Disneyland
We’ve been in Anaheim since Saturday night, and we’ve spent 5
days in the park. And now we’re all tired of it. Sarah got tired
of it by about day 1 (well, morning 1!), but we’ve been going back every
day, exploring the real Disneyland, and the ‘Disney California Adventure’
– more like an amusement park with a thin veneer of Disney. This afternoon,
at about 3 o’clock, the girls all said they’d had enough Disney and
could they go back to the hotel for a swim. Phew – I thought the moment
would never come, especially as we’re flying to Fiji tonight, and only
had 3 hours left for them to decide that enough was enough!We’ve had a good time, and with our hotel right outside the main entrance (the Del Sol Inn), it’s been good to come out for lunch and a short break every day, or for a teatime snack before the parade.
Charlotte discovered yesterday the she
liked roller coasters – we started on the kids one and worked her way
up past the ToonTown one, through The Matterhorn (literally – a roller
coaster set inside a mountain, with pitch black drops), and finally
onto California Screamin’ – a horrendous construction of metal rails
starting with a sudden acceleration upwards, some whacky turns and a
loop the loop. Charlotte loved it so much that we ended up doing it
half a dozen times with her.Because it’s low season, the longest queue for the grown-up rides was 15 minutes (for Pirates of Carribean) while some of the rides that obviously have big summer queues (like the Roller Coasters and the Indiana Jones ride) had 5 minute or less queues. Some of the children’s rides had 15-20 minute queues, but nothing longer. Unfortunately, low season also means closed rides, so some of the big ones were closed for repairs and overhauls (eg Space Mountain, Haunted House, Splash Mountain etc). The Thunder Mountain Roller Coaster was also closed because somebody was killed on it last week (might also explain the absence of queues).
Overall we are exhausted – the days at Disney have been long ones with lots of walking involved – so we’re all looking forward to a break in Fiji.