Wandering around the West Coast – Day 1 – California Adventure, Fantasmic & Fireworks

[jocat]

Index is here.

Day 1 – Tuesday 25th July 2017

Amazingly, I first woke at 5am, but managed to get straight back off to sleep until 6am. Martin, on the other hand, was not quite so lucky. He first woke, and was wide awake, at 11:30 pm, then struggled to sleep properly until 3am, finally getting some unbroken sleep between 3am and 6am.

We both got up and showered before meeting our friends in the lobby at 7:30 am. California Adventure was our plan today.

We were through the gates by 8am. We’d heard about Disney’s new Maxpass system, which had launched just a few days earlier, so hoped to use it, but we struggled with wifi near the entrance of the park this morning, and my 3G was also being very slow. Rather than hang about, we headed straight to Paradise Pier, picking up Fastpasses for Radiator Springs Racers as we went by.

At 8:10 am, there was hardly anybody about, but we’d intentionally picked this park to do first as it was early entry in the Disneyland Park.

We made it to Toy Story Midway Mania and the standby queue was just 5 minutes.

I managed to beat Martin for the first time ever, but it was still a pitiful score. He blamed faulty equipment!

After that it was straight on California Screamin' – Sue decided to sit this one out. It said there was a 10 minute wait, but in reality the wait was only as long as the walk to the boarding area.

I loved this ride – for anyone worried about it, it’s a very smooth roller coaster, and not jerky at all.

We crossed the park to head to Soarin' - the standby queue at 9 am was 20 minutes. We asked to wait for B1 to be in the front row of the middle section. It was the first time I’d been on Soarin’ Around the World. It seemed to make me feel a little bit queasy, but I still enjoyed it. We had good wifi in this area, so tried to organise Maxpass again, but it was still having problems linking all of our tickets into a Fastpass group. In hindsight, we should have done this part in the hotel before we left.

We couldn’t wait any longer for something to eat so headed to the nearby Fiddler, Fifer and Practical Café.

Martin had a Ham, Swiss and Egg croissant and I ordered a muffin. We shared some grapes, orange juice and water. While Sue and I queued for the food, Martin and Dave went to get a FP for Guardians of the Galaxy. After we had eaten, it was now 10:10 am so we headed to CarsLand for our Radiator Springs fastpass.

We rode Radiator Springs, which we all really enjoyed, then took our time looking around the area as the theming is just fantastic. Our photos don’t do it justice.

We went into a shop, came out and the sun had broken through. It was suddenly very hot.

We then stumbled across Luigi's rollicking roadsters which had a 30 minute wait. It was quite a cute little ride, and made us smile.

We headed to Animation Academy, but the upcoming drawing was someone who I didn’t know who they were, so we headed for Monsters Inc instead. I think it was in this queue we finally had some success with MaxPass. We added the codes for the ride photos we’d had so far, and picked up another FP for Soarin’ for this afternoon.

We went back to Animation Academy, where I drew a very poor Goofy. Art is not my thing.

It was then time to ride Guardians of the Galaxy, but this time I held the bags. : blush: I own up - I hate the drops.

Our second FP slot for Soarin' had opened up so we got in line at 1:45 pm. While in the queue, we picked up further FPs for Toy Story for Sue and Dave, and FP for Grizzly River Run for us. It had been down when we’d walked past earlier, but was now up and running again. While we were waiting for the FP window to open, we ate at Boardwalk Pizza and Pasta. I ordered a slice of pizza, Martin had pasta and we bought a chicken Caesar Salad to share. The salad was massive, but they didn’t seem to do a side salad as an option.

After eating, we really started to flag a bit. The day had started off really cloudy and we had loads of energy then, but after the sun had come out, it got really hot and I think the heat was getting to us a bit.

We were contemplating ditching our FPs for the Rapids and going back to the hotel for a bit to chill. We decided to leave the park, arranging to meet our friends later. As we walked by the rapids, we decided to wait until our FP window opened in 15 minutes, ride it then leave. Out of all of those on our raft, we were the ones who got soaked. The photo doesn't really show the level of drenched that I was!

We squelched our way out of the park at around 4pm and jumped onto a waiting bus which took us to the Disney Toy Story Parking Lot - we knew this was only across the road to our hotel. We called at the hotel shop to pick up some drinks for our fridge, then headed up to the room to get out of our wet clothes and relax for a couple of hours. Martin had a sleep while I just chilled.

We got ready and left the hotel at 6:40 pm and headed into Disneyland Park. It was definitely busier here!

Our friends had sent a message that they were in Haunted Mansion so we headed to New Orleans Square. We briefly caught up with them, but it was their turn to be tired now, so we decided to stay in the park and get a FP to ride Haunted Mansion in 15 minutes time.

Whilst in the queue, we used Maxpass and selected a FP for Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters. By the time we'd walked over to Tomorrowland, the window had opened.

The least said about both of our scores, the better - they were dreadful. We’d both somehow forgotten that you could move the vehicle to turn and get a better angle!

We walked back over towards the rivers of America to see if we could find a spot for Fantasmic. We were lucky and found some steps to go up, which I'm sure we weren't supposed to, and joined the people there. It wasn’t a great view and we wished for the Orlando version where you could have a seat! We were quick to leave the area as Fantasmic finished, and headed towards Main Street for the fireworks over the castle. They started whilst we were still walking, but we continued half way down the street and had a great view – it also meant we were close to the exit when they finished.

We left the park at 9:50 pm and caught the Toy Story parking lot bus back to near our hotel. We grabbed a drink from our fridge and realised we'd missed dinner. It was too late for us now, but we might regret that in the morning! We ended up going to sleep just after 11 pm, amazed that we’d managed to keep going.

[P&S]

A great day You seemed to do loads at the park

We are hoping for a West Coaster next year.

[Melbatb]

You certainly covered a lot of ground- and I think your drawing is excellent!

I hope lack of dinner didn't wake you up too early!

[Lovesholidays]

What a busy and full on day lol, radiator springs looks so good, I really want to visit there. The themeing looks spot on.
First day is always exhausting isn't it, I never sleep well the first night either so by afternoon find myself lagging and ready for a sleep 😉 Looking forward to the rest of your trip

[jocat]

Originally Posted by P&S

A great day You seemed to do loads at the park

We are hoping for a West Coaster next year.

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Think we'd have got even more done had we got Maxpass working in the morning, as we did zig zag the park more than we'd have needed to. The only downside to it, is there's not more rides with the Fastpass facility.

Originally Posted by Melbatb

You certainly covered a lot of ground- and I think your drawing is excellent!

I hope lack of dinner didn't wake you up too early!

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My drawing was definitely the worst of the 4 of us, but I didn't take photos of theirs, so you can't see it. I find it really hard to sketch lightly - I always press on too firmly with my pencil. I added the lighter lines in after I'd messed up the first darker line, to try to correct it!

As you'll see when I post the next day, we slept in until almost 6am. I can't believe how lucky we were to adapt to the time difference so quickly. When we woke though, I did wish that we'd bought some pastries or cereal bars for the room.

[jocat]

Originally Posted by Lovesholidays

What a busy and full on day lol, radiator springs looks so good, I really want to visit there. The themeing looks spot on.
First day is always exhausting isn't it, I never sleep well the first night either so by afternoon find myself lagging and ready for a sleep 😉 Looking forward to the rest of your trip

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To be honest, I haven't been able to have full park days for years. For our last 3 Florida trips, we always come out and back to the villa for an afternoon swim or chill.

I do think the brief afternoon respite helped us tremendously. There's no way we'd have managed to stay out all day, but then would have missed the evenings in both parks. The heat and crowds sometimes impact on my enjoyment too, so to avoid the longest queues of mid afternoon and get out of the sun for a bit, is a lifesaver for me and stops me being grumpy!

[Jake71]

A brilliant day. I'm really hoping the Maxpass works for us when we go as we've only got one day in each park and I want to do as much as we possible can. You certainly got loads done for your first day and lasted so well. Looking forward to reading more.

[tocpe321]

Good stamina for first day. Disney looks nice.

[jocat]

Originally Posted by Jake71

A brilliant day. I'm really hoping the Maxpass works for us when we go as we've only got one day in each park and I want to do as much as we possible can. You certainly got loads done for your first day and lasted so well. Looking forward to reading more.

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Maxpass was definitely worth it, especially if you go at a busy time of year. The wifi does drop out though, so to make the best use of Maxpass, it's worth having a back up plan to use your own data on your phone.

Originally Posted by tocpe321

Good stamina for first day. Disney looks nice.

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I was amazed we kept going really. Before we went, we'd wondered if we should tweak the order of our planned itinerary, but I think sticking with Anaheim at the start of the holiday, actually helped us adapt to the time difference.

[clochette]

You certainly managed to pack a lot in did t you? I love the look of the Cars area, but doesn't the castle look small - or is it just me?