Park Hopping and

Mickey’s Trick or Treat Fun!

Day 4 dawned early for the kids and I. We had gotten to sleep at a decent hour and I had slept pretty well, as had the kids. Unfortunately Roxy was on a down turn and it was going to be her day to hibernate 🙁

So the kids and I ate breakfast in the room as quietly as we could and then headed out the door with Kris taking pics. He caught a shot of my scruffy mug

Then our Beanie Girl

He took a pic of a Tomorrowland portrait hanging in the elevator lobby on our floor

Bean did some more of her patented dance moves while we waited for an elevator

We strolled through DTD and security and got a decent place in line for the 8am opening. Our plan today was to hit all of the “classics”. Bean wanted to try the sword again, so Kris took pics of her while Kyra and I got in line for Peter Pan.

While we were waiting we had two cool little encounters. First was running into Noreen (Husker Mickey) and her Hubby. I had made a custom LGMH for her and I happened to be wearing my LGMH custom T from out trip to WDW the previous year 🙂 It was the only DISer I ran into the whole trip but I was glad to have met her – yay! I unfortunately didn’t have the camera or I would have grabbed a pic of us together.

Kris and Bean joined us and we continued winding through the line. Bean was being cute

And I was hanging in there with cold meds on board and a water to sip on

We came around a bend and there was a young couple in the next isle and the young lady complimented me on one of my pins, a Donald Duck on a snow sled. She said she has several in that series, but not that one. She was really bashful and I asked her if she wanted it.

She started beaming and said “really? all i have is this one to trade” and showed me a Mickey and the Beanstalk pin. I said “sure” and we made the trade. We wound back through another loop and came past them again and she was so happy and thanked me again – yay for those little Disney moments!

We jumped on the ride after that, I think I rode with Pumpkin Girl. Only one shot came out from the ride, one of Wendy and the boys

We rolled straight on to Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride after that (sorry to all you east coaster’s who don’t get a chance at this classic). It was a fun one – Bean and I rode it together.

From there it was on to Pinocchio! Kris went to work capturing as much of the ride as he could.

Working for Stromboli

I think he wasn’t completely truthful

Hi Jiminy!!!!

The boys are having a good time

Lots to do and see on Pleasure Island

Anyone hungry?

Foulfellow and Gideon taking part in the fun

Oh No!!!!

Poor misguided youth

Look out, its MONSTRO!!!!

Gipetto looking for Pinocchio

Jiminy makes another appearance

When you wish upon a star

Home again (Blue Fairy was unfortunately drowned out by the flash)

There she is!

We got off and cruised right into Snow White’s Scary Adventure. Lots of photos for that one too!

Recipe for the Poison Apple outside

…and inside

scaaarrryyyyy

7 Dwarves cottage

Pie smells good

Cookoo!!!

Is anyone home?

Here comes bad news

Just hitch that to my car, okay?

More sparkly stuff

even more

Bad buzzards

Casting her evil spell

Bubble Bubble, toil and trouble

The evil results

May I come in?

Dopey isn’t certain about this plan

…but Doc is

Boulders tumbled, evil vanquished, and true love’s kiss prevailed of course.

We finished the adventure and Bean insisted we take a picture of the raven at the exit platform. It had to be hurried because the CM needed us out of the way for the next set of riders to be able to get off.

From there we went around the corner to Alice in Wonderland. We were happy to be able to ride this one specifically because it was closed when we were last here in 2005. It was the longest wait we had in Fantasyland, about 15 minutes – lol. The rest of the rides were 5 to 10 minutes at most – whoohoo!

The door welcomes us

Its Tweedle Dee!

Dee and Dumb

Yes, you got it – he’s late ;-]

Little butterfly

Singing rose

We continue on our ride through Alice’s eyes.

Cute rocking horse

Purty

There’s that huka-smoking catepillar

Meow

Cheshire cat having some fun

Hear those horns

Stop! …….Hammertime!

Bush maze mural

Painting the roses

Marching in circles

Oh my!

OFF WITH HER HEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We came out and Kris caught a quick shot of the Matterhorn – this also gets us to the 500th pic posted in the TR!

Which way now?

Cheshire’s smiling face says goodbye to us

By now it was just about time for Adventureland to open and we wanted to take a ride with Indiana Jones, so we rolled out of Fantasyland with Kris snapping pics as we did the Disneyland Fastwalk

The line was already stretching back for IJ, so I stopped in and grabbed FPs for a bit later in the day. We kept walking and saw that there was no wait for Pirates of the Caribbean, so we jumped on it – yeehaww!

No pics from it as we had taken some on our first day riding it. After that we headed towards Jack’s Haunted Mansion and on the way saw Ooogie Boogie hard at work

The line wasn’t bad, the side route going past the pet cemetary wasn’t even open yet. Kris took a shot of the carriage as we waited.

Notice Pumpkin Girl with her camera in that pic? I’ve been trying to get her to download her pics so I could add them to the fun, but she’s being a little procrastinator. I think I’ll be taking matters into my own hands this weekend and do it for her ;D

Tic toc

Kris gave the camera to Kyra and she caught a great pic of me coughing – lol

I gave her a “look” for that one

She got a shot of Kris and I in the foyer of the mansion

Pumpkin Girl took a shot of the Skellington garland inside

We went into the “Stretching Room” and got a visit from Jack (great capture by Pumpkin Girl!!!)

Oogie Boogie said hello

The camera was still set on manual settings with no flash, so most of the pics that Pumpkin Girl tried for turned out reeaaaaalllyyyy blurry. Here are some of the more interesting ones (kind of a “guess what this is” situation):

I love this one of Jack 😀

We walked out of there and went straight into the line for Splash Mountain. Standby was only a few minutes wait and soon we were arranging ourselves and making sure the camera was protected.

PumpkinGirl was in front with Bean behind her, then me with the camera and Kris behind me. We set out on our journey and I caught a bit of the Columbia through the trees

I just missed catching a shot of some other adventurers going down the big drop

I spotted a bird house and some old mill gears

Vegis galore!

Who’s house is that?

Here comes Slippin Falls – whoohoo!

Then we were inside and were greeted by a happy snowman-style jack-o-lantern and some feathered friends

That bird looks distracted

And that sure is a dangerous place for a frog to be!

On we went into the world of Brer Rabbit and his friends. Next up was a fishin’ bird

Some drinkin’ birds

And a jammin’ bird

Braer Bear was having some difficulties

Not sure what Brer Fox was up to here

Here comes Rabbit and Turtle

Aren’t they cute?

Brer Rabbit heading down the railroad track

Brer Bear really wanted that honey!

A crooning bird

Fox having fun

Patriotic Birds

A whole passle of singers

Oh NOOOO!

They’re sad for him

Here comes the river boat!

Brer Fox might end up being someone’s dinner there

Bye river boat!

And ole Brer Rabbit came out okay

Before we took the plunge I made sure to tell Bean to lean one way while I leaned the other. Unfortunately I forgot to tell Kris to lean left too so he was swallowed by my hat 🙁

We made it out pretty well with minimal soakage and the camera stayed nice and dry. When we came out I saw that it was time to use those FPs for Indiana Jones!!!!

We high-tailed it from the Splash Mountain exit back to the FP entrance for Indiana Jones. Pumpkin Girl took the lead

They took turns jockeying for position as we wound our way into the tomb

There were some intricate carvings to be found

These adventurers didn’t fare so well

Listen to the signs or *ffzzzzzzppppppttttt* “aaaahhhhhh!!!!”

Lots of gear left over from the last expedition

Why the blindfold?

We got on the ride and had a great time being bounced through the adventure. No pictures attempted in that dark jostling mess 😉

It was a bit before opening time for CA so we headed out of Disneyland and rolled over to California Adventure. I wanted to hit Toy Story Mania before it got too busy, so we made a beeline for Paradise Pier.

Unfortunately a lot of others had that same idea so we ended up getting there in time for a 45 minute wait. I sent Kris over to Cali Screamin’ with our tickets so he could get FPs for it. When he came back he was out of breath but happy

Soon we were in front of Mister Potato Head, who was very entertaining

He did the ear gag

We wound around for a while and Bean decided she was tired ;-]

But the line moved just fast enough so she couldn’t properly rest, but at least Pumpkin Girl was keeping a better attitude

Kris was bored and tried to pick on Pumpkin Girl ….his mistake

Bean’s attitude improved

And soon enough we were in sight of the ride vehicles

We read some of the marquees

The ride was a real blast, worth the wait …but not twice in one day. I took a quick shot of the antique living room on the way out.

We still had some time to kill before our FPs kicked in, so we grabbed some churros and waters and got in line for Mickey’s Fun Wheel. We of course got on a moving one. Bean was talkative as Pumpkin Girl was taking it all in

Kris was having a good time

The wheel kept on turning and we got a shot of the screamers screaming by

Got a really good view of all of the plumbing for World of Color from way up there

And a nice shot of ToT

And Mickey smiled down on us

By the time we got off our FPs for Cali Screamin’ were up so we zoomed our way over there and took a ride. It was my first time on it and it was quite a blast. Very fast coaster for sure and it was a great sunny day for it, and I liked the music. Still like RockinRollerCoaster better though ;-]

Mickey smiled at us as we left Paradise Pier

We strolled around Grizzly Mountain and decided to stop in and see “It’s Tough To Be A Bug”. On the way down I said ‘hi’ to one of my favorite villians 😀

It was a fun show as usual and Kris hadn’t remembered it from when he was a kid so the effects caught him off guard pretty well …hehehe. After that we headed for the mountain!

Heading there I snapped a pic of the map of the “new” CA.

The old mill

…and the obligatory shot of the mill and the mountain

I was running really low on energy and the sun was really getting to me. So I bowed out of making the run myself. I took a couple of pics while I waited to see them come around.

A little bluegrass group struck up a chord across from the Grizzly giftshop.

They were a lot of fun and got some park guests into the group. I kept looking over the edge next to the gift shop and finally saw the kids come by

I don’t know what exactly was going on, but Pumpkin Girl said the little girl across from here was very annoying and wouldn’t stop talking – lol

They did their ride and I unfortunately did’t get pics of them coming down the big hill, but I was ready at the bottom of the stairs when they came out. The funny thing was that the girls saw me right away (I was sitting on a rock wall) but Kris was oblivious.

Then he finally saw me – lol

Pumpkin Girl gave him quite the look while Bean showed me how wet she got

Well after showing off how wet they were, I told the brood that it was time to head back to the hotel and get some lunch. We strolled back past Candycorn Acres

…and under the bridge

On our walk back through DTD we saw the cutest little police car

The Villains were still grinning down at us

I was really running out of energy, so it was good to see DLH up ahead

We made it up to the room and Roxy was still snoozin’. We did our best to stay quiet while we made lunch. After our food had settled I let the kids go down to the pool while I rested some more.

After I finished taking a little nap and then headed down to the pool myself. The kids were having a BLAST on the water slide, going down it over and over. I settled into the hot tub and just relaxed for a while.

After I was boiled pretty well I got out and walked up the stairs to the landing that arcs over the water slide. From there I had a pretty good view of the kids going down the slide. All I had with me was my phone, so I took a couple of vids with it.

While I’m posting that I’ll post a couple of others from the trip.

Panning shot of the Neverland Pool from the same spot

Me acting like a complete goofball on day 3 I think – heading back on the monorail to the hotel to meet the Vons deliver guy. Made up my own song, ain’t I a natural – lol

And since this is a bit of a scattered post, we also got in our PhotoPass CD. We didn’t use PhotoPass as extensively as we did at WDW, but it was still worth purchasing the pics. Here are some favorites:

Bean with Dopey

Another with Dopey

Pumpkin Girl takes her turn

A spirited conversation with Pocahontas

And now posing with her

And here comes Pumpkin Girl (Bean always seemed to be first in line for the characters – lol)

Well it was finally time – the big event we had been waiting for.

Mickey’s Trick or Treat Party!!!!!!

Well almost time, anyways. I went back up to the room and rested a bit longer and had set 5pm as time for coming back up to the room to eat/get ready. Roxy was up but still not feeling too good. She was a trooper though and finished putting together some custom Halloween candy bags for the kids.

We ate and slowly got dressed, getting all of those accessories together and playing the “where’s my ….” game for just about everything. But we were finally ready and were going to head out. Roxy still wasn’t feeling too good so chose not to leave with us, but promised that she would try and join us a bit later.

The lines for security and to get through the gate were pretty long, but we shuffled through just fine. There were several other groups of pirates waiting so we had plenty of “arrrrggghhhhsss” and “aye, me hearties” while we shuffled forward.

Finally we were through the gates and were heading for the plaza

I wrangled them for a minute and took a pic

Bean played with her bag

Then we headed up to the big candy corn where they were dancing and singing and generally having fun

I took a couple of shots of the sun with Jack’s face grinning on it

We had enough fun with that and decided to follow the map on around towards the pier. But first we made a stop at Soarin’

Lookie, no line!

Pumpkin Girl reading the map while we waited

It was great fun as usual, but I did have issues in that my pirate hat would not fit in the underseat storage – just had to hold on to it. There was a dad and son next to me, the boy was 5 or 6 and it was really cute watching his face and how amazed he was by the experience.

We got off and got back on the trail of goodies, the kids keeping a quick pace

I thought the Mickey ghost lights were great

We hit several candy stations in quick succession, the CMs doing a great job of keeping the lines moving.

They had a VERY cool spider web design over the mountain

We were near the pier entrance and they had some cool dancing jack o lanterns spotlighting on the ground

Mickey’s Fun Wheel looked Spectacular in the dark

The kids had hit several candy stations and decided it was time to ride another ride. They jumped on the Zephyr and took a spin.

The Mailboomer wasn’t open, but it still looked cool in the dark.

While the kids were on the zephyr Roxy tried to call them. They couldn’t hear her so she gave up and called me. I heard the phone (the second time) but couldn’t hear her very well.

Was she coming? Was she still in bed? Would the whole family get to enjoy Mickey’s party????

Tune in next time and see!

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Well it turned out that Roxy hadn’t wanted to call me. She had wanted to get ahold of one of the kids and find out where we all were so she could come down and surprise me 🙂

But since the kiddos weren’t hearing the calls she ended up having to let me in on it and I guided her down to where we were. While we waited the kids hit a couple more candy stations and we had a Woody sighting

Soon after that Roxy was there and Kris was the first to give her a big hug and I caught a pic of them

We all headed for Cali’ Screamin’. I sat the ride out with all of our Piratey accessories as once was enough for me that day. I was there to get pics when they got off

We had a little snafu trying to get out of there. I was trying to keep Roxy from having to walk stairs so we took the elevator …which took us up! She said forget it and we ended up walking down 2 flights of stairs instead of one. Oops 🙁

We made it down the ramp but had missed their pic being posted on the ride photos screen. But we then ran into a mom with a little boy pirate who thought we were the coolest and asked if he could have a picture with us 😀

We said sure and she snapped a shot, I then had her use my camera to take a pic of the fam together. Turned out a bit fuzzy but was still nice

We walked up the ramp from there and got out of the flow of traffic to decide our next move. Kyra was a bit bored and started spinning around a light pole

And Bean was just getting tired

We realized we hadn’t eaten dinner, so started heading up the ramp and out of the pier area. I made the mistake to stop and take a couple of pics of the wheel and told them to keep going and find a place to eat.

I had thought they would take the immediate right down into the pier’s restaurant area, so I took my pics and then headed down there. It was a very cool spot with both classic Peter Pan pirates and the PoTC pirates and several food vendors to choose from.

Unfortunately Kris said he knew where to go and they went trekking back towards the entrance of the park. I tried calling and when I finally got through they were at Test Pilot Grill 😮

I was bummed to miss out on all the Piratey action …and seeing the Wicked Stepmother and Sisters who were near the entrance to A Bug’s Life, but sometimes that’s the way it goes, aye?

We had a quick meal of burgers and fries and strolled out towards the parade route. It was still a bit before the parade so we checked out the big Disney store for a while. Soon enough it was time for the parade, it was short but still pretty cute.

Here came the lead float – nice candy corn

Some colorful witches

Here comes the Army Men

And there’s Woody and Jessie

Rolling candy pumpkin (who else collected candy in one of those as a kid?) and more Army Men

Another bunch of happy witches

Here comes Mickey and the gang!

Chip and Dale were keeping watch at the rear of the float

Pinoccio

Gepetto

And Alice followed

A last line of witches

And the last float

The parade finished and we made a bee line down towards ToT before the lines built back up. On the way down we saw another character interaction. While we waited in line we took in another cool Halloween projection

Kris had the camera and took a pic of Pumpkin Girl and I

And of a shiny fire hydrant that he thought was pretty cool

I don’t know who Pumpkin was giving a look to, but it was a good one

I went up first and got a couple of shots with Snow White and Dopey

And then I got the whole fam to come up

The kids moved up ahead around the bend towards ToT. I looked to the left and saw the line for Mickey and Minnie – it was waaaayyyyy too long to try for.

Caught a shot of ToT

The kids went on the ride but Roxy and I were wiped out. So we had a seat on a bench outside the ToT gift shop. There was a mother and grown daughter in cool witches costumes sitting on the other bench who we talked with for a bit. Soon enough we realized we were sitting right by the exit area for the characters at this end of the street.

First came a big Little Einstein

And what do you know – the Mouse and his Miss came by!

Roxy’s stomach wasn’t feeling too hot, so she asked if I could find her some kind of bread product to settle her tum tum. I zoomed back around the corner and lo and behold – the Wicked Queen was there with no line!!!!!

I was able to jump in and get a couple of quick pics. She was not impressed with my apple, said it was the wrong color 😀

It was almost 10:30pm (closing time), so everything was starting to close up. I ended up having to go all the way back to the rail car shops, but I found a big croissant for her. I made my way back and by that time the kids had finished up on ToT.

Bean was unhappy because they only rode it once and even though there wasn’t a line, none of the other kids wanted to ride again. So we made a couple of purchase at the ToT gift shop and started walking. I turned and said a final goodbye to the tower with another out of focus pic.

We strolled back towards the entrance and made some more purchase at the big gift shop near the bridge. We left the park around 11pm and shuffled our tired feet back to the room for showers and sleep.

The next day was Friday, our last day in the parks. What to do, where to go? And who would be awake enough to live the adventure? Check back in a bit later and we’ll see!