"Santa must have heard that we love balloons!" TR *8/27 Update*

[lsulindy]

After meeting Tiana, I realized that it was almost time for Goofy's processional. I asked the CM where the best place for us to go would be. She said that Goofy was right around the corner and we could just follow him out. So, we did just that. The kids got to be right behind Goofy as he and the jazz band paraded out. We were all pretty excited. Not exactly like home, but a pretty fun Mardi Gras with some music from home AND GOOFY! Plus, Goofy got to see DS with his joker hat on!

Goofy's Processional Video

In 40 minutes, we had done all of the Mardi Gras events and had a blast doing it. I had figured that it would take a bit of planning to see it all, but it just fell perfectly. We're happy, happy, happy. And, getting hungry. It's 12:35.

I had really wanted to get Mickey beignets, but I knew we needed some real food.

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[lsulindy]

We headed over to the River Belle Terrace to get some lunch. I really wanted to walk over to the Stage Door Cafe to get some Monte Cristo bites, but no one else wanted anything from over there and I needed to sit with the kids while everyone else went get food, so no Monte Cristo bites for me.

I got a BBQ beef sandwich that was pretty tasty. DD got a turkey sandwich and was very excited that it was on goldfish bread. I don't remember what everyone else ordered.

While we ate, we got to see Tiana's processional and recessional and could somewhat see her show.

DS dancing to Tiana's processional video

After we ate, we hopped over to the Pirates of the Caribbean.

Let me just say "WOW!" I knew the DL version was longer, but WDW can't even compare. It's so much more immersive and you feel like the caverns are so huge. We were all very impressed and enjoyed it immensely.

Quick potty break in New Orleans and then Haunted Mansion.

Next we headed back to ride Pooh

Then we got in line to see Tigger and Pooh. I asked them CM if any other friends were meeting today, but she said no.

There were only 2 people ahead of us in line, but Pooh and Tigger had to leave to take a honey break/ They said they'd be back in 5 minutes, so we just waited.

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[lsulindy]

Tigger and Pooh soon returned and it was quickly our turn.

Photopass pic

After meeting Winnie, the kids want a soft serve ice cream b/c they saw someone with one earlier. I try to talk them into a Tigger Tail since we're in the area. Any passer by would have sworn that I was torturing these children. Can you imagine? Trying to get them a tasty treat! Oh, the humanity! I easily backed down on my beignets and Monte Cristo bites because I didn't want to make a big deal of out of it, but I'd reached my limit. Darn it we were getting Tigger Tails whether they liked it or not!

Got a Tigger Tail and a Mickey wand.

Eyes rolled back in his head, rubbing his belly, and moaning. I think he liked it!

They just asked me a couple of days ago when we could go back to Disneyland to get Tigger Tails. Wonder when they'll learn that I do know what I'm doing... Not holding my breath on that.

Another potty break on the way to Tarzan's Treehouse and Indiana Jones.

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[PHXscuba]

Good for you, "torturing" them with treats! I made the mistake of only getting one Tigger Tail (and a few other treats to share) last time and only ended up with about two bites of it!! One of the best Disneyland-only treats!

We got to see Eeyore too when we saw Pooh and Tigger in March but over the years it has been hit and miss if/when he is out.

PHXscuba

 

[lsulindy]

Good for you, "torturing" them with treats! I made the mistake of only getting one Tigger Tail (and a few other treats to share) last time and only ended up with about two bites of it!! One of the best Disneyland-only treats!

We got to see Eeyore too when we saw Pooh and Tigger in March but over the years it has been hit and miss if/when he is out.

PHXscuba

I think this was the only treat that I wanted to get that I did get! It was delicious. Only got 2 though. $5 each, wow! I think I took 2 bites out of each. DS2 had a couple bites and then the older two had the rest to themselves. Good stuff.

We got to see Eeyore later in the week at Minnie & Friends. I had seen online that Rabbit was out the weekend before. I knew it was a long shot, but I was hoping!

 

[lsulindy]

I think I failed to mention that DH had run over to get fastpasses for Indiana Jones while we finished up lunch at the River Belle Terrace. After finishing our "wow this is actually delicious, who knew?" treats, we head towards Indiana Jones. DS2 falls asleep in the stroller on the walk over. DS7, DH, and my dad go to ride IJ, while I visit Tarzan's Tree House with DD, and my mom sits by the stroller to watch over DS2.

DD really enjoyed Tarzan's treehouse. I was a little nostalgic for Swiss Family Robinson, but it was cute and we enjoyed all the interactive elements.

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[lsulindy]

We had perfect timing and exited the treehouse right as the guys were exiting Indiana Jones. They LOVED it. There were 3 fastpasses left, so I decided to ride with DH and DS while my parents took DD and still sleeping ds2 to meet Tinkerbelle.

I really enjoyed Indiana Jones. The ball was working, but DH and DS were shocked when they saw it. Apparently it hadn't worked for their first ride. After, they enjoyed talking about the differences in their 2 rides.

As we were walking towards Tink, DH thought he spotted something through an entryway. Sure, enough, it was the Genie. He was very hard to see from the main thorough fare and there was no one going in to meet him. I felt a little bad for him!

The area was beautifully themed, and I was surprised to hear from his handler that it wasn't used for anything other than these hidden meet and greets.

We hadn't seen many characters, and I started to wonder if they'd been lurking right under our noses the whole time!

Walking to Pixie Hollow

We get to Pixie Hollow and I assume that my parents and DD are about to meet the fairies. There aren't too many people ahead of them in line. DS2 has woken up and is not enjoying the line, my dad exits the line with him and I go in to wait with mom and DD.

While waiting we see the Fairy Godmother and then Peter Pan and Wendy exiting Fantasyland and heading to the CM doors behind the Plaza Inn. I guess we'd been in Fantasyland too early to catch the characters and hadn't been back.

DH and DSs saw Peter and Wendy who stopped to talk to the crowd for a second as they walked. DH got this most unflattering pic with his cell.

I have no idea why the fairy line was moving so slowly. I kept wondering if the fairies were on a break, but the CM assured me they were not and the line was inching ever so slowly along. There were maybe 6 families ahead of us when I got into the line and it took us 45 minutes once I got in line to get to the meet. I figured they were spending a lot of time with each child, but they didn't spend that long with us, so I have no idea what the hold up was.

Pixie Hollow video

Photopass pics, some of these are redundant, but there were a lot of Fairy borders and I'll just post em all in case anyone is interested.

We met Silvermist and Iridessa. The handler said we should get back in line b/c Tink would be there in 20 minutes. Although DD had never met Tink before and really wanted to, none of us, including her, wanted to get right back in that line again.


The guys rode Buzz while we met the Fairies.

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[PHXscuba]

The Pixie Hollow line seems to be one of the slower ones, not sure why. I'm sure some families definitely take their time with each fairy.

Great that you got to see the Genie without a line. I kept peeking back there when we walked through Adventureland but he was never out.

PHXscuba

 

[RI Disney Star]

Just found your TR and I am loving it. I'm wondering what those tigger tails are made of. I just gotta have one. They look amazing.

 

[PHXscuba]

Just found your TR and I am loving it. I'm wondering what those tigger tails are made of. I just gotta have one. They look amazing.

I can answer that! Tigger Tails are several marshmallows on a stick, covered in caramel, covered in orange-colored dipping chocolate, sprinkled with orange sugar, and drizzled with a chocolate stripe. They are a delicious Disneyland exclusive, found only in the Pooh Corner shop near the Splash Mountain exit.

PHXscuba

 

[RI Disney Star]

I can answer that! Tigger Tails are several marshmallows on a stick, covered in caramel, covered in orange-colored dipping chocolate, sprinkled with orange sugar, and drizzled with a chocolate stripe. They are a delicious Disneyland exclusive, found only in the Pooh Corner shop near the Splash Mountain exit.

PHXscuba

Thanks PHXscuba. I thought they looked like marshmallows. I'm in the beginning stages of planning a trip next January. The Tigger Tails are on the top of my list. They look awesome.

 

[lsulindy]

Thanks PHXscuba. I thought they looked like marshmallows. I'm in the beginning stages of planning a trip next January. The Tigger Tails are on the top of my list. They look awesome.

They were delish!! You must torture your family with some!

Hey, to all 3 of my readers!! Life's been BUSY! But, I'm back. Working on new installments now. Realizing that I'm forgetting more and more details by the minute!

 

[lsulindy]

We exit the fairies and DH, DSs, and dad are about to get onto the Astro Orbitor. The CM sees us talking across the queue to them and offers to let dd in to ride with them.

DH had also gotten Space Mountain Fastpasses while we were waiting on the fairies (plus he had 3 left from the morning), so I took the older kids while DH, mom, dad, and ds2 found a spot to sit and get a snack. It was dd's first time and she LOVED it. LOVED it. Unfortunately, you cannot see her in the pic!

I left my camera with DH in case they saw any characters (or did anything else cute) with DS. This is funny b/c DH HATES taking pictures and HATES searching for or waiting to see characters. But, lo and behold Minnie came out and walked right by them stopping to meet DS. And DH took pictures for me!!

While we were riding, DH got fastpasses for Star Tours.
We came out, and DH said that my parents had decided to leave and go back to the hotel for the night. He also said that DS2 was getting really tired and cross, so he was going to take him back to the room too. He gave me all of their tickets for fastpass collection purposes and they left.

On their way out, DH and DS ran into Pinocchio

Then they saw Donald and Daisy meeting for True Love week, so they hopped in line. The line was about 40 minutes long. I was surprised to hear that there was not a photopass photographer with them and DH only had his phone.

After they left Donald and Daisy, they saw Goofy and headed over to him.

After meeting Goofy, DH saw the Mickey and Minnie in her heart Valentine's dress were replacing Donald and Daisy, so he tried to go over to meet them, but the CM had closed the line, so they headed out of the park. We never did make it back to see Minnie in her special Valentine's dress. Oh well. I'm the only one who cared about that and I heard from others that their line was always pretty long. We met Mickey and Minnie many other times in other outfits with little to no wait.

Meanwhile, the kids wanted to get right back on Space Mountain so we went right back on. This time we knew to wait for a front seat.

DS cracks me up in these pics.

After that was done, they wanted to ride SM again. So, back on we went with our last 3 passes.

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[PHXscuba]

Love the silly Space Mountain pictures. Glad your DD liked her first ride -- it's a milestone for Disney-loving kids.

You really did see a lot of characters, either together or separately!

PHXscuba

 

[lsulindy]

Love the silly Space Mountain pictures. Glad your DD liked her first ride -- it's a milestone for Disney-loving kids.

You really did see a lot of characters, either together or separately!

PHXscuba

She hated Pirates and Haunted Mansion. Refused to do Tower of Terror even though she'd done it at WDW when she was 4. But, oh how she loved Space Mountain!!

We did see a lot of characters. We missed a number that I really wanted to see. But, we did see so many without too much waiting (other than the princesses) and without really going out of our way to find them or taking away from our ride time. It was a happy medium.

 

[RI Disney Star]

Great TR. Gives me ideas for my trip next January with my 2 dd's and 5 yr. old grandson. I'm glad to see how your daughter is enjoying the rides.

I have a question on your activity books. They look awesome. You did a really good job on them. I was wondering where you had them printed, what kind of paper they used and if you don't mind, what they cost. I know I could buy some books but it makes it so much more special to make one. I'm already starting on one. We'll have a really long flight.

Thank you for sharing your trip.

 

[lsulindy]

Great TR. Gives me ideas for my trip next January with my 2 dd's and 5 yr. old grandson. I'm glad to see how your daughter is enjoying the rides.

I have a question on your activity books. They look awesome. You did a really good job on them. I was wondering where you had them printed, what kind of paper they used and if you don't mind, what they cost. I know I could buy some books but it makes it so much more special to make one. I'm already starting on one. We'll have a really long flight.

Thank you for sharing your trip.

I had them printed and bound at Office Max on regular paper. I submitted the files online and then picked up at the store. I had an online coupon for 25%, and it should have cost around $40 for the 3. I made them WAY too big. But, I'm not good at editing things down. I loved all the pages. The guy in the store rang me up incorrectly and I wound up only paying $19. I picked up the books the day before the trip in a short break I had between events at my son and daughter's schools. The guy didn't usually work the copy store and didn't know how to ring up an online order and it took almost 40 minutes for me to pick these books up, so I knew that seemed to low, but I was rushing and panicking and didn't stop to check out the receipt. I missed the very beginning of the school event and arrived to find a group of moms and teachers huddled around my daughter who was having a melt down b/c I wasn't there. I felt really bad later when I really looked at the receipt and saw what he'd done wrong.

 

[lsulindy]

While we were on Space Mountain, DH had gotten 6 Star Tours fastpasses, so we head there next.

There were having some issues and only one vehicle was operating.

The kids loved the ride! DS loved that it was different from when he'd ridden it before with his dad.

After Star Tours, we looked around the gift shop and made our first souvenir purchase. (Can you tell that we're not big souvenir buyers?) Each kid had $20 from my parents and $20 from DH's, DD decided she wanted to buy a light up spinning Minnie Mouse. DS wasn't ready to commit to a purchase yet.

We saw Goofy hanging out on the Space side of the gift shop, so we walked over. He was all alone. DD was excited to show off her new purchase. We felt bad leaving him b/c there was no one else coming over to see him. So unlike WDW.

The kids wanted to ride Space again, but they were out of fastpasses, so we grabbed some more for Star Tours and then rode Buzz.

The picture portal wasn't working, but I was able to find the pics and send them to myself when we rode again later. The scores were all wrong and messed up though.

After Buzz, I attempted to convince the kids to venture out of Tomorrowland, but they were having no part of it. So, we hopped onto the Astro Orbitor.

I felt like I was going to fly out of my seat twisting around for this picture, but I absolutely love it! This is what it's all about!

The parade was passing by and the kids wanted to watch for a little bit. It was neat to step back and see the whole float. A different experience than the front row seat we'd had on Saturday night.

We rode Star Tours again with our first set of fastpasses. The issue with the vehicles had cleared up, and we were able to quickly get on.

We rode Buzz again before our second set of fastpasses for Star Tours were valid.

After Buzz, we were able to ride Star Tours twice. I was the rebel spy for our last ride, which absolutely cracked the kids up!

It was almost closing time. DS wanted to jump into line for Space, but DD was getting tired and very hungry, so I decided it was time to go. I however couldn't resist a Photopass pic in front of a deserted castle. DD wasn't too happy b/c I had told her we were leaving.

On our way out we stopped by the firehouse for a look and I gave the kids a little lesson on Walt Disney's apartment. DD was pretty upset with me b/c she swore that I had never told her before Walt Disney was dead and I really should have told her something important like that!!

It was 8:05 (park closed at 8 that night) We left the park and walked down to McDonald's for dinner. It wasn't far, but was a longer walk than I'd expected. I realized that I'd been spoiled with our right across the street room. Harbor was packed with families leaving the park. I'm pretty independent and go a lot of places alone or alone with my kids. But, I started to realize that the crowds would be gone after we ate and I'd be walking back to the hotel alone. But right on cue, here comes my prince. DH had left DS sleeping in the room with my parents and had come down to meet us after I'd texted him when we left the park. The kids were so excited to see Daddy and tell them about all the fun stuff we'd done. It was a great evening with some time focused on the "big kids."

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[RI Disney Star]

Yay, an update. Can't wait to read more!

 

[lsulindy]

We started the next morning (Wednesday) back at California Adventure. Got there about 25 minutes before rope drop, but got into the park right as the rope was dropping. We were in the slowest line. We realize that on either side of us, each line was feeding two turnstiles. But, our set of turnstiles only had one open. So, basically either side was going twice as fast as we were. After all of our entry issues, DH was pretty ticked. I told him not to worry about it and to just enjoy the day. So, of course, he got annoyed with me.

Dad decided that maybe he should get one of those GAC cards after all. He and mom were pretty worn out by this point. So, he went to City Hall while DH went get RSR fastpasses. Mom had missed Toy Story Mid-way Mania on Monday, so we'd planned to head back there first.

On the way, I spotted Buena Vista Mickey, who was a character that I'd really hoped to see. The kids didn't notice him, but I asked mom is she thought we should stop. We still hadn't met Mickey and I figured DH may want to be there the first time DS2 met him. I also knew that mom really wanted to ride Toy Story Mania, and I was still a little shaken up by the mini-argument DH and I had, so even though I knew that resort guests had EMH and I didn't know how much wait time we'd really save by going straight to TSMM, I just kept going. (Spoiler alert. If you can't tell by the amount of time I've given this, we never did meet BVS Mickey. )

We get to TSMM and have about a 15 minute wait. Mom had been parking her ECV outside of each line and walking the queue. I convinced her that she should ride through b/c she was in a great deal of pain at this point. She's hesitant, but agrees to take the ECV through the queue.

While we are waiting, I see a Photopass photographer standing alone across from the ride. I tell my mom that I bet a character is about to show up. My mom marvels at my ability to spot and know these things. HAHA. I have nothin' on most of the DISboarders! If my family only knew how mild I really am.

We get to the loading area and they usher us off to the side. Apparently there is a separate handicap loading area and there is a limit to the amount of handicapped riders they are allowed to have on the ride at a time due to evacuation purposes. There were two other ECV/wheelchair riders ahead of us in line, so we had a much longer wait than if we hadn't taken the ECV through the line. Oh well, was trying to save my mom's back and this is just proof that going the handicapped route doesn't always save you time. Plus, navigating the parks with an ECV and someone with Parkinson's slows you down a great bit. So, if you're looking for ways to save time, it's not highly recommended. But, it was great for memories with MiMi and PePaw. (end of aside) While waiting in the handicapped loading area, we see Jessie heading out for a Meet and Greet. She passed right next to our waiting area and the kids were so excited.

We rode TSMM and when we got off the CMs had moved the ECV to the unloading area. In order to push the ECV, the CM popped some lever at the back end of the ECV to allow it to be pushed. We did not know that we needed to push it back. (I've tried to look online for a user manual to give a better explanation, but with no luck.) This caused many issues throughout the day, but we had no idea.

DH and my dad were waiting for us when we exited and were excited to tell the kids about Jessie being there. But, right as we walked out we saw Jessie leaving her spot. I was wondering if she'd gotten ill or something since it was such a short time. The photog was still standing there and said that another character would be coming out soon, so we waited. A few minutes later, here came Woody! He got very animated when the kids yelled that there was a snake in his boot!

my pic:

Photopass:

The CM started warning the line that Woody was about to leave, but another character would be coming. My parents reentered the line with the littles and we decided to go ride California Screamin' with DS8. There was a less than 5 minute wait.

While we were riding, DD and DS2 met Buzz.

Buzz was leaving when we arrived from our California Screamin ride and he played around with DS8 for a minute as he walked away from the meet and greet area.

The photog had told mom that Jessie was coming back, so back into the line we went again!

DS2 took a quick ride on the carousel while we waited

My pics:

Photopass:

Those characters were on the shortest rotation schedule I've ever seen. But, I'm not complaining. In under 40 minutes, we had met all 3 of the Toy Story characters. I was feeling pretty accomplished!

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