Disneyland in the Summertime

Disneyland has turned into a straight-up hellhole, frankly. Overpriced, difficult, insanely crowded, inequitable (screw that Genie+ nonsense) and the magic has completely left, those workers are really disenchanting these days.

But... ugh, it's still Disneyland, and Sophie loves Mickey and Friends. I used the last day of my three day ticket with AJ and Sophie last Thursday, and I was happy to be back at Disneyland rather than California Adventure.

I was DREADING this day. We had done the OC Fair the Sunday before and that was enough to wear me out, and I knew it would be a longer and hotter day... but it ended up being pretty great regardless!

We waited until after Sophie's nap, both so we knew she could get a nap in, and also try to avoid most of the heat. After she woke, and we got her ready, and we were packed up and loaded, and stopped by a convenience store for some waters, and parked and shuttled over, we weren't even in the park until 4p but omg, the heat, especially in the sun. We were sweating bullets immediately, but luckily only had to suffer that for about 2 hours, and the rest of the evening was very bearable (although it still stayed really warm until really late!)

We were able to make it over to Small World in time to ride it with my mom and Jim before they had to head over to a dinner at Club 33. It was so lovely going inside that air conditioning and Sophie seemed much more comfortable than when her and I rode it alone together last month.

After we parted ways, AJ, Sophie and I went to Tomorrowland, where we were able to entice Sophie to ride Autopia to drive her own car. (Can't get her interested in the rockets or Dumbo yet). I learned that expectant mothers should not ride Autopia, so AJ took Sophie and said after one hit of the curb, she was done driving so AJ had to take over for 99% of the ride ha.

We thought AstroBlasters would be a great idea, but shame on me, because I completely forgot what that ride was "really" like and evil Zurg everywhere. She wasn't the biggest fan but she occasionally would enjoy handling the joystick to move our car and didn't seem too traumatized by it in the end. We had lunch at Pizza Planet and why do kids get the better deal? Her pizza (cheaper than anything else on the menu obvi) came with a drink and carrots - like, I want a drink and carrots too please.

We saw a short wait for Jungle Cruise so we passed by the castle and went to Adventureland, telling Sophie we would ride a boat and see animals, but by the time we were there the wait had significantly jumped up, so we decided to catch the Mark Twain riverboat in the meantime. You do see lots of fake animals so Sophie thought that that was what we had been referring to the whole time when we were convincing her to leave Tomorrowland, so that worked out well. 

I have learned that people do not give one single flying you-know-what about pregnant women at Disneyland, so while the crowds rushed past us to get the few chairs and benches on the boat, we basically got the entire second-level front deck to ourselves. I didn't mind sitting on the floor and Sophie had a great time running back and forth and seeing the sites out the side.

After that I thought I had convinced Sophie to walk over to the Winnie the Pooh ride but all she wanted to do was walk on the curb around the Rivers of America and we were making veryyyy slowwww time, but luckily that was when my mom was able to meet up with us again and that helped get the show on the road LOL

Entering Winnie the Pooh

I don't think she knew who Winnie the Pooh was beforehand, but now she does, and has anyone realized how positively random that whole ride is? There is literally no storyline, but it ends with it being his birthday, and Sophie is a fan of birthdays (takes after her mom!) so she liked it in the end.

AJ loves Galaxy's Edge so we went to walk through the land and we decided to visit the Cantina. They didn't bother checking with us (or caring?) what we preferred, so we ended up standing at a table - me, 8 months pregnant and us with a toddler. Cool. We didn't stay long, but we had a nice time and enjoyed the fun drinks and atmosphere.

Sophie maxed out first and I took her outside and it was pretty empty at this point and she was loving just running around everywhere.

Can you see her there in front of the 
gate?

After that we ran our way back to Adventureland to meet up with Jim and (finally) get on Jungle Cruise. Sophie had just about crashed because she did not want to get out of the stroller, but we told her this would be the last ride and that we would see animals in the jungle, and her eyes got so wide and she said "the jungle?!" and she was in.

The fireworks were going as we were on Jungle Cruise so that was fun, and they were still going when we got off so we were able to stand and watch them for awhile, and then visited the Bazaar, mine and AJ's favorite store, and Sophie fell in love with some Moana pj's that Gangy and Grandpa Jim bought for her (and later that night would NOT go to bed in any other pj's) and we said goodnight. It was already past 10p I think.

AJ wanted to go back to the Star Trader to get a jacket that he had seen and Sophie totally crashed on the walk over. As we passed Star Tours we saw it was only a 5 minute wait, so AJ went on that while I took Sophie over to a bench to finally sit and relax.

With her asleep we were finally kinda free (haha) and I was hoping that I'd be able to hit up the Runaway Railway in ToonTown (newest ride at Disneyland, and also wanted to ride it and see if it would be okay for Sophie) but by the time AJ was back, the wait had tripled and I was pretty done, so we finally left, but got our usual Gibson Girl ice cream on the way out, and by the time we left it was about 11p?? It was a nice day though and wasn't as bad as I had been anticipating in the end. 

After I posted on Instagram, Jayna sent me this - Sophie's shirt was indeed Annika's hand-me-down (99% of Sophie's clothes are hand-me-downs, but I had a hard time remember what comes from who), so it was so funny to see that both her and Annika wore this shirt to our respective coastal Disney's - Sophie in California and Annika in Florida.

I do love experiencing so much of Disney with Sophie, especially as she is more and more "getting" it, and she still talks about this trip - she didn't do it with the previous two, but she still asks if I remember seeing the characters dancing in the street or Winnie the Pooh's birthday on the ride and being on the boat and seeing the animals and it's so sweet. Still - I wouldn't mind a trip without her LOL, but wasn't worth doing this summer since I can't ride half the good rides being this big.

...soon!