Whirlwind Day at Disneyland

SoCal/Disneyland trip continued...

We finally arrived at our destination, Disneyland Hotel and got checked in on Friday night. Tons of construction going on, but we loved it. Our room was just beautiful and had a special little bit of Disney magic I'll share in a separate post. After getting settled in, we attempted to take William to the awesome swimming pool, but it was closed due to "sanitation issues"...yuck! This would be a recurring nightmare for us. They had a really cool new monorail themed water slide and we would never get to ride it.

So we headed off to Downtown Disney to shop. William got some fun new legos and we got a few souvenirs for family. Then off to dinner with Goofy! We met Chip, Dale, Goofy, Minnie and Aladdin. William had a ball. He's pretty spoiled already having been to WDW twice now, but this was the first time he really seemed to totally get into the characters and even wanted their autographs. The buffet was actually fabulous. I don't have high expectations for buffets, but we were pleasantly surprised.

After dinner, we tried to swim again, but the slide had closed earlier apparently than the rest of the pool, so we skipped it. After a good night's rest, we tackled Disneyland in a Day on Saturday! We arrived at 7am, since on site guests could get in an hour early. We were able to ride all of Fantasyland within the first hour, including a second ride on Peter Pan and Dumbo per William's request. We had a great day!

We had lunch reservations at the famous Blue Bayou restaurant in New Orleans square. It sits overlooking the Pirates of the Carribean ride and boats come past the dining area, which looks like you are sitting outside in the dark. We enjoyed a great meal here- monte cristo for me and Salmon for William and Alan. Alan also got a free birthday dessert, as I told him it was his 40th!

We took a break after lunch back at the hotel and once again attempted to swim. This was our third stike. We got there, climbed up the stairs, in line for the slide, when suddenly we see them closing the pool down yet again. Yep, someone pooped in the pool AGAIN! Come on people! So we had to leave the pool and decided after three attempts, we were done. Nap time instead.

We returned in the afternoon and tackled the rest of the park, including a request to ride the Haunted Mansion twice! By the time the fireworks were about to start, we could tell William was fading fast, so we left. As we walked through Downtown Disney back to the hotel, we could hear and see the fireworks.

We had a great day at Disneyland and rode almost every single ride we wanted to, many twice. It was very hot and crowded by the afternoon though. Apparently Anaheim was having a heat wave that was not typical for their weather. So we all crashed that night, ready for rest.

Sunday morning, we had a quick bite to eat at the hotel and then loaded the car by 10am to head back to San Diego. The plan today was to hit Coronado Island.

Of course, being a Disney nut, I know the Grand Floridian Hotel at WDW is designed in the style of the Coronado. So it was fun to see the real thing. We didn't actually go on property, but could see it from the beach. It took a while to find a parking space once we arrived.

We enjoyed a couple of hours at the beach near the hotel, playing in the water, letting Will run from the waves and building a sandcastle. We spotted tons of live sand dollars in the water and even two dolphins came very close to shore. William absolutely loved the waves. He thought it was so fun to just stand there and let them almost knock him down.

After a few hours in the sun, we decided to grab some lunch, but it was so packed with cars and people on the island, we couldn't find a place to stop or park. So we just drove back across the bridge. We ended up driving around a bit and finally just went to the airport early and ate there.

It was a great little weekend trip and we made some great memories. We definitely want to go back sometime to SoCal and spend more than a few days there.