Summer Adventures 2019: Disneyland

Happy Friday everybody!

I hope you’ve all been having a good week 🙂

As mentioned in my previous post, these next few blogs will be about my Disney vacation with Nick. If you want to check out my post about our first day in Downtown Disney, click here.

Today is about our second day there, which was at Disneyland!

Tuesday morning, we got up around 9 am, and after getting ready, walking from our hotel, and going through security, we finally ended up in Disneyland around 10 am. Our first stop was Pirates of the Caribbean, because according to the Disneyland app, the wait time was only 10 minutes. Plus, it had a nice area to wait inside, since it was getting pretty hot around this time.

*By the way, if you are planning a trip to Disneyland, and have not downloaded the app yet, you should go do that RIGHT NOW. It was really helpful for figuring out wait times, letting us know when rides were temporarily closed, and for getting fast passes without having to go all the way over to the ride.*

On Pirates, we ended up in the front row, and got a good amount of the splashing, which after being outside in the heat, felt really nice. After Pirates of the Caribbean,  we headed over to Haunted Mansion, since that wait time was about 10 or 15 minutes as well. The line went pretty quickly, so we luckily didn’t spend too much time waiting outside, since most of the waiting area is outside in the front yard of the Mansion.

After Haunted Mansion, we went over to Indiana Jones, where we waited for about 45 minutes, although we also had a fast past for Thunder Mountain, so the timing worked out perfectly. For Indiana Jones, we ended up in the front row again, and it was really fun experiencing the ride again in the front row. Once we were done with Indiana Jones, our Fast passes for Thunder Mountain were valid, so we went over there, and only waited for about 10 minutes, as opposed to the hour long wait if we had just done standby. I forgot how much fun Thunder Mountain was, as far as actual roller coaster rides in Disneyland goes. I would say that it is one of my top 5 rides in Disneyland.

Then, comes one of the parts of Disneyland I was most excited about: Galaxy’s Edge.

 

 

I had watched a vlog from someone who went during the media press day, and I thought it looked pretty cool, but it’s a completely different experience actually seeing it in person. Galaxy’s Edge does reflect more of the newer Star Wars movies, as it is divided into two sections; the First Order and the Resistance. It was awesome how much it felt like you were actually in the Star Wars universe. When we entered, one of the first things we saw was Kylo Ren and a couple Storm Troopers exiting from the First Order area of Galaxy’s Edge. Then we ventured through, until we got to the Droid Depot, where you can build your own droid, which Nick did, of course. The Droid Depot was fun, and I love how it was designed, as well as the layout of the store itself.

As we walked through Galaxy’s Edge with the Nick’s new droid, it kept talking, as there are apparently certain frequencies that the droid responds to, and they had set up Galaxy’s Edge with these frequencies. Then, as it got hotter and we decided to leave Galaxy’s Edge, we stopped at a little kiosk where I bought a pin for my collection (😂), and one of those misting fans (it felt so nice in the heat!). It also sold costumes from Star Wars, although this was all stuff relating to the Resistance, as we were on that side of the park. As we left, we ended up running into Chewbacca (Unfortunately, I didn’t get a good picture of him, so this one will have to do 😂).

After going through Galaxy’s Edge, it was about 1pm, so it was really hot, and we were getting tired of the crowds of people. Plus, Nick had his droid, so we decided to head back to the hotel to cool down, drop off our stuff, and then go eat somewhere outside of Disneyland. When we were done doing all of that, we went back to Downtown Disney to stop at the Lego store for more of the Lego Movie mini figures, then headed back to Disneyland.

At this point, we had fast passes for Space Mountain, so we headed over there, to find out that it was temporarily closed. It apparently happened recently enough where the app hadn’t updated yet, so we went on Astro Blasters while waiting for Space Mountain to open, or see if it would be closed for the rest of the night. Apparently, the close was temporary, because while in line for Astro Blasters, the app let us know that Space Mountain was open again. Once we finished riding Astro Blasters (Nick beat me… but my score wasn’t too shabby… I guess 😂) we went back to Space Mountain. Space Mountain was updated to now be Star Wars themed, which was a cool change from was it was before. I also felt like the ride was a bit longer than before, but it’s hard to tell since it’s all dark, so there’s no way for me to know for sure. Then, we were going to ride the Matterhorn, but it had also closed at the moment, so we rode It’s a Small World instead.

It’s a Small World is different from when I last rode it (which was six years ago, so that makes sense), because they added Disney characters to the ride. Each character was in the part of the world where there tale originated from, and to be honest, it was really cool. The ride seemed more interesting to me this time than it had the previous times I had been on it, although it could be because it felt nice to sit on a boat and relax after standing in the heat for some time.

When we were done with It’s a Small World, the Matterhorn was open again, so we hurried over there and rode it. They have updated the bobsleds themselves, so instead of sitting in between somebody’s legs, each person has their own space. However, I noticed that since the ride was jerky, I was moving around a lot (I was sitting in the front compartment, but in the second bobsled of the two connected bobsleds).

After riding the Matterhorn, we went back over to Galaxy’s edge to ride the Millenium Falcon ride. This ride is a motion simulation ride, but you get to have the opportunity to be a pilot, gunner or engineer on the Millenium Falcon, along with the other five people in your crew. When we rode it the first time, there was a glitch right at the end of the ride, so we ended up riding it twice. The coolest part of the ride though, is that part of the line is you going through and actually being in the Millenium Falcon itself. Although this wasn’t my favorite ride at Disneyland, it definitely had one of the best lines to wait in.

Then, we ended the night with Star Tours, which is the same as it was, at least from what I remembered. It was a nice calm ride to end the night with, and afterwards, we made our own little R2-D2 mini figures at The Star Trader (the gift shop you go through after exiting Star Tours). We also made a pit stop over at the Little Green Men Store Command (the gift shop you go through after Astro Blasters), to grab some more pressed pennies.

And that, my friends, is the end of day #2 of our Disney Vacation! It was a long, but fun day, and honestly,  dealing with the crowds wasn’t too bad since we could take a break in our hotel room half way through the day. In my next post, I’ll talk about our third and final day, which we spent at California Adventures… and boy has it changed a lot!

Thank you for reading, and have a wonderful weekend!

-Erin 🙂

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