Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Disneyland 2017 Trip - Day 4

Up early again for another power walk through California Adventure.  This time the lead instructor (I guess) joined us and we stopped near the end in the Redwood Creek Challenge Trail area where she led us through several stretching exercises.  Bonus!  I know I said it before, but it's worth repeating:  These walks were really the highlights of the trip for me.

Afterwards we went back to the room.  Todd went back to sleep and after resting for a while I got cleaned up and went to Disneyland.  It was the "Extra Magic Hour" day for resort guests so I was able to get in before the 9am official park opening time.  First stop: Splash Mountain.  Or maybe not.

Todd's corpse-like post-walk repose

I was going to ride Splash Mountain but there was a rope blocking access to that side of the park.  Then I remembered from last time that during early morning access only Tomorrowland and Fantasyland are open.  Bummer.  I switched gears and got in line for the Matterhorn Bobsleds instead.

Matterhorn waterfall
Boarding area


After the Matterhorn it was almost 9am, so I lined up at the rope separating Fantasyland from Frontierland.

The rope.  Notice Figaro the cat trying to nap in the upper right of the photo.
A few minutes later the rope dropped and I walked through to the Rancho del Zocalo restaurant where I had the Steamboat Breakfast consisting of pancakes, scrambled eggs and bacon.  While eating outside I watched a parade of baby ducks go by and there were little beggar birds everywhere hoping that I would drop a crumb or two.  I didn't.

Delicious
Not for you, duckling...
...and not for you either, little bird
Eye me all you want.  You're cute, but I'm not feeding you.



Calling in distractions eh?  Well I'm too smart to fall for...
...Hey!  Don't try to eat that - those eggs are also made of bird.




I put away my tray and headed to Splash Mountain only to find it was broken down with no ETA for when it would open.  Bummer.  I decided to go back to the room and get Todd.

Not today.
Do you see the IT balloon?

Todd was already up and getting going when I got back to the room.  He finished his morning ablution then we leisurely made our way back to the park.  Todd was hungry, having had no breakfast, so we walked around a bit before settling on The Golden Horseshoe in Frontierland.  We grabbed a Fast Pass for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad before sitting down to lunch.  Even though I had just eaten 2 1/2 hours before, I took one for the team and had fish and chips and apple slices.  Not bad.

The Golden Horseshoe
A view from the balcony with Todd.  We didn't stay long enough to see a performance which are at scheduled times throughout the day.

We ate lunch then used our Fast Passes to bypass the Big Thunder line.  Next was the Enchanted Tiki Room to commune with the singing birds, flowers and tiki gods.  Afterwards we went on Todd's traditional soft-serve ice cream hunt, which usually means a long trek followed by hot sun and misery.  This time was no exception.

While waiting for the Enchanted Tiki Room we saw...
...well, this.  Wonder Woman's alter ego, Princess Diana of the OC, apparently.
All together now:  "In the tiki tiki tiki tiki tiki room, in the tiki tiki tiki tiki tiki room, all the birds sing words and the flowers croon, in the tiki tiki tiki tiki tiki room."

After some Googling and cast member asking, we learned that soft-serve could be had at Clarabelle's in Mickey's Toontown.  So we hiked to the back of the park to the Mickey's Toontown, which is the "just for little kids" area and has "no shade at all".  It's a very chaotic area and I guess Disney feels that they need to let everything back there bake in the hot sun to crank the madness up to 11.  Of course Clarabelle's had the longest line of all the food stalls and only one person manning the counter.  We waited in the sun about 20 minutes and Todd got his cone of what turned out to be soft-serve frozen yogurt, so, not even ice cream.

ClaraHelle's

After that we left the park to go back to our room to rest.  On the way out we stopped in the Disneyana store near the front of the park where I bought a book I had had my eye on for a souvenir:  Maps of the Disney Parks: Charting 60 Years from California to Shanghai.

We napped and relaxed in the room for a couple of hours before heading back to the park.  Once in the park we rode Autopia for the first time which had recently been rebranded to Honda vehicles.

The world of the future, today
Traffic on the 5 does not look too bad today
I can't seem to pass Todd

We got a Fast Pass for Star Tours, then stopped for dinner at Redd Rockett's Pizza Port by Space Mountain.  I had a salad, slice of pepperoni pizza, and "Space Junk" for dessert (brownie bites glued together with caramel and chocolate sauces and coated with miniature marshmallows, M&Ms, pretzel pieces and crumbled chocolate cookie.  It was predictably out of this world on the sweetness chart, but provided the fuel I needed to keep going.

We stood in line for Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters (another first ride) then used our Fast Pass for Star Tours.  It was getting late and we had a movie to catch, so after Star Tours it was on to the last ride of the night, the Matterhorn Bobsleds.

The Astro Orbiter as seen from the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters queue.
Astro, Astro, Astro
Star Tours at sunset
Matterhorn at night
We left the park, taking pictures as we went, and walked through Downtown Disney to the AMC theater to watch the 10pm showing of Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (which was really fun, but I liked the first one better).  After that it was off to bed.  This was our last day in the parks; we would check out and fly home the next day.

Rancho del Zocalo, where I ate breakfast that morning
The mark of Zocalo
Mad Tea Party teacups which we did not ride, but look great at night



Hee hee!
Goodbye Disneyland...
...hello Ghirardelli chocolate on the pillow

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