California Adventure

We started off day two bright and early again, but this time short two adults as Cambrie and Wes had to go back to real life. None of us had ever been to California Adventures before and we were all really excited to see what fun awaited us. 

Since we got there early we headed straight onto the rides with almost no waiting, which everybody was pretty thrilled about.  We did Soarin which made it seem like you were flying around the world and you could smell things like grass in Africa as elephants tossed it into the air, flowers at the Taj Mahal, etc. Everybody liked that ride a lot.  We also did Toy Story Ride that was like being in an arcade while on the ride.  All the big kids loved this ride, but it traumatized Timothy as it was very loud and people were wearing 3D glasses.  After that ride we just decided that he didn't have to ride any more rides. 

The biggest hit all day though was the Incredicoaster. It was a real roller coaster (no offense to the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad) and it was super fun.  Leona opted to not ride so she stayed back with Collin, Wyatt, Brynn, Norah, and Timothy. Collin took all of them on Jessie's Critter Carousel while Aubrey, Ella, Eliza, Clara and I rode the Incredicoaster.  It was so much fun! Everybody loved it so much that Eliza, Clara, and I immediately rode again with Collin while Aubrey took the littles.  Throughout the whole week Aubrey and Wes were extremely gracious about taking the babies so that we could ride the rides.  Without them this trip wouldn't have been even close to as much fun as it was.

Around lunch time Collin took the biggest kids on Grizzly Rapid Run, which everybody LOVED. I was happy to stay behind with the napping babies since I didn't feel like getting soaked.  Turns out that while everybody got a little wet Collin and Wyatt took the biggest hit.  Their seats flooded and they had wet pants for a while. At least that's what they claimed. It was a scary ride so who knows... We stopped in at the huge playground/ropes course that they have and ate lunch there before playing for a while. 

To me this was the scariest ride all day, but everyone (except Clara) disagreed with me.  The Silly Swings took you out over the water and the park as you felt like you were really flying through the air.  

After lunch the Harrises had to leave so it was just our little family at the park. We headed to the other side of California Adventures so that we could do some of the shows as well as some other rides. We also rode the Monsters Inc. ride which was calm and fun. Leona opted out of anything that would be objectively classified as a scary ride, but enjoyed everything that she did choose to ride.  She had an especially good time riding on the zipline at the Redwoods ropes course/playground after lunch.  I think she rode it 4 times.  It was everything that a kid could want in a playground.  Tons of space to run around, fun things to ride and climb on, and friendly Disney employees to make sure that nobody cut in line or took extra turns.

We also checked off an item on Leona's bucketlist by meeting Anna and Elsa. They were in character the whole time, asking the girls if they had seen Olaf or Sven outside playing. I couldn't tell whether the girls liked that they were in character or not.  They weren't super talkative.  Later though Leona did talk about them as if she were trying to work through the fact that they weren't really Anna and Elsa. It was akin to a kid who goes to see Santa and then talks about how they know that that wasn't the real Santa, but the underlying message is that they aren't ruling out that there is a real Santa somewhere. As you can see from the photo Timothy was not impressed. 😆

Another super fun thing that we did at California Adventures was go to an animation class.  They have real Disney animators walk you through sketching various famous Disney characters.  The class that we went to was how to draw Pluto.  I thought it was super fun.  Leona and Eliza were really into it.  Afterwards Clara claimed that she didn't like it.  Collin and I suspect she didn't like it because she fancies herself an artist and doesn't like to be told how to draw something. :) I thought it was really fun and I loved seeing how everybody's pictures came out with a personal spin on them even though we were all being instructed to draw the same way.

After that we got milkshakes at a stand and got in line to see the Frozen show.  It's basically a condensed, live version of the movie.  They did a spectacular job.  There were excellent special effects and scenery as well as fabulous acting and singing.  The girls all really loved it.  Even Clara who had been starting to moan about going admitted part way through that she liked it a lot. After that everybody was pretty beat so we scrapped any plans we'd had to ride the Incredicoaster one last time and just headed home.