A Sunday At Disneyland (or Pin-ups And Food and Wine)

I’ve had a Disneyland day planned with my friend June for next week in my calendar for a while. It’s been a long time since we had gone together because our work schedules weren’t matching up, but we have been really excited to go at the end of the month. But while I was in Santa Barbara last weekend, June texted me to see if I wanted to go this past Sunday to check out the Food and Wine Festival happening at California Adventure. Since the festival was really only on the weekends, when we were planning on going soon wouldn’t have the cool food and drink options.  I checked my calendar and since it was free I decided to go (we’ve still got our original Disneyland adventure scheduled soon too).

This past Sunday was not only during the Food and Wine Festival, it was also the Pin-up day at the parks. June and her friend Kris (who joined us) both have amazing pin-up clothes. I have one fancy dress that is sort of pin-up (I wore it to the SAG-AFTRA gala), but that’s not really appropriate to wear to a theme park. So I decided to wear cropped jeans, a t-shirt, and cute sneakers and claim I was doing a casual pin-up style. But next to June and Kris I looked a bit sloppy.

Since it was a Sunday and not a Monday like I’m normally at Disneyland, the parks seemed really crowded to me. It wasn’t unbearable like I’ve seen it before, but between the crowds and the really hot day none of us were feeling like we needed to rush around and try to do a lot of stuff. But we did get in a couple of fun rides.

Our first stop of the day was Peter Pan. It’s still one of my favorite rides and I haven’t ridden it too much since it was redone. So going on it made me pretty happy (plus we were out of the sun on the ride). Our next ride was Winnie The Pooh, which I’ve only ridden maybe 3 or 4 times ever.

I had forgotten how cute the ride was and how cool the effects are inside (my favorite is the rainstorm). But the thing that made us all so happy in that ride was that it was air-conditioned and we got to cool down a bit!

On our way to the next ride, we saw one of the photo set ups that they have around the park. I don’t remember if I had ever noticed the Haunted Mansion one before, but since there was no line we went up to get our picture taken.

Between the sun in our faces and the fact that we are all pretty pale, I think we all agreed that we looked pretty ghost-like in the photo.

Our final ride before heading over to California Adventure was Indiana Jones. Again, we all loved the air conditioning and how cool and shady it was waiting in line. But the ride is super fun and even thought the boulder at the end was acting a bit glitchy, it was still a good ride.

After walking over the California Adventure, our first stop was to get food since it was way past lunchtime. June and Kris had been to the Food and Wine Festival another weekend so they shared with me some of their favorite things they ate. They all sounded good to me so June and I waited in one line and Kris waited in another so we could get all the things we wanted to try.

We shared some artichoke chips that had a pesto type dipping sauce to them. Then we each had a pork belly bao taco (which I think was my favorite!) and some chicken mac and cheese. And for dessert we shared a milk chocolate caramel tart and a bacon maple whoopie pie. The servings were a nice size, but it wasn’t so much food that we felt crazy full or sick afterward. I think all the things we ate were pretty amazing and I wish that some of them would be offered year-round at the park!

After eating all that good food, we decided to try to do a ride that wouldn’t be too crazy. I hadn’t checked out the new Luigi’s Rollickin’ Roadsters yet (this replaced the flying tires that used to be there) so we headed over to Cars Land for our next ride.

We had watched the ride before it was our turn so we had an idea of what we were in for. It’s a trackless ride that has a bunch of little cars doing a synchronized dance. Some cars get to be in the middle at times and sometimes all the cars are moving together. But it’s pretty random so you never know what your car is going to do.

I thought it was a pretty good ride! The motions were a bit jerky at times, but even though I know it wasn’t going that fast it felt like it was! At at the end of the dance the cars all spun around and it felt faster than you go on the teacups!

I was feeling pretty exhausted after that (the sun was really taking it out of me), but I decided to join June and Kris for one more ride. This time, it was Soarin’ Over California which has been one of my favorites since it opened! The ride will be changing eventually to a new film (Soarin’ Around The World), so we want to get as many rides in before this version is gone forever. We had a nice ride as always, but the biggest disappointment for us was all the scents that are normally sprayed during the ride weren’t there! No pine trees, oranges, or salt waters smells at all! The movie still looked great, but the scents really do make it special and it didn’t really feel like the same ride without them.

After the final ride, I headed home and June and Kris went to a movie and then were planning on going back into the park for fireworks. But I’m glad I went home when I did because the next day was going to be another full adventure! I’ll tell you all about it in tomorrow’s post!

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