Dec 25 Christmas Day to L.A.

Things were pretty quiet around the Boise airport this morning. We left home about 8:00am. An inch of fluffy snow had fallen overnight. We flew United uneventfully to Anaheim via San Francisco, arriving at our hotel about 4:00. We had arranged for a limo to pick us all up.We're staying at the Majestic, an older property who's best feature is a free shuttle to DW every half hour!

After a brief rest, we took the 6:00 to Downtown Disney to make our 6:30 reservation at the Rainforest Cafe. An interesting theme restaurant with good food - but our service was REALLY slow......we were there for two hours! We were amused by periodic thunder storms and robotic elephants!

We walked the length of Downtown Disney. Lots of Christmas lights, eateries, fancy shops....an upscale mall. Its not actually in the park. And hoards of people! We finally got back to our hotel a bit before 10:00. Janet advises that we have to take the 6:30AM bus in the morning to take advantage of some free hour(?) in the park itself.

The kids did great today. Jack doesn't seem to fell very well so he was a bit down but Olivia had high energy and good spirits all day!

Dec 26

Chapter One - Janet has done a great job making all the plans for our Disney adventure. Today she had some special deal which would allow us to get into the park an hour "before anyone else", at 7:00AM! We got up early and caught the 6:30 shuttle bus. (It only takes ten minutes to get over there).  It was cold...and its still dark and we didn't get breakfast! So we and a million other people entered the park at 7:00 sharp. The benefit was that we were able to do a bunch of rides without waiting in lines. Star Tours, Astroblasters, Sub Voyage, Space Mountain, Thunder Mountain roller coaster, Carousel, Mister Toad's Wild Ride, Mad Tea Party, Its a Small World (Christmas special)........and more?

We finally got a meal of cheeseburgers, fries, pizza, etc (stuff for desert called "gray stuff" - a mousse) at a cafe called Red Rose Tavern. By the afternoon, the sun shone and it warmed up nicely.

Off to the Haunted Mansion then the parade, which was a Christmas spectacular.
Then we needed to collapse so we took the shuttle back to the hotel at about 3:00, grabbing a chorizzo along the way! We'll get the 5:00 bus back to the park and meet our dinner reservation at Carnation Cafe.

Chapter Two - After naps and some time to put our feet up we returned to the park in time for our dinner reservation. A fine meal with exceptional service this time! Then we did Pirates of the Caribbean, Autotopia, The Railroad, and more?

The evening fireworks was truly spectacular! We worked our way through massive crowds down the middle of Main Street to get a good view of the Castle.   The Castle, lit up in its Christmas splendor, is magnificent!  For the fireworks show they turn down the lights, send rockets over the Castle, project Christmas themes on the buildings and wow, the sound! They even made it snow! Amazing!!

Back to the hotel by 10:30. A very long day but we made it!! Breakfast with the Characters tomorrow!

Dec 27

Another long day, many miles walked, lots of waiting around. But, the weather was outstanding today - bright blue sky, upper 70s in the afternoon. This was the busiest day yet. The park reached capacity in the afternoon so they closed it down - only re-entries could get in.  I wonder how many people constitutes capacity? 50,000? 100,000? It was shoulder to shoulder everywhere.

We had our breakfast with the Characters this morning. Nice full breakfast bar with visits to the table by the Disney characters. Olivia loved it, chasing them down for autographs! She was also into Princesses!

Rides today included the Riverboat, Railroad, Pirates, some repeats, more that I can't recall! Lunch at the Hungry Bear.

Return to the hotel mid-afternoon for naps. Dinner at the hotel then back to the park for more of the same. So many people...........

We returned to the hotel just in time to watch the fireworks from the parking lot - great place to view them!

Tomorrow we will go to the other park - California Adventure.

Dec 28 California Adventure

We spent today at California Adventure, a newer section of the park distinct from the Magic Kingdom. It has an American 50's theme which is very authentic. We had a  nice breakfast at a cafe, and later a famous Corn Dog! There's an awesome roller coaster (which we all declined). We rode the ferris wheel (although not the swinging car) and a variety of kiddie rides. A favorite was the Radiator Springs Speedway. It starts harmlessly enough with a ride through stories from "Cars", then  - boom - out on the race track for a harrowing, high speed run to the finish line! The scenery in this section is incredible, too. Somehow Disney has exactly duplicated the look of the Utah red rock canyons.

We enjoyed periodic parades and music performances. Of course, the place was mobbed! But the weather was perfect, even warmer than yesterday.

Janet has the Disney app on her phone so she can keep track of wait times and also jump on "Fast Passes", which are great time savers. For example, we used a Fast Pass for the cars race and waited about 20 minutes. Other people were standing in line for up to three hours Yikes!

A stop at the Bourdain (?) bakery on the way out with a Mickey loaf and Olivia's slurpee. Back to the hotel for naps!

We returned to the park on the 4:00 bus and worked our way over to Wine Country Trittoria for dinner. It was an excellent Italian dinner, which was very expensive but it included premier viewing space for the water/light show that we'd see at 9:00. That show was awesome!

Our final event of the evening was to see "Soaring", a breathtaking flight over the world's wonders.

So, we "did" Disneyland in 3 1/2 days. The kids were real troopers. Olivia has endless energy and it may be that Jack wasn't feeling quite up to snuff.

Conclusion: Disneyland is a Magical place! (especially at Christmas time - the whole place is holiday themed - how do they do that?)

Tomorrow we go to the beach.

Dec 29 - The Beach!

Our three days at Disneyland are history. Today we head out to Huntington Beach. Jack and Olivia have never seen the ocean, so it should be enlightening!

The day started out with issues. Janet had reserved a car at Alamo which was supposed to be located at Downtown Disney. Shawn and I took the bus to Downtown Disney, walked all the way to the end and found the Alamo desk. We had to wait quite a while for the single clerk to work his way through a line of customers. Then, after all the paperwork, we had to walk a few blocks down to the Pier hotel parking garage and hike up three flights of stairs to find the car on the top floor. (Its a huge black Ford Expedition - plenty of room for everyone!)

We drove back to the hotel to pick up the gang - it took almost 2 hours to compete this task! We drove down to Huntington Beach Pier....took about 45 minutes. Not as horrific as I had anticipated.
The beach is busy place! Surfing, biking, sunbathing, frisbee, volleyball, you name it! We had a decent picnic style lunch at Zack's then hiked down to the water to splash around a bit and search for shells. We walked out to the end of the pier while the kids rode one of those 4 passenger bikes around the boardwalk, The weather was perfect... sun was very strong and we probably got a bit sunburned.

Back to the hotel for an hour's rest. Returning the car to Alamo was also an adventure. After many u-turns and inquiries we finally found where were to leave it. After dropping the car we walked back into Downtown Disney (this isn't actually in the park) for a nice dinner at LaBrea Bakery. After dinner a major souvenir shopping adventure at the mega Disney Store next door - quite overwhelming!

Tomorrow we pack up and get a ride back to the airport at 11:00.