Adventures In Public Transport - Day 21 - DCA

[Disney Wishing]

So today was the last full day of our holiday. We didn't need to rush for park opening so we grabbed some breakfast from the coffee shop in the hotel before heading out to the Californian Adventure Park. DS had a few meet & greets on his hit list and we really wanted to ride radiators springs racers at night so we wanted to keep an eye on the fast past times for that.

We got to the park just after 10am, first hunting out where to meet Oswald. There was a short wait so we had a look around a couple of the shops before heading back to the meet area. This was a nice little meet, Oswald was a lot of fun. He also loved the little autograph cards we’d made and kept blowing kisses to us all.

Next up was to try and find Olaf as we’ve never met him before. On the way we bumped into Donald, as he’s DS favourite we had to stop for a quick hello.

We made our way down Hollywood Boulevard to the Olaf meeting spot. We had to ask where to go as it was a bit hidden. Olaf was great and as no one else was around spent loads of time with us.

As the meet was right by Monsters Inc ride and there was no wait we rode this next. We checked the app and RSR FP were still only for the afternoon so next we headed for a ride on Mator’s. Still not the right time for FP’s so we took some photos DH wanted to recreate one of the photos we’d taken in Napa to prove how good the Disney theming is. Then we grabbed a drink as we didn't want to wander too far. This is when I really missed the WDW FP+ system where you could just skip ahead to the time you needed.

(Top Napa, Bottom Disney)

Finally the FP’s were at the right time so we grabbed them and headed over to the Animation Academy as we hadn't yet been in there. We checked the schedule for the drawing school part; as we had already draw the first two characters on previous trips we decided to try for Sully. That gave us an hour to spend on other things. I love lobby area in here which plays the movie songs over multiple screens. I think we managed to see all the different songs in-between doing things in here. We started by exploring the Sorcerers Workshop which has the optical effects part and the beast library. These were both so well themed and a lot of fun. After this we headed to Turtle Talk with Crush. We popped into the adjoining shop and had a look at the various artwork they had in there and also managed to find a DL christmas ornament for our collection.

Next was time for to draw Sully so we headed into the drawing studio. We only discovered these a couple of trips back and love them. I’m a usually a hopeless drawer but I can seemed to manage this ok.

By now it was around 3.15pm so we decided to head over to the DL park to watch the Soundsational Parade. We grabbed some ice creams from Gibson Girl and sat in the shade on the kerb to wait. We had around an hour to wait but we had the Dapper Dans come by and then the Disneyland Band who did the most fantastic set containing several ride songs so time past quickly. The parade was really good with some fantastic dancers in it.

From here we headed back into DCA. It was a little sad leaving as we knew we wouldn't be back in this park on this trip. We stopped at the fire station to say a farewell to Walt.

We got back into DCA at 5.30pm where the Pixar Play Parade was just starting so we stopped to watch that. This was a lot of fun and had a great mix of music, a bit different to the usual parades.

We went to see if we could get another ride on Soarin but it was sadly down so instead we let DS explorer the Redwood Challenge area and DS & DH went on Goofys Sky School before heading to grab some food at Paradise Garden Grill.

We sat and rested up for a bit and listen to the band playing for a bit. By now the sun was setting so we slowly made round to Carsland ready to ride RSR. This was worth the wait of getting the FP’s for as it has a different feel at night.

By now it was around 8.30pm. We contemplated doing a few other things but DS was feeling a bit tired so instead we headed out of the park for the last time; always a sad feeling. We headed back to the hotel and instead watched the fireworks one final time from the room.

We had a little thing going that before we went to sleep each night we would play the magical headboard in the room. We had to play it twice tonight as it was going to be the last time….DH makes & designs furniture for a living so we’ve put in a request for one of these at home