We settled in quickly to our hotel on day 3 and woke up by about 7ish. That gave us time to get breakfast, change Ellie’s Dexcom, and pack things up for Disneyland. Jeremy had found a hotel that was only about a 15 minute walk to Disney. When we left the rain started to come down hard enough we had to shelter under an overhang for a bit. The rest of the day was pretty clear. You have to walk through Downtown Disney District to get there, full of shops and restaurants. There was the Lego shop, which always has cool Lego creations outside of it.
We had spent one day in DisneyWorld at Magic Kingdom back when the kids were 4 and 6. They were interested in a few small rides and seeing lots of characters. It was crowded, crazy, and hard to figure out the FastPass system you had to work months ahead to get to work for you in the best possible way.
This day in Disneyland felt entirely different once we got going. They have a new system in place. Instead of a FastPass, you pay $20 extra per person to have the Genie Plus, which allows you to book Lightning Lanes for rides and skip the line. I did some quick research prior to purchasing our tickets and decided it would be worth the extra money. It was a beautiful system. You can use a Lightning Lane one time on each of the rides. While you can’t double up and go multiple times on a ride, you don’t necessarily have the time to do that. It saves so much time in lines. I think the most we waited if we used the Lightning Lane was 10 minutes.
We started the day in Tomorrowland. We used our Lightning Lane pass for Star Tours, then Space Mountain, then Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters. We jumped on a few more rides while we ordered our food for pick up at a specific time.
While we were in Magic Kingdom, we did Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, Pinocchio's Daring Adventures, and walked through Sleeping Beauty Castle.
After lunch, we ventured to It’s a Small World and Matterhorn Bobsled. We used our Lightning Lane on both of these. Ellie and Jeremy also went on King Arthur’s Carousel, while Madison and I looked in a few shops.
We headed to Mickey’s Toon Town. We rode no rides, although we thought about it. The rides and attractions were perfect for younger kids, but our kids were pretty much too big for much of the exploring and climbing around.
I don’t remember the order of what happened next, but we headed to Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge – a pretty cool land made to look like you were on set of the movie. We rode Smuggler’s Run (lightning lane). It is an interactive experience. You board the Millennium Falcon with 6 people. Two people are flying the Falcon, two are shooting the weapons, and two are engineers. We actually rode this ride twice by the end of the night. Madison and Jeremy piloted first; Ellie and I manned the weapons. The second time, Ellie and Madison flew, while Jeremy and I took out the enemy ships. Apparently, how you fly does actually matter, so the better the pilots, the better the ride. We saw Chewbacca from a distance, as well as some Storm Troopers and Kylo Ren. Jeremy even drank Blue Milk!
At some point, we were in Frontierland and rode Big Thunder Mountain – my favorite ride.
New Orleans Square has the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Not Ellie’s favorite due to a talking skull, but she recovered and (I think) enjoyed the ride otherwise.
We also spent time in Adventureland where we did the Jungle Cruise. Critter Country had Winnie the Pooh, which was a pretty laid back ride.
We ended the night with Indianan Jones. We had put in for our Lightning Lane pass, but when we got there the ride was shut down for some reason. That was the one ride Madison really wanted to do. We (after much drama) ended up being able to get on it at the last minute before the park closed.
By the end of the night, we were very tired and we still had to get home. Jeremy offered to go get the car, but the way the park is set up, you have to walk through so much that by the time we got to where he could pick us up, it was only another 5 minutes walking or so. My legs, back and feet all hurt to an extent I haven’t felt in a long time. We walked almost 12 miles, stood in lines (even short ones) all day, and pretty much were on on the move from 9am – 9pm.
We packed our suitcases when we got back to the hotel. Our plane left at 7:45am, which meant a 4:30 wake up to get things loaded up, rental car dropped off, and through security with time. We ended up having more than enough time before boarding the plane, but you just never know. Better safe than sorry.
We flew back to Ohio 2 days after a snow storm had passed through that part of the country. In fact on Sunday, 95% of flights in Charlotte were cancelled – that was our connection! Luckily, the mess was cleared up by the time we were flying on Tuesday. Things went smoothly. The girls and I shared a row to Charlotte; Madison and Ellie sat together on the way to Canton. We saw the sunsetting through the windows as we started our descent.
Jeremy unearthed the van from the snow, and we were home by about 8pm – where, thankfully!, my dad had snowblowed our driveway so we could get in.
We had a blast. We moved pretty much every day that were there. This was both good and bad. The girls didn’t seem to mind, but they also like trips where we get to unpack a suitcase and settle in a bit. It was a good time of year to go because it was cool at Joshua Tree. It wasn’t warm enough to give us good lay on the beach weather, but we hadn’t planned on a lot of that either. Jeremy and I have been to California together a couple times. Every time I go, it is something different. The state is huge and diverse and there is so much to see. I would still love to go back and drive on Highway 1 – Big Sur - with Jeremy sometime. I was really looking forward to Joshua Tree for some reason – maybe my obsession with going to national parks. I was not disappointed and am so thankful the girls put this on their list of places to go. I didn’t really want to go to Disney at all, but I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it. Not sure where we are headed next, but it is always so much fun.
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