Disneyland

**Disclaimer:  If you are a Disneyland lover you may not agree with or like the opinions posted.

I told Andy years ago that when our baby was 3 we would go to Disneyland.  We hit that milestone this year and started planning a trip for October.  I hadn't been to Disneyland since graduating from high school and Andy hadn't been since he was a kid but he said he was too old to really love it so we wanted to go during that window where all our kids would be young enough to experience the magic.    I wasn't a huge fan of Disneyland because I enjoy the big roller coasters but knew we had to take them just once in their life because that's what you do, right?  Everyone we know goes there multiple times a year and says it the best vacation ever so I was anxious to experience this with our family.  A few weeks before our trip I was having "cold feet" about the whole thing.  I was really having a hard time swallowing the price tag of the tickets and started researching and planning a trip to Hawaii.  (I can't help it, I love Hawaii!)  I had tickets all worked out, our time share available, a rental car all priced out and it was almost the same price as the tickets to go to Disneyland for 4 days.  Hawaii for 7 days or Disneyland for 4?  I had everything saved on the computer and had talked with Andy and we decided we would let the kids choose.  When I presented the options they all chose Disneyland.  I was starting to regret the lack of planning I had done prior to talking about Disneyland in the first place.  ;)

We decided to go when it was supposedly an "off peak" time so it would be less crowded and more enjoyable.  We have now learned that there is no off peak time at Disneyland and if it could be more crowded we would never want to experience that if we lived 3 lifetimes.  The park was super crowded everyday we were there and they extended their hours to offset the long waiting times.  Crazy, I'm telling you, crazy.

We went to Disneyland our first day.  The kids had fun.  Lily went on everything she was tall enough for with no hesitation even though she hated Splash Mountain.  All the girls hated Pirates of the Caribbean and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.  Lily hated being measured because her head hit the wood thing every time because she is exactly 40 inches.  I really wish they could have stamped her hand or put a paper bracelet on her that says, "I'm 40 inches, please don't measure me again or I might have a complete meltdown."  We figured out the learning curve of fast passes.  We waited in lines.  We saw parades.  We went on almost every ride.  We saw Fantasmic way too late.  But had a fun first day.

The second and third day we went to California Adventure.  We, by a mile, like California Adventure better than Disneyland.  Braden is a lot like me and loves roller coasters.  We used our fast passes for California Screamin' and then the switch passes (or whatever they're called) and Braden probably rode it 10 times.  It was Braden and Taylor's favorite ride.  Ella and Lily got a lot of time on the carousel next to the ride.  We were very excited to go to Cars Land but had no success the first day of riding the cars ride because the fast passes were out and the ride broke down around 4pm for the rest of the day.  By the end of the day it was cold and Lily fell asleep so I got out the ponchos and Andy, Braden, Taylor, and Ella rode Grizzly River Run over and over for an hour without getting wet to pass the time so we could go see the World of Color Show which was really good.

Our third day we were determined to ride the cars ride so we went straight there and got in line.  I was unsuccessful in getting fast passes again so we started the 2+ hour wait.  Seventy-two minutes into it (Braden was timing it to pass the time) they announced that the ride was broken and they were going to shut down temporarily.  A lot of people got out of line and we moved almost to the very front.  We decided to wait it out to see if it would open up again.  We waited for a half an hour longer and the kids were getting restless.  We decided to leave and go on different rides.  It was so frustrating because it was 11:30 and we hadn't gone on a single ride.  We ran into some people later that were in line with us and they said they waited over an hour and it never opened back up.  I was so glad we didn't wait any longer but still frustrated about it breaking down.  The kids loved the goofy ride and rode that several times.  We also liked Ariel (except when it broke down while we were on it), Soaring over California, and the Minnie Show right outside that ride.  We ended the day by going back to the cars ride to go wait it out again since we had 3 hours before closing.  It was shut down again.  We decided to wait and see if it would open up since we were just going to go back to the condo and it was our last chance at riding it since we were going to go to Disneyland our last day.

The ride never opened again and the kids were sad that we never got to ride it even though we spent several hours trying.  The worker noticed our kids were so sad and assured me it would be open the next day.  I explained that we didn't have hopper tickets and that we were going to go to Disneyland for the Magic Morning the next day.  He told me that they don't want anyone to walk away disappointed with their experience and to go see if I could get a hopper ticket for our last day so we could come ride the cars ride.  On our way out I stopped by the customer service counter to ask them if they could do that for us.  To be nice and make a long story short, the customer service was awful.  By the end I was crying (and I'm not an emotional person) and really wishing we had just gone to Hawaii.  This moment alone completely ruined our trip.  Apparently when you buy your tickets at Disneyland you don't get the Magic Morning like it's advertised online.  Seriously?  So we couldn't get a hopper ticket, no magic morning, and the guy was so rude I was in tears.  Happiest Place on Earth...yeah right.  As I was walking back to where Andy and the kids were, he called me back and said something belittling to me about crying and said he would give me a one day hopper ticket for each of us to come back again so we can experience the Happiest Place on Earth again.  Then he joking said, we wouldn't want you going to Knott's.  So we have 2 years to use these 1 day hopper tickets and we'll probably combine that with a trip to Knott's because they're living in a dream world if they think I'll spend another penny at Disneyland.

Our last day I stood in line with the girls for hours to see the Princesses and Tinkerbell while Andy went on rides that the girls wouldn't want to go on with Braden.  After that we waited in line for Peter Pan (an absolutely ridiculously long line every time) and it broke down.  We decided to split up and Andy took the girls to Alice in Wonderland right next to it and I took Braden on Space Mountain.  Andy waited for almost an hour with the girls and got to the very front when, you guessed it, it broke down.  We chose the kid's favorite rides and went on those and watched the Parade before ending our day.

I've learned many things from this experience.  We are not Disneyland people.  I don't regret going.  I'm really glad we went and for the memories we made despite the bumps we had along the way.

My kids said it best as we were driving home when they asked, "So when are we going to Hawaii?"