It was definitely not in our plans to visit Disneyland during 2016, but then Luke won an in-game contest at an Oilers games, and the next thing we knew we were being flown to Anaheim, put up in a nice hotel and given a private tour of the Ducks’ arena, along with sixth row seats for a game between the Ducks and Oilers on a Friday night. The next day had no scheduled events as part of the prize, so while the other contest winners went shopping, went to the beach, slept off their hangovers, etc, Luke and I knew exactly where we were heading – Disneyland for the day!
We didn’t have a ton of time to plan for this trip, he won the trip and we were in Anaheim less than two weeks later, but we did manage to make an early breakfast reservation at the Plaza Inn, and a lunch reservation at Blue Bayou. The night before, we were informed that we had the chance to meet some of the Oilers in the lobby of our hotel in the morning – so sorry Minnie Mouse, we cancelled our breakfast with you!
I have the original Awkward Connor picture hahaha
After meeting some of the team, Luke and I caught a taxi and headed over to Disneyland for the day 🙂 Since the 60th Anniversary was still on, I made him stop for pictures by the sign
We both purchased one-day park hoppers and decided to start on the Disneyland side.
We immediately headed to Space Mountain, because we were really looking forward to seeing the Star Wars overlay of the ride (Hyperspace Mountain). We grabbed Fastpasses for that for the afternoon, then decided to find something to eat for breakfast. The Tomorrowland Terrace was re-themed as the Galactic Grill for awhile, so we were intrigued by some the the “Star Wars”themed food options.
Once we got a bit of food in our bellies, we checked on wait times on the app and started walking across the park. Of course, I had to stop for a churro along the way – you just can’t go to Disneyland and not have one!
We decided our first ride of the day would involve joining 999 Happy Haunts (one of our favourites!)
We then walked over to a non-existent line and went for a journey through the 100-Acre Woods.
By the time we finished celebrating with Pooh and his friends, it was time to check in for our lunch reservation at Blue Bayou!
- Blue Bayou review
Once we finished up our fancy lunch, we headed back over towards Tomorrowland. We stopped to assist Buzz Lightyear in his quest to defeat the Evil Emperor Zurg (we were not Galactic Heros…).
By this point, it was finally time to use our Fastpasses for Hyperspace Mountain! This was worth the wait – it was amazing! The theme lent itself so well to the ride, the music was perfect, the images of the Tie-Fighters and X-Wings flying around you were awesome – we both loved this!
We decided it was time to hop over to DCA. We went and grabbed a Fastpass for Tower of Terror for later that night, then stopped in A Bug’s Life Land to go on some of the rides with minimal wait times.
Francis’s Ladybug Boogie
Heimlich’s Chew Chew Train
We headed over towards Paradise Pier, which is so pretty!
On our previous Disneyland trip, we had grabbed a Fastpass for California Screamin’ but I chickened out and refused to get on it. This time I promised Luke I would get on it – and I did! And, go figure – I loved it!
We walked over and had a sample of sourdough bread and learned about the Mother Dough at the Boudin Bakery Tour. We decided it was time for a snack by this point, plus our feet were starting to hurt, so we headed into Ghiradelli and ordered a Banana Split – vanilla, strawberry and chocolate ice cream paired with sliced pineapple, sliced strawberries and fresh homemde hot fudge finished with fresh bananas, whipped cream, chopped almonds and a cherry. We knew this would be more than enough to share.
We found an empty table outside and sat down. We took our time eating, discussing how happy we were to be able to spend a day at Disneyland.
We caught a bit of the Pixar Play Parade (which we had watched in its entirety on our previous trip)
We headed back over to Disneyland to use a Fastpass we had grabbed earlier in the day for Indiana Jones. For some reason, I didn’t take any pictures of the queue, despite it being the most amazing queue line of any ride. It was as amazing as we remembered, the attention to detail is so fantastic.
We then left the park and headed back over to California Adventure in order to use our Fastpass for Tower of Terror.
After we were seated on the ride, the cast member asked if anyone was experiencing TOT for the first time – no one raised their hand, everyone had been on it before. This ended up being the best group of people we’ve ever been on Tower with (even to this day, 4 Disney trips later – yes, I’m that slow at getting these trip reports written haha). Every single person was laughing as the ride dropped, and it was so enjoyable.
After our great ride, we realized we were feeling a little hungry, but we wanted something quick so we headed over to Award Wieners.
- Award Wieners review
Once we finished eating, we said goodbye to California Adventure and headed back to Disneyland again. The castle was all lit up with the 60th Anniversary decorations, and looked beautiful.
We just stood for awhile taking it all in, before going to grab a spot to watch the second showing of the Paint the Night Parade. We actually ended up waiting about half an hour, but we were getting tired and just enjoyed sitting down on the ground for a bit.
Eventually, the parade reached us – and wow! I’m honestly not a huge parade person, but I enjoyed this one so much! It was really stunning, with all the lights and the incredible parade floats and the performers – I’m looking forward to being able to see this parade again one day. It was worth the half hour wait of staking out a spot.
Once the parade was over, it was late and we’d had a long day. We felt we had covered the parks fairly well, and even though the park was still open for another hour or so, we decided to call it a night and called an Uber to take us back to our hotel.