My oldest chose to spend our whole day at Disneyland as opposed to park hopping, which was surprising considering he tends to prefer the rides at California Adventure. We started in Adventureland and methodically rode the rides in each land that he enjoys to start with. Before lunchtime, we rode Indiana Jones, Pirates, Haunted Mansion, the Carousel, Snow White, Pinocchio, the Teacups, It's a Small World, Roger Rabbit, the Monorail, and Buzz Lightyear. It's amazing how in the summer during the supposed peak season, it's less crowded than the rest of the year. I think this is almost certainly due to the lower tier annual passes being blocked out. Yes, Disneyland truly is a park for locals.
For lunch, we ate at the Pizza Port. As usual, the pizza was good. But at $25+ dollars for 2 slices of pizza, breadsticks, and a drink, I was reminded how much Disney tends to price gouge on food.
After lunch, we grabbed a fastpass for Star Tours, but our return time wasn't until 3, so we had a few hours to kill. It's interesting to note that Maxpass has changed the way guests are talking about Disneyland. I was only mildly surprised to overhear so many conversations from guests. "It's only $10 per person and we don't have to walk over there." I didn't try maxpass today, but I could see how if you're not a frequent flyer and want to maximize your experience, you might spend the extra money. Some people were frustrated that you still had to follow rules about how many fastpasses you could hold at once, but I think they weren't really considering fairness and distribution.
Anyway, with a 3 hour wait until we could go on Star Tours, this gave us the opportunity to do some stuff my oldest doesn't usually do. I took him to the Tiki Room, which he ended up asking to do again because he loved it so much. We went on Jungle Cruise, then headed over to Fantasyland to see the Tangled show. I love the humor used in these shows (they do a Beauty and the Beast one, too), and my son loves that he can sit up on carpet circles close to the action.
Anyway, once that was over, it was time for Star Tours, so we headed over. I love Star Tours, but in the past 10 trips or so, we always seem to get Hoth and Coruscant. It's fun no matter what, but I really miss the promo for The Force Awakens when you got to visit Jakku. That was a fun trip.
For dinner, we had the Fantasmic Dining Package at the River Belle. The adult menu had a good selection of foods including chicken, ribs, fish, and a handful of sandwiches. I chose the pulled pork sandwich which comes with either soup or salad (I chose salad), and a dessert (I chose the Maleficient dessert, which was a mousse covered in fondant with a little bit of spice. I think the menu describes it better, but that's how my senses best pinpointed it. The starter salad was delicious, as was the dessert. The main course was okay, but I think the green beans with bacon and garlic and the baked beans were better than the sandwich. The pork was dry and bland. I think it would have been better with a little more bbq sauce and slaw. It was okay, but not really worth the $45 I paid, though I knew going in I was paying for the Fantasmic pass, not necessarily the food quality.
My son had a bit of trouble finding anything he could eat. He has peanut and egg allergies and is also a picky eater. He doesn't eat chicken or ribs. He almost ordered the fish, but he's picky about the kinds of fish he eats. So, he wanted the mac n cheese. Disneyland mac n cheese has egg in it, which is unfortunate because my son has a mild egg allergy. He has had it before though (it just causes him to be gassy), so I let him go with it. Unfortunately, the only sides he could eat were raw vegetables, cooked green beans, and fruit. He won't eat green beans and the only fruit he likes and grapes and strawberries, so he ate some of it, but not much. Thankfully, due to his dietary issues, the CMs were understanding and charged us only the normal mac n cheese price ($9) as opposed to the kid's dining package price ($25). I was very grateful that they did this as I was ready to pay the $25 for him just to get the Fantasmic ticket.
In terms of Fantasmic dining packages, if I do it next time (which is really too expensive for a family of 5 so I probably won't unless it's a solo trip or just 2 of us), I will try for Blue Bayou. Even though it's even more expensive, the food at least is worth the price. The seating, however, was just about perfect with River Belle. We arrived at the designated line for Fantasmic Preferred Seating at 7:45. They started letting people in at 8:00 for a 9:00 show. If you go, know that the first access point is down by Harbour Galley. There are 2 points and it's not clear that the one by Haunted Mansion doesn't open until later. We stood by the wrong sign for about 15 minutes until someone was kind enough to tell us and about 30 other people that the other point was letting people in. In terms of seating, with the River Belle Package, we were dead center. I wonder if this may have been an error because the Blue Bayou people were seated to our left, slightly off-center. I would think they would have had the center as they paid more, but I wasn't going to complain. We had fantastic seats.
Fantasmic 2.0 was just as amazing as I remember the original show 25 years ago. It was sort of magical to take my son to see Fantasmic for the first time when he was the same age I was when the original debuted. I won't lie, I might have teared up a few times when certain musical notes played. Nostalgia is part of what Disney thrives on and they definitely got me there. Most of the scenes were wonderful. I liked the addition of Tangled. The Aladdin sequence was pretty cool, as was the Lion King, which is sort of meshed with Jungle Book. I'm not sure how I feel about the Pirates of the Caribbean taking the place of Peter Pan on the ship. It worked in some ways and I loved the idea, but I felt like Peter Pan was more energetic and easier to see. Overall, it was a great show and my son said it was the most exciting thing he's ever seen. His favorite part? The dragon breathing real fire. Yep, that's my son.
Here are some pictures from our day:
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