A Friend Filled Afternoon/Evening At Disneyland (or Missing Some Ride Pictures)

I’m really happy that I have Mondays off from my main day job. This way I can go to Disneyland for the afternoon (after my Orangetheory workout).

I had been meaning to go to Disneyland for a couple of weeks now so I decided that this Monday I was going to go no matter what. I put it out on Facebook that I’d be going and a couple of friends said that they would be there and we could meet up.

I got to the parks around 2pm (there was lots of closures plus a bad accident on the freeway so the drive took forever for me) and as soon as I arrived I messaged my friend Justin. He was in the parks with some friends and we were all going to hang out as a group. We all met up and headed over to our first ride, which was going to be Star Tours.

After the ride (where sadly none of us in the group were chosen to be the rebel spy) a couple of Justin’s friends had to leave and our group was down to 3. Next, we rode Buzz Lightyear where I got one of my worst scores ever. But I guess I was lucky because for some reason our photo from that ride didn’t come out.

Next was a stop for a treat. Because it was warm out (and I thought it might make my sunburn hurt a little less), we got Dole Whips!

You can definitely see how bad the sunburn looks by the color difference between my face/chest and my arms (also, you can see the burn line on my chest).

The Dole Whip did revive me a bit and next we headed over to the Haunted Mansion. They will be adding a new animatronic in the ride soon that I’m very excited about so I wanted to make sure to ride the ride one more time before it gets busy with the crowds when the new character is installed.

After that, Justin and his friend had to head out (there was a private Annual Pass party that night and they needed their wristbands and wanted to get dinner). So I hopped on the Disneyland Railroad and texted my friend, June, who was on her way down to the parks.

I love riding on the railroad at Disneyland. First, it’s such a great way to see a lot of the park while relaxing.

And of course, I love the Grand Canyon/Primeval World dioramas between Tomorrowland and Main Street (I tried to get pictures of those, but they were all too blurry).

I had just enough time to do a lap on the railroad before June arrived and we were off to ride some more rides. We did ride Buzz Lightyear were I got a better score and our picture worked.

I look so serious!

Next, we rode Space Mountain. Fortunately, June is like me and likes to take silly pictures. So we decided to try to do the comedy/tragedy faces for Space Mountain.

I’m not sure if we succeeded in doing that, but the photo is pretty funny! After Space Mountain, we knew that we wanted to get some dinner. But before eating, we made a quick stop at the castle to get a picture in front of it now that it is all decorated for the 60th anniversary.

After dinner we headed over to California Adventure. Right near the entrance of the park we saw Goofy in his dapper outfit so we made a quick detour to get a picture with him.

Our first ride was Radiator Springs Racers (I’m unsure if our car won or not).

While in line for Radiator Springs Racers I was telling June how I was only in Cars Land once when they turned on the lights for the evening. I said how I wished that I could see that again because it was really cute.

And perfectly on cue, as we are exiting Radiator Springs Racers, all the lights in Cars Land turned on.

Seriously, we couldn’t have timed it out better.

California Adventure was closing early that night, so we wanted to make sure we got one more ride in for the evening.

I love Tower of Terror, but so many of my friends don’t want to ride it! So I was more than happy to go on. I wish I had taken a picture when we were at the top of the ride about to drop. It was so gorgeous with the sun setting and California Adventure and Disneyland all lit up.

After the ride, we went to look for out picture and sadly our elevator did not have a picture that came out. So that’s 2 of my ride photos that failed.

It was time to head back home after that last ride. I was in the parks for about 6 hours and got quite a bit done and hung out with a lot of people!

I’m going to try to make at least 1 more Monday visit before the craziness of the 60th anniversary starts. And of course, once the anniversary starts I’ll have to go see all the amazing things that they will be doing in the parks, but it will be insanely crowded then as well.

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A Full Disney Day! (or Character Photos, Ride Photos, And Only Being A Group Of 2) Disneyland Afternoon and Evening (or Spending Time With My Evil Twin) Disneyland At Christmastime (or An Evening Of Rides) More Disneyland (or The Post With The Ride Photos) Post-Workout Disneyland Afternoon (or Maximizing A Couple Of Hours At The Parks) It’s Halloweentime! (or Another Disney Afternoon)