California Adventure Day 1 (part 1)

 The next day we were excited to go to California Adventure for the first time ever! We decided not to take the shuttle today because we realized it was cheaper to take an Uber than to pay to park at the park and we didn't have to walk as far either. We also found out our hotel had a shuttle that we could take at night back to the hotel. 

Rested, refreshed and ready to go

We had heard that Radiator Springs always had the longest wait time so we decided to run there first. (Remember what happened with peter pan....). When we got there the ride was broken. This time though we decided to just wait it out because we were pretty close to the front and we knew going back later we'd likely have to wait just as long. It was a pretty cool ride...not sure its worth the 60-90 minute wait times that last all day but its pretty cool. Cars land is awesome though! Its completely immersive- totally feels like you've entered the movie. 

our car

After cars, we rode the other rides in cars land. We rode Luigi's ride and Mater's Jamboree.

Next we took a walk-through Avengers Campus which was....fine. It wasn't really anything special and we weren't impressed. 

The next ride was Monsters Inc. Mike and Sulley to the Rescue. It was a super cute ride. They did a great job of telling the story. On the way we past by this fun picture taking spot too :)

Mike and Chip

Next was the Animation Academy. This building has three parts to it. The Sorcerer's Workshop, Turtle Talk and the Animation Studio. 

Sorcerer's Workshop

Mirror, Mirror on the wall....

Turtle Talk

Animation Academy

We got to learn to draw a character from a disney animator. We were there for the Pluto class. It was pretty cool to learn and see that the end product really looked like Pluto.

We got to see a lot of characters in the park. 

Nicole and Nick

Snow White and Dopey

Goofy

Nicole and Goofy

Loki

To be continued....

Disneyland Day1 (part 1)

 Mike and I took a trip to Disneyland and California Adventure all by ourselves as a Christmas presents/ belated 10 year anniversary trip. It was so much fun! I love anytime I get to spend one on one time with Mike!

Let me start at the beginning. We left very early in the morning to go straight from our house to Disneyland. After about 5 hours of sleep we were on the road and extremely excited! We got to the Toy Story parking lot right at 7am and got front row parking to catch the shuttle to the park. We got through security without a problem and once we got to the park we just had about 10 minutes until the gates opened. 

We got new backpacks just for the trip :)

We got in fast and while we waited for the rope drop at 8am we took some pictures :) I wish someone could have taken a picture of me walking in because I would love to have seen the smile on my face. The tree was beautiful even though it was cloudy and I was practically skipping down Main Street. 

Astro Orbiter

My favorite ride

So we had a plan for when the rope dropped. Our plan was to run straight to Peter Pan because its one of the most popular rides. Their was a problem with our plan though. The ride was broken. So we waited for a few minutes but when it wasn't getting better we left to go on a different ride.

Our first ride of the day ended up being Pirates of the Caribbean. It was our first time on this ride and we were surprised to find out their were drops on this ride. We liked it though- I would rank it a 8/10 only because it was a little warm on the ride and getting bumped by the other boats wasn't great. 

Next was another first, Indiana Jones. This ride gets a 10/10 for me! The design is awesome and so is the story. We got to sit in the front row of the jeep and it was great! I was screaming and laughing the whole time. I really could have ridden this ride over and over again if the line wasn't so long. We got lucky and were able to just walk right on.

Next we rode Big Thunder Mountain (10/10) which was amazing and easily one of my favorite rides in the park, the Millenium Falcon (I wasn't impressed- 4/10) and of course winnie the pooh (9/10) (for Daniel).

Don't let the smile fool you...I was nervous

Now we come to the interesting part of the first day. After winnie the pooh I was feeling kind of weird. I thought I was just hungry so I ate one of the rolls I had brought as part of our lunch. When I didn't feel any better, I went to the bathroom. After that I was still cramping really bad and just really uncomfortable. So we sat down by the castle and then I tried to distract myself by taking pictures in front of the castle. Can you tell I'm in pain and really just wanted to lay down?

Next we decided to go walk through the castle but as we were going through the middle I suddenly had a huge cramp and had to sit down. So we sat down on a bench by the castle and I told Mike I was going to walk to the bathroom because I was worried I was going to be sick. I barely made it and I saw my reflection in the mirror and I was white as a sheet. After a few minutes of nothing happening I limped my way back to Mike. I'm honestly not sure how I made it back. I was shaking uncontrollably, I felt dizzy, nauseous and my hands were tingling. 

Anyway, Mike got a cast member and they went and got the medic. Other than the pain I was in, everything else was perfectly normal. They and I had no idea what was wrong. Since we didn't know, I was taken to the hospital. So the last ride of the morning was me being wheeled through Disney on a stretcher and riding in an ambulance (0/0).  

All of the above happened in the first 2 1/2 hours we were at the park. I have to give a shout out to the cast members and staff at the hospital. Everyone was amazing! From the workers at the park who formed a privacy wall around me, to the medics and ambulance drivers who were so patient and nice. Everyone at the hospital was great too and Mike got to stay with me the whole time! We were at the hospital for about 4 hours and once the pain meds kicked in, I was fine to go back to the park.

More to come.......