California Adventure Part 3: Disney--The Truth About "The Happiest Place On Earth"

We visited the happiest place on earth over the weekend.  What a trip!  We flew out of Oakland Friday morning and arrived in LA a little after lunch.  Then we rode the Disney bus 45 minutes to Aneheim to our hotel.  After checking in, we walked the mile or so to Downtown Disney.  What a cool place!  Lots of shops and restaurants, the biggest Disney store I've ever seen and an awesome Lego store!  We walked around a bit and met up with my college roomate who now lives about 40 minutes from Disney.  I haven't seen her in about 2 years and it was so fun to see her and catch up.  She had her oldest son with her, Bryson who's 5, and he and Carter hit it off instantly!  And literally.  Ha.  They spent the whole time together swapping punches and wrestling.....after all, boys will be boys! :)


                                          At the Disney Store

                                                    Bryson, Carter and Shae'

                                                    The awesome Lego Store!

                                            The Roomie :)

We had dinner together at Rainforest Cafe' and enjoyed time together walking around.  Then it was back to our room to rest up for the busy few days ahead!  And boy were they busy. 

We started Saturday morning at California Adventure.  Car Land was the destination and Carter was SO excited!  It did not disappoint.  Cars Land is amazing!  They did such an amazing job with it.   We spent a few hours there, riding the rides and looking around.   So fun.

We left there and walked around California Adventure more, checking out Bugs Land (super cute) riding a few rides and the kids got to watch the Disney Jr. stage show...that was super cute.  


After that, we headed over to Disneyland.  First person we saw was Pluto. (shae' calls him Goofy every time)  

To save time here, I won't go into every detail about our day.  What I will tell you is:  The original plan was to spend several hours at the parks, then head to our room around 2, take naps, then go back around 4 or 5 and spend the rest of the day.  However, once we started walking around, I didn't want to leave.  Shae' ended up falling asleep in the stroller and I knew Carter would be too excited to go back and sleep.  Plus it was HOT and we were walking so much, I couldn't stand the thought of walking 1 1/2 miles back to our room and then back again.  And I know how hard it is when you do get the kids asleep, to wake them up to run out the door again.  So, Tom gave in (he REALLY wanted to go back and hit the pool) and we stayed.  We ended up doing 12 hours total between the 2 parks.  After spending time at Disneyland, we headed back to Cars Land since we had fast passes for the popular radiator springs racers ride.  It was worth going back.  Cars Land at night is AMAZING!  Looks so, so cool!  And the ride was super fun.  Carter rode twice, once with me, once with Tom. 

Sunday morning, we were up early again and at the park about 30 minutes after it opened.  We spent the whole day at Disneyland.  I'm pretty sure we rode every ride there, or almost every ride.  Carter was a huge fan of the roller coasters.  He rode splash mountain twice!  Space mountain was the only one he didn't like....too scary in the dark the whole time.  Shae' was limited in what she could ride, but she got to do plenty of rides too.  She loved every one and usually clung to the bar when the ride was over and we had to drag her away.   Again, we chose to stay the whole day and not go back (once again to Tom's dismay).  Our day ended up being 13 hours that day.  We stayed for the fireworks show at the end.  And I must say, as exhausted as we were, and as much whining as we had endured, it was worth it for that one minute during the fireworks when the 4 of us stood there smiling and watching together :)

Carter's favorite was Cars Land and Splash Mountain.  Shae's was Minnie Mouse and seeing the Princess' in the parade. (she said, "Mama, I love princess") :)   My favorite was seeing the kids excitement at each new thing.  So fun.

Ok, now for the TRUTH about Disneyland........

Have you ever seen those Disney commercials where the kids are running through the park with their parents, smiling, laughing, having the time of their lives?  Well, I didn't see ONE of those kids there.  Not one!  Instead I saw fussy kids, whining kids, tantrum throwing kids (and that's just MY kids!).  HA. Seriously.  I know this post and all the pics make the trip seem like it was just fabulous, but it wasn't.  The truth is it was EXHAUSTING!  And I'm not talking about the heat or all the walking around or the 12 and 13 hours days (that sure didn't help).......I'm talking about dealing with the kids.  They were great SOME of the time.  But the lines were long and there was plenty of fussing and whining during wait times.  They were tired so there was more than one meltdown.  It was just plain exhausting!  I know what it's like to look at peoples pictures on FB or blog and think that their vacations are perfect, their kids are perfectly behaved, etc.  I just thought I'd take a moment and be real with you.  Our pictures make it look like a dream but that's not the case.  Was it worth it, yes.  Most definitely.  Although I'll probably do a few things different next time, and it will for sure be more enjoyable when they are a little older.  It's just part of having kids.   But even though there were some tense moments, we left saying, "That was fun.  We made some great memories."  That's the part I choose to remember.  And we'll have the pictures forever, and thankfully everyone is happy in all of those :)