Disney California Adventure

It was a quiet Woods family that loaded up the car the next morning. As we walked to the parks, Sean and I worried that this was all for naught. The kids asked a million “what-if” questions that we really couldn’t answer just yet.

Sean and his Disneyland ears

Sean explained our plight first at an information desk attendant who told us we’d need to go to the park entrance to try and work it out with them. Then at the Disney California Adventure entrance, the person he spoke with had to call in managerial support. It was a tense few minutes, but after Sean explained our situation to several folks, they thankfully let us in! I thought Maya was going to hug the lady who helped us, she was so happy.

Incredicoaster – the favorite of this trip

Short of a brunch reservation, we mostly let the kids choose how we’d spend our morning. We were only allowed to have our car parked at our hotel till noon, but that was ok – we really hadn’t planned to spend a third full day at the parks anyways.

Jack-Jack’s Cookie Num Nums

With our morning, we managed to hit Incredicoaster at rope drop, where it weirdly ran with no audio. Then we rode it a second time, this time *with* audio – and ride photos! This time when we were done, we found that the Jack-Jack Cookie Num Nums stand was open, so we all enjoyed cookies!

Then we hit Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: Breakout again (we got “Burning Love” by Elvis Presley this time). Sean cooked up a scheme whereby the grown-ups gave the kids bunny ears for the ride photo this time. I’m a little short in the arms, I’ll admit, but I think it worked! That ride is so much fun.

Bunny ears!

We had time to squeeze in one more attraction before our brunch reservation, so we went to Soarin’ Over California again. This time we managed to get B-1, which is the preferred ride location for diminished screen curvature and no dangling feet in your view. Hooray!

We headed to Lamplight Lounge for our dining reservation and were promptly seated outside near the water. The weather was wonderful – sunny and a little cool. I had a nice coffee served in an actual mug. Ian had a mocktail called “Mint to Be.” When Ian was little, he’d pull the mint plants up out of our friend Holly’s garden and just munch the leaves off the stem. Even still, he’ll ask me for fresh mint from our back yard. This drink was made for him – limeade and watermelon-berry puree with mint.

Mint to Be – Mocktails and puns

Sean and Maya both had a drink called the 2319. This is the code they shouted out in the first Monster’s Inc. movie when one of the monsters came back from a scare session with a child’s sock stuck to his back. This is contamination in monster land and so had to be handled with caution. 2319 – W is the 23rd letter of the alphabet – S is the 19th letter of the alphabet – stands for “White Sock.” The drink itself is really neat. There’s cream of coconut, pineapple juice, and strawberry puree with a topper of Coca Cola. As you’re sitting enjoying your beverage, the coconut cream rises to the top in a lovely way. I supposed you could see that as a white sock stuck to a furry monster’s back.

Quotes on the walls leading to Lamplight Lounge’s bathrooms

The food was nice too. Sean had the Brunch Burger, I had Crab and Potato Cake Eggs Benedict (which I really loved), Maya had Indulgent French Toast, and Ian had their Omelet with no cheese (read: scrambled eggs) and double bacon. We got a kick out of the decorations around the bathrooms too. There were funny quotes from Disney movies in sort of a chalk looking font on black-painted walls. It was fun trying to place them all.

We used one last lightning lane to let the kids ride Incredicoaster yet again (their fifth time over the course of the trip). After the ride, we thought we had lost on of Ian’s laniard pins, but 20 minutes later, it magically fell from a fold in his jacket. Whew!

Darci and Will were there!

We saw Darci and Will one more time and thanks to a friend of theirs, managed to get a photo with all six of us. They had bought pins for Maya and Ian, which they loved. I don’t think I had mentioned it yet, but we did manage to do a bit of pin trading on this Disney trip as well, and the kids are both very much into it.

On our way out of the park, we snuck in the last of our Food and Wine Fest tastings before hustling to our car. We wound up being about 15 minutes late getting back to our car, but thankfully, no one had tow booted us yet. Wheeeeee – and that was our last half-day at Disney’s California Adventure! Now back to the rest of our Los Angeles vacation.