Our hotel was super close to the park, maybe 2 minutes walking. We arrived! Yay Disneyland!
We made it to the line at Big Thunder Mountain when 8 am hit. Everyone around me had their phones out. There was a mad scramble of buttons being pushed and we were #49. Phew. I didn’t blow it. The guy next to me got #64. I felt pretty good.
Our group was me, Robyn, and Jazmin. Three is actually a great number. I thought it would be bad but plenty of rides accommodate 3. And I’m fine to sit alone on other rides.
After Big Thunder, we decided to go to Star Wars land to explore and find the ride we would go on later. It was amazing there! It looks like a movie set. It is supposed to be a market, like Tatooine or something. It was awesome. The Millennium Falcon was life size and sitting in a large courtyard. We saw Rey walking away, and Chewie and Storm Troopers. So fun!
There is a ride called Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run which we got in line for. It was a long line, but it was fine and fun to look around.
We didn’t know what to expect. Finally we were given a card with an assignment. Either pilot, gunner, or engineer. Jazmin and I were pilots, Robyn was a gunner. We all got in a small spaceship, pilots up front. It was a lot like Star Tours with the shuttle moving and the screen playing a movie in front. It was fun. It was more interactive and buttons would light up for you to hit. I even got to pull a lever for jumping to lightspeed. But it made me a little sick. Those types of rides aren’t my thing. But it was fun to go. Just for the inside of the ship which looked just like the inside of the Millennium Falcon. So cool.
From there we found where Rise of the Resistance was. They explained a little about the app. It wasn’t open, but the numbers would count up when it did. Okay, sounds good. Star Wars land is at the back of the park behind Critter Country, so it spit us out right by Splash Mountain. We figured we might as well go on it. There was NO ONE there. We walked right onto the ride. And yes, we got drenched. Somehow I ended up in the front. Stupid. I straightened my hair in the morning and the water ruined it. Oh well. I had a hat. But we were all very damp. On Robyn you could see a perfect line on her jeans between wet and dry.
Haunted Mansion was closed. :( So we went on Pirate’s. They have done a lot of changes. They don’t sell women anymore...just chickens. :) They got rid of the Davy Jones smoke screen. They added a pirate in a cage with an octopus underneath. It was super cute but strange. It was a skeleton pirate in a hanging cage. When I looked again, it was a regular, human pirate (no skull). Robyn noticed the same thing, but we both couldn't figure out how it changed. I wanted to go back and look again but we didn’t have time.
It wasn’t really lunch time, but we wanted to eat beignets in New Orleans Square. So we stopped for ‘lunch’. Robyn and I ate yummy donuts in powdered sugar and some of our snacks and Jazmin had beef stew in a bowl.
When we left, we went to the bathrooms and I realized my phone was gone. I kind of panicked. I would be a useless chaperone without a phone. I left the bathroom without telling anyone and back tracked to New Orleans always looking down to see if I dropped it. I wondered if I tried to put it in my fanny pack and missed. I didn’t find it. But on the way back, I remembered that I asked Robyn to hold it. Maybe she still had it. Sure enough, I got back and she was holding it. Blessed day. What a fright! (Seriously, that was the scariest thing that happened all tour.)
We got fast passes for Indiana Jones and then we did some shopping. We looked at a lot of Mickey Ears, but I couldn’t commit. I finally decided I would do leopard print but they don’t have those anymore. In fact, the large combined stores in Adventure land dwindled to one small store. Lame. That used to be my favorite. Robyn was looking for a hat but also didn’t see what she wanted. Jazmin decided she wanted Light up Star Wars ears so we went to Tomorrow Land. I love those ears. They are so cute when they glow. I saw these funny Valentine shirts. How appropriate.
Even with FP tickets for Indi, we decided to jump parks and go to Guardians of the Galaxy. It used to be the Tower of Terror. Now it is all redone. Basically the same ride but with the Guardians back story. The ‘Collector’ imprisoned the Guardians in his collection. They were trying to escape. Rocket gets out and now he needs our help to bust out the others. The best part is that he puts on a mix tape right before, so the whole ride we were jammin to ‘We got the Funk’ So fun!!! In the gift store, Robyn found this cute Rocket hat and I picked out a shirt for her but didn’t buy it yet.
Coming out, we saw Groot. He was the best. He looked so cool. We didn’t want to get in line, so we went to take a picture. The Disney guy got really mad. He said, “Please don’t take pictures of other people’s children.” That became a catch phrase for the trip. (Please notice the lack of children in the picture.)
When we got off Guardians, we checked the phone (as we did every five minutes) and FINALLY numbers were moving on Rise of the Resistance. (I will later refer to this ride as ROTR. Who has time to type that name out?) It was almost 1 o’clock. I wonder if there were problems with the ride, because that is really late to start the numbers moving.
Our Indi tickets were coming up, but it seemed we had time, so we went on Soarin. It used to be over CA, but now it was all over the world. It was so cool. Polar, desert, waterfalls, Taj Mahal, Eiffel Tower, Serengeti. It was awesome and Robyn said it was her favorite ride.
After Soarin, we came back to Disney to go on Indiana. While on that ride, Missy (one of the girls in my chaperone group) called me a couple times. She wasn't feeling well and wanted to leave the park. She was making sure I knew she was leaving the park. So I sent Robyn and Jazmin to Autopia and I walked Missy and Melissa back to the hotel. (Lucky it was so close.) I was so speedy that I had time to get back to Autopia, jump the line and join Robyn in her car. What an excellent driver she is. :)
All this time, we had still been checking the numbers for ROTR. It got to 45 and stopped. Just four away from our number. Bummer. They told us that when it got stuck on a number, it probably meant it was broken down, but we didn’t know for sure. We had some time to kill so we went on Space Mountain. The line seemed really long, but it went quickly. I love that ride so I’m glad we went. (The lady next to be looks so excited to be on the ride.)
After that, the number was still at 45. We decided to check and see if they really were shut down. We walked through Fantasyland and Sleeping Beauty’s Castle. Do you know the prince doesn’t actually kiss Aurora? He gets close, but no kiss.
At ROTR, they were shut down and had been for a long time. We asked how soon they thought they’d be open. The guy told us we could easily go to CA Adventure because even when our number did come up, we still had two hours to respond. So we headed toward CA Adventure. We stopped to look at the Pirate store and at the Nightmare Before Christmas stuff. They had a really cute wreath of the wreath that comes alive and tries to eat the kids. (Easily one of the best things of the trip.)
It was a good thing we stopped though because I checked numbers again and they were going up!! What? What a bad tip from that guy to leave. (I’m sure it wasn’t on purpose.)
But we turned around and went back and our number came up as we walked that way. In some respects we were really lucky. Because the ride had been down for so long, the line wasn’t maxed out. We walked through much of it. There was still a line, but not bad at all. We had no idea what to expect. I was excited and dubious because Smuggler’s Run had just been okay. This one was supposed to be a new experience never had before.
We went into a room where they gave us some basic instructions. Rey talked about a secret resistance base that we were headed to. We all walked outside to a space shuttle and got on. There were no seat belts, so I knew it couldn’t be that bumpy. We all just held on while Po told us that the First Order ships had found us and we were in their tractor beam. There was some bumping and an Admiral Ackbar guy in the ship with us, who was talking and ‘flying’ the ship.
Once we were pulled onboard the star destroyer, we were boarded and told to follow them. I have no idea how that worked because the same door opened that originally led outside, but now it went into a huge spaceship room with rows and rows of Storm Troopers lined up just like on the movies. It was so cool!! Just like a movie in fact.
As prisoners, we were lined up and sent to a cell. In the cell, Kylo Ren came and tried to suck the info out of us, but he had to leave to attend to something else. While he was gone, we escaped somehow. The wall opened and we went to cars to facilitate our groups escape and we were taken on a moving ride. It took us all over the spaceship with Kylo Ren chasing us with his light saber. At one point the light saber came through the ceiling. It was really awesome.
At the end, there was a little Star Tours feel but that was less than 45 seconds. It was such a fun ride. I’m so glad that we got to go. It was so interactive and truly different. Impressive. And sadly, because of the delay and the park closing early for a Valentine’s event, some groups didn’t make it on the ride. If they were over number 75, it didn’t get there in time. Bart and Sam didn’t make it since they were 85. :(
Robyn left her phone on the ride. She realized it right away and we ran back, but the cars had already left. We told the guy and he said he had a box with a phone inside. He pulled it out and sure enough, it was Robyn’s. He made her open it to prove it was hers. But I was so glad she didn’t lose it. I know how scary that is.
After that, we could finally leave Disneyland behind and stop checking our phone every 2 minutes. We went over to CA Adventure. I really wanted to take Jazmin to Cars. (She had never been to CA Adventure before today.) Cars has a crazy long line, but we decided to go for it. The line would only get longer as Disney closed for its event and kicked people out.
The line went pretty well for a while. We played the Sentence game. They kept announcing that the Standby line wait time was getting longer and longer. It started at 45, then 60, 90, and finally 105 minutes. They gave priority to Fast Pass which makes sense but it was crazy. They would let 40 fast pass people through and then 5 standby people. It took forever to move down the last line. I felt awful for the people behind us. They were going to be there for a long time. But the ride was fun and it was worth the wait.
Then we hit up the Incredicoaster which used to be CA Screamin. We decided to go as single riders to go faster. They added all the fun incredible movie things inside the tunnels. It was pretty cute. I’m glad we went on that one.
After some dinner, I sent the girls off the Sorceror’s workshop while I bought Robyn’s shirt. I really liked the shirt I bought her. We decided at the beginning of the day we would each find a shirt for each other. Robyn hadn't gotten mine yet, so we went to Downtown Disney for her to get one.
We were tired by this point. I had over 30,000 steps. Crazy. It was time to head back to the hotel. Peace out Disneyland. You are awesome! We left while fireworks were going off. I saw some I haven’t seen before. They were special for Valentine’s day.
Jazmin couldn’t find her key so they crashed in my room waiting for Julia to come home. Robyn and I exchanged our shirts. She got me a cute yellow shirt with mickey all over. I got her an Avengers shirt with a beaded A. Look for us wearing them tomorrow.
Then Robyn fell asleep. Zonked out. When Julia came back, Robyn hobbled to her room and then I went to bed too. It was a fantastic day. Here is a list of characters we saw: Daisy and Donald, Mickey and Minne, Rey, Chewie, Storm Troopers, Moana, Groot, Goofy, Chip, (Or Dale), Ariel, Mad Hatter, Redd, and Pluto. (Please excuse the pictures with other people's children.)
Disneyland didn't have to be a stop on Art Tour, but I'm sure glad we got to go.
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