Tag Archives: California Adventure

Not The Happiest Place on Earth (or My Solo Trip to Disneyland)

I used to go to Disneyland all the time by myself. When I was at my old day job, I only worked 3 days a week. And if I didn’t get a substitute teaching job on a day off, I’d be free to do whatever I’d like. Also, I paid for the parking pass on my old Disneyland pass so I could come for a few hours and not have to spend a cent.

This past Monday I had a completely free calendar. So I decided to take advantage of my new Disneyland pass and go to the park for a bit. I checked around to see if any of my friends wanted to come with me, but the ones who did don’t have an annual pass and didn’t want to spend over $100 for a few hours, and all my friends with passes were busy.

I got to Disneyland around noon and decided to start my time in California Adventure. It was such a gorgeous day that I spent almost a full hour just walking around the park and looking at the sights.

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I decided to go and ride Radiator Springs Racers since my mom, my aunt, and I had so much fun riding it last month. I went in the single rider line which saved me so much time! I got in a car with a family of 5, we left the loading area, and we stopped.

We ended up being stuck there for a little over 20 minutes. So what do you do when you are stuck on a ride alone in a car filled with a family you don’t know? I made some phone calls, tweeted, and took some self-portraits with the forward facing camera on my iPhone.

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You can see how close we were to the loading station in that picture.

We finally rode the ride (but got stuck two more times in the process but for only a few minutes each time). After that ride, another hour had passed in my day. I was starting to get a little hungry, so I headed over to the pier area of the park and enjoyed a fajita salad.

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Not the healthiest option, but not a horrible one either.

I then tried to go on The Little Mermaid ride. When I was at Disneyland last month, the ride was broken so we couldn’t go on it. And it’s one of the only rides that I’ve never been on before. So I walked over the ride, and it was broken again!

After that disappointment, I looked at my watch and realized that since it was almost 4pm I either needed to leave the park soon or wait until about 7pm when the traffic died down. I decided to cut my losses and leave the park then.

As I was leaving California Adventure, I noticed this dress in the window of one of the stores.

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I know that dress well, because I had it as a kid.

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And I’m pretty sure that somewhere in my closet at my parents’ house, it’s still hanging up in there.

As I was leaving, all the after-school crowd was heading into the park, so I was glad to be leaving before it got too crowded.

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Overall, this might have been my worst day at Disneyland. But my worst day at Disneyland is still better than my best day at my day job, so it’s a win in my book. And I still have about 11 months left on my annual pass so there’s plenty of time left to have great trips!

Plus, I got a workout in with all the walking I did so there’s always that!

Going to The Happiest Place on Earth (or How Recycling Ink Got Me an Annual Pass)

Yesterday was the last day that my mom and aunt were in LA. And we had our grand finale adventure then as well.

We went to Disneyland!!!

I’ve previously expressed my love for Disneyland (and how I couldn’t quite afford it), but I found a way to get my pass. At Thanksgiving, my mom gave me about 70 or 80 ink cartridges that she wanted to recycle. And since I could use the $2 for each ink, she decided to let me recycle them and enjoy the extra money. You can only recycle 10 at a time, but I had gotten about $50 in coupons since I also purchased some items at the store. And you are able to use your coupons for gift cards online (but not in the store). So I got a $50 gift card, and I ended up using that yesterday to put towards my pass (it was $269 so I only really paid $219).

Disneyland was amazing. I hadn’t been in about 2 years, so there was a lot of new stuff for me to see!

We totally lucked out by going on a gorgeous day.

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(that last picture is from the StoryBook Canal Boats)

One of the highlights of the day was going to Cars Land. We rode both the tires and the racing ride. We ended up doing the racing ride twice, once in the daytime and once at night.

I highly recommend going at night. It is gorgeous there!

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For our main meal yesterday, we had another linner but this time it was at the Blue Bayou. We had a waterfront table, so we got to see all the boats for Pirates of the Caribbean going right by our table. I had never eaten there before (maybe once when I was 3 but my mom can’t remember).

I decided to splurge on my calories a bit and had the short ribs.

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It was so delicious that I forgot to take a photo of my food!

We rode almost everything that we wanted to go on (except Space Mountain which was broken) and spent almost equal time between Disneyland and California Adventure.

We ended our day with seeing the World of Color show at California Adventure. None of us had ever seen the show, so we weren’t sure what to expect. But we were all pleasantly surprised by how amazing the show was!

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We ended up spending about 10 hours in the parks. Not my all time record, but after the past few days I’m exhausted!

Today I go back to “real” life and work. I hope I’ll be able to focus.

Mom and Aunt Cindy, thank you so much for coming to visit me and indulging me on these adventures! Thank you for paying for meals and driving around so I didn’t have to! I think we should make this girl’s week a new tradition!

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