My Return To Disneyland (or Being Lazy And Enjoying Air Conditioning)

It’s been a long summer blackout for my annual pass at Disneyland, but I was finally able to return to the parks this week! I had this on my calendar since my last Disneyland day, so I’ve been looking forward to it for a while.

I went again with my friend June (who went with me for the last day before our blackout). June lives 2 blocks from my house, so it’s pretty convenient to go to the parks together. And since I have parking on my pass and she doesn’t, we like to carpool.

Just like our last day in the parks, it was another super hot day. We got there at about noon (I had my workout early in the morning) and we were off and running as soon as we parked. First on the list was to get our favorite treat: Dole Whips!

Last time, we enjoyed our Dole Whips in the shade outside of the Enchanted Tiki Room, but since it was so ridiculously hot out we decided to go inside. I usually don’t go into the Enchanted Tiki Room, but the air conditioning was totally worth it!

Next on our list was something we had both been waiting on for a while. The Peter Pan ride had a pretty big refurbishment and had opened over the summer when we were blacked out. So we wanted to go on and see how the refurbishment looked. I’ve seen several videos on what they worked on so I knew to look for particular things in the ride. Overall, it looks pretty cool. I’m not too happy with the scene where you are flying over London. To me, it looks too bright and not as three dimensional as it looked before.

Next on the list was another ride that we knew would have some air conditioning: Indiana Jones. This is definitely one of my favorite rides and it didn’t disappoint. There was a weird technical glitch where things weren’t syncing up properly with the ride vehicle (the boulder scene was delayed and the Indiana Jones animatronic at the end didn’t come alive until we were driving away), but I actually thought those technical issues were pretty cool. I go on the rides enough that when I get to see things not show perfect, I’m pretty exciting. It doesn’t top when I rode the Finding Nemo submarines and all the computer imagining failed, but this was a pretty fun glitch to watch.

After Indiana Jones, we were feeling pretty overheated and a little hungry so we rode the Monorail into Downtown Disney for a late lunch/early dinner. We went to Tortilla Jo’s because we both were craving ice-cold margaritas (mine was a virgin since I am still on painkillers for my torn calf).

I had a pretty amazing steak burrito for my meal. While there are some good food options inside the parks, I have to remember to go to Downtown Disney too because they have a lot of variety for meals.

After the food, drinks, and air conditioning, we were ready to go back on some more rides. Next on the list (after riding the Monorail back into Tomorrowland) was Space Mountain. We waited for the ride and just as it was our turn the ride broke down. There was no set time for when it would re-open, but we decided to wait it out a bit. Just as we were getting close to the time deadline we had set for our wait, the ride started back up. We got to ride in the front of the car and it felt so much faster than it ever has. I’m not sure if I just forgot how fast it feels or after it’s shut down for a while somehow the ride gets faster. But it was perfect!

The last ride in Disneyland was Star Tours. That was a relatively uneventful ride. Except the guy sitting next to me was grabbing the outsides of the armrests so he was almost holding onto my leg instead of the seat and I wasn’t able to hold on on one side.

We headed over to California Adventure next where we had hoped to get some Fastpasses for World Of Color. Sadly, those had gone pretty quickly that day so there was no way for us to see the show. We were a little disappointed, but decided to just ride a few more rides before heading home. We rode Soarin’ (one of my favorite and the music from it is the ringtone on my phone). That ride will been changing the movie in the future so we want to get as many rides on it as we can.

Then it was time for another cool down break inside of Starbucks where I got a strawberry smoothie. After that, we were feeling pretty lazy and didn’t want to walk over to our next ride, Tower of Terror. Honestly, it isn’t that far away but we just didn’t want to walk it. And California Adventure has a little trolley that goes through a couple of parts of the park. So we waited longer than it would have taken us to walk to ride the trolley to what was going to be our final ride of the night.

After Tower Of Terror, the trolley happened to be right in front so we hopped back on and rode it to the exit gate of the park. But before we left, I wanted to make one more quick stop.

I never get the buttons at Disneyland, but I wanted to get an “I’m Celebrating” button to celebrate my SAG-AFTRA convention delegate win!

And after that, both June and I were ready to go home. The drive home was pretty quick and we’ve already made plans to go in a month to see the Halloween decorations.

Overall, I think it was a pretty great day at Disneyland. We were much lazier than usual, but that’s one of the perks of being an annual pass holder. We felt no need to rush around all the rides and we took advantage of whatever air conditioning we could find. Hopefully when we return next month, it will be a bit cooler.

I can’t wait to see what the Halloween decorations will look like! I know that that Disneyland day will be another great memory!

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