First trip to DL - Day 3

Today we were meeting up with Marci and her daughter, Jess (Disney4us2). She was kind enough to offer to show us around while I was still in the planning stages and I was excited to meet up with another Intercotee! Intercot is the only message board I post on (although I lurk on others) and I felt really comfortable meeting up with her. Matt, who generally isn’t very outgoing, was a bit apprehensive about meeting Jess, but from the conversations Marci and I had, they had a lot in common.

Well, we were running a bit behind but finally met up with our new friends outside the gates. Jess was very quiet for the first part of the day, but opened up later on. Matt and Jess’s first order of business was to get a churro. Matt had at least one churro each day of our trip and Molly had either ice cream or popcorn, or both, as her treat. We did notice how many more churro stands there were as compared to WDW. It seemed like there was a churro stand every 50 feet! Matt was so happy!

We didn’t really have much on the agenda since we were able to accomplish so much the two days before. We, naturally, went on Star Tours as mandated by Matt’s decree the first day, and did some other rides I can’t remember. My kids learned quite a lot about pin trading from Jess. I’d say most of the day we spent pin trading. While I find this frustrating (I’d rather ride rides), the kids love it and they dictated how we progressed. We went over to Storytellers in the GCH for lunch, at Marci’s recommendation, and it was great. We all had a yummy meal. After lunch, we went to CA park to ride more rides and, of course, lots of pin trading. Me and the kids had a 5:30 or so reservation at Ariel’s Grotto for the World of Color meal. I was thinking of cancelling the meal and just trying to get fastpasses for the show, but Marci said we would have a better viewing area if we kept the reservations, so we did. Around 5:00 we said good-bye to Marci and Jess and, after a quick spin on Toy Story Mania, we headed for dinner.

What a lovely meal! It was expensive, but they gave so much food, I swear I rolled out of there. When we were done, we had some time to kill before lining up for the WOC show. We waited with a ton of other people for the CMs to allow us to go to our section for the show. This was not fun. There were so many people and they were pushing and running to get to their section. Molly is small, and I’m no giant. I was worried she was going to get trampled on, and I’m not exaggerating. Once we were in our section, we were fine, but getting to the entrance to our section was terrible. They really should have a better way to do this. Anyway, we were able to secure a spot right on the railing and in the center and waited for about an hour for the show to start. It wasn’t bad because we were able to sit down. The show was incredible and so worth the wait. The kids loved it so much, they were trying to convince me to change our reservations so we could stay one more night and see it again, since we were going home the next day! Just one more thing to put on our “must do” list! Really though, this show was amazing.

After WOC, we walked, with the rest of the park, out of the park and headed over to Downtown Disney to do some souvenir shopping. After getting some things, we took the monorail to Disneyland. This was fun and it was a bit shocking to see the difference in the monorail as compared to WDW. I think they look much cooler than the ones in FL, but these were really small and the windows opened! It was a nice break from walking. I was pretty tired by then and we had time to do a couple of rides before the park closed. All in all, it was another great day and even better, was the opportunity to meet someone who shares in my love of Disney. Thanks Marci!

It's fun to have a day now and then that isn't dictated by how many rides you can go on. Sounds like you absolutely had plenty to eat between Storytellers' and Ariel's! Glad you enjoyed World of Color. I too wish there was a better way to admit the group of guests in to the viewing area without making it such a cattle drive. But no matter how hard the CMs try, there will always be those guests that run, push, and shove for position.

We had fun meeting you, Matt and Molly. We had an enjoyable day. Sorry about the pin trading. Jessica is now totally obsessed with it. Glad you liked Storytellers. It is one of our favorite places.

After we parted, we went back to DL and the trader barrels for her to set up shop. LOL

Glad you enjoyed Ariel's and the WOC. I will have to go back and see it again. The cattle lines keep me from returning. There has to be a better way of doing it.

Thanks for the Report! :mickey2: