Disneyland Day Two - Wednesday

We were up and at the gates at 8:15. The park didn't open until 9, but they open up Main street at 8:30. So we walked to the rope and waited. I love all the decorations and flowers throughout the park. I wanted a family picture going down Splash. If you get to Splash within the first hour and half you can usually get a log to yourself. So at 9, when the rope dropped, we headed toward Splash Mountain. We were the first people there and because of that, the worker at the entrance gave us a pass to get on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. So after Splash we headed to Pirates of the Caribbean. We got a boat to ourselves, so I asked a cast member to snap a picture of all of us. Then we headed over to use our Thunder Mountain Railroad pass. Bailee was so excited!! Jeremy and Stephen were glued at the hip the entire trip. They went on everything together. Because the park was so empty we got a lot of great photos.



Stephen had that same look on his face on every ride we went on. The whole trip I kept trying to get him to put his hands in the air, but he refused. He was hanging onto that lap bar as if his life depended on it.


After our train ride, we decided to grab some breakfast at Riverbelle Terrace (Matt's favorite). Then we headed over to Tomorrowland and catch the Jedi Training Academy. Jeremy saw this last year and was too shy to volunteer. This year, he was up on his daddy's shoulders waving his hands and screaming to pick him. And he got chosen!!! He was quite serious the entire time. The Jedi would train them and show them moves to defend them from the dark side. When Darth Vader came out, they ushered him to the stage where he got to fight him. He was so serious. He did great though. I kept trying to get him to look at me, but apparently, he needed to concentrate. After Darth Vader and Darth Maul left, they lined the Padawans along the stage and gave them each a diploma from the academy. It was great. The rest of the afternoon Jeremy was bragging about how he fought Darth Vader. So after the academy we decided to ride Space Mountain. This was Bailee's first time on it and she wasn't quite sure if she would like it or not. As we pulled out of the loading area, Bailee began to scream and not in a good way. After we got off, her little tear-stained face looked at me and said, "I don't want to go on that ever again!!" My picture is a little fuzzy, but you can see that she was less than enthused. After Space Mountain we went on Buzz again.

McKenzie and Bailee
Stephen and Jeremy

Matt and Abby

Mom holding Allison (I can't believe she beat me).
After Buzz, we decided to head back to the hotel for a nap. The kids crashed out right away. We had reservations for dinner at the Rainforest cafe at 4:15. It was OK, not the best, but it was fun to go there at least once. The restaurant was right next to the entrance to the monorail, so after we ate, we hopped on the monorail and headed into Disneyland. We decided to take a ride on the Jungle Cruise. We rode on the Nile Princess. This is Matt's kind of ride, the Skippers jokes are so so bad. Right up Matt's alley. Then we decided to go to the newly opened walk-through inside the Sleeping Beauty Castle. Sadly, all my pictures I took of it came out fuzzy. It was around 7 and Sheridy was beat so she took her kids home. Matt and I wondered around the Main Street shops and took some pictures. Mom had to help Sheridy back to the hotel with all the kids and then met us at the train station. We realized we hadn't been to see Mickey yet, so we hopped the train to Toontown. This place was dead. We headed for Mickey's house and played around a bit:


Then we met the big cheese. We actually saw Mickey dressed up as Steamboat Willey. I've never seen this Mickey in all my years of visiting Disneyland:

As we exited Mickey's house, we saw that gadget's go-coaster was a walk-on so we walked-on. It is SHORT. Like a 30 second roller coaster. I don't think I would wait more than 5 minutes to ride it. The kids had fun though. Then we headed over to Roger Rabbits Cartoon Spin. Also a walk-on. Toontown was all but deserted. We headed to the gag factory and looked around and then stopped to take a few more pictures. The park was about to close, so we hopped back on the train and headed back to our hotels. Coming up . . . Day three.