Day 5 The Missing Day

Somehow Marc forgot all about this day in his original writings. I had planned for us to get up early for the Extra Magic Hour again at Disneyland. This time it starts at 7am since it is Saturday and the park opens at 8am. Last night Marc decided he didn't want to get up that early. Since Jacob and I are "morning people" we did Magic Morning on our own. It was great! We were the first at the security checkpoint again. And of course one of the first in the park when it opened. We got some nice pictures and then headed quickly to Peter Pan which fills up sooo quickly!

Here's what we did before the park opened to the general public: PeterPan, Dumbo, Alice in Wonderland, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Snow White's Scary Adventures, Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters, and Star Tours twice! Then we went over to get Marc a fastpass for Space Mountain and gave the rest of them a call.

Turns out Marc and the rest of the kids were in the park already too and went on It's a Small World. Small World had been closed the previous days and just re-opened. Jacob and I grabbed a cinnamon roll to share at the new Jolly Holiday Bakery and then met up with the rest of the group at Sleeping Beauty's Castle. We had never toured the inside and wanted to do that. Then I took the kids on It's a Small World while Marc rode Space Mountain. Little Ella was walking around in a Sleeping Beauty dress but her hair didn't even look like it had been combed since I left before she woke up. I took a couple minutes to fix her hair now and then we all went over to California Adventure.

Since California Adventure opened at 10am today, we arrived before opening (as planned) so we could do the mad dash to ride Toy Story Mania before it gets too crowded. We walk briskly but other people run and knock into you. I was pushing the stroller with Ella and Zoe in it and Max was walking beside me. He tripped and fell and fortunately was not trampled, but I had to carry him since he was crying and push the double stroller. Jacob's job was to get Marc to walk faster than usual to the ride and he was taking it seriously so they were ahead of us when Max fell and they went and got in line. We caught up quickly and the rest of the day went smoothly. Max was just fine. (P.S. In case this sounds familiar, I mistakenly wrote this the first time we did the mad dash, but it actually happened this day. It didn't happen twice!) It would have been fun to go on California Screamin' again, but these days we live for the kids and that means we headed toward Goofy's Sky School to ride and grab fastpasses for later.

We had early lunch reservations for Ariel's Grotto today and it was time to go there. We arrived a bit early and had time to look at the nearby store. We really haven't done much shopping/looking at all. This lunch was the most expensive meal of this part of our trip--maybe (hopefully) the whole trip! It cost $155 including tax and tip. It was pretty fancy. The brought us an antipasta tower to start. The kids especially enjoyed the bread with special spreads. Then everyone had an individual entree and finally the dessert platter. Wow! Contrary to Marc's remarks, we actually left a couple pieces on the tray...but not much!

It was a very good meal But the real draw was dining with the princeses. This was Ella's special event! By the way, Zoe did not appreciate the princesses at all. Strangely, she was fine around the big fuzzy characters, but she cried at most of these princesses!

We actually thought about taking an afternoon break at this point, but decided to spend time in Redwood Creek instead. The kids had a blast exploring this place and Zoe had a nice nap in the sling. Ella was mad she wasn't tall enough to go on the zip lines and rock climbing. We spent at least a couple of hours here.

I think we went back to the villa and packed and wrote postcards after that. Then we returned to CA and rode Little Mermaid together. We were hungry and Marc wanted "real food" and the kids wanted corndogs, so I took the boys to Corndog Castle and we rode Goofy's Sky School a bunch of times again. We used our fastpasses from earlier for Max and me while Jacob used the single rider line to maximize our number of rides with no waiting. Remember those "ultimate fastpasses" we were given at check-in? We used one of those too. Marc decided to check out the Tron show with the girls and then head "home." The boys and I decided to use the fastpasses we had for Soarin'. When we got there, even the fastpass line was out the door. The kids were spoiled by not having to wait much at all and we decided not to ride Soarin'. In fact, we gave a lucky guy our Soarin' fastpasses and the 4 "ultimate fastpasses" that we never had the occasion to use! We got a snack from Whitewater Snacks at the Grand Californian hotel and returned just in time for the kids to finally see World of Color. What a great trip to Disneyland!