The Rides!!!

Disneyland is the happiest place on earth ALL year long in my opinion, but it especially was in the second week of September! We started out there on a Monday, and the two parks had SO few people at them! We didn't even need to use many Fast-passes because we walked right onto almost all the rides! Need proof? Here you go:Seriously, signs like that were very common! A lot of them actually said 5 minutes was the wait time, but we still walked right on! It was amazing! The only two rides that were closed while we were there were Small World and the Haunted Mansion. The weather was also great. It was warm enough to go on the water rides and feel refreshed, but not too hot. LOVED it!

I've been going on Disneyland rides for my entire life, and I adore them. I'm not nearly as familiar with the rides at California Adventure, but they were fun!
Here's my guide to the rides: (oh yeah, get excited!)

Ashley's Favorite Rides-
Splash Mountain
Indiana Jones Adventure
Pirates of the Caribbean

Ashley's Least Favorite Rides-
The Teacups (yep, it's the only one I dislike)

The Scariest Ride At Disneyland-
Snow White's Scary Adventures (yes, it's a kid's ride, and YES they call it scary for a reason! When the evil witch came out of the wall right towards my face it startled me so badly that I grabbed onto my friend Stacy's arm and screamed my head off! It was really funny to everyone else, but it freaked me out!!!)

Rides I Rode For the First Time On This Trip-
-Nemo's Submarine Voyage- this one did have a line, but it was worth it because it was a long ride and really cute! I liked it.
-Monster's Inc. at California Adventure- Cute ride, worth riding once.
-Grizzly River Rapids at California Adventure- Totally awesome rapids ride, and got me totally soaked!
-Toy Story Arcade at California Adventure- this one's new, and similar to the Buzz Lightyear ride at Disneyland except it's a LOT more fun! I rode this one a whole bunch of times and kept improving my score. Best-kept secret: Get in the single-rider line! You practically walk right on and bypass the entire line!

Rides I Couldn't Ride Because I'm Pregnant-
Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, the Matterhorn, California Screamin' Coaster, Tower of Terror, Indiana Jones (bummer!)
Those are all fun rides, but really the list of things you can go on while pregnant is so much longer!

Things To Do While Everyone Else Rides Those Rides-
-Eat
-Shop
-People-watch
-Take pictures of things you might not normally see, like this one:

For a much different point of view, here is Kirsten's Guide to the Rides, or Rides From the Perspective of a 15 month-old:

Kirsten's Least Favorites Rides-
Almost all of them. :) I'm sure it's different for every kid, but she really didn't like many of the rides. I thought she would love Dumbo (what kid doesn't?) but she got really scared and cried most of the time. She just hated the wind blowing so fast in her face.

She also cried through Peter Pan (my favorite kid ride!), so I knew the rest of the Fantasy Land rides would be disasters. She tolerated the Winnie the Pooh ride okay, but at that point I figured we'd just stop trying the rides for now.

Kirsten's Favorite Rides (otherwise known as the Only Rides She Liked):
-Heimlich's slow-moving little Bug's Life ride in California Adventure. It was really cute and moved so slowly she couldn't help but like it! The whole Bug's Life land was adorable and meant for really young kids.

-The Spinning Ladybug ride in the Bug's Life land. It was like a slower, smaller version of the teacups, and she did okay on it.

-The Jungle Cruise! We finally found a whole-family ride that she enjoyed! It moved so slowly and she liked seeing all the "animals" off the sides of the boat. I'm sure she would have liked Small World as well, but it was closed.

My parents emailed me this picture of them from Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters. I thought it was pretty funny, and I'm sure anyone who knows my parents will enjoy this too!

The Disneyland rides are so awesome! Hopefully Kirsten will think so too the next time we take her there. We had such a great time on them!