The first morning we got there just a few minutes after it opened. Once we picked up our tickets and headed inside we had to...stop for a bathroom break, notwithstanding the bathroom break we'd all taken just before we left the hotel. I may or may not have been part of this first bathroom break (I was.) We saw some characters, walked down some magical real estate, et cetera. Our first stop was Tomorrowland. We rode the little rocket ride right at the entrance. Alice liked it until we put the seat belt on; meaning, she liked it for the first ten seconds. She was all right after it started going, but there was a lever that she really wanted to reach and it was not cooperating. Clara, who I thought might be scared, giggled the whole time.
After that ride Clara was (surprise!) hungry, so Levi fed the girls a snack while I took Nathan on Star Tours. He was in heaven.
It was a little crowded that first day so we tried to avoid rides with a long line. Clara got to ride the tea cups, which she had been highly anticipating thanks to the Disneyland website? We had some ridiculously overpriced lunch in Toon Town, Levi walked a grumpy Alice around in the stroller while I took the kids to meet Mickey.
Midway through the afternoon everyone was fading fast and wanted to head back to the hotel. So we did. We rested for a little while and then went swimming. We walked to McDonald's for dinner and then went back to Disneyland until it closed at 8. We rode a few rides and watched the parade. Clara got really excited and waved at the princesses. Nathan enjoyed it as well. I think Alice was asleep (poor sicky).
The next day we had Magic Morning early entry tickets, which was a little less magical than I'd expected. The gates didn't open until 9:30, instead of 9--so imagine a bunch of hyped-up kids told to hurry up and get ready so we could wait in a line outside Disneyland. Then, when the gates opened and we hurried to get on a ride before the lines piled up, all the areas with rides were roped off. But, said the voice over the loudspeaker, "our shops are all open." Thanks so much. We bided the time in the candy shop where I convinced the kids the best option was what turned out to be ridiculously expensive jelly bellys. By the time the kids "helped" me put several kinds into our bag it turned out to be something like 14 dollars. This was not a large amount of jelly beans. It was still cheaper than the giant lollipops they wanted, and much less of a sticky mess. The kids also enjoyed the antique "moving picture" shows in the candy shop. At a penny, they were the best deal in the whole park.
Once the rides opened, we had a better time. The crowds were less, and I had a bag full of sugar to help make waiting in the lines easier. I doled out those expensive blobs of flavor one at a time, and it helped to make the kids much more patient. We rode almost all the rides in Fantasyland before Alice got too grumpy. We had a late lunch and then rode the paddle boat, which made us too late to get over to Tom Sawyer's island. Nathan was very sad. Levi and Nathan went to do Haunted Mansion while I took the girls to Winnie the Pooh. Then we rode the train all around the perimeter of the park. Clara, true to form, somehow managed to find even this scary (the dinosaur dioramas). After the train, we (finally! allowed the kids to pick out their souvenirs. I picked one for Alice, Clara was really fast, but Nathan had to go to two different stores before I allowed him to choose his because he wanted everything (especially the really annoying Buzz Lightyear toys with lights and noises). He ended up making his own droids at the Star Wars shop, which I was much more okay with. After we had those, I wanted to ride some more rides, since the lines had really dwindled as everyone gathered for the parade, but the kids just wanted to go back to the hotel to play with their new toys. So, all the fun rides I could have taken Nathan on, since the girls were so tired and really too small, will just have to wait.
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