My grandparents were very generous at Christmas and had given us some money to use on an adventure for our family. Knowing that we had a new little one on the way, and with Makenna getting older, we decided that it would be so much fun to use it for Disneyland tickets. We knew that Makenna would love it, we had the added incentive that it is the last year that she gets into the park for free, and we were able to get the 2fer deal so we could go twice for virtually the same amount as a one day ticket would cost. We made sure that we got her a special princess dress too for the Disneyland adventures.
Day 1 (March)
My family had a tradition of making special Mickey Mouse pancakes before heading in the car to Disneyland and I wanted to keep that tradition alive. So we all ate Mickey Mouse pancakes before we left the house:-)
The first day that we went we were lucky enough for my mom and Jim to be able to join us. The first ride that we dashed over to was Finding Nemo Submarines because we knew how long that line gets later in the day.
Well, I am not sure whether that was such a wise choice of first rides because it scared Makenna so much when the volcano erupted that she didn't want to open her eyes for the remainder of the ride. We opted for a happier, slower paced ride after that: It's A Small World fit the bill.
She liked the "singing dolls" and started to get more into the spirit of Disneyland and having fun. The weather was very nice and not many people were there so we were able to get onto just about every ride that we wanted to. The only area that we didn't really get to was Toon Town. Makenna's favorite rides of the day were the Carousel,
Pirates (surprisingly), Dumbo,
Winnie-The-Pooh,
the Tikki Room, and the Tea Cups.
The traumatizing rides of the day were Nemo and the Haunted Mansion. We were able to stay all the way to the 7pm parade where Makenna finally got to see Donald Duck, which she had been waiting to see all day. After a long day full of excitementm she fell asleep in her stroller with her Minnie Mouse and the deafening noise of the crowd, people, and parade music as we headed out of the park.
Day 2 (April)
Well, our first choice of days for our April Disneyland adventure got rained out so we had to choose a different day. Since we had been on most all of the rides the first day, we thought it would be fun to let Makenna choose which rides to go on; unfortunately she refused, so we went on the Buzz Lightyear one first. We hit all of her favorite rides from the previous trip and then went into Toon Town. We went into the play areas, Rodger Rabbit, and then went to visit Minnie Mouse. Surprisingly, Makenna went right up to Minnie and gave her a hug, and stood by her for a picture.
I don't know if I would have been that brave at her age. After that she was on a character seeing fixation. We saw Tigger,
Eeyore,
and Winnie-The-Pooh next.
Then even after that she still wanted to see a princess so we decided to brave the line and go over to the Happily Ever After princess section. The time before we couldn't get Makenna to wear her princess dress for more than one ride, but when she heard that she was going to meet three princesses she told me "I need to wear my princess dress". The line luckily went really quickly and within 20-minutes she was able to see Cinderella,
Mulan,
and Aurora.
Makenna was also so thrilled when daddy and her were able to drive a car at Autotopia. She just barely reached the height requirement and she was so excited to get to steer the car. Daddy said it was the bumpiest ride of his life, but they had fun together.
Makenna's favorite rides of the day were Winnie-the-Pooh, Dumbo, Autotopia, and seeing all of the characters. Her least favorite was the Haunted Mansion; which we only went on when she had fallen asleep, but apparently she woke up part way though...oops. Another fun and exhausting day!
