Did-Ney-Lan!

For my birthday, Jacob decided to invite me to Disneyland. What a great lad. I'm sure the fact that I had to pay for our entrances, drive, and be the adult in all this never quite crossed his mind.

A few days before our trip, he informed me of a few "requirements":

1) We have to be there before it opens

2) We have to ride Star Tours

3) We have to ride Pirates of the Carribbean

4) We have to go on the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage

5) We have to go to Mickey's Toontown but not go on the Roger Rabbit ride

6) Under no circumstances are we to go on Its A Small World

Its a miracle what waving a trip to the Magic Kingdom would do to a 5 year old. In the past year, I could not for the life of me get Jacob to wake up before 8am. But this fateful day, the boy was ready to go at 6:45am. The park opens at 9am and we arrived about 8:40am. Growing up, my family would get there early and I think we would be with about 75 people tops waiting for the park to open. This morning - there must have been about 500 people there!

Look for yourself:

Crap! Jake was adament about going on these subs. I'm actually rather excited about them myself and trying to use my Disneyland knowledge (I know this park like the back of my hand) I figure there is one way to get to the subs quickly - lie and cheat my way to the front. So I grab Jake's hand and we start weaving our way through the line into the Penny Arcade. I figure I can go through the shops and land close to the front of the line and then make a beeline to Tomorrowland. Smart plan - right? We get to the candy store to find that the other store is closed - darn! So we head out with the people and formulate another plan. I got it! I whisper to Jake to play along and I pick him up. I start waving to an imaginary person and start excusing myself through the crowd

Me: "Pardon me, I have to get to the rest of my party. My mom is over there."

Jake: "Grandma's not here! Mommy, you shouldn't lie like that."

D'oh! Damn the good upbringing I'm instilling on my child. By the time all this happened, the park was about to open. So we stood our ground and I put Jake down I told him we were going to make a run for it. The park opens and we go.

Now - I have never in my life felt a level fear from being run over by stollers AND wheelchairs as I did that morning. Jake and I are running and I'm using all of the shortcuts I can think of to get the entrance of Nemo Subs. We get there and they are directing us to another entrance....near the entrance to Matterhorn - we are screwed! We make our way there and not only is the like about 250 people deep, but the ride opening is delayed. Jake and I decide to book it and get on Star Tours. I love 5 minute waits.

For the rest of the day, the wait for Nemo never went below one hour. Needless to say, we never made it. We rode Autopia twice, went on the teacups, and covered everything in Toontown (except for Roger Rabbit of course) before 11am.

For lunch, I wanted to surprise Jake and we ate at the Blue Bayou. For those of you who don't know the restaurant, its located in Pirates of the Carribbean. When you get on the ride and look to your left as you depart the dock, you will see people eating...that would be us. I swear, that restaurant is the bomb. I don't care that its overpriced even more than everything else - it rules.

After our lunch, we work it off by heading over to The Pirate's Lair and then jumped on the Explorer Canoes. No matter how old I get, I will always think those canoes are great. Especially when its about 100 degrees and you're stupid enough to be at Disneyland. Jake had a particularly good time too!

After the canoes, we headed back to Tomorrowland and noticed something going on at the Plaza Pavilion. They had this activity that was starting in about 10 minutes called Junior Chef. We hung around and low and behold, they have people come out and teach kids how to make cookies. We even got free cookies! Anything free in Disneyland is a high five in my book. Here are some pictures of Jake doing his chef thing.

The day finally came to and end and we had to throw one more ride in. Gotta ride the rockets!

I have to say that taking a kid (or kids) to Disneyland is so draining. I was praying to go home at 3pm and practically accused Mary Poppins of giving me attitude. Ok, I did accuse her, but not to her face, on a text to a friend. I wouldn't go at it with Mary Poppins - Daisy Duck, no problem, but not Mary Poppins.