Pics from my trip 8/19/09!

[~WiLdOrCa!~]

Hi!

I had a three day pass, and I finally got my photobucket thing going. Thought I'd share my Day One here. =) I don't narrate well.. but I'm sure pics tell the story!


This is Clarice, btw.. a female chipmunk that Chip N Dale were after alot. I had to look this character up! I couldn't remember her name!

Woody was jammin' on the drum! Very cool!


Stitch had licked this singer! I missed it, and caught it as he was wiping the "germs" off his face. hah!

I got a wave from Wendy!


On to DCA:


That would be ME in the yellow tank in the back row.. my son to my right with the light saber.

My only pic with the DCA letters...

Back to Disneyland for Pirates, HM, Splash and the end of Fantasmic... and another round of Pirates again... (we are Pirates fans!)

Can barely see the imagine of the cartoon dragon..


That would be the end of my Day one... I took alot more on my second day as it was a day that only my youngest and I went, and he is the one I left down there to finish high school. I am still working on those.. I'll add more later! Enjoy!

Vickie

[Coolspike9]

GREAT pics!!

[leopardchucks]

This may be worthy of a few snickers, but here goes: Who the heck is that girl chipmunk? I have never seen her before.

[RedHandedJill]

Great report! Hooray for part 2

[~WiLdOrCa!~]

Originally Posted by leopardchucks

This may be worthy of a few snickers, but here goes: Who the heck is that girl chipmunk? I have never seen her before.

I had to look her up too.. and her name is Clarice. She's a female that Chip N Dale chase after alot in their cartoons from what I can remember. I remember seeing her in the toons... but never in person!

Vickie

[~WiLdOrCa!~]

Originally Posted by Coolspike9

GREAT pics!!

Thanks! I'm not the best photographer... my husband does better.. but I thought I did pretty well.. I think I got some great fireworks shots on my third day... I was soo happy they came out good, cept for the ones with Tink and Dumbo.. I didn't have my tripod..and couldn't anyway, because we had to stand in front of the castle, instead of sit. But, still, I loved the spot!

Vickie

[micromind]

Great pics! Every time I see pics like these, it makes me want to take a few days off work and have an 'emergency vacation'!

It looks like it wasn't all that crowded, bet you had a great time.

Rob

[royaldisneyfan]

Excellent parade shots! Keep them comin!

[~WiLdOrCa!~]

Okay, here is Day Two, taken 8/25/09 (Tuesday)! Thanks for being part of this, as this day was my favorite of the three.. =)

We went from just after open to close, and the ride wait times were absolutely spectacular all THIS day as well, if not even BETTER.

This first one is me and my youngest son Ryan:


Sorry it's a bit blurry, but it was best one, and my son's fave ride! Also, we had this break down on us, later that day, and it came to a complete HALT and all the lights came on. About 10 min later, an employee came and told us we'd get a free ride again, AND he pushed us to continue through with the lights on! IT was like the SO best breakdown ever! To get the see inside of Space Mountain.. it made a great day even better. FUN!


So on to the Jedi Training Academy,FINALLY!

Some of these were facing the sun so it's a lil bit light looking..

[~WiLdOrCa!~]

Okay, there was a oopsie.. here are more pics! LOL!


We are big Pirates and Star Wars fans... yes we ARE!



And just like others.. here are the DUCKS!! woot woot!






Here is a great view across a few lands.... :



And back to the island:

Had to meet Pooh, Eeyore and Tigger....


And he doesn't try on hats.. he tries on other things... like Jack's hands!


And I bought us matching "Stitch" hook toys to wear... here's Ryan's with his popcorn bucket..


Back to the van at the parking lot, for lunch!



When we got back.. at around 5pm.. here were the wait times!



On through the castle, to Fantasyland, then to Small World!


Then off to ToonTown! I haven't been in here in awhile, and so we played, and rode Gadget's Go Coaster.. etc..



And of course, it would NOT be a visit without the great MOUSE himself!



After this, we took a break, had some dinner.. and we went and rode the Monorail, Space Mtn.. again.. and then we went around to use our fast passes for Splash Mtn! We had almost the whole log to ourselves.. we had the back, and another single rider boy had the front.. weird...



Then we went to get seats for Fantasmic an hour or so before it started:



It's hard to take pics above people's heads... and the fence. I need to scope out some better spots!


This was the second showing that night.. before that, during the fireworks, we'd loaded onto Thunder Mtn, and got to see the fireworks while riding that... I highly recommend that!
And our Pirates we rode three times.. The first one, we had the back row, second time, the middle row, and the third time, at closing we had the FRONT row.. And what is funny, is that we came down that second hill, and I was laughing, and said, 'oh darn, I didn't get wet'... and well, I no sooner said that, and a big splash came over and got me good! The guys behind us died laughing... I mean, it was a split second we had hit the bottom, and I was awwwwww oh my!
And has anyone ever gotten splashed in the room where
the cannonballs are kersplashing?? We rode in the back, and were noticing these splashes were HUGE.. and as we came around, one went kersplash..and I got wet! Made me jump!

Anyways, I have ONE more day to upload.. not sure if I will get to them tonight.. but enjoy!!

Vickie

[~WiLdOrCa!~]

Originally Posted by micromind

Great pics! Every time I see pics like these, it makes me want to take a few days off work and have an 'emergency vacation'!

It looks like it wasn't all that crowded, bet you had a great time.

Rob

I know that local school was in, and so were some local colleges.. so it wasn't really busy actually. It was easy to get around. I think it was busier our first day, and then we had our last day on 8/28 Friday.. and that was really great until evening, and for some reason, maybe rumor of the dragon.. that night it was PACKED for Fantasmic.. bigtime.

Vickie

[~WiLdOrCa!~]

Here are some Downtown Disney pics I took, while playing around, waiting for my sister to help my son and nephew get their annual passes finished up inside Disneyland.. yeah! Downtown Disney has some great atmosphere!




























And so for now, that's it. I have the rest of my third day coming.. tomorrow!

Enjoy! I sure do and did!

Vickie

[royaldisneyfan]

Fantastic TR! Glad you had fun!

[DonDuck]

Nice TR!

[~WiLdOrCa!~]

Okay, I'll try to narrate a lil more... this was my LAST day, Friday Aug 28th! And it was HOT HOT HOT. I remember being on the tram coming back from the van for lunch, and we were told it was over 103 degrees... at 1pm.. so yah, it was HOT. Not as hot as a couple days before, but hot enough! So, I knew it would be hot, so I planned accordingly and decided this was going to be sort of an "indoor" day if possible. I was expecting to see ALOT of people indoors... and well, it wasn't even busy at all in any of them!
This day, I did MORE DCA then ever. I did some things I hadn't seen before, like Animation Academy, Turtle Talk, Sorceror's Workshop, Muppet 3D, Aladdin show and walked onto Monster's Inc. I didn't think it would take very long, but I was doing these things for like 4 hours! Before lunch! I was having waaaay too much with the hands on stuff! (Like singing, I owe I owe it's off to work I go, I spent too much at Disneyland, I owe I owe) in Ursula's Den... etc.. yeah, I changed the words and recorded it... we sing that all the time. Can't resist spending money at Disneyland... yanno!?
(Thank heaven I don't have an annual pass then, eh?)

Okay, so here we go... Turtle Talk first!
This was absolutely adorable! And fun!

The fish were telling us no food or drinks allowed... hah!

Now, Crush is hard to photograph, because he moves all the darn time, so this is the best ONE I got.. and even then.... :


So after Turtle Talk, I went back into the lobby and here a couple pics I took ( with no flash! ):


This is a Toy Story "Zoetrope" that was in Character CloseUp. It was really neat, but I had a hard time watching it, because of my vertigo and imbalance I've been suffering with:


I went into the Academy and got to try my hand at drawing Pluto.. it came out looking a lil bit like Goofy... but it was fun! Here is my teacher and he gave us a preview of the upcoming movie The Princess and the Frog:


I didn't scan my drawing yet.. or rather take a picture of it... LOL!
So after this, I went to Sorcerer's Workshop for all the hands on stuff:

Beasts Library was cool:

It was too dark in Ursula's Den to get pics, and I didn't take any in the room before Beast's Library.. but there is sure alot of stuff to do in there! I was surprised there weren't many people in there.
After this I checked my Aladdin time, and still had plenty of time to go do something else, so I went over to Muppet 3D:

I liked the pre show.. and thought the show was pretty cool. I am easily amused! Then off to Monster's Inc.. walked right on... this was my second time ever riding! Lots better than waiting an hour and half... in 2006.

Then off to Aladdin at the Hyperion! Yippee!!! I'd never seen it and thought wow, I was experiencing all these first time things alone, but still having a blast!
I was sitting waaaaaaaay up high though.. and didn't know if my camera would work from that far away without the flash.. but it did pretty good!


I think Carpet and Genie are the stars of the show actually.. the role of Carpet was adorable!


So, as I left the theater, my boy's call me.. they are hungry.. so I headed toward the front gate to meet at the van for lunch. We packed a hearty lunch in the ice chest! (saves SOME money) We just needed to pick up drinks. So I run into Goofy.. and he posed for me!


But I didn't have time to take my pic with him. But this will work for me!

So, after a good lunch, and tram ride back, my oldest son spent the rest of the day with me. My younger son spent the day with his cousin, and they rode Calif Screamin' over and over and over and over, uhhh you get the picture, right? (this son is known to ride this one Single Rider 70 times in one day! and still does it!) eep!
So, we are coming back into DCA, and I notice Pluto out, so I run over, get in line and my son snaps my pic for me!



And I take over to go do Muppet 3D and Monster's Inc again since he's never been in them! (score! More A/C!)
Then we come and go see the Pixar Play Parade, which I did NOT take pics of this time around, as I wanted to "play" and not get my camera wet! I have pics and video from last year of this event. He'd never seen the parade either! So, we had a blast, then we crossed over towards the Soarin' area, and stood under the cool "steam" blast area and bought some water. Then we walked around and did the single rider for GRR...and headed over to Paradise Pier.. and walked through the boarded up areas of new construction! This was like a maze! I got daring, and rode Mulholland Madness.. eep! The girls in front of us were not laughing or screaming and I screaming like a girl! My son was laughing at me. This was a hairy adventure okay???
Then break time, I chugged down an protein shake.. and got MORE guts, and got in line for the swinging cars on the FUN WHEEL... we shared with a dad and his 2 year old, k? I'd NEVER ridden on the swingers.. and I freaked out at first.. and then had to hold it back and try to toughen up as that 2 year old was lookin' at me like I was a crazy lady! She was laughin' it up too! Okay, so I didn't want to let a 2 year old outdo me, so basically she taught me to enjoy it! Yeah yeah, okay, so this wasn't so bad... now if only the car would STOP moving, my motion sickness wouldn't be so bad! My son pointed out the barf bags... I rolled my eyes and that lil girl started laughin' again...
Okay, that over with.. we moved on up the boardwalk and did the single rider line for TSMM. Yeehaw! I got a whole 120K... the lady next to me did better with a 140K and then we both saw the scores of the day, and about fainted!
Okay, so we then went to do California Screamin'... and that one woke me up for the evening!


It was getting sunset out, so we decided to head out and go back to Disneyland to scope out some seats for "Magic". My sister called and was meeting us at the front gate of Disneyland. We were seated by 7:45pm to wait out the time right in front of the Castle. This is without a flash, and a test shot to see how it would work, then they told us we'd all be standing.


And we thought it was great spot, until everyone stood up. Not too bad still.. but annoying at times. We ate our dinner there, and chatted with people around us. Was actually not too bad! I'd never seen the fireworks shows at all from this point, so for me, it was great!
Here are a few pics, I took alot, so I narrowed it down to a couple of the best from my point of view anyways!



Yeah, that's Tink flyin' above, but blurred.. it's the best one I got of her.







This one was one of my faves.. all red!

And you can see the carosel horses on the castle!



Moving objects and no flash don't mesh well with my photographing abilities without a tripod... and so this was the best I got of Dumbo.. *sigh* But he was sooo adorable!















This was my favorite one below:


So, after Magic was over, we were heading to the Rivers of America, hopefully, to find a spot for Fantasmic! Well, it was crowded, so we snuck through the lil tunnel that goes into Frontierland near the mexican restaurant, used the bathrooms there, and got stuck in a crowd of people slowly moving towards NOS. Yes, it was THAT crowded that I felt like a salmon spawning upstream! I've never seen it so busy for the SECOND show of Fantasmic. We stood back by the cart that sells alot of souvenirs..There was NO seating left at all. So, there was no way I could take pics from where we were... so no pics of it were decent enough to show. We loved the show, and still no dragon at that point. Our other boys ran into us there, and we all did Pirates ONE more time, then they ran off to do their fast pass for Space Mtn and my sister and I did Jungle Cruise at night... one last time. Then we shopped along Main Street for a souvenir for me to take home. Got my Tink mug.. I was happy! OH yeah, and a PICKLE! I FINALLY GOT A PICKLE!! My sister was singing that Lil Rascal's type tune "I gotta pickle yessiree... ".. at me.. It was GOOD! My midnight snack. Then we met up with the boys at the Fire Station and off we went walking all the way back to the Mickey and Friends structure. The trams were packed, and it would be 4 or more trams before we got back, sooo we walked. No problem!
ON the way back, we had this group of 20 something I guess, guys... making such great jokes... we were laughing so hard the whole way. People around us slowed down just to be part of this! Nice way to end the night actually.
Or, for me and my oldest son, nice way to end our Disneyland part of our visit down there in sunny California.
Alas.. I'm eagerly awaiting my ability to come back and visit my son there... he'll be home for the upcoming Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday. I cannot get enough time for these holidays off. Bummer, cuz I love Christmas at Disneyland!
So, that's it for me.. not as exciting as some, but you get more creative the more often you go I'm sure!

Vickie