A trip to the Park

What do you mean, "Which Park?"?

Yesterday I got to thinking. When Mr. Genius was little, we went to Disneyland with our Annual Passes a LOT. Even after Sweet But Sneaky was born, we still managed rather regular visits. But then Captain Stubborn came along and the trips became fewer and further in between over time. I've said it elsewhere, but I have to admit that we probably would not have Annual Passports anymore except that we have social connections to Disneyland.

The reality is that my baby is growing up entirely too fast. 

ENTIRELY BEYOND BELIEF too fast.

This August, he will enter Kindergarten and be an old kid with daily obligations to go to school. That seriously sucks. And he has a pass but we hardly ever use it, which also sucks. Well, on Mondays, we have no obligations so I decided I probably need to start taking him to Disneyland more often just for the hellofit. We started that today.

We woke up bright and early this morning, as we always do on school days, to get the big boys to school. I took my shower, the boys got dressed and the big boys ate some breakfast. CS had a piece of American cheese. We left on time for school and after we dropped the boys off, I went to my two favorite morning locations: Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf and Chik-fil-A. The iced latte with nonfat milk gets milk and caffiene in me and the 3-pack of chick-n-minis for 6 points gets enough protein in me to get me through a day. I love those things. (No, I do not go to Chick-fil-A every day, but I go when I "need" to.) Shortly, the PerkyMommyMobile travelled down the freeway practically flying through traffic. Thank you, Carpool Lanes.

Before we left the house I had checked an online Disney resource for park hours but I had mis-read the table to think that Disneyland was opening at 8 am. It actually opened at 10 am, which was much better for us. We arrived around 9:20 and parked outside of the Mickey and Friends parking structure in the Pinochhio parking lot. SCORE!

This is probably one of the best places that I could have parked for traveling solo with a four-year-old. I brought my favorite stroller because I wanted to conserve CS's energy. The Mickey and Friends parking structure elevators are a pain in the neck, in my opinion, and taking the stroller down the escalators is doable (this stroller folds up nicely, if I want to fold it,) but is clumsy and inconvenient. I love, love, love being on the first level, even if it means parking outside.

Typically, I hate the Disneyland parking lot trams and the behaviors they bring out in Disneyland visitors, but I decided to see how crowded they looked. Apparently, Disneyland visitors do not want to wake up early if they do not "have" to and the tram had plenty of room. I found a front row seat that was already occupied by a family of three with their small stroller but there was plenty of room for our small stroller and the two of us.

Once off the tram at the Esplanade, there was no line at the bag check, or at any of the ticket booths. I did have to wait for an open window but I was the only person in line. We very quickly exchanged the paper ticket I had purchased at Costco for a new Annual Pass for CS, and I selected a Toy Story gift card for the $50 "rebate" from Disney.

Again, there was no line to get into the gates of Disneyland at about 9:45 and so we went right in. We saw Goofy, Pluto and Mickey in Town Square but CS did not want to pose for pictures with them and I have to confess that I did not push the issue because the lines looked longer than I wanted to wait. I knew I wanted to take a few pictures of CS on our first special Mom and One Kid day, so I posed him in Town Square with the castle in the background.

Would you like to see that picture?

Yes, I would, too. Except that as I focused my camera a little icon flashed and told me "There is no SD card in this camera!" I looked in the pocket of the camera case and for some reason, none of our back-up SD cards were there either. Oops. The downside is that I had to carry the camera around all day for no good reason but the upside was that I was able to focus more attention on my companion.

We visited the Carnation Cafe restroom and then waited the last few moments on Main Street for the 10:00 am rope drop.

It is so lovely to not be in any rush at Disneyland. I had no anxiety about the day. As we walked through the main gate, I had grabbed several maps and schedules and gave one of the maps to CS. I asked if he'd like to ride on Buzz Lightyear to start and he agreed. He sat in his stroller carefully examining his map as I negotiated through the crowd and around the construction walls surrounding the street along the Disneyland "hub." When we arrived at Buzz Lightyear, I had planned to grab two Fast-Pass tickets for later but the Fast Pass machines were closed. We very quickly walked through the queue and boarded the ride. CS carried his park map along with him and carefully laid it on the seat for the ride. I scored over 200,000, enough to be a "Space Scout" and CS scored 1800, enough to prove that he can squeeze the trigger on the gun. CS retrieved his map and we watched our step leaving the ride.

The computer system messed up our scores but we successfully sent home our picture, even if you can barely tell who is in it. Thus, here is the only picture I have of our day:

From Album Dec 2008 Forward

Next we started for the Poo(h) ride on the opposite end of the park. I love to ride Poo(h) early in the day because historically, when there has been no line for it, the cast members have allowed us to stay on for multiple rides without having to leave the ride vehicle. My navigator had another idea. He pointed on the map to the picture of winding roads through Tomorrowland. "I want to go here!" 

"You want to ride Autopia?"

"YES!"

And so I immediately turned that stroller around and headed to Autopia. I never would have done this with the big boys. I do not know why. I would have thought "Oh, no, SBS loves Poo(h), we need to go there for him." 

When we arrived at Autopia, the ride was just opening for the first guests of the day. We were the third group of cars to leave the station.  Captain Stubborn now had an Autopia driver's license to carry along with his Disneyland map. I put his license in his back pocket but he took it out to carry it instead. He laid his map and license on the seat of the car during our ride. CS managed to do a respectable job steering and I cannot complain about too many sore muscles from his driving. We encountered quite the back-up upon returning to the loading area and, unfortunately, the two cars behind us were piloted by pre-teen boys. 

At the first stop, the driver immediately behind me bumped our car. I turned around to look at him and he apologized. Then his friend came up and bumped his car into our car. I turned again. And I turned around to look at him the next time it happened. Following this, the second car was angled such that he could not see me when I turned around to look at him the next two times he bumped his friend. I could, however, see a cast member. I called to the cast member and told him that the boy in the green car kept bumping his friend and thus bumping us. At this point we were stopped so the cast member did not walk over to the green car but I think that he spoke to the boy when we started driving again.

Once we were out of the cars, the two adolescents standing around on the sidewalk smiling and laughing. Here's the thing: If you're going to bump into someone, don't bump into ME. I realize that one does not have to be a mom of three boys nor a former school teacher to be willing to speak to brats in public about their behavior, but it doesn't hurt that I am such a person. The perky thing stops when I have been repeatedly bumped on the back of the car that very clearly reads "DO NOT BUMP."

And so I said to the child "Everytime you hit your friend, his car bumped into ME." And he said to me "Oh, sorry."  I don't really care what he probably thought of me, I did what I had to do.

Back at our stroller, we now ventured to Critter Country. There was a family of four boarding the Poo(h) honey pot when we arrived, but I asked if we could please wait for the first row of the next honey pot and the cast member graciously said yes. According to his nametag, the cast member at the control board lives in Hollywood, CA, so I asked him if he had ever been to MILK. When he said "no," I tried to explain to him where it is and why he should go there. He said he would look for it. 

I try to be helpful.

It was a blustery day inside Poo(h) and Captain Stubborn's ever-present map and drivers license glowed under the ride's black light, much to his delight. We waved to the Country Bear's Max, Buff and Melvin on our way through the ride, thanks to the view from our front-row seats. I expected that CS would want to ride again, but he did not. He wanted to know what rides we could try next. I offered the "jungle boats" or the "tiki birds" and he choose to sing like the birdies sing. Sort of.

When we arrived at the waiting area for the Tiki Room, the next show was 15 minutes away so I took the opportunity to grab a Perky Mommy size and one CS size water bottle from the stroller basket. We sipped water and took a few phone calls while we waited for the show to start and the Tiki gods in the waiting area did their thing. We were the first two guests into the Tiki Room doors and we made our way to my favorite section of the room, the second to last row near the exit. Along with CS's map, and his driver's license, and now, his small water bottle.

A senior citizen CM taking his "Tiki Room" test started the show for us. I felt sorry for the guy because he was very obviously nervous and stumbled through his presentation. I do not know if he passed his test. He asked Jose not to call him "senorita" and the darn bird had no respect for the guy and sure enough said "Buenos Dias, senorita. My siestas are getting chorter and chorter." The (undescribed but obviously foreign) tourists directly across the room from me did not respect him either as they clearly missed the part where he said "No flash photography."

After making a very brief reconnaissance mission on behalf of one of the people who had called me before the Tiki Room show, I decided to honor CS's repeated requests for food. A chili-dog sounded very good to me so we stopped at Coke Corner. CS had a hot dog kid meal and I ordered a chili-dog with a brand-new 32 ounce Diet Coke, at a greatly discounted rate for Annual Passholders. In other words: SCORE yet again.

We ate our lunches. It was not exciting. When we finished, CS, his map, his drivers license, his water bottle and his magical straw that changes color climbed into the stroller for the ride back to the car.

Strolling down the Main Street sidewalk, we came up to a mom and two little girls who we had seen a few times before rope drop. I could not help but say "It seems that we both have the same schedule today!" And so we chit-chatted and walked together out to the tram. She was going to wait for the first car but I said that I was going to the last car because I hate the noise and fumes from the engine. She followed me to the last car and we continued our chat as we rode back to the parking lot.

I have to add here that on our way out of the park, it was about noon. There were lines everywhere outside of the gates. The ticket booths had a very long line. The bag check areas had long lines. Ten o'clock is a very manageable time to be at park opening, and it had a very nice payoff.

Our drive home was uneventful. We made one stop at the Character Warehouse as a favor to a friend. CS fell asleep in the car but woke up when I stopped the car in our garage. When it was time to pick up his brothers from school, CS took his map and his drivers license and his straw to show them. Daddy Doc has just now walked into the house from work today and he has shown his treasures to Daddy and has told them "The boys bumped our car. And there was a sign that said 'NO BUMPING!'" He has also told the boys that next time, we are going to go on the Toy Story ride. 

Hopefully I will remember the SD card.