More Disneyland stories

Here are some more Disneyland stories. I posted a couple others already, but I posted so many on one day, that I think they got missed, so go back a few posts and make sure you read "Delivering the news" and "I'll kill them all" They are good.

After we got to DL on Sunday night, we checked into the hotel and went to bed. The girls were so excited, but they were plenty tired from the drive down.

Monday morning, we woke up and had the Chip and Dale character breakfast. This is at the StoryTeller Cafe inside the Grand California hotel. That is a really nice hotel, and it has it's own entrance to California Adventure that is very tucked away, so keep that in mind if you ever stay there. We wanted to make sure and get to our breakfast on time, so we could take our time eating, and get to the park right when it opened. Breakfast was great, the girls had a blast and the food was good. One thing I love about those Disney restaurants is the omelet bar. They ask you what you want, and make it for you. There is usually a long line, but worth the wait. We had the earliest reservation so it was not very crowded, and that was a very good thing. It is a buffet, also, so you just get whatever you want. Sarah and Kate loaded up their plates and ate away. We tried to be careful and not get syrup on everything. They had the cute little Mickey Waffles and the girls loved those.

We finished breakfast and realized that we left in such a hurry, we forgot to give Kate her antibiotic. She got a sinus infection about 4 days before we left, so we had to bring that with us. So Sarah and Amy went to the park and Kate and I had to run back to the hotel to give her her antibiotic. The hotel wasn't that far away, but for a 4 year old with short little legs, it took a while.

When we got back to the park, we met up with Amy and Sarah and we weren't too far behind on our itinerary. About the itinerary. Last year I discovered RideMax. If you haven't used this, it is AWESOME!! What it is, is a software program that you program in the rides you want to go on and it will build a schedule for you telling you when to get on what rides, and the ride times are calculated along with expected wait times and you spend less time waiting in line, and more time riding. I will never, ever, ever go to Disneyland, or DisneyWorld without it. The only bad thing about it, is that only Disneyland and Disneyworld are supported. There are a couple tricks to get the most out of it, but it is well worth it. They update the wait times daily and it works like a charm. We went on pretty much every ride that day. The park was not very crowded and with Ridemax, it was even better. There were a few rides where we literally walked on the ride, when there were lines other places. Sarah was finally able to ride Indiana Jones, and we rode it a couple of times. We went on the Buzz Lightyear ride, which was a ton of fun. That is a newer ride and my personal favorite. As you can see from the pictures, it is more fun for the e-dults than the kids, but they still loved it and wanted to go on it again.

We got lots of great pictures and most of the story can be told through those. We saw Sandra's (Amy's mom) friend Arlene there and that was fun. We knew she was going to be there, but did not think that we would run into her. We had lunch at a mexican food place and it was really good. Rancho del Zocalo or something like that, a little gem in the middle of the park. Amy wasn't feeling very energetic, so I told her to go back to the hotel and lay down before dinner. She did and the girls went on some more rides. We had fun. Then we left for dinner at Goofy's kitchen.

We went back to the hotel to get Amy and took a cab to the restaurant. It is in the Disneyland hotel, which was much farther away from us, and too far to walk with everyone. We had fun in the cab, it was the first time for both girls and they thought it was great.

Goofy's kitchen is my favorite restaurant there. They have the characters come around to your table and Goofy comes out every once in a while and throws a bunch of pots and utensils on the ground for the kids to pick up and bang and parade around. Then he will come out and do the macarena or something with some of the princesses. The food there is great, and the kids have a very fun time. It is a buffet, also, but it is really three buffets. One for the adult-friendly food, one with kid-friendly food, and one with only desserts. There are a ton of desserts and they are all very good. There are more desserts than main course choices. I should have gotten a picture of the dessert bar. We ran into Arlene again at Goofy's kitchen. When we were done, we actually walked back to the hotel to try and get the girls to burn off the 4000 calories they ate in chocolate. It worked pretty well. The picture of them zonked out is that night.