Disneyland

We made it! Finally! This has been a two-year process. I originally wanted to go in January 2020, but with Laurin's wedding and other events, we decided we'd go in the fall. I was excited about that because I have never been to Disneyland during the Halloween celebrations, but COVID hit and everything shut down. We considered possibly going in 2021 but there were still so many restrictions and modifications. Finally, we decided to go now. We still had to wear masks indoors (which was a little bit of a bummer), but we had a blast! We left Wednesday (January 26th) afternoon. We reached Anaheim around dinner time. After we checked into our hotel, we decided to make our way to downtown Disney to look around and grab a treat. After we looked at a few stores and indulged in a yummy shake, we headed back to the hotel for the night. I'm pretty sure all this anticipation was killing Jonas! He was so excited to finally go to the place that so many people had told him about. I wish we could have gone sooner. I wondered if we missed the "magic" by going when he was as old as he was and beyond wanting to ride the kiddie rides; however, by the end of the trip, I realized that the magic is all in the memories.

Jonas living his best life - eating snacks on the plane while watching Karate Kid.

Thursday (January 27th) morning couldn't come soon enough. We got up, had a quick breakfast, then made our way to Disneyland. Jonas quickly learned that there is an art of patience that is required for Disneyland. We had to wait to get through the gates then we had to wait at the "rope" for the actual rides to open. Thankfully, we decided to purchase the Genie+ services that allowed us to have "lightning lane" access to the majority of the rides. In fact, we were pretty much done with all the rides/experiences in each park by dinner time every day. We never stayed at the parks longer than 6:00 p.m. Jeff and I figured that it was worth the extra cost, especially since we don't go to Disneyland often. However, there were still wait times at each ride, but Jonas (and even Jeff) did a great job at being patient! The first ride we ran/briskly walked to was Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. This is a fairly new ride and is extremely popular so we wanted to get there quickly before the line got too long. We got there quickly enough that we didn't have to wait for more than 15 minutes (although some of that was because the ride was experiencing a little technical difficulties...I was worried that it was an omen for how the rest of the trip would go, but thankfully it was not!) before the experience began. There were several layers of the experience from being "recruited", to being "captured", and finally being "rescued". It felt like we were actually on a First Order spaceship as we zoomed in and out of rooms while being "chased" by the enemy. After that first ride, we were all infused with excitement and more than ready to tackle all the other rides! Danny even acknowledged that it wasn't until the rope dropped that morning that he really started to get excited about being at Disneyland. After Rise of the Resistance, we went to the other Star Wars ride, Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run. From there our day evolved as we went from land to land. We hit Thunder Mountain, Indiana Jones, Jungle Cruise, Haunted Mansion, (Splash Mountain was closed) Davy Crocket Explorer Canoes (something I had never done before but Jonas wanted to try), Pirates of the Caribbean, Matterhorn, Star Tours, Buzz Lightyear, Space Mountain, and finally, Peter Pan (that was my request. It has always been a favorite ride of mine since I was little. I like the idea of "flying" over the city.). The boys enjoyed all the rides (except for maybe the Jungle Cruise because the wait was a little longer and everyone was reaching that hangry point) but not enough to want to repeat any of them...at least not that evening. We finished all the rides we wanted to experience by dinner time and decided to have dinner in downtown Disney. Before we left the park that day, we stopped by the candy store on Main Street where Jonas got a sucker and Danny got a caramel apple. 

Friday (January 28th) was another full day of fun! This time, Nichole and Ryan joined us. They came to Disneyland because Kate was performing with her musical performance group, Inspire. Obviously, Kate was there too, but we hardly saw her since she was with her friends. The next two days, they hung out with us. This time, we started at Disney's California Adventure park. It was much the same as the previous day. We got there early enough to get through security and the gates then we had to wait at the "rope" before all the rides were open. We had hoped to hit Radiator Springs Racers as the first ride of the day (because it's one of the most popular and you have to pay extra [like Rise of the Resistance] if you want "lightning lane" access to it); however, it was not ready to open when the other rides were (and neither was the Spider-Man: Web Slingers ride, which was our second option) so our first ride (and by far the favorite ride for most of us!) at California Adventure was the Guardians of the Galaxy ride. The only kiddie ride we hit in California Adventure was the Monster's Inc ride. We were all definitely ok not to hit any more. We just did that one because it filled some time we needed before we went on the Soarin' ride. There seemed to be more down time in between rides that day as we waited for our times to check in for lightning lane access. Still, we preferred to find a nice place to sit to wait rather than wait in the line. Also, there were several little "shows" that occurred around us to entertain us while we waited, especially in the Avengers Campus. We watched Spider-Man scale a building and Black Widow and Black Panther battled some evil foes to protect the Vibranium. We did finally ride the Web Slingers ride then went over to Cars Land to ride the Radiator Springs Racers. From there, we headed to Pixar Pier to enjoy the Incredicoaster (and a Jack Jack Num-num cookie...basically a large, dense, delicious chocolate chip cookies), Ferris wheel, and Goofy's Sky school roller coaster. While we were over there, we got to watch Disney's Lunar New Year parade featuring Mulan and Mushu. It was fun to see that area of the pier all decorated for Chinese New Year. We even got to write a wish and hang it up on a wishing wall. There were several other rides in the park, but they were geared towards the younger kids...and Jonas had no interest in those so we hopped over to Disneyland for a couple hours. We went back to the Millennium Falcon ride and Buzz Lightyear ride. We also hit Autotopia, which we hadn't done the day before. By that time, it was getting towards dinner and we were all a little hungry. Plus, the wait times were increasing and we decided to call it a day.

Our final day was Saturday (January 29th). We met up with Nichole and Ryan again and hit all the favorites between both parks! Can I just say there were several little tender mercies that occurred today? First, we were scheduled to start at Disneyland and Nichole and Ryan were scheduled to start their day at CA Adventure. It's a long story but basically, to limit capacity at the parks, they require you to get a reservation as to which park you'll start at then you can't "hop" until after 1:00 p.m. When we first went to ask if there was any way to change our reservation to start at CA Adventure, we were told no. However, we were instructed to talk to another customer service agent who was able to get our tickets switched so we could stay together. Another tender mercy was our ride at Radiator Springs. Jonas wanted to repeat the two Star Wars rides and Space Mountain at Disneyland then Radiator Springs Racers and Web Slingers at California Adventure. Radiator Springs was an additional fee ride so everyone else decided to sit it out. This ended up being a blessing in disguise because we were unaware that we could only do two of the "extra-pay" rides (e.g., Rise of the Resistance, Web Slingers, and Radiator Springs). If everyone went with Jonas and I to the Radiator Springs Racers, we wouldn't have had the option to pay for the lightning lane access at Rise of the Resistance and would have had to wait an hour plus. However, since the majority of the rest of our party could pay for the Rise of the Resistance, Jonas and I got to go in the lightning lane with them. While we were at California Adventure, we also threw in the Guardians of the Galaxy ride (three times!), the Incredicoaster (another three times!) and the Silly Symphony Swings (which Jonas was not happy about because he had to ride in a double seat with me because he wasn't 7 years old yet) before we hopped over to Disneyland. There we rode both Star Wars rides and Space Mountain. Finally, our day was coming to a close. We decided to slow things down with a train ride around the park before we left to get dinner. I thought we were done after that, but Danny convinced us to return to the park to get ice cream sundaes at Ghiradelli in California Adventure and ride the Incredicoaster one more time. He then met up with Kate to stay until the park closed while the rest of us went back to the hotels. We said goodbye to Nichole and Ryan then turned in for the night for a super early flight the next morning. Our trip couldn't have gone better! All of us, including Jeff, really had a great time. At one point, we ran into someone we knew from here in West Mountain. This gentleman does research for different corporations then helps them with marketing...I think. I'm actually not really exactly sure what he does, but he pulled us aside and asked to interview us about our Disneyland experience (e.g., why we chose to come, etc.). In the process of the interview, he talked about Disneyland being a type of pilgrimage for some people. He asked us if that were to be true, what would cause us to make this pilgrimage? Connecting with that childhood innocence. That was my answer. There is something magical about the memories of a time in my life that was uninhibited with the burdens of maturity. I hope Jonas (and Danny) will feel that. I hope that there are other places that hold that innocence for them... places they can retreat to when life seems to be too much... places that only conjure memories of happiness, joy, and love. We all had a blast! I'm sure it will be a few years before we return, but I'm grateful that we finally had the chance to go.