Tinseltown Daze: To all those who come to this happy place... Welcome

It would be no surprise to anyone that knows me that I woke today a little bit excited. Today we were going to my happy place, and I could not contain my zest for the day. The only problem is, I am traveling with someone who doesn’t see the need to be organised or for that matter, stick to any kind of time frame, so it was a bit frustrating to be still at Macca’s having breakfast at rope drop.

Oh well, by the time we got there, the crowd had dispersed and our (my) game plan was shot to hell before going through the turnstiles so when the first of the characters trotted out to keep the crowds from bolting through the park turned up, I kind of went ‘what the hell’ and we lined up to meet a few princesses and Chip and Dale. From that point on we literally zig-zagged all over the park all day. Which for a ‘finish each section and move onto the next’ kind of gal, this was new ground.

The day was grey from the start, with heavy threatening clouds for the duration and they opened up intermittently. We were almost always fortunate enough to be on a ride when the rain came down, and were so thankful that our waits in outdoor lines were precipitation free. But the silver lining of a rainy day in Disneyland ( if there is one) is that the crowd numbers are down, in an already ‘off season’ time, so we rarely waited more than 10 minutes to ride anything. Which given the hours-long lines last time I was here, was a blessing. The longest we waited was for Peter Pan ( 30 mins) and of course to meet Anna from Frozen. All the other rides – including Indiana Jones … yes, even that ride – were walk on. Knowing that the weekend on (our next day in the park) is supposed to be bright and sunny, we hit a lot of the ‘big rides’ and we knocked over a huge amount of rides in the one day, while it was possible to do so.

Early in the day, we came across the meet n’greet for the Frozen Princesses and as it was a ‘must do’ on DMM’s list and a ‘limited time’ thing, we reluctantly lined up for the posted 2 + hour wait. Given the rainy day, this could have been a real disaster as the line is entirely outdoors, but the rain gods were smiling on us and we were through and meeting Anna ( not Elsa, much to DMM’s disappointment) in a record hour and a half. I’d been watching all the discussions about this wait time online for a month or more before traveling and had not once heard of less than a 2 hour wait, so we were thinking ourselves fortunate as some families in the line had been there for almost 3 hours ( can’t believe anyone would waste their extra morning magic hour entitlements waiting in a line that doesn’t open till 2 hours after they are allowed in the park but many did).

Lunch was corn dogs ( as you do) and then it was back into the rides and dodging the rain showers. My Dad used to say ‘lovely weather for ducks’ any time it was raining when we didn’t want it to be, and we found ourselves reciting this often today - every time we almost tripped over the multitude of ducks waddling all over the park. I’ve never seen so many wandering the paths and fossicking in the flower beds and begging for a snack if you sat down.

The weather really started to set in by mid-afternoon, so we decided to wander the shops a bit in an attempt to stay dry. Much selfy-ing later, after many a weird and wonderful hat had been tried on, we moved on to another under cover attraction at Innoventions. This is often a ‘only if you have time’ kind of place, but it was dry and we discovered also had the most impressive array of Iron Man suits on display so we happily indulged our love of all things Iron Man for a little while. We were also lucky to catch the last meet n’ greet of the day for Thor – a new attraction in this much maligned dome of tomorrow. It was a hoot, and he was quite the ham, very ‘in character’ and we loved getting our photos taken with the protector from Asgarde. Another fortuitous stumble-across moment.

By this point, DMM had moved from happy place to ‘feet of agony’ and was convinced that her legs would simply not hold her upright a second longer, so despite it being sacrilege to leave the park an hour before closing, I acquiesced and a quick fly through Macca’s ( being the fastest food we could think of) and the short walk back to the hotel saw liberal application of Ice Gel on the aching limbs and feet and it was off to bed for the whiny one.

Now in the peace and quiet, I’m enjoying today’s little sugary treat of a cake pop while I check out what my camera did today.

Night all xxx