When we were planning this trip Disneyland was a must do. We visited the park 4 years ago with James, Lucas and Eve but Isabella, Zachary and Elizabeth have never been. We stayed at an RV park about ½ mile from the park – easy walking distance - and thoroughly enjoyed our 4 days in the park. We timed our visit here to avoid SoCal spring break and sort of succeeded. Waiting 45 minutes in line to ride a 2 minute ride is not my idea of a great time but we did it – a lot. Interestingly enough the kids don’t seem to mind. Disney, of course, is the master of entertainment providing various bits of entertainment while in line waiting for most rides. If you can endure the long lines the rides are first rate.
The unanimous pick for favorite ride was California Screamin' – the roller coaster in California Adventure. Other favorites were Space Mountain, Thunder Mountain Railroad, Pirates of the Carribean and Buzz Lightyear - shooting guns here got the ride its high placement. Least favorite had to be the huge ferris wheel. The boys, Uncle Jim and I went on one of the swinging baskets. Although they don’t go as high as the stationary baskets, they obviously move. The combo wasn’t so good if you are afraid of heights. James spent the entire ride with his head between his knees making some moaning noises and Lucas was playing with the vomit bags. I’ll also have to give a big thumbs down to World of Color. This is a big production using fountains/audio/video that Disney puts on in the evenings in the water pond in California Adventure. The production itself is OK – the major downer is that once this thing starts around 7 in the evening California Adventure basically shuts down which means no coaster. Totally unacceptable and a horrible tradeoff!!! We enjoyed the extra time we had with the 4 day pass. We took our time seeing everything at a leisurely pace. We also spend time at the RV park enjoying their outdoor pool and the kids spend hours riding their razor scooters. I decided early on that we’d have to forgo bikes for this trip. When you’ve got six kids you’ve got to make some compromises – traveling cross country with 6 bikes strapped to the back of the RV wasn’t going to happen.
For those interested, Disneyland did mark the spot of our first RV related failure and subsequent “fix it” project. Evidently I didn’t thoroughly winterize the fresh water system because when we turned on the hot water heater for the first time on the trip water started running out the side of the RV in a very conspicuous spot. A quick inspection revealed a split/broken water pipe near the hot water tank – a sure sign of freeze damage. As luck would have it there was a plumbing supply house less than half a mile away – closer than Disneyland believe it or not! They hooked us up with some water pipe and slip on fittings and a short time later we were back in business. I believe the couple hours my brother and I spent on the fix saved us from having to endure the Disney princesses. From that perspective, this “problem” wasn’t really a problem after all.
We departed Anaheim Village RV Park mid-day Saturday and made our way to the airport to drop Uncle Jim off to catch a plane back to Seattle. He had some work to do back home for a week or so but I think the fun he had the first week of the trip convinced him that he needed to rejoin our adventure.
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| California Screamin' |
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| Do you think they are happy to be here?? |
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| Lucas and Eve having fun @ the RV park |
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