If I don't finish telling you about my adventures at Disneyland soon, I'm sure I'll forget everything that happened while Amelia and I were there.
When we last left our heroines they were traveling from Tomorrowland across the park and into New Orleans Square - home of Lisa's favorite E ticket adventures. Coincidentally, as Amelia and I made our way through the center of the Magic Kingdom crowds had gathered for the Disneyland "Parade of Dreams." Remembering how much Amelia loved our small-town Christmas parade we sat down and waited for the Disney parade to arrive.
The first Disney cast members on the scene were the fairies. The blue fairy from Pinocchio, Tinkerbell, and the fairy godmother from Cinderella were all at the head of the parade, but Amelia was most excited about seeing the fairies
Flora, Fauna and Meriweather from Sleeping Beauty. The fairies were followed by many scenes and characters from several different Disney movies. Amelia knew the names of many of the characters - even those from films she has yet to see. The float that really got her attention was the giant image of
Ursula the Sea Witch, who followed behind Amelia's friend, Ariel (the Little Mermaid). After the parade was over she told mommy with amazement, "Ursula talked to us!"
When the parade ended, Amelia and I headed through the center of Disneyland and into Adventureland. Upon entering Adventureland (where the Jungle Cruise was closed for repair!) Amelia made comments about how neat it was to be in the jungle. But shortly after crossing through the
Adventureland gates she was asking to return to Disneyland. (It took a while for Amelia to understand that there was more to Disneyland than Fantasyland and Tomorrowland.)
Most of the things I had planned to do in Adventureland weren't available while we were visiting, but we did go on a tour of Tarzan's tree house. Amelia enjoyed the tree house and whenever she heard the sounds of lions roaring or monkeys calling she would peer off into the jungle to locate the animals.
After we finished our tour of the tree house Amelia and I traveled to New Orleans Square. Since we hadn't eaten in a while, I thought this might be a good time to grab some apple fritters.
Now, here's where those of you who can find nothing funny about boogers (and you know who you are) should skip ahead. If you can't stand to read about boogers, skip the
italicized paragraphs and rejoin Amelia and I at the Haunted Mansion.
Disneyland was not terribly crowded when we visited, and the line for apple fritters wasn't a long one. Still, during the time I stood in line (carrying Amelia) Amelia had decided she should clear her nose of obstructions with her index finger. Embarrassed that she was doing this at a lunch counter I rolled my eyes and pushed Amelia's hand back down to her waist. The young man behind the counter laughed and said, "I have the same problem with my kids all of the time."
I smiled, ordered my fritters, and the crew behind the counter worked to fill my order. During this time, Amelia reached out the same finger with which she had been "performing impolite tasks" and stealthily wiped it on the metal, food-service counter. This caused a couple of the good-natured employees to bust out laughing. The young man who took my order said, "That'll add some flavor to our gumbo!" while another girl referred to Amelia as a "Delicate little princess." It was all very funny.
The employees enjoyed their laugh so much that they offered Amelia a free chocolate chip cookie, which she declined. When I told Mike this story, after our day's adventures were through, his comment was, "Great, that's just what we need - for Amelia to be rewarded for gross behavior with treats!"Amelia and I finished our snacks and rode the Disneyland Express all the way around the park and back to New Orleans Square, which was not my original intention. My reason for boarding the train was to ride it to "Toontown" and to visit Mickey Mouse and the Disney Princesses before these areas closed at eight. But I was mistaken in thinking that the dinosaurs and the Grand Canyon scenes you travel through on the train were between New Orleans square and Toontown. This is not the first time I've made this mistake (the dinosaurs aren't listed on the Disneyland map).
As a side note: on our second train ride through the Grand Canyon on our way back to our hotel we sat next to another young girl a little older than Amelia who was visiting the park with her mom. When she heard me tell Amelia that dinosaurs are actually extinct everywhere in the world except Disneyland she corrected me stating, "The dinosaurs aren't real!" I told her that I was sure they were real...that was what my dad told me when I was a little girl at Disneyland. I did my best to keep up the tradition of confounding my daughter by assuring her that everything at the park was, indeed, real. When our train passed by the frozen, stuffed, big-horned sheep and bobcats in the canyon I told her the same thing my dad told me: "Look, they're so afraid they can't even move!"
One reason why I'll always go back to the Disneyland Express (besides the dinosaurs) is that it's always nice to sit down and rest. Amelia had made the decision, somewhere along the line, that she was simply too tired to walk and had me carry her both in line and from ride to ride. This was exhausting. I was sorry "It's a Small World" was under repair, not because I love the ride but because I could have used the rest.
On the flip side, it was a good thing I was carrying Amelia as we entered the Haunted Mansion. Shortly after stepping through the mansion's front door Amelia was asking that we skip the ride and try something else. She was also worried about the stretching room with "no elevators and no doors" before she saw it, since we had visited it to some effect
on line before leaving for Anaheim.
But the Haunted Mansion is still my favorite ride at Disneyland, and I wasn't going to leave without a tour unless it was really clear that this was going to cause Amelia some unnecessary stress or worry. As we exited the elevators ("See, I knew we would find a way out.") I assured Amelia that the Haunted Mansion was completely safe and that no ghosts could possibly hurt her as long as we remained on the path set out through the mansion and in our doom buggy.
I also told Amelia that the ghosts in the Haunted Mansion could never leave the property. Amelia questioned this when she saw that we were leaving the mansion with a hitchhiking ghost by our side, but again I told her that was just a joke and no ghosts would follow us home. (To take a virtual ride through the Haunted Mansion, click
here.)
(my final thoughts on our trip to Disneyland SHOULD be posted here, soon)
Lisa
Just as I was getting ready to put Diana down for her afternoon nap, she slipped away and into her big sister's room. She climbed up into Amelia's bed and asked me to draw the blinds and turn off the lights (which were already off). Then she put her head on the pillow and said, "Sleep," while making pretend snoring sounds.
