Disneyland - Day 1

The boys and I got to the airport in plenty of time for our flight to Los Angeles.  I am always expecting the worst - long lines at check-in, long lines at US Immigration, longest lines at security, but we pretty much saw no lines at all.  It was very quiet at the airport.  The only little hiccup was when the airport security folks picked Marty out to swab his hands for explosives, and pulled me aside for a full body pat down or the lovely full body x-ray machine.  I always choose the scanner, but it freaked the kids out a little, since there was no other adult to stay with them or explain what was going on when their mama went into a machine and stood with her hands above her head.  At least it was  over quickly (and not surprisingly, Marty tested negative for explosives residues).

Since we had so much time to kill before the airline departure, we stopped at the Starbucks (there ain't a lot of other options in the US departure lounge).  Marty deemed the hot chocolate completely delicious.  Ben insisted on a white chocolate mochachino (spelling?) and then found it too 'strong'.   Probably too much coffee in it and not enough hot chocolate and sugar.

Once in LA, we grabbed our suitcases and headed outside just as a Disneyland Express bus was pulling up.  Very serendipitous.  I love not waiting for buses, and we were the first family to be dropped off at our hotel once we reached Anaheim.

We stayed here.  It was fine.  I'd stay here again.  It is fantastically located about a five minute walk from the main gates of Disneyland and California Adventure, and there are plenty of restaurants like Denny's, IHOP and Tony Roma's very near.  Kids loved IHOP and Tony Roma's.  (Denny's overcooked the bacon, so was not on the loved list).   This Ramada is an old motel, like many of the others surrounding it, so it tends to look and smell old, at least the room that we had.  But it was reasonably clean and quiet and we didn't spend a lot of time in the room.  Breakfast was free, but it wasn't very good.  Toast, a couple kinds of cold cereal, instant oatmeal and donuts.....  that kind of breakfast.  I found the coffee undrinkable, a sip just made me shudder.  So I made coffee in the room, there was a nice little coffee maker, microwave and fridge.

As soon as we checked into the motel, the kids wanted to race over to Disneyland.  So we did.  It seemed warm, so we didn't really plan ahead and take hoodies, but we were pretty cold once the sun went down.  Once in the park gates for the first time we hopped on the train and did a quick circuit of the park, getting off in Fantasyland.  Space Mountain was our first ride.  We had to wait about 20 minutes, which seemed forever to me!  LOL, you can take a girl out of the country but........   The kids just loved this ride.  It's basically a roller coaster in the dark, whipping through space.  Gorgeous with all the constellations and planets and Milky Way and so on, although I didn't know that at the time.  I was worried about my glasses flying off around a tight corner, so I took them off for the ride.  Great strategy for not losing your glasses, but terrible for vision.  The whole thing was a really fast blur.  We did Space Mountain again the next day when I was wearing my contacts so that I could actually see the visuals on the ride.

Our first meal in California was at the pizza place below Space Mountain.  Three slices of pizza and three soft drinks =$30.  Ouch.  We spent the next few hours exploring and going on more rides such as the Buzz Lightyear Asteroid shooting one, Haunted Mansion and the Big Thunder Mountain Roller Coaster.  Such fun and no lines.  We basically just walked right on.  We tried the Fast Pass system for Star Tours, which was fantastic but made me motion sick.  I sent the kids on it by themselves the next day, not wanting to risk feeling ill for hours afterwards.  Funny how increasing age has made me so susceptible to getting sick.  I used to have a stomach of steel.