On Disneyland and Magic
At first she was timid, standing to the edges and looking wide-eyed at the delighted crowd of children drenching themselves in the irregular jets of water. Occasionally on the sprinkler head side all the jets would just go nuts at once and the chorus of squeals and laughter from the kids would drown out the rest of the din of the park. After one of these climactic events Callie finally began to edge her way around the perimeter of the arena, moving with her deliberate, semi-graceless half run in a regular circle that I noted was more of a slow spiral as she gained confidence with each lap and drifted closer and closer to the actual thrill of cool splashing water. When she finally miscalculated a jet and got nailed, water running down her full cheeks and onto her t-shirt in perfect defiance of every parental missive to “try not to get messy” the grin on her face was unforgettable. After ten minutes her hair clung in sopping strands to her forehead and her shoes squelched with squeezing water from the soles on each giddy step and I couldn’t stop laughing, nor could she save for the few stops to check in with me, grab a drink of non-chlorinated water from my bottle and then back into the cooling fray she’d dance.
It wasn’t a ride, it wasn’t necessarily a unique-to-Disneyland experience, but it triggered something in both my daughter and I that it took until the last hour we had at the park to really clarify. Wednesday was our last day and after two days of shortened hours for the park (open from 10-8 only) that were even shorter when you factored in the two-to-three hour round trip shuttle ride and nap break, we made the call to try and push through a full day with only cat naps in the stroller or on calmer rides and attractions. But Callie, perhaps sensing the end of the trip, seemed determined to not miss any more than was strictly required and she refused to sleep even during the dim and soothing 15-minute Enchanted Tiki Room show I took her to. She did fall asleep for a bit in the line for the kiddie thriller in Toontown, Gadget’s Go Coaster, and didn’t wake fully even once we sat down in the car, only finally coming around when the train took its first dip down the track. But for the most part she was committed. After dinner in Downtown Disney, Nik, Sam and Chase were exhausted from the long day and though there was still an hour left before the parks closed, they called it a night. Callie and I weren’t quite ready, so we headed back to California Adventure for one last round of fun before the trip was over.
The nighttime show, World Of Color, was just about to start as we re-entered, which put a damper on my plan to hit up the area we had least frequented, Paradise Pier, since during the show nearly all the rides in that section are closed down including the big Mickey Mouse ferris wheel that Callie and I really wanted to try out. We settled on Toy Story Midway Mania! which is kind of a ride, kind of a video game and then tried to fight our way through the throngs of people filing out as World Of Color came to an end. We went back to Cars Land where we had stopped earlier in the week and practically walked onto Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree, a sort of updated Scrambler type ride. Time was drawing to a close by the time we walked off, laughing and smiling, and I hoped to find one last ride to catch before they shut it all down. We made it over to “a bug’s land” again and the guy at Flik’s Flyers, a spinning carriage ride, agreed to run it one last time for us, closing the line behind as we entered. Turned out we had the whole ride to ourselves and as we spun over the darkening park I watched the look on Callie’s face and reflected back on the things we’d done on this trip.
The list was drastically different from the last time Nik and I came alone: Dumbo, Mad Tea Party (x3), It’s A Small World (x2), Gadget’s Go Coaster (x2), Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters, Astro Orbiter, The Disneyland Railroad (x2), Flik’s Flyers (x2), Tuck N Roll’s Bumper Cars, Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree (x2), King Arthur’s Carousel (x2), Autopia, Ariel’s Undersea Adventure, Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage, Toy Story Midway Mania, The Enchanted Tiki Room, Sleeping Beauty’s Castle. Very few of those were ridden by us in our grown-up only visits, and the only standards we hit were The Jungle Cruise and Peter Pan’s Flight plus Nik and I got to ride the updated Star Tours and the Halloween-themed Space Mountain: Ghost Galaxy while Callie spent a bit of time with her aunt and/or uncle. By the standards of our pervious trips, this was a dull, thrill-less trip, lacking any of the must-sees like Pirates of the Caribbean, The Haunted Mansion, California Screamin’, Indiana Jones, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Matterhorn Bobsleds, Maliboomer, etc. Nik and her sister did make it on the New Orleans Square highlights and I got to do the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, but all told for a three-day visit it should have been a disappointment.
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