The Rose Gold Rat Pack Takes on Disneyland! An Aug. 2017 TR (Finished! 02/20)

Great report so far. It lets me re-live our trip

Thanks for reading! I'm glad you're enjoying it!

I love this shot!!



:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:



Oh, this is really cool!!



bubbles!! I love DL's Small World the most. I pretended I was heading to Tomorrowland like Frank Walker! It's so beautiful :lovestruc

Thanks! I love the look of the carousel with the castle behind it (as we well know lol) so clearly I needed to get one from Disneyland too! I need to go back to DLP and get one there too, just to have a nice round up of pictures :laughing:

And I saw a video of Red Rose with the live action movie characters and knew I'd have to find them lol.

DL Small World is the prettiest, imo. I love taking photos of it and just standing outside of it watching the train and time go by.
 
:-) Great story line and pictures :rolleyes2 You are making me miss DL :sad:I realize now it has been a while since we were there last :sad1:Keep posting PICTURES please:idea:
 
:-) Great story line and pictures :rolleyes2 You are making me miss DL :sad:I realize now it has been a while since we were there last :sad1:Keep posting PICTURES please:idea:

I am just adding up even more pictures as I type :) Thanks for following along!! I already miss DL, and it's only been a month :sad: I've been trying to convince people that we need to go back ASAP.
 
Part Four


Liz and I were heading to New Orleans Square for lunch. It was around 1:30 but we decided to see if we could check into lunch early. We went up to the podium to ask and the girl said that they weren’t sure but they’d text us so we didn’t have to stand around in the sun. We thanked them and started heading back into the shops to get away from the heat a little.


While we were walking around we ran into this guy:
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Princess and the Frog is one of my favorite movies. Dr. Facilier is one of those characters I always wanted to see in person and this guy lived up to all my expectations. Also every time we turned around, no matter where we were in NOS he was lurking near us, which did make me feel a little like we were stalking him!


We got bored looking around at the stores and went back to our lunch location to wait for our names to be called.


Unshockingly, this was our lunch for the day:
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We were seated about ten minutes after our reservation time, on the patio area. Obligatory picture of the menu because I love how it looks:
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Liz and I knew exactly what we wanted before we sat down. I got a water while she got a Sprite. For our starters, we got:
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French onion soup (Liz’s favorite and Disney staple) and pomme frites. Liz ate her soup while I nibbled on the pomme frites and tried not to eat them all because I was starving. For our main, we got:
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A monte cristo! We split it between the two of us because it was just way too big for both of us. I love the monte cristo - it’s not too sweet, the jam adds a nice flavor to it and splitting it meant we could actually eat it without eating too much.


We were still stuffed though, so we decided against dessert, even if the beignets were calling to us again. We paid our bill and left, heading to the front of the park. Our plan of action was: 1, ride Indy then 2, head over to DCA. By this point we had heard from Jen and she had told us that she was going to be in Anaheim by 7:30, 8 pm but she’d text us when she was heading to the area to give us a half hour head start.


So we rode Indy and Liz loved it! Which is good, because I love the ride. We did have another moment when the ride stopped just after the boulder while we were in pitch blackness once again that had us laughing hysterically. It was the third time a ride had suddenly stopped in near-darkness on us today (the first time I forgot to mention - it was on HM just as we were getting into the ride) and Jen wasn’t even with us yet! Jen is notorious for having bad luck with rides going 101 while she’s on it. It doesn’t happen often but when it does it’s always pretty epic. Once, Buzz was struck by lightning and she lost her near-perfect score.


As we were leaving the park we realized that there was only about 45 minutes until the parade and there was a great spot on the curb still open so after looking at each other and shrugging we decided to just sit and people watch for a bit.


We ended up character walking. First these two walked by:
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Then Liz nearly got trampled by both Jack Sparrow and Moana as they were heading backstage. We were both so shocked by how suddenly they showed up next to us that I didn’t get any pictures of it.


As we were sitting a woman came over to Liz and asked if we were waiting for the parade. Liz said yeah and the woman asked if her kids could sit next to her on the small amount of curb left. Liz said of course so they sat there for a couple minutes. Then she asked what time the parade was and when we told her she decided to go to a shop on Main Street and left her stroller next to us.


She never came back.


I mean, I’m hoping eventually she did, but she did not come back during the parade. We just kind of kept looking at it, not really sure how to deal with it.


Anyway, the parade began and like usual I took a million and a half photos! So, the rest of this and the next update will be primarily Soundsational pictures. Feel free to scroll past :)

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Part Six

Okay, so….I’ve lost my trip report notebook (which is a big deal for me) so I’m going to be writing at the very least this update without it. I’m hoping I’ll find it but I had to give up looking for it today because I’m just getting frustrated. :mad::worried:


Anyway, after Soundsational Liz and I headed over to California Adventure. We hung a left once we got in and headed down into the Hollywood Land area. We popped into the Animation Academy building and I snapped this adorable picture of Liz:

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Then we headed around to look at some of the Marvel things they had going on. When we first walked by Cap had a giant line, but I loved these posters and had to grab a photo of them.

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We happened to be walking by as the Avengers show was starting so we watched a couple minutes of it:

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Then we decided to go ride Monsters Inc since there was a super short wait - about ten minutes.

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As we were walking towards the entrance the CM at the exit waved us over. “Is it just the two of you?” she asked. When we told her yup, it’s just us, she handed us this:

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A Buddy Pass! I’ve never gotten one before! We were super excited and skipped up to the exit queue. We were on the ride in about two minutes and were out before the Avengers show ended! Gotta say hi to Roz before we got off though!

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We were getting hot, so we decided to stop and get a drink at Cosmic Canteen. We each got a watermelon lemonade:

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We continued to walk around, spying Mission: Breakout in the not-so-distance.

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We did catch Cap at the end of his meet & greet being awesome with an adorable little boy. I cut the boy out just because, y’know, not my kid, but had to snap a pic of Cap because Cap.

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Liz saw Cap do, in her words, "the most Chris Evans thing" while we were watching him. He posed with the little boy with him. Cap saluted and told them boy to do the same. The boy, instead, crossed his arms over his chest Spiderman-style. Cap side-eyed the kid, made an "alright then" face, shrugged, and went back to posing.

We kept going past Mission: Breakout

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As we were walking I was getting texts from E. For those of you who have followed along from one TR to another, you’ll remember E as a childhood friend whom I spent my April trip with. She was back in Florida for the month of August with her family, visiting relatives. She had told me that if we saw Lightning or Mater to send pictures to her. We just so happened to have been standing near where Mater comes back on stage and he started driving by right then! So, we kind of chased him through to Carsland.

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We managed to grab a picture of him as he started his set, and Cruz happened to, well, cruise passed us as we were standing there figuring out what to do.

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A didn't see them til the next morning but he was super excited. This was the beginning of "Auntie Elle goes on a character scavenger hunt for A." Cars, Star Wars, and Toy Story? Believe me, this was no hardship for me!

We continued on our tour of DCA and headed towards Pacific Wharf. We went to Boudin’s and got a free sample of bread.

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Then we headed on over to Paradise Pier.

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Liz convinced me we should go onto the Funwheel. The Funwheel is my absolute favorite thing in the parks, aesthetically. However, it scares me something awful. But the wait was short for a fixed gondola (there were only maybe 4 or 5 families in front of us) so we got on within 10 minutes - we got on a Mickey gondola!

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The views were great!

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But my verdict? Yup, it gets the Nope song. Anyone know the Bang song from How I Met Your Mother? Whenever there’s something I super don’t want to do, I sing it in my head but use “nope” instead of “bang” - “I said a nope, nope, noppity nope, I said a nope nop noppity nope!” I told Liz this as we walked past California Screamin’ and she started laughing at me but started singing the harmony the next time I started singing it. It’s still my favorite thing aesthetically, but it also terrifies me.


Once we got off we decided to walk leisurely towards the front of the park. Jen should be there soon and we needed to go to the front desk to pay off the rest of our hotel room. We wanted to get that done before she got there and figured it’d be easiest to just meet her at the hotel.


We walked through Elias and Company and were only in there for about five minutes before Jen texted us telling us that she was outside the hotel, sitting on one of the benches. She had forgotten to text us when she left the LA area and was earlier than we expected her to be so we high-tailed it back out of the park and over to Camelot. We figured we’d drop her bag off and let her relax a bit while Liz and I went down to the front desk to pay the last of the bill. When we got up to our room, though, the cards wouldn’t work. It didn’t surprise us, we just had forgotten Jen’s keycard in the room so we didn’t have it with us to reset. The woman at the counter told us not to worry, just drop it off when we checked out, and gave us a new card for Jen. It took less than 10 minutes (we were having a great evening timing wise!) and we were back in our room. Jen dropped her stuff off, and we all got changed for the evening. I gave Jen the presents I hadn’t given her yet - a Star Trek mug, a mini Loki pop figure pin, a Haunted Mansion shirt, her plaid we made her, her backpack to match mine and Liz’s, a real-sized Loki pop figure that I knew she had been looking for for years and I had managed to find at a local con, a mini Wall-E pop figure, and her 1-year pin she thought she had lost (it must have come off her nametag and fallen into the lining of a purse she had borrowed from me when she was a CM and we were living together). The mug had broken on the flight but everything else was fine and she loved it all!


Now a trio, we headed back out to the parks! Since we knew we’d be going back to DCA in the morning we decided to spend a little bit of time in Disneyland. I didn’t take many pictures while we were there just because I didn’t think to. Oops!


It was about 8:45 and Liz and I hadn’t eaten anything (except a free sample of bread) since lunch at 2 and while Jen had gone to dinner with her great-aunt before heading down to meet us the meal had been small and she had needed something more because she had been traveling all day. We had walked over into Tomorrowland at this point so we figured we’d go over to Tomorrowland Terrace.


Remember the time? Yup 8:45. That means it was about 15 minutes before they switched over their menu.


It was a bad idea guys.


The line was slow-moving. They were running out of stuff. Liz got her burger quick enough, and I got mine pretty fast. Jen, though? It took 10 minutes to get her meal out. We stood there watching the signs change over to the late night menu while we were waiting for her. After standing there for almost 8 minutes they said that they had to make more french fries and that’s what the hold up was. But they told her that as they were bringing her food out.


I got the chicken sandwich:

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It was pretty standard. It was probably better than the burger but still wasn’t the greatest. We all agreed that it was probably because of the timing.


It was a bit busy in Tomorrowland (isn’t it always at that time of night though?) and earlier in the day E had sent me a reminder that it was the Haunted Mansion’s “birthday” so we forded the crowds waiting for Fantasmic and rode again!


We weren’t tired yet so we danced past Fantasmic (don’t worry, we’d be back for it later!) and got in line for Big Thunder. We got on at a perfect time, right at 10 when the fireworks were starting - it was magical!


We started out of the park, but we did stop and ride Jungle Cruise since the wait was so short. We left while everyone else was watching MSELP through the little backstage area that they open between the hub and the top of Main Street, past where the Jungle Cruise boats “sleep” at night (that’s what we called it anyway!) and headed back to the hotel. We chatted a bit, catching up and kind of planning how we wanted our morning to go. Once we were all comfy we decided to just go to bed so we could squeeze in as much as possible into the next day!
 
Chapter Two: We So Fancy!
Part One

The next morning, the three of us were up and ready to go by 8 am. This was our first time together in a year and we were totally making up for lost time! There was a lot of talking, teasing, and we were super ridiculous. We made it over to DCA by about 8:30 and headed over to grab a FP for RSR.


We decided we needed some caffeine before we took on the day so we headed over to get some drinks.


Let me introduce you to the Macchiato Family:

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I drink everything very fast - the only person I know who may finish their drink faster than me is my friend Kristen, so I always get the largest coffee I can. Jen gets a grande and Liz gets a tall because those are the only ways they can keep up with me. Oops.


Liz bought a sausage and cheese thing but it had no cheese in it and both Liz and Jen (who took a bite to try it, I was not that trusting) said it was….less than appealing.


We hopped into line for Soarin’ after coffee since the line was only 5 minutes long.


After Soarin’ we walked around Grizzly Peak, over to Paradise Pier. Our plan was to head to Midway Mania before it got too busy. There was no wait at all for Little Mermaid so we took advantage and rode on it! Liz and I had to sneak a picture at the end for our friend B, who loves Triton.

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Happily back from our voyage under the sea we continued down to Paradise Pier, still on our mission to play Midway Mania!


Except we had to stop to take a picture of the Paradise Pier/Atlantic City poster because they had just announced the name change.

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And I had to get the five millionth picture of the trip of my Fun Wheel.

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The Japanese game show I saw last time I was in DCA was there that morning, but I didn’t get any pictures of them.


We made it over to Midway Mania and the line was about 40 minutes but moving quickly. We figured it was the best time to get in line anyway so we braved it! It actually really moved faster than it did last time I played in DCA!


We had a great system on this day since there were only three of us. We would rotate every ride who sat alone so that nobody was left out. It worked out really well for us! We hadn’t really realized we were doing it until after a couple of rides and we decided to stick with it.


So, since Liz had gone alone on Little Mermaid, Jen went alone on Midway Mania. Liz and I donning our ears and glasses!

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And our final scores.

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It was time for our FPs for Radiator Springs so we headed on over there.

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We were in the winning car!

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We tried to go ride Heimlich’s Choo-Choo after this. Why? Because we all love it for its cheesiness! We got into the line, went all the way around….

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...and it broke down and we had to walk through the line and back out.


So….no Choo-Choo yet.


We realized that we hadn’t eaten yet and it was about 11:30 so there was one place we all needed to go:

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\
Yup, Cove Bar. Understand we were counting this as “breakfast” because we had lunch reservations at 2.


We were seated fairly quickly and were brought our drinks - we each got a Funwheel.

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To give you an idea, this is where we were seated - it was a pretty nice view, though we were very close to NPH’s count down.

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I snuck in this picture:

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Hardcore Disney nerds, all documenting their first Cove Bar experience of the week.


This is what they were taking pictures of:

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Glorious, glorious nachos. Liz had never had lobster before, but after these I think she may be a convert. How can you not? These are the most delicious things ever! We devoured them - remember, we hadn’t had anything for breakfast except like a bite of Liz’s gross sausage roll thing. These were necessary.


Then we got the Melrose Place because, as our waitress came back to ask us what we would like for a second drink, she mentioned that the Melrose Place as Rose Regale in it. Pro Tip: if you say those words, we will drink it.

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We liked it more than the Funwheel honestly! It was light and summery and a super bad idea.


As we were leaving I grabbed a picture of my shirt, one of the ones I had grabbed at Whosits and Whatsits’s pop-up.

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Happy, full, and a little on the tipsy side we decided to go walk around and enjoy the rest of the early afternoon!
 
Part Two

We left Cove Bar after paying and headed back into Bugs Land, determined to ride Heimlich’s Choo-Choo, but it was still down. We stood just near the entrance, chatting and trying to come up with a game plan. While we were standing there we noticed the characters in the bushes that we never noticed before.


And while we were looking at them a janitorial CM happened to be walking by on her way to her station and asked if we wanted a picture with them. We’re not the type to say no when CMs want to help so we quickly posed (can you tell that we were totally not ready for someone to take our picture?)

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We had two hours to kill and didn’t really want to go over to Disneyland just to come back. Also, we were starting to see quite a lot of people with the coveted rose gold ears, and Liz super wanted them. We were seeing people coming from the park entrance area with them so we headed over to Downtown Disney in search.


We found 0 things. Shock.


It was kind of hot, and we didn’t want to just walk back into DCA, so we decided to meander through the Grand Californian.

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We used the restrooms in the Grand and headed back to DCA. We still had about 45 minutes until lunch and decided to try ONE MORE TIME to ride Heimlich’s Choo-Choo. At this point it was just a matter of determination on our part. And we FINALLY got to ride!

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Having finally succeeded in our goal, we decided to head over to lunch. While we were heading over I let them know my plan:


So, way back in June I made an ADR for Carthay Circle because it was at the top of all of our lists for a place we wanted to eat in Disneyland, and was one of the only places none of us had eaten before. So, I had gotten the World of Color lunch package because the price was good and decided I was paying for it. I just hadn’t told them that.


I told them this after we sat down so there’d be no fighting lol. Liz was not pleased and had me let her pay for her drink. Jen had known that was my plan so she was fine with it.


We checked in early and were told we could sit in the lounge and wait, which we were happy to do! We were offered a drink at that point but decided we were going to wait until we were upstairs to order anything so that we didn’t have to worry.


Our name was called and we were seated within ten minutes, probably way less, and were instructed to follow our hostess upstairs to our table.


This restaurant is beautiful. I never wanted to leave!

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We were handed the menu which I thought to take a picture of (thank god because I would not have remembered what everyone got otherwise in this notebookless world!)

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Once we were seated we ordered our drinks which came quickly!

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I got the Pimm’s Punch (Pimms No. 1 Liqueur, Plymouth gin, strawberry, and lemonade served over crushed ice), Jen got the Aviation Cocktain (Plymouth gin, Creme Yvette violet liqueur, Luxardo Maraschino liqueur, and fresh lemon juice served up), and Liz got the Double Pear Martini (Double Cross and Absolut Pears vodka, pear nectar, and fresh lime juice complimented with a marinated baby pear, served up). We all really enjoyed our drinks.


Our bread service and appetizers came out fairly quickly:

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I got the Tuscan Golden Tomato Broth while both Liz and Jen got the Carthay Circle Garden Salad. Neither were overly fond of the sardines but Jen actually tried them! Liz did not, but she is not a fish person. My tomato broth was great!

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We all got the same thing for our entree, the grilled Santa Maria Tri Tip, which was so good!

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And then we each got dessert - Jen and I got the iced cookies and cream sandwich, which hit the spot, while Liz got almond chocolate “rocky road” brownie. She liked hers too, but I didn’t try it, so I can’t compare.


I paid and we headed out into the park again. We were just kind of taking it slow because it was INSANELY hot. We went into the Animation building to check out the different rooms in there:

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And clearly we had to bring Liz to the Beast’s library:

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We also decided to go to watch the Marvel preview.

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But after that we decided we were ready for a change of pace, so we park hopped over to Disneyland!
 
So quick FYI: I've been trying to write my updates over the weekend, but I will be gone Friday-Monday this week for Food and Wine and won't be updating for at least a week if not longer. So for those of you reading along just wanted to give you a head's up!

Part Three


Liz, Jen, and I had headed into Disneyland after our fun-filled morning/early afternoon in DCA.

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We didn’t have a real agenda. So we meandered to Fantasyland to do some of the rides Liz hadn’t gotten to try yet. Our first stop was Small World.

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Now, they had both lines open. One had a wait that was super long, and the other had nobody. And no one was going to the empty line. We kind of stood indecisively in the longer line for about two minutes before trekking back and going into the non-existent line. The CM at the break cheered us as we went over. To give you an idea, every boat coming out of the right-hand dock was filled.


This was ours:

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That’d be a whole lotta nobody else on the boat. We loved it! We got to sing along and point out all the different characters to Liz without being annoying to other people.


It was hot, like I’ve said about twenty million times so far this day of the TR, and we really had no plan, so instead of wandering we got waters, got onto the train and went around.

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Twice.

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We got off on Main Street after the second time around and decided we would head back to the hotel for an hour. We did stop into the gift shops on Main Street to look for some ears so I ran to the restroom. As I was headed back to meet up with them I stopped to snap this window to send to A (for those of you who did not follow my travels in April, he loves Toy Story)

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and then took a moment to just enjoy the fact that I was in Disneyland before meeting up with my friends.

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I did ask a woman with rose gold ears where she got them, but she told us she got the very last pair. Decidedly less than helpful.


When we got back to the hotel, Jen took a quick shower to get some of the sweat off while Liz and I quickly changed. We sat around for a little bit, just enjoying the AC, and waited for the sun to start setting.


Once it was low enough we headed back to DCA!

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We headed over to the Carthay Circle section and stood waiting for them to drop the rope with another family. We chatted with them and their kids about rides and our vacations until the rope was dropped.

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The CM told us his favorite spots to stand so we headed over and since we were the first two groups we took his two favorite spots!

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For those of you who can visualize the area, we stood where the hedges are, so that we had the height over the people in front of us so we could see better and had the railing to lean against while we were watching.


It never really got all that crowded in the Carthay Circle area. We sat while we waited, with our backs to the railing for something to lean on, and people-watched. When there was about five minutes left we stood up and enjoyed. World of Color is one of my top nighttime Disney spectaculars, so while I have a couple pictures I mostly just watched:

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Afterwards we shifted through the people to get through DCA and back over to Disneyland. We weren’t that tired yet so we wanted to do a couple more things.

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We ended up in line for Casey Jr since it was up and running during the fireworks.


We waited in line for 20 minutes.


20 minutes. For Casey Jr.


It should have only been ten. There was one train of people before us in line and we were supposed to get on the second trainload as the last three. Except the CMs miscounted. I could hear their conversation - partially they were just gossiping more than working, but partially because one of the girls was being trained. They counted enough people in our line, then counted in the family that came up with a scooter. So by the time we got up to the front to get on there was literally no space for us. Not even if we had split up.


So we had to wait another round. At this point we really didn’t even want to ride it, but the CMs had us standing where we could get first choice and we didn’t really have a way to leave where we were. So we waited for it to come around again and got on.


We chose the monkey cage. A couple got on with us. They were probably about our age, maybe a little older. The woman didn’t seem to speak much English but her boyfriend/husband/dude she was with came in with “hello fellow monkeys!” and the five of us had fun together. I mean it didn’t make up for the unnecessary 20 minute wait, but they definitely lightened the mood!


We decided to just get a snack and call it a night. There were too many people everywhere and none of us had the patience for it so we all knew we needed some sleep. We stopped in the Refreshment Corner. Liz and Jen got something - I don’t remember what because my notebook is still MIA - but I got this:

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We could tell we were exhausted because we sat there staring at the MSEP which none of us like much. We finished our food and headed out for the night, ready to sleep and take on a Friday of fun!
 
Chapter Three: The Quest for the Ears!


I leave for Food and Wine this afternoon so I decided to squeeze in one more update to this before I left for the weekend.

Part One

The next morning we somehow managed to get up, get dressed, do our makeup, and everything else we needed to do in a shockingly quick amount of time. My first picture in the park is marked in the EXIF data as 8:51 am!


As we headed in we saw the Straw Hats playing while Dale and Donald danced with guests. We watched them for a little bit then continued on our way. We had a mission for this early in the morning - get FPs for Matterhorn. The line was already pretty long so we decided it was probably a good idea.

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Now, this day was when we added a fourth person to our group - Jenny. Which will get confusing and I’m apologizing now. If you’re one of the few people who tend to read all my TRs I’m officially apologizing in advance for next year’s giant trip. Before our trip Jen had asked if we minded Jenny joining us and even though we told her that of course we didn’t mind she was nervous we wouldn’t get along.


Spoiler alert: we both instantly liked her. She gets the best friends stamp of approval. Clearly. I mean we invited her on our vacation next summer.


Anyway, we had to stop to get coffee before we got FPs because it’s us. For some reason it took forever for me to get my macchiato, so Liz and Jen went to play with the phones while they waited for me.

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There was no line for the photopass guy in front of the Partners statue so while I was taking this picture:

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Jen and Liz were asking him if he would take a picture of the three of us together because Jen has Photopass and we never take pictures of the three of us together.


He took one with Liz’s phone:

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One with his camera:

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Then told us to turn around for this:

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I love photopass photographers, seriously.


I had to take a picture of my outfit for the day because I was super pumped. I’ve had it planned for well over a year.

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(RIP broken sunglasses)

Then we went over to FP and pulled FPs. I never got the ticket for this one so I had no idea what time it was for. Which is super helpful let me tell you.

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FPs in hand Liz asked if we could do another ride she had never done before - Alice! Since Alice is Jen’s favorite clearly we said yes.


Also the wait was like ten minutes long so that helped.

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Let’s go to Wonderland!

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After this ride we headed up to the front of the park because we had gotten a message saying Jenny had just parked. We sat in the shade on a bench near the park entrance for about five minutes before she came over and met up with us. We introduced ourselves and headed back to Fantasyland. We had a mountain to ride.


While we were walking back over Jen was explaining the quest for the rose gold ears. Jenny decided that, since she didn’t have a FP she’d go on the lookout in the Fantasyland stores for them.


The FP line for Matterhorn moved quickly….and then we got to the front….


The ride stopped.


They started making calls for evac. Liz sighed and said “it’s going to take an hour to fix” with the experience you can only have from being a CM on Thunder for.


They made the announcement that the ride would be down for an hour.


We got out of line but forgot to grab new FPs. We didn’t really want them anyway since Jenny was with us now and we didn’t want to have to leave her out of things. Instead we met up with her and headed towards someplace to have breakfast.

Of course, Liz had to stop and try the sword in the stone first.

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I started a TR for my recent WdW trip over here if anyone is interested :)

Part Two


The four of us ended up at Rancho del Zocalo for breakfast via Fantasy Fare. We stumbled upon Gaston.

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But we were starving and did not stop for a picture.


Jenny, Liz, and I ended up with biscuits and gravy, while Jen got the Mickey pancake.

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I guess Jen had told Jenny about our habit of only ever getting chocolate milk while we were in Disney because when we both grabbed them out of the freezer I heard “See, I told you so!”


We were visited during breakfast by a super demanding sparrow that kept flying around us and demanding food that we did not give it. Sorry, sparrow.


We had no real plan as we finished up breakfast, but the Mark Twain was pulling in so we decided we’d hop on and ride it.


As we were getting on I noticed Tiana was meeting so I used my camera to take some pictures of her. I got caught and she waved at me. Hi Tiana!

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And once we got off the boat we happened to stop around where Tiana had been meeting to try and figure out where we wanted to go next when Jenny noticed someone over on Tom Sawyer Island:

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Hello, Captain Jack.


He waved to us and started heckling the people in the canoes. He actually tried to get into one of the canoes as it came by.


We made a decision that we needed something cool so we started over to the Tiki Room, except as we turned we realized we were going to walk headlong into Pocahontas’s line. Oops.

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The line for the Tiki Juice bar wasn’t all that big yet, so we each got ourselves a dole whip:

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And sat down outside the Tiki Room to eat them and relax. By the time we finished our dole whips they were starting another showing of the Tiki Room and there is air conditioning in there so we decided to go in and watch.

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Once it was over we decided to head over to DCA because we all wanted to do Animation Academy. We were still on the hunt for the rose gold ears, so we walked through the stores looking as we walked.


We got into DCA as the Trolley show was starting. Jen and Jenny had spent the whole time walking into DCA talking about how much of an earworm the trolley show was, so clearly Liz and I decided we were going to stand right in the front and watch the entire show.


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We’re great friends, I promise you.


After this we were on our way to the Animation Academy!
 
Part Three


We headed into the Animation Academy after the trolley show.

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The one we went to was PACKED because, well, August but also because the character of the hour was baby Groot. I am a less than stellar drawer but everyone else was super excited for this so we all went.


I mean, I don’t think I did half bad?

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Way better than other attempts at drawing in general, to be honest!


Liz and I were both kind of proud of what we did so we wanted to keep our drawings. Jenny kindly let up put them in her backpack’s water bottle pockets.

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We were kind of thirsty as we left so we stopped at the stand just outside to grab something to drink. Liz decided she really wanted some cotton candy too.

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I mean who doesn’t love cotton candy?

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We all shared it as we walked back through Carsland. We decided to go on Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree since the line was maybe 10 minutes.

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I think this video kind of explains how Liz and I felt about this ride lol. We actually love it, even as we’re laughing and swearing.


Excuse the fact that you can see a weird line of makeup on my face in this video - clearly I did a bang up job blending my bronzer that day :laughing::laughing::laughing:


Of course we decided the next thing to do was to hop into line for Luigi’s Rollicking Roadsters!

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We had a ton of fun but were super dizzy by the end of it so we decided it was time to go get a drink and get out of the heat.


Our choice was Trader Sam’s because Jen and Jenny hadn’t gone with us earlier in the week. Like usual we decided to take the cooler route through the stores. We were just getting into World of Disney when Jenny happened to pick up a pair of ears that were sitting on top of a display, forgotten.


Rose gold ears.


The ones Liz had been looking for for days.


We had a moment of absolute panic until we saw that a woman was restocking them. We decided to each get a pair for ourselves.

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(Clearly I took this picture back at the hotel but I figured it made more sense to put it here :))

I realized after we left that I should have bought a pair for our friend Kristen but didn’t manage to. We’re hoping we can buy her a pair before we go to Florida next summer.


WIth our ears acquired we continued to Trader Sam’s. It was busier than it had been earlier in the week, and it took about 20 minutes for us to manage to get the two small two-person tables next to the door.


Liz and I split an Uh-oa and some ahi poke.

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Jen got the Tiki Rum while Jenny got the Krakatoa Punch. They also shared some french fries.

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We only had one drink but we were in there for an hour and a half because the waitress was so slammed she forgot about us. We decided it wasn’t worth sitting there another hour plus for a second drink though, and we were right near the lot Jenny had to park in, so we decided that it’d be best to go move her car to the hotel lot before it got late and we were too tired to do it.


When we got back to Camelot we ended up relaxing and getting changed.
 
Group pic with the ears please! Can you order online for your other friend?

Oh don't worry, there will be a group picture in a later update :) I'm hoping we can order online once they become less popular/Disney starts putting more out. But because of the popularity even etsy-made rose gold ears are hard to come by right now. Good thing we have 8 months to find some for her!
 
P.S. I forgot to say your baby Groot drawing is so sweet. Great work!
 
Love your review. I can see how you all had a blast. So fun to go with friends! Love the Luigi video (that song is catchy..and with the honking). Impressed that one could film. I must be a wimp as I'm always holding on with both hands..lol. Amazing review and pictures. Thanks for sharing.
 
P.S. I forgot to say your baby Groot drawing is so sweet. Great work!

Thanks!

Love your review. I can see how you all had a blast. So fun to go with friends! Love the Luigi video (that song is catchy..and with the honking). Impressed that one could film. I must be a wimp as I'm always holding on with both hands..lol. Amazing review and pictures. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks so much :) If you see my hand whenever I reach down I white-knuckle it lol. Thanks goodness for popsockets or my phone would have fallen out of that ride so many times!
 
This’ll just be a quick update :) I'll try and do a second update later this week as well


Part Four


We headed back into Disneyland. I had changed into one of my tank tops (and a sweater because I’m always cold):

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They were flying the death star balloons and I really loved them, gotta be honest:

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We meandered, not really sure what we wanted to do. We knew we wanted dinner, though, so we headed over to Red Rose Taverne. The line was long but it was manageable and moved quickly.


Liz got the chicken sandwich a la Lumiere:

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This is grilled chicken breast, apple slaw, onion-bacon jam, and fried cherry peppers on a toasted roll.


I got (unsurprisingly) the poutine flatbread:

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This is slow-cooked beef, pommes frites, roasted garlic aioli, cheese curds, and pickled onions. I really enjoyed this, but I took the pickled onions off of it because onions can sometimes give me stomach problems.


Jen and Jenny both got the garden mozzarella flatbread:

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This was marinated tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, basil, and tomato sauce.


We all ended up getting lemonade, which was a rose lemonade and was so good! It was tart but light and well worth it.


We decided to continue our nightly exploration of Fantasyland. We started with Snow White:

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And then we went onto Pinocchio:

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We witnessed a parent meltdown in one of the lines. I wish I could remember what it was about (still no notebook to be found) but the kids wanted to do one thing and the parents were just not having it. I only bring it up because, after we finished riding all the dark rides we could before things started to close for fireworks, we headed back over to Jolly Holiday to grab a dessert. It took forever because there weren’t many people working. It wasn’t a huge issue, but it took forever. Jen and Jenny ordered one of the rose raspberry macarons to share and because it took so long they got two!


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I got a cupckae but it ended up being a bit too sweet for me at that time of night. It was a nice lemon cupcake, just too much:

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Now, the reason I brought up the parent meltdown? When we walked out of Jolly Holiday it was PACKED. Like, absolutely no place to sit at all. Except one tiny table in the back. We asked a family politely if we could get around them and they helped us maneuver ourselves over to the tiny table which was super nice of them. They happened to be leaving so after they helped up they packed up and left. Our table was missing a chair so they gave us one of theirs, that they had taken from our table since no one had been there. The parent meltdown family from earlier then comes to get the table. No huge issue for us, but they were super peeved we took one of the chairs (there were still more than enough chairs for their family of four, they just had hit their wall) and were very loudly upset about it.


We decided to finish our desserts in peace and leave.


We left through the Emporium. I wanted to grab a sweatshirt I had seen earlier - the teal Disneyland sweatshirt to go with my black WDW sweatshirt - and Liz had wanted to buy something for Kyle before she forgot.


I found my sweatshirt, turned around, and nobody was with me. Where did they go? I stood in confusion for a minute before slowly making my way towards the cashier and paid.


Where did they go?


Well, Remember had just started and all Liz had heard was the Wishes music and bolted in excitement. Jen and Jenny had followed behind her. We stood watching for a second before realizing it wasn’t Wishes and were super disappointed - even though I kept saying “it’s Remember”.


We decided to call it a night before the crowd started up Main Street since we knew we’d be doing park open til close the next day as our last full day at the parks.

Once we got back I took a quick comparison picture of my sweatshirts:

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To sleep - for the next day was epic!
 

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