Well, it is impressive that she was able to fall asleep on that long torturous walk from one park to the other.Sure enough, she was starting to doze off when we entered the park and DH begrudgingly agreed to keep walking her around so she could fall fully asleep while DS and I went on the Jungle Cruise.
That's awesome! I'm so glad that she opened up to the characters a little bit. The pictures are great!This turned out to be such a great decision! As soon as we got up towards the front of the line, DD just started going nuts for Tigger. She was waving, yelling his name, and blowing kisses, all before it was our turn to meet him. She got a little shy again as we walked over for our meet, but was much more receptive to approaching Tigger than she had been for any other characters so far.
Ha, I feel like i'm constantly juggling anytime I enter any theme park! Everyone's tickets, the stroller, my camera, water, etc, etc. Seriously recipe for disaster.
Fantastic idea! Sorry you had to find out the hard way, but thanks for sharing this tip.
Haven't gotten the chance to ride this yet but have heard amazing things about this ride!
Yep, haven't done this one yet either...
The queue is woah!
Another great tip, thanks! About to get me a better, smaller camera and didn't know what to do with my Sony Cybershot (takes TERRIBLE video/audio!) Never thought about passing it down to Calvin.
Calvin was just like your DD and now he loves them! I'm hoping Quentin will love them straight off. We haven't done many character meets at DLR or when we went to Aulani since having Q, so anxious to see what he'll do in January.
How exciting that DD finally warmed up so well to a character! Tigger must have worked some of his magic on her And the pictures with Rabbit are super! You never see Rabbit at WDW!
Excellent photos in this update—especially of Fantasyland. Looks like DH is training up DS to also be a photographer with his little photo crawl adventure.
So many great photos around Disneyland!
Oh my gosh, DD looks so adorable with the characters. I'm glad she finally warmed up to them!
Finally catching up. Loved the Pooh character meet pictures. Looks like your DD is turning the corner and loving her some characters!
Got so far behind on this (and other) reports. Work has really been kicking my butt lately.
Really cute meet with Tigger and gang. It's great that DD warmed up to them.
Well, it is impressive that she was able to fall asleep on that long torturous walk from one park to the other.
Seriously though, great when a stroller nap works out. Too bad you couldn't find a ride with FP and RS for DH though!
That's awesome! I'm so glad that she opened up to the characters a little bit. The pictures are great!
It was kind of funny when I got to those Miserable Stairs and the mom started to holler to her kids to hurry up because she didn’t want to lose the nice lady (me) showing them where to go, and then as she saw me crisscrossing back and forth across those ridiculous stairs, she said, “Aw, the poor lady.” Haha!
Another great ride!! I really love the double drops on this one, and it really makes me appreciate the length of it when I ride the one in WDW again and it feels incredibly short.
Over the past several trips, we have skipped doing the Haunted Mansion as a family because it made DS nervous. However, with this trip having had to rider swap so many things and taking up extra time to do so, we weren’t interested in swapping this one, so we didn’t give him much time to think about it and just hopped in line. He actually did totally fine on this one.
The ride was down so they weren’t distributing FPs, and we were actually never able to go back over and get some because every time we checked on it that morning it was still down.
That's how it was when we got to go. We were always crazy early for Rope Drop. Combine the late opening time with the fact that we were still kind of waking up on Eastern time and it made the mornings really drag.Our last 2 family trips have been enough in the off season that the park wasn’t opening until 10 am every day. We spent a lot of mornings sitting around and twiddling our thumbs until it was time to leave to go to the parks.
I don't know what top secret plans they had that involved entering through Adventureland, but I can't believe it was anything worth missing out on an opportunity like that!There were some Jungle Cruise skippers down by the rope chatting with people, and one of them was an older CM who started asking people what they were heading to first. A group of adults made a joke that they always say they are heading to the Jungle Cruise first because they don’t want everyone around them to hear where they are REALLY heading and follow them there, making the line long. The CM evidently didn’t hear anything they said past “Jungle Cruise” or didn’t understand the joke they were making, because he pulled them past the rope before the park was officially open, I’m guessing to bring them on a private Jungle Cruise boat. Less than 2 minutes later they all returned and retook their spot behind the rope as they had evidently fessed up to him that they were not actually heading the JC first. I couldn’t believe they had not just taken the pixie dust!! DH and I actually commented to each other that we wished we had said Jungle Cruise instead of Pirates.
Seems like a great use of rope drop to me! Doing rides that don't have FP and tend to back up is always a prime objective!We were so happy to have knocked the two of those out, even if it wasn’t the “best” use of rope drop, because the wait times had consistently been 40+ minutes the rest of the week!
Pirates being closed on my DL trip still makes me sad! One day I will get on it haha
I don't think it was a waste of your rope drop time at all! You got to do 2 rides you still hadn't done with a short wait!
Bummer about not being able to get Space Mountain FPs
I just finished reading your trip report so far. You have a lovely family. It looks like all of you are having a great time. My DH and I will be heading to Disneyland for two days (I know not long enough) in late November and looking at your pictures is making me wish it was sooner. Looking forward to reading more.
I've heard the Disneyland Paris version of Pirates is very similar to the DL version, and if that's the case I can understand why you really wanted to ride it at least once on your trip! Sorry that was your only time getting to enjoy the attraction, though. It seems like in the last few years people have really come to like Pirates and the wait times are always crazy. But I guess getting on it once is better than nothing...
Even blurry, the hatbox ghost looks really cool!
Bahaha this is hilarious! Those stairs!
I'm so excited to go on the DL Pirates someday and see the differences. Every time people talk about it they always prefer it to WDW.
Yay for DS! Haunted Mansion is awesome, so it's great that he's getting more comfortable
Aww man, that's too bad!
I wouldn't call Pirates a waste of rope drop, because the lines build pretty huge. However, we've often walked on HM at DLR, so maybe that one wasn't the best. Seems like it worked out better than if you'd picked Space Mountain though! I love DLR Space Mountain, and would be very excited to do the standard version again. (We did hyperspace mountain last time, and it was fine, but I think I prefer the normal music.)
That's how it was when we got to go. We were always crazy early for Rope Drop. Combine the late opening time with the fact that we were still kind of waking up on Eastern time and it made the mornings really drag.
I don't know what top secret plans they had that involved entering through Adventureland, but I can't believe it was anything worth missing out on an opportunity like that!
Seems like a great use of rope drop to me! Doing rides that don't have FP and tend to back up is always a prime objective!
See that kid in the bright green shirt in the top left? There were TONS of kids with that color shirt on and they all shoved to the front of the loading area, and then all their parents came up to meet them. They were rowdy and loud and climbing on everything, not caring who they ran into. Then when it was time to get on the ride, it had to be stopped at least 3 times to tell the kids to stop standing up in their ride vehicles while it was operating. They were totally obnoxious!!!
There were literally times as I walked through Garden Walk that I contemplated just sitting and taking a break on a bench, but I thought if I did end up sitting down, I might never get back up so I just kept on moving.
Seems to be the case!DS always expresses his displeasure at meeting the princesses but I think he secretly still likes the attention! Lol
Gotta check Cinderella's shoes!And DD promptly went to the floor to check out her shoes! LMAO!
always nice to catch a short wait for the princesses. I'm glad that DD seemed to have some nice interactions with them even if she was a bit unsure about it.It was a great princess meet, and I was so happy I had stumbled upon it with a super short wait.
I hate that they closed that. That was the best thing about the parks being so close together!They had recently before our trip closed the loophole in the system where we could have sent DH over with all of our tickets to get the FPs and now each ticket had to be scanned in to DCA before it would work to get any FPs.
Awesome! I love that they have so many different characters easily available at Disneyland.After lunch, I saw Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps had a meet and greet set about to begin, so we headed over there to get in line and wait for them to come out
I'm glad to see that the new Luigi ride entertains the kids as well as the old one did!Trusty old Luigi had a short wait, so off we went to DD’s favorite to do some dancing.
Yuck... that's always frustrating.See that kid in the bright green shirt in the top left? There were TONS of kids with that color shirt on and they all shoved to the front of the loading area, and then all their parents came up to meet them. They were rowdy and loud and climbing on everything, not caring who they ran into. Then when it was time to get on the ride, it had to be stopped at least 3 times to tell the kids to stop standing up in their ride vehicles while it was operating. They were totally obnoxious!!!
Cute pics with the princesses! I absolutely love the one of DD checking out Cinderella's shoes! And even if he shows distaste for meeting them, DS sure does look pretty happy in the pics!
The boys look great with their face paintings! What a nice free treat over at DCA.
Great pics with Nick & Judy!
I'm sorry your feet were killing you! It always stinks when you get to that point in a trip. Sounds like the break was needed for everyone!
How sweet are your princess meets?! I love that! DD was coming around, it seems. Hopefully next time she'll be even more into it.
Bahah! Sometimes these types of photos are actually the best memories though
Omg, I love this!! I love Zootopia, so I'd be totally into this meet!
Oh no! That's soo frustrating! I always get really peeved when you see kids like this because I expect their parents/chaperones to be on top of this. I know things happen with kids and meltdowns sometimes, that's different. But it's not fair to all the guests around them.
Aww man! Been there!! I'm sure you were all getting exhausted at this point in the busy trip.
Seems to be the case!
Gotta check Cinderella's shoes!
always nice to catch a short wait for the princesses. I'm glad that DD seemed to have some nice interactions with them even if she was a bit unsure about it.
I hate that they closed that. That was the best thing about the parks being so close together!
Awesome! I love that they have so many different characters easily available at Disneyland.
I'm glad to see that the new Luigi ride entertains the kids as well as the old one did!
Yuck... that's always frustrating.