Cosmic's coming to the land of Queen Calafia!

I love Shh-Boom! Agreed!

Oh. My. Gosh. Your kids are absolutely adorable! Sydney's a little ginger! LOL, J.J. was so quiet! Sydney was screaming her butt off. I can't believe she got on California Screamin'. Amazing. I can tell she's going to have a ball on Mickey's Fun Wheel. I can't wait to meet your kids!

She's still too short for Screamin'. She's done BTMRR, Star Tours, Soarin' Over California, Radiator Springs Racers and Tower. Today's to-do list: Splash and Space.

So what's the plan for today?

I'm guessing J.J. won't be riding Space?

Um, well... J.J. had his first and last ride on Space Mountain today.

Oh no! Maybe it was too dark for him? Was he really scared?

I don't think he liked not being able to see where you're going. Oh well. Sydney liked it, of course.

Tuesday... My wife got in line for Racers FPs right at opening and I took the kids on Mermaid. For some reason, Racers didn't open until noon today and Luigi's hasn't opened with the park the last two days, so not all that much to do in Cars Land at the beginning of the day. I rode Screamin' for the first time! It was a really nice coaster: not too short, good thrills, good view of the park. I thought it felt smooth even though I was riding in the last row. The good thing about Racers being down until noon is that we were able to ride twice today without much waiting: one FP run and once when we were eating in the really remote outdoor part of Flo's that runs along the walkway to Pacific Wharf and we got in line before the ride re-opened when we saw them cycling empty cars. We waited probably about 20 mins each time.

When we got to Disneyland, all of Fantasyland was closed for the filming of "Saving Mr. Banks". I didn't get to see Tom Hanks, but the CM I talked to did say that he was sitting near Alice a little while ago. So I saw a place where Tom Hanks recently was! Celebrity sighting! Did Buzz, Space and Star Tours and then headed to see Merida. Merida and Sydney got along really well...



And I can't not include this picture, even though it's from yesterday:

Weird that Luigi's hasn't been opening. I wonder what's going on with that? You were very lucky to only wait for 20 minutes for Racers! Those are rare times!

I'm wondering what Fantasyland CMs did yesterday. Too bad I'm not a Fantasyland CM anymore LOL. Maybe you'll be able to see him today! Weird, though. Fantasyland now doesn't look like Fantasyland fifty years ago.

Sydney looks like Merida, and I can tell she's having a blast! She looks so happy!

I think they're being pretty careful about what they film. I noticed that the snow on the roof of Sleeping Beauty Castle seems like it's been done for a few days, but there's not really any other decorations up on it... I think maybe they're going to shoot just some close-in ground level shots with the castle?

Productive day today, even though it's the first day of our trip where we didn't step foot in DCA or ride Radiator Springs Racers! We mostly filled in some of the blanks on our Disneyland map... we did most everything available in Fantasyland--Snow White, Peter Pan, Pinocchio, Toad, Carousel and Alice. We also did Pirates, Mansion, and the Golden Horseshoe too. Not too much left that we haven't done in Disneyland! Over in DCA, we still haven't done Monsters, Midway Mania or most other things on Paradise Pier yet. And no nighttime shows yet, either!

It was heavy on Alice today: Alice and the Mad Hatter walked both holding Sydney's hand in the morning when she wanted to get a picture with Alice, we finally got to ride the Alice dark ride, and then Alice and the Hatter (and the Queen!) noticed Sydney again a couple of hours later when she was trading a pin with a CM! Good character interactions the last couple days... Merida was very friendly yesterday and Sydney really ate up the whole Alice thing today.


And who can resist trying to pull the sword out of the stone?

Yay for Fantasyland! My hometown Were your kids scared of any of the dark rides? I'd be surprised if they weren't. I'm terrified of Snow White. Sounds like a successful character meet and the Sword in the Stone is always a must. You've almost accomplished your lists!

Scared enough to come off the ride crying? Nah. A little unsettled? Maybe. I think maybe Snow White in particular is probably scary enough that they might want to ride it again before we leave, but they won't exactly be rushing back there. The new projection effects in there made me happy, though!

Good. There's nothing worse than hearing the screams and cries from small children come from inside the ride, before they even make it to unload. Yes, I like the new effects, too!

Is Universal still on the schedule for tomorrow? Let me know if we're still going or if you've changed your mind!

My bro-in-law decided that he wants to hang out with his girlfriend tomorrow and do Uni during Thanksgiving week, instead. We'll be at Disneyland, though, if you can swing by that way?

If it wasn't raining tomorrow, I'd be there! I live much closer to Universal, but you guys have fun tomorrow!

Thursday started off by taking my brother-in-law's car into the shop. I got most of the way through Walt Disney: An American Original. Unfortunately, they fixed the car right when things were heating up!

After that, it was the Getty Villa. WOW! A huge house on the Malibu coast styled after a Roman mansion that was destroyed in Herculaneum? Filled with antiquities? Sign me up! I only have one slightly bad thing to say about the museum: the main drive up to the parking garage was a replicated Roman road with giant cobblestones... maybe driving your car up what felt like a 45 degree angle in the rain was not the time for authenticity. It was raining while we were there, so we didn't lounge out in the gardens. It alternated between a slight sprinkle and a soaking rain, so we were still able to explore the outside and it was still beautiful. There were a good number of things out from behind the glass and not even with ropes; you could get a few inches away from a bunch of these wonderful statues and really look at the craftsmanship. The house was almost as cool as what was on display: frescoes, cupolas, gardens, fountains and there's a room called the "colored marble room" with maybe a dozen different colored marbles from around the world to show you where they're from. Marble is everywhere in the house, and I noticed at least one other room that had an informational card explaining the different types. Going up to the second floor, even one of the handrails was carved into the marble wall!

This statue was restored in 1594... even the restoration is now a classic work of art.

The Getty is so gorgeous. And so is Malibu! So many great art pieces to see.

I got to do four things in the last four days that I've never done at DL before: Fantasmic!, Believe... In Holiday Magic, World of Color and it's a small world holiday. Let's go in order: we saw World of Color at 8, then ran through Believe on our way to see F! at 9. We saw Instant Concert... Just Add Water! for the first time on Friday, too. It was then that I realized how big the fountains are and how close to them you can get... got me excited. The show itself was amazing! Sometimes as grown-ups, we have to deal with "seeing the strings" and "knowing how the sausages are made", but they did some things with lights and water that I did not know lights and water could do. And I don't care to find out! Just a really cool show, and we even got to see the holiday tag (I think that was actually my favorite segment). Believe was... a castle fireworks show. I love fireworks over the castle, but one fireworks show is pretty much the same as the next to me. If it goes BOOM, I like it. It was my first chance to see the fake snow on a MSUSA since I was a kid, though. As someone who deals way too much with the real stuff, I was pleasantly surprised by the fake stuff. I was standing by Coke Corner and looking back towards the train station almost got me a little nostalgic! It's probably because I haven't had the first snowfall at home yet this year. And Fantasmic! ? It's almost not fair that it shares a name with the Florida version, because the DL version is just in another universe; I cannot think of single aspect of the show that's inferior in California. That was my Friday. Sunday, we dropped in for a couple of hours in the afternoon and checked out small world holiday. Very nice. It managed to feel like Christmas and still feel like small world at the same time, too. I guess that's all you can ask for, right?

And what happened in between? Desert time! I think the highlight was the Pines to Palms scenic drive. Wow! If you ever rent a supercar in the LA area, take it here! Just the twistiest, windingest, almost-falling-off-a-cliffiest road I've ever seen in real life. It was just like a road in a car commercial; I would not be surprised if car commercials have already been filmed here. It actually gave me flashbacks to Radiator Springs Racers, as there are points with sheer cliffs hugging either side of the road. It starts off right off of I-10 in Banning, and you top off somewhere north of 6,000 ft above sea level before descending on the other side of the mountains in the Palm Springs area. There are lots of lookouts with great views:


I got out as we were working our way down into the desert and this is what the road looked like beneath: