Trip Report in Process: Everybody In! The Whole Fam for Mom's Birthday

Love all the details! Keep letting your former English teaching self do the talking. I got a bit panicky when your bag got left behind. I was very happy to read that you weren't presented a dish of sorbet for your birthday dessert. :rotfl:
 
I second the love of all the details!!! Please continue writing to your heart's content! There's no such thing as too much detail in a DL trip report.
Great trip report! I'm loving the report so far and can't wait to read more. popcorn::
 


Day 2! Magic Morning at Disneyland!

I had serious doubts whether Rhiannon and Fiona would be able to drag themselves out of bed for this first morning. In fact, I gave them the option to NOT get up for MM, and instead wait to do it on Saturday, when we'd be joined by Liz and Cole, my DD24 and her husband. They shrugged and said, "We're up for it." "Okay," I warned, "I want to be out of the hotel by 6:15 a.m...."

Nobody slept well. Al calls it "Where am I?" syndrome. The beds are comfy, I had earplugs in, so it was quiet, and I did get SOME sleep... but we all woke frequently. I thought I was up for good at 4:30 a.m., when suddenly I lifted my head and looked at the clock again, and it was 5:45. Al was up with a towel around his waist getting ready, and said, "I was about ready to wake you up." I'd fallen back asleep at the last minute! Oh, well. I jumped up and washed my face, slapped on some makeup, and got out my Minnie Mouse Disney bounding outfit!

When the daughters stumbled on descriptions online about Disney bounding a couple of months ago, it was game over. These kids have cosplayed since they were little-- the youngest was 5 years old the first time she went to an Anime convention in full-on cosplay. This, they were absolutely familiar with, and completely on-board! They started planning their outfits and searching thrift stores for possible components. They wanted Al and I to join in, too. My oldest, Liz, and her husband were sort of "meh" about it-- I think my DSIL is too cool. :) So we decided to do our Disney bounding on Thursday morning, before Liz and Cole arrived in the afternoon.

I received a text from Rhiannon at 5:50, saying, "Can we borrow your hairbrush? We forgot ours." So I went a few doors down to their room, and found them both all dressed, makeup on, just putting the last couple of touches on, perky and cheerful. Amazing, for my normally slug-a-bed daughters! Rhiannon was wearing a short pink dress, and she'd sewed some short ruffly "bloomers" for underneath. She had a pink bow in her hair, to look like Daisy Duck. Fiona had on a pink pleated skirt that she's had for a year, then a pink striped polo shirt, and she'd put temporary pink dye in her hair and put it up in short pigtails, to be a very adorable Piglet Disney bound. I was wearing a red polka-dot circle skirt and a comfy, stretchy black wrap top, both of which I found online for a very reasonable price. I wore my Minnie ears and a Minnie Pin. I had yellow flats, but I realized my feet would not last long in them, so I decided to save them for a Halloween costume some time, and just wore my comfortable Abeo sandals. (I have terribly high arches and frequent foot problems, and normally wear custom orthotics in athletic shoes. Abeos, recommended by my podiatrist, have been a life saver!) Allen has always been a Goofy fan. So he went to the thrift store and found an orange T-shirt, a lightweight brown vest, and a green baseball cap, which he wore with his jeans. He looked great!

When I started to write this, I was digging through the notes I'd made each day, and either I didn't write them for Thursday, or I lost that page. So I had to look at my plans I'd made and try to recall what parts we stuck to and what not. So this might not be as detailed.

Everybody had muffins or granola bars in the room, and we started out right on time at 6:15. I did a Starbucks mobile order as we left the hotel, and ate an apple on my way down DTD. Lines at security were very short and quick to get through. Man, one thing I was so impressed by this entire trip was the cheerfulness of most of the security tent guys. They joked, wished me happy birthday, gave us a hard time, complemented our Disney bounding. One of them was going through my bag that morning and said, "Oh, sorry, you can't bring in outside snacks," when he saw my granola bars. I started to open my mouth in surprise when he laughed at my expression and said, "Just kidding, just kidding!" We stopped at Starbucks and our mobile order was up in a minute or two after we came in. Now we were ready for our day, with our coffee and some sustaining quick breakfast in our stomachs, and we headed for the gates! The lines were already about 15 or 20 people deep. so we picked one and hung out. It didn't seem long at all before it was nearly 7 a.m., and they did the countdown. We headed through the left hand tunnel and walked briskly up Main Street. Plenty of people were ahead of us, but we got to Peter Pan easily, with probably the first 50 people. We were on within 10 minutes. I love that ride! I'm really glad the four of us got to experience it together that first morning.

Then we did everything we wanted to in Fantasyland, in quick succession. We walked onto Alice next. I asked if they wanted Matterhorn, but we'd done it the night before, so we went to the next thing. "How about Dumbo?" I asked. They were skeptical. "Oh, come on, it doesn't really make you dizzy, and it's a classic." So we got on, and rode in front so I could get pictures of the girls behind us. They were enchanted. They laughed hysterically and took pictures of themselves.

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Next we rode on Mr. Toad, which I love. Okay, let's just admit it: I love all those goofy little dark rides in Fantasyland. To me, they are just classic Walt, original park (ish), and silly fun. After that, the girls wanted to do King Arthur's Carrousel. I've never done it at Disneyland- I always figured, why? It's one of those rides you can do at any carnival. But it's a beautiful one, and why not? Again, good decision, the girls loved it and loved taking pictures on it. I rode just ahead of them so I could take some of them and Al behind me. I also sneakily sat side-saddle (legs toward the middle) and hoped the CM wouldn't notice or object, because I felt it was much more dignified with my Minnie skirt :rotfl: The CM apparently didn't notice or care. So fun! The girls were having a blast, and Al was goofing off (Goofy, you know) pretending to fall off.

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Then we went on Snow White ("What the heck! Doom, gloom, you're gonna die, Oh hey, Happily ever After!" the girls were laughing) and Pinocchio ("Ok, Pleasure Island, seriously creepy.")

"Do you want to go on the Teacups?" "Um, NO! Projectile barfing, anybody?" But they did want to go on It's A Small World. That one... is not my favorite. But, well, okay. It was still quite deserted, so we walked right on and got our own boat. It IS quite artistic, but as the girls said, it goes on about 10 minutes longer than you think it should. They were cracking up at a lot of the displays, especially the hula dancers who were pretty much vibrating rather than dancing. We may or may not have seen a few imitations of that throughout the rest of the trip. Near the end when we were in the "Goodbye" tunnel, they got to gently rocking the boat back and forth in their silliness, when a voice came over the PA, "Please don't rock the boat." They gasped at each other with mouths wide in chagrin, then laughed in hysterical embarrassment.

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At some point during Magic Morning, Rhiannon posted one of these silly pictures to Instagram with the caption, "Magic Morning. I had such a good morning, I was giggling like an 8 year old at a sleepover."

Then, we wandered into TomorrowLand. I wanted to ride Hyperspace Mountain, but my three compatriots did not. No problem; they wandered into Star Traders to look at merch while I scanned in a FastPass. I'm a big fan of roller coasters and thrill rides, always have been. Back in the day, when we were first dating, Allen liked them too. But he has found out that in the last ten years, he can't really do them any more. The younger two of our daughters, as well, are prone to motion sickness on most of the big rides. But they don't mind when I do them by myself. I had a blast on HyperSpace, my favorite iteration of Space Mountain, as you can see by the picture below (love the original, hate Ghost Galaxy). I asked to ride in the front.

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Then, they all agreed to do Star Tours with me. I told them, "This can make you feel like you're swooping around, so if it gets intense, just squinch your eyes or take off the 3-D glasses." They all liked the queue and the theming, but alas, all three of them ended up nauseated. Rhiannon took off her glasses and said that helped, but she was still kinda sick, and thought maybe it was partly because she hadn't had much breakfast. So after that we made our way over to Tomorrowland Terrace, and mobile ordered some food. Rhiannon had the gluten free breakfast sandwich, and said it was really good. Fiona had a kid's check meal, which had just about the stuff she wanted- yogurt smoothie, fruit, and juice. I had a delicious fruit cup. Al wasn't hungry and was waiting for his stomach to calm down.

After this, my plan had been to go to ToonTown, ride Roger Rabbit, and maybe meet Mickey in his house. But the girls weren't that interested. However, Al and I were very anxious to check out Galaxy's Edge. So we headed around the Big Thunder Mt. trail and turned right, under the bridge, for BlackSpire Outpost. As we were walking along and starting to see the rock outcroppings, and the symbols on the stonework, we were already all saying in tones of wonder, "Whoa....." When we saw the gateway and went under it, I'm pretty sure all of our mouths were wide open. Even the girls, who are okay with Star Wars but not big fans like Al and I, were amazed. There were a lot of exclamations like "Wow, look at that! Whoa, look at the X-Wing! Oh my gosh, storm troopers up there!"

Let me just insert here: The original trilogy came out when I was 13 years old. Al would have been 17. We both loved it from the start. I had a set of the 4 movie posters that I had on my bedroom wall all throughout high school. Al was such a huge fan that by the time The Empire Strikes came out, he was in college, and he and a buddy camped out overnight to wait for the first screening at one of the biggest downtown Seattle theaters. So we were really excited for this. It didn't disappoint!

We saw a photopass photographer and got some pictures in front of a big banner, then in front of the First Order Tie fighter. We looked anachronistic in our Disney bounding! :rotfl:



437391 437390 Notice the Storm troopers on the scaffolding above the Tie fighter!


Then we walked over to the Millenium Falcon. Al and I were just like, "Oh... my... that's ... WOW... WOW! "

A photopass guy was there and when I said, "Bright Suns! Can we get a facial scan?" he wished me a "Happy Nameday" and lined us up. Then he had me step forward, and told the others to point at me because it was my Nameday. He also had us looking up at something at the horizon, but that looked kinda silly. :)

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I really really wanted to ride the Falcon. I asked if they minded if I tried Single Rider. They said sure, but nobody was sure how long it would take, since the posted time was like 50 minutes and I didn't have a very good idea what SR would be like at this time of day. Al said he'd stay with the girls this time. So I went off and discovered the back way into the ride, in the single rider line. I remembered hearing something about stairs, and people saying that if it was to the bottom of the stairs it would take too long. It was just about to the bottom of the stairs, but I stuck it out. I found out that's not a very good guideline, because even when there was line to get onto the stairs, I don't think it ever took me longer than 20 minutes to get on, and most of the time it was less than 10, like this time. Anyway. I got up there very quickly. Once you're to the top of the stairs there is a corner right there, and you're basically in the next few people to get on. Imagine how amazed I was when I was pulled in first with a group of 5 people, and the CM handed me-- A Pilot card!!!!


437393 Ladies and gentleman, I was right side pilot! First time!

I was totally geeking out about the interior. It looked just like the movie.

In the chess room, I was talking to the rest of the group. None of them had ever been on the ride before. The two young-ish guys I asked if they wanted to be pilot, if they were good at gaming. They both looked at each other, shrugged and said, "No, I think I'll keep what I have." I was thinking, You may regret this, but okay! So I got into the antechamber and the CM stuck me on the right side pilot position! I was thinking, "I GET TO MAKE THE JUMP TO LIGHT SPEED!!!! AAAAHHHHHH!"

It was kind of hilarious because here I was dressed like Minnie Mouse, but totally in Rey mode. I jumped into that seat, buckled and, and started roleplaying, encouraging the rest of the "team" to keep an eye out, complimenting the left side pilot on his steering skills, the gunners-- "Great shot, kid! Don't get cocky!" When I got to pull the lever to make the jump to light speed, it was practically a religious experience. :rotfl: I was whooping and hollering. We did really pretty well-- we didn't get the "It could have been worse... it's worse" sequence, and we got two canisters of coaxium. When we got done, I was congratulating everybody on a job well done. I think the others were a little surprised by my role playing, though they seemed pretty pleased with our performance.

Anyway. What a blast. I couldn't wait to do it again.

I'm at my limit for uploading images, and it's getting late, so I think I'll leave this here and continue with the rest of the day in another post, including the arrival of Liz and Cole, and our dinner at Napa Rose.

Cheers!
 


I love your report! Reading all the details and seeing your excitement is so fun. It's interesting to hear your perspective since you haven't been to the parks in awhile, too. My last trip was in December 2010, and we're planning to go in April. I have a LOT to learn now! Your daughters are beautiful, by the way- they look just like their mom! :)
 
Following along. I hope you get a chance to finish this! I got to be the right hand pilot my first time too, and the jump to light speed was amazing!
 
Oh, hey, I never finished this! I will try, soon. Things have been really busy, but right now I'm home feeling slightly sick with a mild cold (that I really hope doesn't turn out to be coronavirus). So maybe I'll dig out my notes and try to recall some more details. :)
 

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