Disneyland: The Final Day

This was an up and early day. We had a lot of things to do, and only one more day to do it. Main items on the list were finish up the rides, and see and take pictures with Disney characters and friends. One ride I really wanted to go on was Splash Mountain, and mom wanted to go on the Jungle Cruise. Picked up a map, and started walking through the Park. Splash Mountain we found first and since the wait time was about 10 minutes we went for it. The funny thing about it was that this fall, where they take your picture was the biggest fall, but wasn't the one that got us the wettest. Hey at least mom went on this one with me. We bought the actual picture not knowing that the one I took looked like such a blur. Oh well, we got wet early and avoided the big crowd.
Some how we ended up going the wrong way I think. We were looking for the Jungle Cruise, instead we found the Mark Twain Riverboat ride. Eh, that was okay to. Nice ride and we got to be on a boat. No big complaints here. While we were doing that we got to see different things, I guess it was kind of like the Jungle Cruise, but without the jungle and more of other things.
Once that was over we started walking again. We found this time the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. I don't think it was until we were partway through the line that mom realized that it was a roller coaster type thing. It wasn't that bad, there weren't any big drops, she had no complaining to do. I wasn't letting her get out of this one. No way!

Then trying to find a restroom or the Jungle Cruise, we were in Frontier Land, I guess that makes sense since we ran into Woody and Jessie. Weren't sure if we were going to see them again, so I got a picture with them. Then Jessie took the camera from mom so that she could be in the picture too.
We walked around some, found the restroom, and a restaurant, but the food there wasn't anything special, just a fancied up burger and fries place. Walked passed the Merry-Go-Round and the Dumbo ride, found a good spot for a picture and I tried to pull the sword out of the stone. It didn't really work, I guess it wasn't meant for me.
We finally found the Jungle Cruise and were off for an adventure. Avoided getting chomped on by piranhas, sprayed by elephants, shot at by natives, and attacked by lions (but they were busy "helping a Zebra"). It was a fun little tour around the jungle, we even went under a waterfall or something like it.

Then there was something I wanted to do, and remembered walking past it the night before. Well, we didn't actually walk past it, but I heard it. The Snow White Wishing Well. It was echoing, although I think I was doing more of the echo then the well. Oh well, still something I really wanted to do.

Then we headed off to Space Mountain. It was a pretty good long wait, and a good walk up to the top of the building. It was a nice day out and although the wait was long, there was a drink vendor up on the roof. And that was good, because we were down to the last of the water we got in the morning.

Space Mountain we waited, and waited and waited. We were about 5 minutes from getting on the ride when it shut down. There was an announcement it was closed, they weren't sure when it was going to be started back, so it was either wait or leave. Our decision was to wait 10-15 minutes and then think about it. We waited some more, the line behind us deteriorated a lot, and within that time the ride started back up again. Yay, we were back in business.
After the ride mom realized that this was the one she remembered from before. When during the ride she was so worried about me being tossed around that she didn't get on the next ride after that. She said that when I was little the look on my face was more of a lets do that again then anything worried, I think that was the same face I had this time. Even though it was a super long wait, I wanted to do that again.

Then we went for a walk, saw Peter Pan, took a picture of him, I didn't want to wait for him, sorry Peter, maybe next time. We went through Adventure Land and in looks for some lunch. We found a nice place in New Orleans Square, there was even a little entertainment while we were eating lunch. The food was pretty good. We got a couple packets that had little free bee's, and so we were next in search for a specific store for a lanyard and Disneyland Pin. Found it!

After that we were headed towards Critter Country. Trying to make sure we had done everything in that area, and I think it was as we were walking in I saw Tigger, and close by to him was Pooh. Both of those lines were pretty long, and they were mostly little kids. I got a picture of each of them and off we went. Sorry guys, I was just a little out of place there, even though I really wanted to take pictures with them. Oh well.

Then we were waiting for the Parade. We were back at Main Street, and hopping in and out of stores some. There were a couple things we had missed when we entered the park that we completely passed by. We walked into the Main Street Cinema to see a couple clips of the Old Fashioned Mickey cartoons, and then went to Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, but we decided to wait until after the parade to see the presentation.

So we waited, trying to figure out where a good place to sit and see the parade would be, and it was a little hard since we also wanted some shade, but that was just about impossible. I think we kept moving left and right, at least I was, walking this way and that trying to find it. We settled on a place in front of the train station, and right on the curb. Good spot I think, we got to see it all.

There were all sorts of things during the Parade. Different characters and people. There was Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Pluto and Donald of course. Then there was the chip munks, Chip and Dale. There was Aladdin and Genie.

Then we went under the sea with the little Mermaid. Of course if you look at that picture it takes a second or five to realize that they are fish. I know mom wasn't sure what they were, but me with a wild guess went with the hint from the music that they were fish. Strange looking fish, but they were fish.

Then came the Princess Float. It had most of them on it, Ariel had her own float when the fish came by. But this one had Princess Aurora (sleeping beauty), Belle (Beauty and the Beast), Rapunzel (with her very long hair), Snow White (with out her dwarfs), and Cinderella. Those princesses are ones that I recognized, that I know from my childhood.
After Princesses was Jungle. I think there were characters from the Jungle Book, Tarzan, and the Lion King. I may not have seen all of those movies or remember them quite clearly, but I'm pretty sure the ones that I saw were not all in the same movie together, especially since I know the only main monkey in the Lion King was Rafiki, and he wasn't there, but Simba and Zazu were. I know I'm not crazy. I know my Disney movies.

After that was some New Orleans dancers with some swinging dance moves, and if you didn't know the movie that surrounds that era is the Princess and the Frog. I know my mom was a little confused since she had never seen the movie, especially since it is a pretty new movie, and really I had only seen it once, but I knew. There was Tiana, Louis (playing his trumpet) and at the top the other princess or the Marti Gras princess Charlotte "Lottie" La Bouff. Yeah, if I hadn't seen that movie I would have been as confused as my mom, good thing I knew or we would have been in trouble.

Then came some more familiar characters, one of which we had seen earlier. Some were the crew of Captain Hook including the Captain himself, and his trusted assistant Mr. Smee. Along with all those Pirates was the well know, boy who doesn't want to grow up, Peter Pan. During the time they were coming by, I even got a glimpse of captain Hook and Peter in a little sword fight, of course Peter was going to out smart him. Hiding at the top of a float was Tinkerbell. Can't forget about her.

The Parade ended with the song about a nonsense word, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Yes. Right. I think that's how you spell it. We saw Marry Poppins and Bert riding on a couple horses that had escaped from the Merry-go-round. That ended the Parade, which seemed to come so quickly.

Then we were off to other things. Since the parade was over we had were going to finish the Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln. It was nice, dark, and relaxing in there. I was exhausted, and could have fallen asleep, I almost thought my mom had, but maybe she was just resting her eyes.
When that was done I was walking to the exit of the building and saw a man holding a camera, I just thought he was taking a picture of his child in front of the building, well there was a little more to it, the little child was walking along with Mickey Mouse. Ah, I was so excited! Just who I wanted to see, and the line was short, even better. As I walked out we saw a few more Minnie in the center of the plaza, and Goofy over in the corner.

Yay characters! Yay Pictures! We went from Mickey to Goofy since he was a little closer. While we were waiting in line mom was looking at what was happening in front of us and mentioned that I should be prepared for Goofy being goofy. He was doing all sorts of things, and when I finally got up to him he just kept shaking my hand, shaking, and shaking and shaking. I finally had to pull my hand out and he still kept shaking. But I finally did get a picture face front with him.

We then went over to the line for Minnie I thought I would get one, but there was someone patrolling or I guess guarding them making sure there was some order. I heard it when we were in line for Goofy, that there was a limited amount of time to wait since there was another Parade they had to get ready for, but we got through that line with enough time. For Minnie though there wasn't enough time, she had to go and get ready. But the lady did say that after the Parade Minnie would be back to do more autographs. Okay.

So Minnie walked in one direction towards back stage, and we went another. We did a little more shopping, or a little more browsing, at least I did. I was looking for a shirt or a something that was more then a Mug. We had gone through a couple clothing stores the day before and there was something there that I wanted. Just had to go back and find what it was. There was a shirt and I bought it.

Then we went walking down Main Street again towards the rides. We knew there were still a few rides we hadn't gone on yet, and so if there was a short wait, we were going to get on. We found one, Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters. Another shooting or interactive game. We had to help Buzz defeat the Evil Emperor Zurg. This time mom had the better score, but I do think my thing was broken, I mean I was shooting straight at things and it didn't seem like anything was happening.

Then we went through Sleeping Beauty's Castle. I mean we had walked through the entrance earlier in the day or in the days before but we didn't take the tour around and see what was inside. There was the Corridor of Goons, and at one point you could see and hear a little guard walking back and forth, but I was not expecting anything to pop up. Like I said I was not expecting anything, yet one of those Goons popped up his head and scared me.

After that we were near Peter Pan's Flight and Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. Each line looked and I think was about the same wait time, but we went for Mr. Toads. Mom said that when we went last time Tanya was scared because the ride goes into a dark room, and she didn't want to do that. Then again, I'm sure any little kid would be scared to go on those rides that head you straight into the dark.

After that we went to the Disney Princess Fantasy Faire. Most of the things were over for the day. The story telling, and shows, I think the only thing that was still going was the Princess Meets, and I really wanted to do it. Again, I was probably the oldest person besides parents in line, but I wanted to meet the Princesses. The line didn't seem that long, but the wait kind of was. I think they wait for one person at a time, because it did seem that the line really wasn't moving. So after standing there and not really moving much, we were close to the train, and just decided to wait for it to get to the front, since we knew that would be where Minnie would be, and the Parade had just ended.

The sign said that the train came every 5 minutes, so there wasn't that long a wait. Some people came off, and we went on. There was one stop at TomorrowLand before we got to Main Street. When we got there Minnie wasn't the only one in the center. There was also Geppetto and Honest John from Pinnochio. Sorry to them, Minnie was just a little more important to me. We got in line for her, but yet again she walked away before I could get to her. Mom said that it was because she saw me with Minnie and got jealous, but that doesn't make sense about the people that were in line in front of me waiting as well. I guess she had somewhere else to be.

We went walking down Main Street again, looking for food. I had told mom that we could just find a place there to eat dinner because she didn't want to walk the whole park again. Oops. All the places we stopped at didn't seem like anything we really wanted, so we did end up walking the park again. Sorry Mom. We went back to New Orleans Square and had some nice warm Clam chowder. Mmm. It hit the spot.

Mom had found this and said that since I didn't get a picture with Minnie, that this was going to have to work. It's okay, but it's just not the same.

They were getting ready for the night time events in Disneyland. The fireworks, and the Fantasmic. There were ropes up and people saying that if you weren't with in the roped area you needed to keep walking. And we did. Popped into a store we hadn't been in yet and decided to look around some. I found a sweatshirt that I really liked, but there wasn't any on the rack in my size. We had asked one of the people working there if they had any in stock in a smaller size. The answer was no, but there were a couple other shops that offered that sweatshirt, and so we were headed to look at the other ones. The store in TomorrowLand was the closest, and then was the Emporium which was near the main gates. From one store to the next, and it looked like we were out of luck. Each store had the sweatshirt, just not in the right size for me, they even checked in the back, but there was nothing.

I was slowly giving up hope, and I think so was mom. It didn't look like the stores had them, and mom said I should just give up and find something they had that was in my size. We went to the Emporium and they didn't have it the smallest size I think they had was an extra large. I was really looking for a large or a medium, but just for the sake of things I decided to try it on. It was a little lenghty, but I was also wearing shorts so it was a little difficult to compare. But it was something we had just walked into three different stores looking for, and it was something I liked enough that I did buy it. The woman at the check stand said that there was one last place we could check, just outside of Disneyland there was Downtown Disney, and in there is a big Disney Store, they might have it. I bought the extra large at the Emporium and shouldn't have tried looking at the other place. It may have been a huge Disney store, but this one also didn't have my size. Well, at least we tried and at least I bought it.

Since we hadn't been to Downtown Disney the entire time we were there we walked around some and looked at all the shops we had missed. During the day we had seen people with Jamba juice and other things that weren't at either of the parks or any of the stores on when we were walking to Disneyland. This explaned it all. There was a big lego store, and a place for little kids to build their own cars, that was where they were getting all of these things.

We walked all the way to the end of it and found out it was like the back enterance to the Disneyland Hotel or something. We couldn't get out that way, so we had to turn back around. Along the way the fireworks had started and we got to see them, I don't think it was the same since we weren't in Disneyland seeing the fireworks and listening to the music that went along with it, but it was still like a last special thing to end our final day at Disneyalnd.

What we didn't realize is that it seemed that the fireworks ended about the same time World of Color did, and that was about the same time we were exiting Downtown Disney and headed toward the buses. There were huge crowds coming from each direction, I guess some with their little ones just so that they were there for the show and then it was time to head back. I think mom and I had to wait for the second bus because the first bus that came was a smaller bus and there were a lot of people waiting.

We caught the second one and were headed back to the hotel. Mom had bought a couple treats for each of us our first night there, we each got a truffle and she got a single chocolate covered strawberry (which was quite big). That night she ate her little truffle and we shared the strawberry, but it wasn't until our last night that I ate mine. It was so good. I think if I had eaten it the first night I would have bought more to bring home or something. But I guess it was a good thing I didn't because I don't need to be eating that much chocolate.

It was our last day at Disneyland, and I only hope that it doesn't take me as long to go back next time. Yearly trip before school? We'll see.