The Magic of Disneyland

Disneyland Day! Since first becoming a father, and even with every prior Disneyland visit, I imagined how beautiful it would be to see it through my childs eyes. Today Id experience that.
The major concern today was the weather forecast. The heat and humidity is one thing, but this afternoon, from noon we were looking at 90% chance of 3mm per hour of rain.
After another buffet breakfast, we were off on the Disney monorail circuit to our destination by about 915am.
Slightly bigger line than DisneySea, but not too bad. I decided to make a beeline straight for the Star Wars ride for Rylands sake. No wait, Ryland, Axel and I walked straight to the front for our first ride of the day, a seated 3D virtual moving shuttle through the Star Wars Universe.
I focused on the outdoor rides to beat the forecasted storm and showers. I took Ryland on the two most adult/adventurous rides, Big Thunder Mountain (train roller coaster) and Splash Mountain (log ride), though the latter was a real squeeze for me to fit, having to fold my legs at unnatural angles. I managed to negotiate a swap for Splash Mountain so Nat and Axel could get on.
The queues today seemed way less prohibitive than DisneySea. We avoided hour queues and pretty much got on everything. Over the day we got on the following rides -
- Star Tours (Ryland and Axel 4x ea, Kris 3x, Nat 1x)
- Pirates of the Caribbean (Ryland 2x, Nat, Kris, Axel once each)
- BigThunder Mountain (Ryland and Kris)
- Splash Mountain (Ryland Kris Axel & Nat)
- Roger Rabbit Ride (Everyone incl. Zander)
- Pinnochios Adventure (Everyone incl. Zander)
- Its a Small World (Kris Ryland Axel)
- Monsters Inc. (Everyone incl. Zander)
- Beauty & the Beast (Everyone incl. Zander).
Zander joined us on a huge amount today! Though many gave him a sense of paralysing stimulus overload, he was never bothered, always inquistive and excited at the props, lights and sounds around him. Little Zander has been incredible thus far, with his routine, food supply, naps and environment totally different and in disarray. For the most part, he never complaints and maintains his happy, energetic, charming persona. The locals have loved our kids, especially Zander with his big eyes, chunkyboy rolls and thic thunder thighs.
Im fairly sure 9 months from now, Japan is going to have a population boom, all thanks to Zander.
Today, thankfully, the storm held off until 3pm. When it hit, it hit hard. Thunder and lighting forewarned of the inevitable downpour that seemed to soak the surface in 5minutes, leaving ankle deep puddles aplenty. We ponchoed-up and sheltered beside the Pinnochio ride. I decided to whisk Ryland and Axel across the way 100m to simultaneously shelter and torture them with the 'its a Small World' ride. Geez that ride is just as dated as annoying as my first encounter with it decades ago.
By the time the ride was over the storm had subsided and barely an hour after its onset, it had disappeared entirely.
The afternoon and evening played out well, and we were actually finished up in earnest really by around 7, leaving us time for repeat rides and to squeeze in the Monsters Inc ride.
Overall we all found Disneyland a much better experience than DisneySea. Id initially scheduled yesterday as the rest day but I think we're all pleased to have tomorrow to recover. It looks like Axel MAY have had 'Hand Foot and Mouth" illness since the eve before our flight, causing him to sob 80% of the trip so far. He finally seems on the mend.
Tomorrow, we can rest, recover, repack, maybe get a swim in, and prepare to catch a bullet train from Tokyo to Osaka.En savoir plus