Disneyland 2009 - Return and Report Vol. 2: Our Weekend Starts On Wednesday

Hello Kinderfriends!

Seana has threatened to disembowel me with a "The Hills: Season 1" DVD if I didn't finish the job and complete the Return and Report series as it relates to Disneyland... so, as an attempt to avoid having to try and pull shattered parts of Spencer's creepy, flesh-colored beard out of my abdomen, I figured I should respect her wishes and bring you...

The awesome...

IIIThe amazing...

DAY TWO OF DISNEYLAND~!!!

(cue fanfare)

I SAID CUE FANFARE!

That's better.

Now that we're all in the mood, let's talk a little about Disneyland, shall we? Wednesday started out much like Tuesday, except we left the hotel about 20 minutes EARLIER to arrive at the park that much earlier. Because of this, we got a decent place in line.

Now, you may be asking yourself "Jay, why in the world would you possibly need to get to the park that early?" And I would answer you: The Nemo Submarine, of course.

You see, the Nemo Submarine isn't any regular old run-of-the-mill crapperware ride, oh no no. It is apparently the greatest ride in the history of man, judging by the constant lines (a minimum 60-90 minute wait) that were seen from open to close. Now, we had wanted to ride Nemo's Submarine, but didn't want to wait in line... what were we to do?

Oh wait!

Do you guys remember when I told you about RideMax?? Well, we did. We told RideMax we wanted to ride Nemo's Submarine, and so it told us we should make it the very first ride we do when we got into the park. Here's where the astonishing part comes in:

People run to rides at Disneyland.

Seriously.

And we're not talking a "Hey, I'm trying to catch the city bus" run, we're talking an Olympic-level sprint to rides.

Hey, Usain, how was Space Mountain??

I must stress this as much as humanly possible: I did not run to Nemo’s Submarine. I am a self-respecting person who doesn’t like to look like a giant moron. I was also on my vacation, and I’d be damned if I was going to run on my vacation. This concerned Seana... after all, our entire schedule relied upon getting onto Nemo’s Submarine in its first run, because we had other, bigger plans for the day. So, as soon as I got into the park, I made a bee-line for Fantasyland... and I was getting passed by people doing their ultimate Michael Johnson impression. But I stuck to my guns and calmly walked.

I must report to you, there is no better feeling than the one I got when I calmly walked up behind the first person in line, who was already sweaty and red-faced from his exhilarating sprint from the gate to Nemo.

The ride itself wasn't awful... kind of cramped and a little loud. But Kate liked it, and that's all that matters.

He's looking for his refund.

After Nemo, we rode Autopia... Katelyn is a terrible driver, by the way.


And then, we headed to ToonTown, where Katelyn got to meet a hero:

Kate and Minnie Mouse

But the highlight of the entire day was no doubt the Princess Lunch. For the uninitiated, the Princess Lunch is in Ariel's Grotto, at California Adventures. For about $30 a person (ouch) you get to go have lunch as 5 of the Disney Princesses walk around and do a meet, greet and photo with the kids at the table.

Since the party was at Ariel's House, we got to meet her first:


Unbeknown to us, we were selected to be the "Guest Family" of the meal, which meant we got to go up in front of the room and announce the first of the Princesses... she got a kick out of that, and, I'm sure, thought that everyone was there to see her, and not the Princesses.

Belle was the Princess we announced:

Then we met Snow White:

Princess Kate didn't feel like leaving her throne... the Cheese Shells and Goldfish were too good.

Then Cinderella:

Kate thought it was hilarious that they had the same dress

And Princess Aurora (Sleeping Beauty):

Katelyn's waving to me in this picture, as Sleeping Beauty told her to say "Hi, Daddy"

After the Princess Lunch, Katelyn was having sensory overload, so we decided to go back to the hotel (2 block walk!) for a rest. We came back to the park later to ride Jungle Cruise and afterward, this happened:

So, the second day ended much like the first, and a tuckered out Katelyn slept back to the hotel.

Bye-Bye friends.