Disneyland with the Pros

Post date: Jan 14, 2018 8:8:34 PM

We had a plan. My niece is 2.75 and my nephew is 3 months. A day at Disneyland while I was in Southern California was planned, as it seemed perfect for the kids. But the kids ended up busy (they are socialites. Fashionistas. Babies about town).

However, my little sister has a season pass… and so it seemed like a waste of a day not to go… plus her friend is a Disney Pro. Have you ever been to Disney with a Pro? I have now… and it is a whole new experience.

So, some things I didn’t know (this will be a theme throughout this post. I’m not going to assume that these are things you don’t know about Disneyland… but they are things I didn’t know): there is a space outside of the two parks called “Downtown Disney”. It is all Disney things, but not actually inside of the Disney parks. Which is weird and cool.

And importantly, they have a lego store. WHAT WHAHHHHHHHHT! I LOVE Legos. LOVE THEM. On my desk at the moment (at work) there are three different lego sets. I love Legoland. I love Legos.

But Disney Legos? WHOLE NEW LEVEL OF EXCITEMENT.

You’ll notice the look on my face. I had this look on my face all day. In fact, I could just do a blog post entitled “CJ’s face while she does things that make her happy at Disney.”. I might still do that post (edit: see the end of this post for photos of me being excited all over Disney. Photo credit to the Shorty with the mostest). But you’ll note that this is me with Lego Hulk.

Also at the Lego store? Build your own lego person. And it was only 9.99 for three. And there were three of us! Liz and Amber were reluctant, but I was insistent. They soon joined the excitement.

After our jaunt through downtown Disney, we entered the park. We had decided that for this trip we would focus on Disneyland. It was my last day in town, and I wanted to get home at a reasonable enough hour to hang out with my niece and nephew some more before leaving (they are very popular, so time with them is precious). So we were limited in time, unlimited in joy.

This sign is near the entrance and stole my heart.

APPARENTLY you can come to the City Hall and get a badge. Things like: “I’m getting married at Disneyland” and “It’s my first Disneyland experience”. My little sister said it would be annoying, because all day people would come up to you and ask about your badge, or interact with you because of it. To me this sounded like heaven… but the line was too long and I was already with the Pros. They helped me interact with everything.

Mainstreet! I was beyond excited. There really is a kind of magic in the air when walking through mainstreet.

Also on Mainstreet, there was a store with a awesome windows! They had stories and changed from one story to another. But mostly I was excited because it had my favorite snowman, who likes warm hugs.

First ride! Ok, so there are these things called “Fast Passes” in Disneyland. You don’t have to pay for them, you just get to a ride, and get a fast pass. It’ll tell you when you can enter without having to wait in line (between 12-1pm for example). And Liz and Amber have the Disney app, so they could track when each FastPass was available, so we were optimizing our ride experience. I’m not going to pretend I know all the details, or would be able to replicate what they did, at all. There were some tricks I just genuinely did not understand. But again, I was with the Pros.

So we stopped at the Haunted Mansion to get a FastPass, then hit Pirates of the Caribbean. Which by the way is a 20 minute long ride and holds up remarkably well to time.

I would have great photos of the Haunted Mansion, but my phone was driving the slow bus. I kept pulling it out to take photos, and the camera wouldn't load until after we had moved on. Shorty thought this was comically tragic...

We also saw the Disneyland marching band. Twice. Which was beyond awesome. The second time they marched in playing the music from Indiana Jones, and finished with the Imperial March and other music from Star Wars. Liz and I danced, appropriately (in that it is appropriate to dance, not that our dance moves were appropriate. Although both are kind of true).

Also, apparently, you can walk through Sleeping Beauty's Castle! Which was again, a hidden gem with no line but SUPER cool.

Apparently, Cinderella's Castle in Disney World is bigger and more impressive, but I was pretty darn impressed with this one.

What I remember LOVING as a kid was Toon Town! And as an adult it did not disappoint! The fountain, with Mickey conducting has buttons that you can press in the ground, which make trumpet noises. Each character has their own house, with their own little touches. And the fake hills on the horizon give you the impression that you are in the Hollywood hills/Disney Hills.

Chip and Dale’s treehouse was adorable. The Disney line is “they are two guy friends who are so close they live with each other. And have since they were young chipmunks”. That’s Disney for “they are obviously gay, but we have issues acknowledging gay relationships”.

One of my favorite parts of the day was just walking around Toon Town. The detail on each of the buildings, even the unused ones, was astounding.

Shorty found that if you press hard enough on this lever it makes an exploding noise. She was successful and celebrated appropriately.

This may be my favorite photo of the day.

Also, we thought it would be hilarious to take a photo of us busting out of jail. It is shear coincidence, and years of living together/growing up together that we both did a similar motion and made a similar face, unprompted. This was the first and only try and we nailed it.

This also might take the prize for favorite photo of the day. And might be framed and up on my wall soon.

I was fascinated by tomorrow land. The colors there are totally different than the rest of the park.

And, yes, this is where the Star Wars nerds go (until the new Star Wars Land opens next year!!!!), so I was amongst my people.

I saw these balloons, and was BEYOND excited. Death Star ballon? BB8 ballon? BEYOND EXCITED! I thought about buying them, but that seem foolish. However, Amber suggested, “You can ask if you can take a photo with them” and I responded “Yes, I want that”. I think the look on my face says it all…

Our fast pass for Thunder Mountain was revoked because the ride broke down. BUT because the ride broke down we were able to go on Indiana Jones’s adventure ride on a fast past. The line is over 2 hours long, and the fast passes were backed up till midnight. But with the Pros, we got in after waiting only 20 minutes. During the wait I wanted to look hard core, like I was falling off a cliff. I think I succeeded.

It was a Disney magical day. Until next time!

Also, here are all the photos of me being excited, that Shorty happily took for me. She was a champ.