Back at Thanksgiving, my cousin mentioned to me that her daughter was going to be performing with her dance group at Disneyland in February. I wrote down the dates that they would be in town and said that I’d love to meet up with them while they were here. They ended up getting flights that landed at LAX instead of Orange County, so when they flew in I was able to meet up with my cousin and her daughter for dinner that night. And we made plans to meet up at Disneyland the next day.
My cousin told me that the performance was going to be at 2:30, so I took some time off of work so I could make it for that. Between traffic and the parking lot taking time to get through, I was terrified that I would miss the performance. But by some miracle, I was able to get into the park and join my cousin to watch her daughter perform. I made it there only a minute or two before she went on, and I felt so lucky that I didn’t miss it.
While we were waiting for my cousin’s daughter to come out after the performance, it started to rain. I had seen that there was a chance of rain in the forecast, but it was saying just sprinkles and only for a brief time. This rain was a pretty heavy storm and we found an umbrella by the entrance of a ride that we could wait under. We still got a bit wet, but it saved us from being completely soaked.
To avoid the rain, we went over to the Animation Building so we could do the Animation Academy and see Turtle Talk. A lot of people had the same idea as us and it was so crowded inside there. But the space was big enough that we were able to get into both things without too much hassle.
When we were done, we went back outside and the rain was finally done. It was really cold, but we were able to dry off a bit when we were inside so that helped. I can’t imagine how bad it would have been if we were drenched and it was that cold out.
Then it was time for us to go on some rides. We started with Guardians of the Galaxy, which my cousin and her daughter went on earlier as well. Fortunately, they like all the big and crazy rides so they were happy to ride on it again with me.
After that, my cousin and her daughter had a ride time for Toy Story Mania with their MaxPass, but I didn’t have a time. But that worked out perfectly because we noticed there wasn’t a big line at the Lamplight Lounge and I was able to wait for a table for us for dinner while they rode the ride! By the time they came back, our table was just about ready. We were seated outside downstairs and it was a bit cold. They did have heat lamps which helped.
After dinner it was time for what we thought would be our last 2 rides of the night. We went on The Little Mermaid and Radiator Springs Racers.
After those rides, California Adventure was going to be closing soon and we were all getting a bit tired. But I mentioned to my cousin that it might be a good time to do Space Mountain together since we rarely get to be at Disneyland together. We decided to head over to the Disneyland side to ride that and when we were done we noticed that the Jungle Cruise was pretty much a walk-on. I love Jungle Cruise at night so of course we had to do that. And when we were getting off that ride, Indiana Jones opened up after being closed for a while and that was a walk-on as well. Again, we had to take advantage of that and we got another unexpected ride in.
I ended up being at Disneyland for about 8 hours and we did 6 rides (plus 2 show type things and dinner). I wasn’t planning on being there that long or that late, but I was having so much fun. I rarely get to see my cousin outside of Thanksgiving and we always have fun together. And of course, I always love being at Disneyland and getting to have fun there. By the time I got home, it was about 3 hours later than I thought I’d be home and I knew it would affect me the next day, but it was totally worth it.
I would have loved to have gone back to Disneyland the next day to hang out with my cousin and her daughter more and I actually debated doing that. But I knew it wouldn’t be the best thing for me to do and my cousin mentioned that they had dinner plans that night so I wouldn’t have been able to spend too much time with them.
I think we totally took advantage of the time we had there. We ended up doing so much more than we thought we’d do and we had the best time. The last time I was at Disneyland with my cousin was when her daughter was a baby, but I’m hoping that we can do this again much sooner than how long it had been before.
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