Guardians and Ladies Who Lunch (or A Fun Summer Day At Disneyland)

Every summer, I know that my Disneyland pass will be blacked out. So we always try to plan a really fun Disney day as our last day before the summer blackout. And my friends Dani, Michelle, and I had planned a Disney day for this week about a month ago. We had no clue that we would be there about a week before our adventure, but we still were more than ready for an amazing Disney day!

Knowing that this was going to be our last day in the parks for about 2 months, we worked on what we wanted to do. The biggest thing was to ride the new Guardians of the Galaxy ride that is where the Tower of Terror ride used to be. It had just opened and we hadn’t had the chance to ride it. And originally when I thought I would need surgery, there was a chance that I wouldn’t be able to ride it until the fall. So to know I could ride it this time made me so happy!

We got to Disneyland around 12:30 and immediately started to work on a plan for the day. We had a few things on our list and we wanted to time things out carefully. We first got Fastpasses for the Haunted Mansion and went on the Pirates ride while we waited for our Fastpass time. And the timing worked out perfectly because we were off Pirates right when the Fastpasses were good. We quickly got into the room before the stretching room and it seemed to be taking a bit of time. So we took advantage of that and tried to get a cute group photo in the room.

Unfortunately, the reason we were stuck in that room for so long was the ride broke down. They gave us the option to wait to see how long it would take for the ride to start back up again, but we weren’t able to stay. And that was because we had some lunch reservations that we were looking forward to!

When we were planning this Disney day, we wanted to make sure we did some special things. And to us, getting to eat at the Blue Bayou is pretty special. It’s not too much more expensive than what we normally spend for meals, but it is a bit of a splurge. And you have to make sure that you make reservations in advance because it’s so rare to be able to walk up and get a reservation for some point that same day. We actually made our reservations the last time we were at Disneyland and we got one of the last reservations times for the day!

And even with our reservation, we still had to wait about 30 minutes for a table to open up. But it was worth it because it is such a fun restaurant!

We didn’t get a water front table (I’m sure the wait would have been even longer if we wanted one of those), but you still get a fun view of the Pirates ride from the seats. And we were pretty sure that the last time we ate there we were at the exact same table.

We took our time eating lunch because it was hot outside and nice and air-conditioned in the restaurant. I had the steak (which I think I had the last time too) and it was the perfect meal. I knew this was going to be my main meal of the day and it was delicious! And getting to have a nice, relaxing, and kind of fancy meals with my friends was exactly what we wanted to do.

After lunch, it was time for the other main event of the day: riding the new Guardians ride. I’ve seen so many videos of the ride and I was almost shaking with excitement as we got to the ride. And I think Michelle and Dani felt the same way. We were all smiles as got into line!

The line for the ride was pretty awesome too. The first room that you go into has Rocket Raccoon and it’s so funny. And there are some things hidden in the room that we were pretty sure were from the Tower of Terror ride. And when you are close to the ride, there is a Yeti from the Matterhorn ride up in a display!

And it was exactly what we hoped the ride would be! It’s not exactly a drop ride, but it still has drops. But the ride is almost always in motion (instead of just going up and dropping) and it was almost more exciting to be flying up than to be dropping down. We loved it so much that we rode it twice! There are 6 different versions of the ride, all with their own soundtrack. The first time we rode the soundtrack was Elvis and the second time we rode the soundtrack was the Jackson 5.

And not only is the ride different, the way that the photos work at the top were different too! The first time, it took forever and we were wondering if we were ever going to drop. The second time, we didn’t even really stop where they take the photo so we all have half poses on our faces.

We also walked to the side of the ride where we heard there was an Avengers logo in the ground. There are rumors that an entire Marvel land will be coming one day, and having this next to the ride makes me think that those rumors are probably true.

After those rides, we headed back to the Disneyland side. We wanted to get on Space Mountain before the summer blackout again. And because our second ride photo on the Guardians ride was so funny, we decided to pose like each other. So I posed like Dani, Dani like Michelle, and Michelle like me. I think we nailed it!

After Space Mountain, we were done with the rides. But we still had one more thing we wanted to do before we left. We had said that we really wanted to watch the fireworks show since it’s such a good one. We thought we had claimed a good spot near the castle, but because of the angle of how they shoot off fireworks we had a tree blocking our view (I’m sorry Michelle!).

We did get to see the projections on the castle up close which was fun. It reminded me of the amazing projections Universal had at their show. But it might have been ok that we couldn’t really see the fireworks because in the middle of the show, everything stopped and the lights came back up. The winds had gotten too strong and the fireworks had to be cancelled. It’s unfortunate, but I know how it can be super dangerous if there are high winds. So maybe this Disney day was meant to see the castle projections and when we go back after the summer blackout we can watch the fireworks from farther back.

By this point, we were all pretty tired. We ended up walking through Downtown Disney and checking out some of the stores and then walking back to the parking garage. I was so tired when we got back to the car, but it was worth it. We got almost everything done that we set out to do and it was pretty close to a perfect day. Now I just have to wait about 2 months until I can get back!

You Might Also Like

Another Disney Birthday (or Eating All The Foods Again) Having A Fantasmic Day (or A Relaxing Time At Disneyland) Disneyland At Christmastime (or An Evening Of Rides) A Full Summer Day At Disneyland (or Seeing Favorites And Seeing New Stuff) Disneyland Bucket List (or One Last Visit Before The Summer Blackout) Recovering At Disneyland (or A Never-Done List)