Thursday, October 16, 2008

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!

13 comments:

  1. I can't believe she left her hat on!!!! What a cutie! When Blake was just over one he liked the rides, but it freaked the girls out big time. It took them a few rides to figure out that things weren't real - like the jungle cruise animals attacking the boat.

    ReplyDelete
  2. so fun. we love disneyland! that picture of the owl in front of the castle is awesome, and kirsten is so cute!

    ReplyDelete
  3. What cute pictures! I need a vacation :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. I still dream of going to Disneyland!!!! If we ever go, it'll probably only be one time, so I want to do it when all my kids are old enought to remeber, but young enought to think it's fun. (Though I think even teenagers love disneyland!)

    Looks like you had a blast!! (Even though you couldn't ride some of the bigger rides.) But the people watching and cool pictures would be enjoyable pass times!!

    And you should TOTALLY do the tag. You were the one person I thought I should tag! Do - I'd love to see your answers!

    ReplyDelete
  5. i imagine those rides were closed because the decorate those for the holidays. most likely haunted mansion was getting outfitted for halloween.. which is SOO AWESOME!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Yay! I'm LOVING all these Disneyland pictures! :) Thanks for some cute, cute posts.

    ReplyDelete
  7. WOW! How exciting! My family would go to Disneyland every year growing up. What great memories!
    #1 - Adorable pictures!
    #2 - So sweet of you to share!
    #3 - I'm surviving school!!!!
    I had midterms this week!
    MIRACLES never cease -
    I am ranked #1 in Math 100
    I am ranked #2 in Eng 103
    I have to keep it up...
    Waiting for another grandbaby call
    who knows when..She is already at a 4! A grandbaby girl!!!!
    Your infant picture on the right is interesting.
    Keep smiling!
    Love as Always!
    Anonymous

    ReplyDelete
  8. Oh. My. Gosh. I haven't been in 20 year and cannot wait to take my kids!

    ReplyDelete
  9. It sure looks like you all had so much fun! Too bad she was a little scared on some of the rides!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Awhh bless her heart! I'm sure it would be scary if she's never experienced them! :) Looks like ya'll had fun though!

    ReplyDelete
  11. I need to go to DisneyLand!! It's been too long. I haven't even been to California Adventure... sigh... That's a bummer that A Small World was closed--that's got to be one o fmy favorites...

    ReplyDelete
  12. Darling pictures!!! My least favorite ride was definitely Tower Of Terror. OHHH, I hated it!!! Kirsten looks so cute! Disneyland would be awesome even if you are pregnant because there's still so much to do. the Nemo ride had a 3 hour wait when we went there so we got there the first thing our 2nd day and still had to wait 45 minutes...argh!!

    ReplyDelete
  13. It's good to know that the second week of September isn't very busy, I'll make sure to keep that in mind when we plan our next vacation...now lets keep it a secret so that people stay away! :-)

    We loved Tower of Terror, BTW.

    ReplyDelete

Comments make me happy :)