Disney's California Adventure Park

On day #3 of our California vacation, we choose to spend the entire day at Disney’s California Adventure Park. We choose this park over the Disneyland Park because there were so many attractions in California Adventure Park that we hadn’t seen or done when we went to Disneyworld two years ago. We arrived pretty much when the park opened and made a beeline for “Paradise Pier” to stand in line for the “Toy Story Mania!” ride (I researched this park for a couple of weeks, and learned that this was one of the most popular rides where the line can really become long). Even though we were in line early that morning, we still had to wait 35-45 minutes to get on. Luckily though, we had our iPads with us for the kids, so waiting in line was not torturous. It was such a bummer though that this ride did not have Fast Pass because it was SO MUCH FUN! Caleb definitely enjoyed this ride the most. During the whole ride we could hear him laughing and squealing with joy. In fact, we all liked this ride so much that we stood in line to ride it a second time (that’s right, another 45 min.) In case you all are wondering, Mike beat my score both times (it was a hard reality to swallow. If we didn’t have the kids I would have begged Mike to stand in line so I could have challenge him a third time….I’m so darn competitive!).

I’d have to say that the ride Aidan enjoyed the most was “Mickey’s Fun Wheel”. Aidan had a blast every time our gondola lunged, swinging back and forth on the tracks inside of the Ferris Wheel as it went around. He rode this ride twice too :)

Another attraction that we took the boys to was “Disney Junior – Live on Stage”. Both our boys are currently HUGE fans of the Disney show “Jake and the Neverland Pirates”. Here’s proof:

So when we found out that Disney had incorporated the show into the attraction this year (along with the “Little Einsteins”, which is Caleb’s favorite Disney show) we knew the kids were going to be absolutely tickled. We conquered about 12 rides/attractions that day, with some noteworthy ones being: “It’s Tough to be a Bug!”, “Princess Dot Puddle Park”, and “Tuck and Roll’s Drive ‘Em Buggies”.



For food that day, I packed sandwiches and snacks for lunch. For dinner, we forked over some extra cash to eat at Ariel’s Grotto so that we could get “Preferred Viewing Section” seat tickets for the “World of Color” show.

We were very excited to watch this show, because again, this show is not offered in Disneyworld. The show started at 10:00pm, but people were lining up to get good seats even an hour before the gates opened. It was an AMAZING show! The film clips projected onto the fountains, along with the music and fire, are choreographed really well. I encourage you not to miss it if you find yourself visiting Disney California Adventure Park. Even though our boys were pretty tired by the time the show started, they watched the whole thing in amazement (along with a dozen yawns too).

All in all, it was a fun-filled day that ended with our kids crashing to sleep on the car ride back to our hotel (Aidan actually began falling asleep on the shuttle ride back to our car. Everyone on our shuttle kept laughing at how hard he was fighting trying to stay awake on that ride back to our car lot) :)