Family Trip to Disneyland- Part Two

The following morning there was an early morning "extra hour" at California Adventure from 8-9am, so Kayla and Chris headed there first thing.  This hour is only open for guests who stayed in one of the Disneyland hotels, so it's an hour where the lines are shorter for everything because there are less people.  Here is the completely empty park that they witnessed upon arrival.

They jumped on the Tower of Terror again as well as the Toy Story ride that we so loved the night before.  Kayla even improved her score according to Chris (it's a participatory/interactive ride).  

Kayla was laughing and smiling and definitely less scared than the two teenage boys behind them to their left.  haha

And they got a picture with Snow-Mater together, because in Disneyland, after Halloween, Christmas comes to town.  Usually that sort of thing drives me nuts, but Disneyland feels like it's own little fantasy/fairy tale world, so it fits.  Plus I have no idea what this holiday season will hold for us with Baby #4 due around Christmas, so I'm just happy to soak in some Christmas fun while I know I can.   :)  Aren't they totally cute?

Meanwhile, I took the other two to wait outside Disneyland so that we could be some of the first in the park and get fastpasses for the very popular Elsa and Anna meet-and-greet.  Because we usually go in the evenings this isn't even an option as the longest these fastpasses are available are the first hour the park is open in the mornings.  And then all the slots for the day are filled and you are out of luck.  So we thought we'd give the girls a bit of an early Christmas present and try our best to make this happen.  

Just waitin'...and snackin'

Once I got in, we realized we needed ALL of us to be there in the line in order to get fastpasses for the whole group (we thought we could just have me get a pass for our family).  So I frantically called Chris and he and Kayla ran over after their early morning fun in California Adventure so that they would be there in time to jump in line with us and get their passes too. 

We got the passes and heaved a great sigh of relief that we were able to make that happen.  We had about an hour, maybe a little less to wait until it was our time to use the passes, so Chris and Kayla headed on over to Space Mountain which we knew would have virtually no line at that time of day.  I took the other two on Space Orbiters (it's similar to Dumbo).  Then we hopped in the very short Pixie Hollow meet-and-greet line to see Fawn and Tinker Bell.  Kayla and Chris joined us just a couple minutes later and all three girls got to meet some of their fairy friends again.  

      

Elise is by far the most amusing when it comes to meeting characters at the park.  She has so many strange and random questions and she just fires them off.  She asked Tinker Bell all about collecting treasures and if the pirates steal them.  Tink told her that it's easy to know if a pirate is around because it smells like codfish.  Elise then asked if Tink takes other people's treasures, which of course she assured her she does not.  And that's just the beginning...

 

As you can see, Ava wasn't really into meeting the fairies without Mommy holding her, and she was just the same with Elsa and Anna.  She enjoyed it, but only from the safety of my arms where she felt comfortable and could watch all the goings-on and interactions from a "safe distance".  We jumped on a quick ride on the tea cups before it was time to head over for our Elsa and Anna meet-and-greet.

 

Elise apparently has a bit of a shoe fetish, and this was the beginning of a day filled with her asking to see various characters' shoes.  They were all only too happy to oblige, and Elise was thrilled. In the picture above on the right, Elsa is commenting about how she really likes Elise's shoes too.

Anna told Elise the story of how she got away from Marshmallow, the snow monster, and Kayla discussed Elsa's idea of creating a snow-girlfriend for Olaf named Summer because well--he loves summer!  Thrills!  Smiles!  Little girls' dreams came true.  And we got a picture that included the whole family, which was the only one of the trip.

 

At this point, we had to head back to the hotel to check out of our room really quickly.  After doing that, we walked over to California Adventure.  While Chris and Kayla jumped on Goofy's Sky School ride, I took the other two to see about getting some fast passes for Radiator Springs Racers (the Cars ride which is another ride that if you aren't there in the morning to get a fast pass before they run out for the day, you really never get a chance to ride unless you want to wait in an hour-2 hour long line).  On our way back to meet up at the park entrance with Chris and Kayla, we saw Doc McStuffins and hopped in her very short line to say hello!

              

We got a few pictures near the big Christmas tree near the California Adventure entrance circle.  So pretty and festive.

 

Next we skipped back over to Disneyland to see about grabbing some fastpasses for Splash Mountain for our roller coaster riders.  The weather was in the 90's so we knew that a ride with a little splash would be much appreciated on a day like that.  Afterwards, we took a family ride on Winnie the Pooh.  On the way to Tarzan's Treehouse, we got lucky enough to walk right into Princess Tiana who was just arriving in New Orleans square for some meet-and-greet time, so...no line!  Yahoo!

 

After getting some nice exercise climbing Tarzan's Treehouse (that might be a great way to get labor started in a few more weeks...), Chris and Kayla went to ride Splash Mountain with their passes while I took the other two munchkins to see a few more princesses at the Royal Hall.

My phone camera totally stinks and I forgot to bring our other one in with me, so all my pictures of the girls meeting Snow White, Ariel, and Cinderella are poor quality and lighting.  But you will notice that Elise asked to see every single one of their shoes.  Cinderella was especially obliging and let the girls carefully touch her fancy earrings and silky gloves.  Snow White noticed Ava's fish shoes and after we took pictures with her, she grabbed ahold of Ava's hand and walked her right over to Ariel to point them out to her.  Of course, Ariel was smitten with them, since they were FISH shoes.

She pointed out the holes (bubbles as she called them) on Elise's shoes and the polka dots (more bubbles!) on her skirt and asked if she'd been swimming that morning.  She asked Ava the same and wondered aloud if perhaps that is how Ava came to have fish on her feet.

It should be noted that at this point in the day, Ava abandoned the safety of my arms and walked right up to all three princesses to get hugs and "chat" and listen to all Elise's many questions.  

            

      

And just before lunch we watched the Tangled show.  The girls love the show.  The characters and musicians do a fine job of performing a really great show.