Disneyland Vacation: Day 4

Well I feel like I have to start off by saying that this was definitely our least favorite day so far. There were, of course, lots of fun times, but overall it was a pretty rocky day. There were two factors that contributed to this. First, California Adventure isn't our favorite. We really mostly went there because lots of people have told us that they've added a lot of great stuff for kids since the last time we were there. And they have, that's true. But the problem is that everything is so spread apart that we spent a ridiculous amount of time walking to and from our destinations. And it seems like they hire the B-list employees over there. Like you start working at California Adventure and then if you make the cut you get to move up to Disneyland. Everything was slower, there were lots more lines (even though there were much less people), and the employees just weren't in character like they are at Disneyland. It's an acting job working there. Even if you aren't feeling in the best mood, you play the part and act like you're having as much fun as the people visiting. The employees here didn't do that. That was problem number one. Second, Kaylie pretty much hit the wall today. After three later-than-normal nights in a row and two jam packed days, she was just over tired. So she wasn't really herself all day and that made it harder for Phil and I to enjoy ourselves, too. She wasn't being bratty, just tired and miserable. Okay those were the two negatives. Here's the rest of our day:

We got to have a little more relaxing morning because California Adventure doesn't open until 10am, so we didn't have to rush as much. And that part was really nice. This morning Kaylie decided she wanted to be Cinderella, so I got her dressed in her pretty dress and did her hair up in a cute little bun, just like Cinderella's. She looked adorable and was very proud of her outfit. She got lots of compliments the whole time she wore it.

Our little Cinderella.

Since we had a little more time before the park opened, we decided to stop in the shop at Downtown Disney again to let the kids browse. Once again Kaylie landed on the Pluto doll. She was more disappointed this time when we left him behind and gave him a sweet hug and kiss before she put him back. After that we were pretty confident that he would be who we were going to end up taking home with us.

 

Phil and the Chewbacca backpack.

She just loves him.

The first thing we did when we got to the park was the Ariel ride. "The Little Mermaid" is probably my favorite Disney movie, due in large part to how awesome the music is, so I just loved the ride. It was colorful and fun and really well done. Drew sat with me in our little seashell car and he just looked and looked at everything. He seemed to really enjoy it. When we got to the part where we were entering Ursula's cave one of her pet eels was overhead and talking and Drew thought it was really funny. Kaylie said she liked the ride but that it was a little scary. I think that reaction was due to the fact that she was already starting to get tired.

When you're entering the midway area they have a zeppelin ride that Kaylie wanted to go on. There was no way in the world that I was going to get anywhere near that thing because the zeppelins fly way out and around in circles. But Kaylie was excited to go on it with Phil so they did that on their own. She loved it. Drew and I were content to stay on solid ground and watch. We wanted to take her on a few more of the other midway rides, but she was a few inches too short for pretty much all of them.

Getting ready to ride the Zeppelin. 

On the Zeppelin!

On our way through the park to find something else to do we got to see Goofy. The lines for the characters we've seen  have been short enough at both parks that it's only taken about five minutes to get to them, so of course we let Kaylie meet him and we took a picture.

Meeting Goofy.

We were heading over to the Bug's Life area, which we'd heard great things about, but got sidetracked when we saw that they had a new Toy Story 4D ride. Even though the line looked long we decided to try it out since we were right there. We ended up waiting 45 minutes for the ride and this was the point when both kids started melting down. Drew had a dirty diaper, but we couldn't find anywhere to step aside and change him, and we couldn't find anywhere to exit the line. Both of them seemed really tired and took turns crying and wanting to be held constantly. After waiting that long we got up to the front and the two people in front of us told the employees that this big group of like seven more people who were standing outside the line where with them. And the employees just let them on! We were joking with the family behind us that we should pair up with them for the day and take turns waiting in lines and then letting each other jump in when we get to the front, since apparently you're allowed to do that. By the time we finally got on the ride Phil and I really had to turn up the enthusiasm to make sure the kids had fun. The ride is basically a 3D (I don't get the difference between 3D and 4D) midway game where you shoot things and earn points. Even though Kaylie couldn't shoot anything to save her life she seemed to have fun, but just wasn't as enthusiastic as I know she would normally have been. Drew and Phil had a great time on it and Drew even tried to shoot a little bit.

Mr. Potato Head was talking and cracking jokes while we waited in line.

Drew was falling asleep while we waited in line for Toy Story.

Ready to shoot stuff in 4D!

On our travels Kaylie spotted King Triton's Carousel and, of course, just had to ride it. She sat on a goldfish and really had fun on that one. It makes me laugh how much she loves carousels now because for the longest time she was terrified of them. After we left there we saw Mickey Mouse dressed like a ship captain and Kaylie got to give him a hug and get her picture taken.

Silly little man.

King Triton's Carousel. 

Captain Mickey

Finally we made it over to the Bug's Life area. We had decided early on that we were going to avoid the spray ground part of it until after naps so that they wouldn't go back to the hotel wet, but Kaylie was just miserable at this point and they were both fading so fast that we thought the water would be a nice pick me up. We got them in their bathing suits and let them go to town. They had an absolute ball! Both of them grinned and ran around and Kaylie screamed and screamed. At one point after they'd been having fun awhile I looked at Drew who was wandering around in the middle of a pretty heavily sprayed area and he was starting to cry, clearly unable to figure out how to escape. I laughed and looked away for a second, only to look back and see him laying on his back where he seemed to have fallen, just in time for a big stream of water to come pouring down on his middle. I ran out there immediately and scooped him up, getting soaked in the meantime, and managed to get him calm pretty quickly. He didn't get back in the water too much after that, but was very happy to wander around for a little while.

Yelling at the water. Haha. 

I love this because her face is just pure joy. 

A very unhappy Andoo after he fell and got attacked by water.

We had talked about getting ice cream after the spray area and tried to lure Kaylie out of the water with that suggestion, but she just wasn't done. We let her go a few more minutes, but then decided that it was getting close enough to nap time that we really should get them dried off. She was devastated and we tried to cheer her up with thoughts of ice cream but even that didn't work, so we decided to just go right back to the hotel. She was even more upset about the fact that we were then skipping the ice cream, so Phil ended up carrying her back to the hotel because she was crying so much. Both kids had fallen asleep by the time we got back. We got them right down to bed and were hopeful that after some sleep Kaylie would be feeling better.

Sound asleep by the time we got back.

Phil tried to get Drew to rest a little longer after he woke up early. It didn't last long. 

Not so much. She only slept for an hour, as did Drew, and even after we tried to get both of them to go back to sleep, or at least just lay still and rest, it didn't really work. So we thought, well we'll go back to California Adventure and get some ice cream and go to the Bug's Life thing to do all the fun stuff we hadn't gotten to yet and maybe that would help her perk up.

When we got back into the park Kaylie wanted to ride on the carousel *again* and she enjoyed it, but not as much as usual. It took us forever to track down the only ice cream parlor in the park (which didn't even serve real scooped ice cream, just swirly frozen yogurt stuff) and waited in line for a half an hour before we got some. We stopped in a shady area to eat our ice cream and let Drew walk around for a little bit. Kaylie did perk up after that for awhile. I think it was mostly from sugar, but at least she was smiling and having fun. It was nice to have her back for a bit.    

Getting ice cream!

Phil imitating Drew's walk. He said that if Drew was in a horror movie his role would be "Zombie With Good Posture".

Chowing down. Yes, she ate all of it, sans cone. 

He shared Mommy's ice cream and Daddy's root beer float. He's not a fan of root beer.

Once again our Bug's Life plan got changed because Kaylie wanted to go to the Monster's Inc. ride first. That's Phil's favorite Disney movie, so he was very happy to oblige. Both kids loved that ride and after it was over Kaylie asked to do it again. Since the line wasn't long we went ahead and did it a second time.

My little charmer. 

Going on Monster's Inc.

Right next to Monster's Inc. is the Muppets 3D Movie, so we went in there next. That was really fun. Drew didn't love it and got pretty restless, but Phil and I always enjoy the Muppets humor and it was really entertaining to watch Kaylie try to reach out and touch the little 3D stuff that was right in her face. She really liked that and was in a pretty good mood when we left.

Rockin' the 3D glasses. 

But not long after we left the theater she crashed again. She was fussy and miserable and not my sweet Kaylie. We made the decision to track down some dinner and then go see the Bug's Life rides really quickly, and the Crush the sea turtle interactive thing my parents had raved about and then go ahead and head back to the hotel and get them to bed on time. That plan did not work.

It took awhile to find a place that didn't have gross sounding food and we finally landed on a pizza and pasta place. Kaylie was crying the whole time we got food and the whole time we ate. (Not sobbing, mind you, but still.) We were really worried about her because she'd barely eaten or drank anything all day, in spite of our best efforts, so Phil pushed the issue and made her drink more water and eat some of her dinner. We decided right then that this was going to be the end of our evening. It's too bad, too, because Drew had perked up quite a bit at dinner and was laughing and being quite the jokester, and I had really wanted to stay for the World of Color. But Kaylie couldn't stop crying so we had to be done.

As we were walking out of the park Phil suggested that we go ahead and get her the Pluto then since it was obvious that's what she really wanted for her souvenir, and he was hoping that it would make her feel a little  better. I spotted a shop that had it so I went in and got it for her. She hugged it right away when I gave it to her, but when I asked her if that made her feel better she said, "No. I want Monkey." Hahaha. (Monkey stayed at the hotel this week because I just knew we'd lose him if he came.) Since Kaylie was so out of it Phil put her in the reclining front seat of the stroller and Drew sat on the jump-seat. He looked so grown up sitting there and we played peekaboo with him on the way back, which was fun. By the time we were out of the park Kaylie was sound asleep snuggling her Pluto.

My big guy in the jump-seat. He fell asleep sitting straight up for a couple of minutes.  

And she's out.  

We got back to the hotel and had them both in bed by 8pm and they fell asleep immediately. We're hoping that since we got them to bed on time that they'll sleep really well (maybe even a little later tomorrow) and be ready for our last full day. Especially since Blen is coming with us tomorrow and we'll be back in the real Disneyland. We're excited to start fresh tomorrow after a good nights sleep. Here's hoping our big girl will be back to her sweet, silly, fun self in the morning. Until tomorrow!