We checked in at bedtime and then went to sleep, the next morning we had breakfast at Chef Mickey's and as we were selecting our items from the buffet, out ran Mickey, literally running through the restaurant.....Blake was yelling "there is Mickey" and was full of excitement! I wish i could have taken a photo to capture that moment of magic in his eyes, it was the first time he had seen Mickey Mouse!!! He was able to go meet Mickey and we all had our photo taken with him.....then off we went to the park......at 10am (opening time). The park was almost empty, we had our tickets but waited in line a few minutes to go through the turn style, then we were off to see the rides! Our first ride was Winnie the Pooh! From there we went on Dumbo (classic) and while we were in line, saw Mickey riding Dumbo (super cool to Blake). There was Cinderella's Carousel, It's a Small World, Mad Hatter Tea Cups, Buzz Lightyear AStro Blasters(Brian's Favorite), Autopia, tomorrowland's version of dumbo. Toy Story Land was a hit for Blake, they had Slinky Dog ride, R/C car (He was too small for this), Parachute Drop, and meet and greets with Woody and others. They also had churros in Toy Story land so I was happy :)
They have Tarzan's Island, Jungle cruise, Grizzly Gulch roller coaster, Mystery Mansion, Space Mountain and Stitch's escape were closed (boo), and of course the Disneyland Railway had to be ridden a few times! You all know Blake's favorite thing is a train! We watched the 30 minute Lion King performance once each day, it was really a wonderful performance and hit on all the key songs in the movie, Blake LOVED this, his new favorites are Lion King, Toy Store 1,2, &3 and Jungle Book! All the cast members and characters also handed our character stickers all over the park, this was really cool for Blake to collect! We also checked in with Guest relations and they gave both kids "My first Disneyland trip" buttons!
The food was just ok, we found burgers, fries, chicken nuggets, turkey legs, waffles, popcorn and thing such as this along with traditional Chinese food restaurants in the park as well. The prices were high like at home, you will pay a lot for a coke in a Disneyland park i don't care which country you are visiting.
We had a really great time with the kids, Grace liked It's a Small World and mostly looking around, while Blake liked meeting some of the characters and riding the rides!!! He was very excited to see Baymax, Mickey of course and the new Zootipia characters Nick and Judy! It seemed like we would see a character with a line, walk up and they would close the line and another character would be coming out in 10 minutes, this happened to us a lot! They don't post the character meeting times, just locations so you show up and just get lucky with who pops out. This was ok because our kids didn't have their hearts set on meeting someone but for older kids would have been a little disappointing.
Of course we stayed for the light parade and fireworks, our kids living in China, really haven't seen a full fire works display. While there are lots of ground fireworks in China going off at all hours, they rarely produce beautiful colors in the sky and of course aren't coordinated to music over sleeping beauty's castle :) The parade was great, Blake was on Brian's shoulders, Grace was on mine, they could see everything, there were people in the park but not crowded like you see at home, it was a random Monday in May. The hits in the parade were lightning mcqueen and Mack from CARS, Blake was thrilled to see them in the parade. Grace was in awe of all the lights, i love that Belle had her own float! After that we waited a bit for the fireworks display and it was totally worth it to see the looks on our kids faces while they watched it. It was Disney magic!
On our second day, we left the hotel and it was drizzling, we took our umbrellas, but by the time we got into the park(which was empty), it was pouring! Mike (my father-in-law) bought us all ponchos and off we went determined to have our day at Disneyland! I am so happy this didn't happen on our first day, i think Blake would have been so disappointed to see most of the rides closed and the rain everywhere. Luckily, Blake loves the rain and so we still had fun, going on the rides that were available and making the most of our morning. By lunch it stopped raining and we could go on every ride. Grace and I headed back around dinner time and I got her to bed, but Brian, his parents and Blake stayed for the parade again, Blake was so excited to see the parade :) All-in-all it was a great Disney vacation!
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| Breakfast with Mickey! |
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| Mad Hatter TeaCups with Dad! |
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| Sticker Collection! |
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| High-Five Minnie! |
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| It's A Small World! |
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| Breakfast at the Disneyland Hotel! |
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| Star Wars had invaded Disneyland! |
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| We found Churros! Even in the rain! |
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| Another Breakfast with Mickey! |
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| Some of the Character Eggs! |
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| The entrance to walk up to the gates |
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| There it is, main street station and all! |
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| He got to meet WOODY! High-five! |
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| Showing off his button and some of the stickers he collected! |
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| She hates the flash on my phone! |
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| Watching the parade on dad's shoulders! |
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| Family photo with Mickey! |
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| It's a Small World! After our two days in Disneyland we did a day of sight-seeing in Hong Kong! You could tell many more people spoke English, more signs were in English and there were more imported products and western restaurants readily available. We took the day to ride the tram up to the Peak and see Hong Kong with a view! Here are some photos! |
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| The View |
Next stop......Beijing!
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