Having A Fantasmic Day (or A Relaxing Time At Disneyland)

My annual pass for Disneyland is about to be blocked out for the summer. There is a slim chance I might do a quick trip after work next week to check out the new Pixar Pier offerings (those should be opening this weekend). But even if I go for that it will be a very quick outing and I will be doing only limited things. I wanted to get in one more Disney day before the summer and this past Monday was my best chance to do that.

I went with my friend Dani and we didn’t have a ton of things on our agenda which was nice. But we did have one big thing we wanted to get done. We wanted to see Fantasmic! The show reopened last year, but I hadn’t seen it since then. The last time I saw it was quite a while ago. And now you need a Fastpass for the viewing areas and they are usually gone by the time we get to the park. But there are some dining options that include Fastpasses so Dani and I set that up and went to the parks to enjoy some time before the show.

Since we didn’t have a big plan for what we wanted to do, we were pretty lazy with our day. We first went to the California Adventure side where the only ride we ended up doing was Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout. I finally got to hear a new song on the ride so there is only 1 song left that I haven’t heard yet. Dani and I didn’t plan a pose for the ride photo, but I think this ended up being perfect! I’m acting crazy and Dani is confused by me but enjoying it all.

After ride we got some food and wandered around the various stores. I have an ears headband that you can change the bow on and I wanted to get the bow that is themed for the movie “Up”. I got that and Dani got a new bow as well. And I just like to see what else they are selling because Disney really is getting some fun merchandise!

After that, we headed to the Disneyland side where we went on Pirates of the Caribbean. They recently changed the ride a bit and we wanted to see the new scenes. The big news has been about the auction scene which used to be an auction for brides. But it changed to be an auction for household goods and the redheaded character (which previously was supposed to be the hot bride for sale) is now a pirate.

There were also a few other fun changes in the ride that we enjoyed and got a kick out of seeing. After Pirates we walked over to Finding Nemo where we went to the alternative viewing area. This is a room where you can watch the ride on a screen instead of going down into the submarines. I personally prefer the viewing room because there is nice air conditioning and it’s not crowded. We also had an amazing cast member who starting the video for us that showed us a bunch of fun Disney secrets in the room. If you do the alternative viewing room for this ride, check out what’s inside the lockers!

Our last ride of the day was the Haunted Mansion. Dani hadn’t been on it without it being the holiday overlay for a long time so she really wanted to go on it. And it’s one of the classic rides I love so I was happy to go on it too. Then we headed over to the Hungry Bear restaurant for our food and Fantasmic Fastpasses.

The meal at Hungry Bear is a picnic dinner. We both got the BBQ chicken which was a nice piece of chicken along with a kale salad and a mixed grains salad. We had a pretty big lunch earlier so I only really ate the chicken, but it was good. I also tried the grains salad which was tasty but I was too full. This picnic also came with soda and I decided to splurge and have a soda. I never drink them and it was a bit too sugary for me, but it was a nice treat.

When we were done eating, we spent a bit of time just hanging out and relaxing at the seating area of the restaurant. There is a nice view of the Rivers of America and it was nice and peaceful. It had been a hot day and the park was pretty crowded so it was nice to have a bit of an escape.

Our Fastpasses said to be lined up between 8-9 for Fantasmic, but since the show was the main event for us that day we ended up getting into the line area closer to 7:30. We only had a few people ahead of us in line but there were also the people who had Fastpasses from eating at Blue Bayou that had priority over us. But it worked out really well for us because we were still able to sit right at the fence for the show!

It was pretty close to be center and I was happy there was nobody blocking my view (the fence was there, but it was easy to look through it). The only downside to being that close to the action was the mist from the show got us pretty wet. But considering how amazing the view looked it was worth it!

There are so many times that we view things through our phones or cameras looking for the perfect picture, so I really tried not to do that. I took very few photos during the show so I could enjoy what was happening in front of me. But I did get the pirate ship as it went right in front of us!

The show was great and I really loved it! This was the best view that I ever had for it and if I go with people again to watch it I will totally do the picnic Fastpass deal from the Hungry Bear.

After the show, there was an announcement that we could stay where we were to watch the new Pixar fireworks show. I knew that they did some projections in that area for the show, but I didn’t realize they used the mist screens again to show clips of various Pixar movies during the fireworks!

I’m sure the view is amazing when you are in front of the castle and the projections there are incredible, but I loved watching the fireworks from where we were so we didn’t have to stress about rushing quickly to another section of the park so we could see both evening shows.

After the fireworks, we started our journey toward the exit of the park. We usually don’t stay this long and the downside is everyone seemed to be leaving the park at the same time as us. It was a little crazy, but we didn’t want to hang out there much later since it was already getting late for us and we both had to work in the morning.

If I don’t make it back to the parks before my pass isn’t good for the summer, this was a pretty great last day for a while. While we didn’t do a ton of rides, we both had a great day. Sometimes it’s nice being able to take advantage of just relaxing and being lazy at Disneyland. We had fun people watching and just enjoying a day out in a place that makes us and so many other people so happy.

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