California First Class - Day 15 Los Angeles

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Day 14

Day 15 - Los Angeles (Thursday 30th May 2013)

And so we reach the point of moving to the last hotel of the trip, after a getting up and being board of the breakfast on offer at the hotel, we headed down to the Mercedes Bar and Grill that we had visited when we arrived at Marina Del Ray 4 days ago. The breakfast was tasty and different, but the service was a bit slow so we were slightly behind schedule by the time we checked out of the Jamaica bay, but we were soon on the freeways heading south to Anaheim. We had always planned to delay heading off to try and avoid the traffic and for the most part we had a good drive, there was a slight interesting phase as we switched from the I-105 to the I-5 where we were driving through a residential neighbourhood, and just after 10am we were driving into the Car park of the Disneyland hotel.

We left most of our bags in the boot of the car, and just took in the ones we didn't have space for (having planned this so all that we needed for the night was in these bags). The queues are checkin were long, but reasonably efficient, so we were soon given our keys to the land cards and pointed at our room in the Adventure tower, 2nd floor (well first in our language) and a nice view over the pool.



Although the room was much smaller than any of the other hotels we had been in, it was gorgeous. but time was not on our side, we only had 29 hours before we had to head to the airport and had the whole of Disneyland resort to explore.



So after a quick bag drop we were walking through Downtown disney hoping to get to the fast pass machines for Radiator springs racers before they ran out of tickets, Almost ignoring Buena vista street we got to the machines to find that we were too late and they had run out for the day (it was just after 11am). So with a couple of hours till our lunch (1:30) at Cathay Circle, we started to explore, heading towards condor flats, but the queue for Soarin' was huge and we started to get the feeling that today (and probably tomorrow) were going to be busy days in the parks. Continuing to wander around, Grizzly river run was closed so we reached Ariel, now this was a walk on, so on we walked.

It is a lovely dark ride and a nice telling of the story, we had a bit of a pause when we saw Ariel so got a good photo of her new hair doo. but I actually liked the ice cream swirl as it looked more like hair would look under water.



We continued around paradise pier, getting some water and just taking in the area. Celia does not do roller coasters or spinning rides so our options were limited, especially as I had been to DCA and DL before so had decided to not do any ride on my own, and only do rides and attractions that we could ride together. We did do the Sun wheel, but the non swinging version. It was only a 20 mins wait and gave some great views over the park and resort, but I do wish they could work out a way to protect the people below but not have a grid of wires across all the windows.





After the ride we had a wander around the shops on the boardwalk and with a very long wait for Toy story, we headed towards Cars Land. Now this was my main reason for visiting, and wow what a land, The area is spot on for Radiator Springs.







We had entered Cars land from the entrance by Fisherman's wharf and wandered away from Radiator racers so as we got almost to the end of Cars land we got to Mater's junkyard jamboree, and with some time before our restaurant reservation and a short queue, we decided to try it... WOW WOW WOW, now I had heard reviews stating that this is a little gem, but not a single riders seemed to come off the ride without a huge SMILE on their face. It is silly and simple, a slow loading ride but a wonderful wonderful ride, Mater sings little ditties and the "cow" trailers just go round in figure 8's but you are thrown about in the ride and it just makes you smile and laugh.



After this ride and with at least a small question on if we could ride again straight away, we decided that hunger was winning and we headed to Carthay Circle theatre for our lunch and fast passes for World of Color that night.

The meal was OK, although we had mentioned Celia's food issues on the reservation they didn't seem to have taken this is to account, and just expected us to work around the standard menu. Even the actual food was OK, nothing special and not sure I would eat here again.

After Lunch we wandered slowly through Buena vista street and I did get my photo with the man and mouse that started it all.



From there we switched over to Disneyland, turning right and taking in the Haunted Mansion and Winnie the Pooh, we did look at Splash mountain as it was a warm day and with tomorrow being our last day we were not looking at getting wet that day, but the queue was over an hour which is too long to wait for any ride. We then headed into fantasyland and a quick lap of the rail road, we then took in the new show "Mickey and the magical map", a great little show and the map is the real star.





After the show we headed to find a spot to watch the afternoon parade, which at Disneyland is much later than 3pm, only starting at 6:45 and it was 7pm by the time it had passed us by.





After the parade, we headed back via the Monorail to the Disneyland hotel for a quick break and to grab the tripod to try and get some late night photos.

But just over an hour later we were walking through the grand Californian and its back entrance to DCA, we had a slight diversion into the Redwood creek challenge trail, which in the dark of night was a lovely walk and would be a great place to take a little one, from there we found our spot for World of Color. Probably my personal favourite evening show in any Disney park, just ensure you have some water proof clothing as they do spray the crowd and it is not that warm at 9pm at night. We also were a little bit late and couldn't get a tripod space.



World of color does not photograph well without a tripod but afterwards we headed back to Radiator springs, this time via the main entrance to take in the neon lights. We didn't ride anything but just absorbed the atmosphere.



The hunger was starting to reappear well it had been 7 hours since lunch, and with DCA being handed over to Grad Nights, we switched back to Disneyland for food. We found some nice salads at River Belle Terrace, and after some chats with the Cast member over what we could have (well what Celia could have) they did gift us a Cinnamon roll (which was a bit strange as that is totally the kind of thing that Celia can't eat).

We had hoped to catch Fantasmic after the food, but it was chaotic and way too many people so we decided to get out of the way before it started and thought about trying to ride Alice in Wonderland but even at 10:30 at night it had a 30 min wait, so we decided that enough was enough and we had an early start tomorrow for Extra magic hours so we headed back to the hotel for the last nights sleep in the USA.

Day 16

[parisdisneyfan]

Great day, bringing it all back to me!

[Twentyyears]

Agree, you cannot get off Mater's JYJ without smiling, loved it!
Great day.