CA trip: Day 7: We're going to Disneyland!!!!

 Yeah!  It's finally here!  The day we've been waiting, planning, and saving for all year is here!  We happened to be at Disneyland on Friday the 13th, which was the day Halloween popped up all over.  It was pretty crowded, but so cute!  Here's some of the pictures I got of the festive additions.

 

  Our first ride of the day was Finding Nemo Submarines.  We finished most of Tomorrowland while there, and got FastPasses for most of the bigger rides.  One smart thing we did that I wish we had utilized while at California Adventure is the app that told us the wait time for most of the rides.  It was super helpful, and saved us precious time.  Waverly thought this ride was a little scary because it was dark and we were underwater.

 Buzz Lightyear's Space Rangers ride.

We tried to pack in as much as we could during our time there, but we inevitably missed a bunch.  We did not make it to TuneTown or Pixie Hollow before they closed.  Irelynd was hugely disappointed by both.  If I had to do it over again, I would have made sure everyone stated what they wanted to do most, and made sure we hit those first.  We still visited Pixie Hollow, but it was at night and hard to see some of the smaller details.  However, I learned my lesson from California Adventure, and the first cotton candy station we passed I made sure to stop and let everyone buy some that wanted it.  Waverly finally got her cotton candy:)

Below is taken in front of the water fountain in Fantasyland.  I love all the little details that Disney puts into everything.  

Another detail I got a kick out of was this bathroom in Fantasyland, where all the doors look like cards, and the Queen of Hearts is on the main door.  Everyone gave me weird looks for taking a picture in the bathroom, but I was mostly used to getting similar looks from everyone all week with our large brood.

 While the bigger kids were riding the Matterhorn, I took the twins to wait in line for Princess Belle.  It was not a fast-moving line, and very hot that day, but Waverly was finally able to meet a princess.  Unfortunately, it was the only one.  As I snapped the photo, her Prince jumped into the background.  What a ham!

 Waverly had a conversation with Belle, in which she was tickled that Belle kept calling her Princess.  She was all giggly and went right up to hug her.  Keaton opted out, as Princesses are for girls.

 This was our first time on Mr Toad's Wild Ride.

 I think this ride is so cute!  I got in my own teacup, since the kids all wanted to spin theirs and I did not.

 I had to drag Scott on It's a Small World  for Waverly's sake, but can you tell by his face that this is his favorite ride ever?!  She would have ridden it again, but the line got too long.  I love all the strollers above.  I like It's a Small World because it's one of the only rides I remember from my childhood trip to Disneyland, and my mother loves this ride.  It's cute!

 If you look closely behind the fenced in area with the umbrellas, you might see the top of Merida's head.  We really wanted to stop and let Waverly meet her, but we were running to get on It's a Small World before the crowd behind us caught up.  Waverly, if you are reading this as an adult, and have had therapy because your mom didn't let you meet all the princesses in Disneyland, I'm sorry! 

 Doesn't Scott just look thrilled???

 Of all the eateries scattered throughout the park, the ones in Adventureland had my mouth watering.  Yum!

 Getting ready to board Indiana Jones.  This was my favorite ride along with Pirates of the Caribbean, which I thought was WAY better than the one in Orlando.  I did not know there was a restaurant down there!

The Jungle Cruise.  This was the 3 oldest ones favorite ride, which is funny, because it is nothing special.  But they thought our guide was really funny, which made all the difference.  Irelynd's favorite jokes are as follows:  "Now I'd like to point out a few plants to you.  There's that one.  And that one.  And that one over there..."

"Wave to all the beautiful people up there.  Now wave to all the ugly ones.  They have feelings too."

 The twins explored Tarzan's Treehouse while the older ones went with Scott on Indiana Jones.  I wanted to go with them, but Boston was asleep in his stroller.  I'm sure glad they have each other for times like this!

Because we did sandwiches all week, we told everyone that we'd buy dinner at Disneyland.  Unfortunately, the kids, especially Irelynd, had different ideas of what that would entail.  She expected a buffet, sit-down dinner, and was not happy when we told her dinner would be corn dogs.  Oh well, I enjoyed them.  One of the best I've eaten!  I'll try to forget that we spent $50 on corn dogs and chips for 8.  Which included using a coupon the clerk gave us because we were buying so many.

Winnie the Pooh was a hit with the twins, and they rode it several times due to short lines.  The kids loved it, but fought the whole way through, unfortunately.

Despite missing Tinkerbell at Pixie Hollow, we made our way over there anyway after dinner to explore it.  It would have been really cute in the daylight, with all the little details.  I felt really bad for disappointing Irelynd.

 Even the boys thought it was really cool, with the big mushrooms and items to make everyone feel small.

Next we went on the storybook cruise, which would have been way better in the daylight too.  It was a boat ride through the fairy tales done in miniature.  We started by getting "swallowed" by the whale.

 We found a new ride I hadn't ever seen before called Dumbo's Train, or something.  We rode in circus train cars, which the kids thought was so funny.  This is not us, of course, but this is the car we rode in.  Of course we had to ride in the monkey car!

Snow White's Adventures was next.  The kids got a kick out of touching the magic apple, which made it talk.

 Can you tell that we were all getting very tired by this time?  Shortly after this, the kids starting asking to leave.  Mean mom that I am, I insisted we needed to ride all the rides on our list to get our money's worth.  By this time, we were almost done with everything.  We waited for Peter Pan's Flight to die down, and had to wait in line during the fireworks in order to not wait in the hour line that persisted all day long.

 The main attraction during Halloween is The Haunted Mansion, which is always one of my favorite rides too.  When we took the girls to DisneyWorld when Savannah was 5 and Irelynd 2, we told them it was a really fun ride.  We had to keep insisting on this as we walked on, since the music didn't convey fun, but "scary".  Savannah remembers it being super scary, so she was nervous to ride it with me and Irelynd later in the day.  We kept waiting for the line to die down, but when 11pm came and it was still long, we finally bit the bullet and got in line.  This was the outside during the day.

 This was at night.  This was the longest we waited, which was 45 minutes.  We had intended on only staying til midnight, but stayed until the park closed at 1am, then stayed longer to find ornaments for the family tree, and a charm for Savannah.  We didn't get to bed til 3:30am.  We had originally all gotten in line for The Haunted Mansion, but the littlest ones were done, and all falling asleep.  Scott took the twins and Brighton and let them fall asleep on his lap on a bench, and in the stroller.  We had to borrow 2 deserted park strollers to get them all out at the end of the night.  The ride was done as the Nightmare before Christmas, and not scary at all.  The scent of gingerbread wafted through it, and the narration was of the Night before Christmas.  Savannah thought it was kind of lame after all.  It was still fun.  While waiting in line, there was a villian dance party going on nearby.  We saw Hades and Maleficent and a few others we couldn't identify bustin a move over there.  It was kind of fun, but we realized we were the only ones with young kids waiting in line.  Most were teens.

At the end of the day, everyone's favorite rides were:

Scott: Space Mountain

Jill: Indiana Jones and Pirates

Savannah: Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Indiana Jones, Jungle Cruise, Pirates

Irelynd: Jungle Cruise

Brighton: Indiana Jones, Space Mountain, Matterhorn, Small World, Splash Mountain, Jungle Cruise

Keaton and Waverly: The Adventures of Pooh, Dumbo Train, It's a Small World