Disneyland!

Not counting our travel days, our longest day of this ten day vacation was May 31 when we visited Disneyland. I had been there on a family vacation as a child, but the other six had never been there before. All three kids have spent 5 days total at Disney World from 2013-2015 - three days at Magic Kingdom and two at Hollywood Studios. Since Oliver was only 2 1/2 the last time he was at Disney World, he doesn't remember any of the trips.  There are two Disney parks in Anaheim, but I only opted to schedule one into our trip in light of #1 the cost of tickets and #2 the distance from San Diego (90 minutes each way). We had gotten (through credit card points) free tickets for Sea World, USS Midway, Maritime Museum, San Diego Zoo, Aquatica, and San Diego Safari Park. Using a coupon we got the kids' free tickets to Legoland. We all got in free to Cabrillo because Nadia is in fourth grade, and we got in free to the Fleet Science Center and Natural History Museum because of our ASTC membership. Bottom line is that May 31 was hands down the

most expensive day of our vacation. We bought our one day passes plus paid $10 extra per person to have the Max Pass which meant that #1 we could request fast passes via my phone which saved me a lot of walking (as it was we still walked almost 11 miles that day!) and #2 we could get free downloads of the photos that Disneyland photographers took of us. I will say that there were fewer photographers there than in Orlando, but still we got some nice photos through the Max Pass. The park was rather crowded (in our opinion anyhow), but thanks to fast passes, we never waited more than about 20 minutes for any ride, even though the stand by lines (meaning non fast pass) were often more than an hour long.

Even with fast passes there wasn't time to ride everything in the park. The park was open for 17 hours that day! The first hour (7-8am) was just for those staying at a Disney resort. We arrived before 8:00, but by the time we parked the van, walked to the front gate, rented a

motorized wheelchair, and went to the bathroom, it was almost exactly 8:00. My plan was to get the kids signed up for Jedi training and get our fast passes for the 9pm Fantasmic show first thing. For some reason Paul didn't feel capable of doing either task so I went to get the Jedi training and we weren't able to get any tickets for the 9:00 Fantasmic show; we could have gotten tickets for the 10:30 show, but I knew we weren't going to be staying that late even though the park was open until midnight. We got fast passes for all of the bigger thrill rides - Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, Matterhorn Bobsleds, Splash Mountain, and the Indiana Jones ride. We also got fast passes for Buzz Lightyear's ride (twice), Star Tours, Haunted Mansion, Roger Rabbit's ride, and It's a Small World. We also rode eight rides that don't use fast passes including the Tiki Room, Jungle Cruise, Winnie the Pooh, Alice in Wonderland, Pinocchio's Daring Journey, Autopia, Astro Orbitor, and Gadget's Go Coaster. Some of the rides that didn't have fast passes we

skipped due to the length of the lines such as Peter Pan, Dumbo, etc.

We saw only two "shows" - the 3:30 Pixar parade and a 20 minute presentation of Beauty and the Beast. The kids also wanted to see a 20 minute presentation of Tangled, but we didn't end up having enough time to squeeze that in. The kids were also in one show as they fought with Darth Vader and Kylo Ren. Nadia and Ian had done the Jedi training in 2015 at Hollywood Studios, but Oliver was too young to do it that year. The kids also met some of the characters. Oliver was disappointed that he didn't meet Minnie Mouse, but he did meet Mickey Mouse. All three kids met Cinderella, Snow White, Ariel, Chewbacca, Kylo Ren, and Rey. Some of them also requested meeting Darth Vader, but again we ran out of time. We had packed our lunches, but since we were in the park for 13 hours, we bought our expensive (and not that great tasting) pizza for dinner at Disneyland. 

I think all three kids had a good time, and hopefully Oliver is old enough that he will remember this visit. The kids slept in the van on our drive home and went straight to bed once we got back. Paul's parents stayed home the next two days. We didn't leave until around 11am on Thursday for our trip to Balboa Park. The zoo (which we visited on Tuesday) is also in the park, but if you only visit the zoo you don't really get a sense of all that is included in the large park, which is the largest urban park in the US. It includes seventeen museums. I considered visiting some of the other ones such as the Air and Space museum, children's museum, etc, but I ended up picking the two we could get into for free due to our ASTC membership. They have many food trucks there on Fridays, and I had planned to have us eat dinner there and then attend a free symphony concert at 7pm, but we ended up leaving around 4pm so that we could pick up Paul's parents and go to KFC and the grocery store before coming back to our place for dinner. Parking is free in Balboa Park (for the zoo,

museums, etc.), and there is even a free tram that you can ride around the park. Since we didn't have to pay for parking or the museums, we splurged and got ice cream cones. It was the first time the kids had the flavor burst kind. Paul picked raspberry, I picked caramel, and Oliver and Nadia picked cotton candy. Ian chose to have a chocolate chip cookie instead of ice cream. The cheapest day of our trip was probably yesterday because we didn't eat out at all that day. Our only expense was parking in La Jolla Cove, and thus far it was my favorite day of the trip. I loved seeing all the animals in the wild - Brandt's Comorants, pelicans, sea lions, seals, ground squirrels, etc. Some of the seals had small pups, and one LARGE male sea lion started coming over toward the people and barking and making it clear he wanted everyone to back away from the moms and babies!