Day #3: VidCon/Disneyland

This morning started early as the kids wanted to get a jump on their conference.  As I can only share our experiences at Disneyland, I can only highlight what Emily did at the end.

We said goodbye to the kids around 8am, and they headed to the conference center, and we headed to Disneyland.  The hotel is located such that the kids have to walk one block west, and we have to walk two blocks north to get to our destinations.  It’s perfect!

Disneyland is divided up into two parks:  Disneyland and California Adventures.  Our tickets are good for going between both parks.  So, our first stop was to a café for coffee and pastries in California Adventures primarily because it is the home to the new CarsLand. As you may know, Pete is a HUGE Cars fan still, and since it only opened about 10 days ago, it is the most popular spot at Disney right now.  There was a long line for getting fast pass tickets for the Radiator Springs ride which seemed counter-productive, so we ended up just standing in line for about an hour for the ride. If you know Test Track from Epcot, it’s very similar to that…starts with a ride past the characters from the Cars movie and ends with a ‘race’ through the Radiator Springs track. 

The other two rides in Cars Land are a Luigi Tires ride where you ride airboats and bump into each other with beach balls flying around (Pete took a pass…it was also an hour wait) and a Tow Mater ride where you’re pulled by a tractor around in circles.  It was cute and the wait wasn’t as long, so we did that ride as well.

We also shopped at the Radiator Springs Curios Shop and Sarge’s Surplus Store where Pete ended up buying a lanyard with his name on it.  Pin Trading is huge at Disney, and Pete decided that’d be fun to do, so later in the day he bought some sets of pins that we pinned to the lanyard for trading with others.  The way it works at Disney, you can walk up to any cast member who has pins on their lanyard or pouch and ask to trade one of your pins with theirs.  Pete had a blast doing it on and off all day.

After Cars Land, we got fast passes for, what we decided later was probably the best coaster at Disneyland called California Screamin’.  While we waited for our fastpass time (you get passes that say you can go to the front of the line within a certain timeframe), we waited in the Toy Story Mania line.  It’s a 3D ride combined with arcade games where you stop and play each arcade game (usually shooting at targets), racking up points.  It’s really fun!

At first Peter didn’t want to do the California Screamin’ ride as it goes upside down and looks really fast, but by the time our Fastpass time came up, we had convinced him that it would be a good idea, and so he went.  His response when it was done?  “I WANT TO DO IT AGAIN!”  Guess I’m glad he tried it!

We tried the ferris wheel with gondolas that move within a loop on the wheel (not just swinging, but actual moving in a circle).  It can be quite stomach churning when the ferris wheel gets turning (I even saw air sickness bags in the gondola!)

My boys!

 After a few more rides, we headed back over to Cars Land so that Pete could eat lunch at Flo’s V8 Café.  After lunch we headed over to Disneyland and straight to Tomorrowland.  The Toy Story ride there isn’t as fun as the one we had ridden earlier (same concept: ride meets arcade game).  We then headed over to the other awesome rollercoaster in the park:  Space Mountain.  Once again, Pete LOVED it!  But who wouldn’t love a roller coaster in the dark with stars all around.  And I must say, for those of you who know the Disney World version, this one is quite different, and, I think, a lot better!  For one thing, you sit two side by side, instead of three in a line, so there ends up being four in a car.  The ride seemed smoother, too.  At the end we heard “I WANT TO DO IT AGAIN!”…another Pete-approved ride.

We rode the Matterhorn (not what we expected) and then headed over to Frontierland.  Unfortunately, the Tom Sawyer Island was closed, so we’ll need to do that on Sunday with the big kids.  Peter enjoyed Thunder Mountain Railroad, Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion.  There wasn’t much of a wait for any of these rides…everyone must be at Cars Land!

After a brief discussion, we ended up having dinner at an outdoor café with a live New Orleans-style jazz band playing right in front of us!  At that time, we heard from Emily who had just had a wonderful day and was wondering if we wanted to do dinner with her.  Oops!  We finished our dinner and ended up meeting her outside the park and walking over to Downtown Disney.  It was getting late and I knew Pete wanted to see the Disneyland Fireworks, so we left Em and Dad with appetizers and Pete and I headed back into the park.

We found a bench and were able to sit, relax and enjoy the firework display.  Pete was even able to trade a few pins in the process!  We all ended up back at the hotel room where Andy was waiting for his spaghetti to be delivered to the room (he had stayed at VidCon longer than Em and so missed out on dinner)

Tomorrow, more VidCon for the kids, and Knotts Berry Farm for us!

(From Emily about her day:  We went to the opening session. I met Charlie and Liam, I made some friends, I played in the Arcade, Andy met Tobuscus and the Rooster Teeth guys)