Disney Day

Seems a shame to come all the way here and not go to Disney, so a few of us decided to spend the day in Disneyland. I'm a fairly seasoned visitor, and have been to the various parks (Florida, California, Paris) 8 times, but some of the gang had never been at all. It was only 15 minutes walk from the hotel so we were soon there. Everything is decorated for Halloween, there's even a Mickey pumpkin






After the walk down main street we had a go at shooting things





And then went on the Paddle steamer round the lake




One of my favourite rides is Pirates of the Carribean, so that was the next stop, and it was as good as I remember it. They've even got Captain Jack in it now with a pretty good animatronic Johnny Depp. The wasn't too bad for Disney, only about 20 minutes, so we decided to try another big ride, this time the Haunted Mansion. This had been redecorated inside and out for the season in a Nightmare before Christmas theme. Christmas Jack resplendent on the main gate.

The ride was good, and then we split into two groups, those who wanted to go down splash mountain and get wet, and those who didn't. I was one of the latter. Made a good choice as the queue for this was over an hour. By the time we met up again me and Kath had been on 5 different things. A tropical river cruise was the first.




The second was much cheesier and had us giggling in disbelief though out it. We went in something called the Enchanted Kon Tiki house, mainly because it looked cool ( it was very, very hot). We were treated to 15 minutes of singing animatronic parrots and flowers, so bad it was funny.






Then we went on two storybook dark rides, Snow White and Pinnochio. Very enjoyable for two big kids at heart. And to round off the return to our childhood we went on the big carousel.

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After meeting up with then rest of the group, the queues at the big rides had got very long, it was hot and we were tired, so we decided to go on one last thing. I chose Buzz Lightyear, with a bit of trepidation because I didn't know how the others would react to another kids ride. But it was a great success - you sit inn little space cars in pairs which you can spin round, and you both have a gun and the aim is to shoot as many aliens as you can and score points. I won! Not that I'm competitive or anything. And the best thing was, at the end they'd taken a photo of each car which you could email to yourself for free!



In the evening after the traditional few beers in the bar we got cabs to Downtown Disney and ate in the Jazz kitchen, where there's live music all the time



And the food and company were pretty good as well. After a walk back, I was in bed before midnight for the second night running. Must be getting old!