopia, which was actually very fun. Hallie liked it because she got to drive the car. Then we walked on Main Street and did some shopping. Then Robyn and I rode Space Mountain, which was great as usual. From there I took the girls back to the hotel while Robyn and Tzvi did one last ride – Indiana Jones, because we had a ‘return anytime’ lightening lane pass.
After that Tzvi came back to the room and we got the girls to bed. Hallie was in that mode where she was just so tired she was complaining about being tired and cold and everything. Also, Madeleine has a cold now. We got into bed and passed out.
Hopefully they sleep better tonight.
Great day.
