Happy Anniversary from the Happiest Place on Earth

We spent our anniversary weekend in Disneyland this year. It was bittersweet because it was our last Disneyland trip using our annual passes. We are so grateful to have had an incredible year of Disney memories. It is sad because we will not be able to go to Disneyland whenever we want. Alison has asked me a few times if we could renew our passes. While we are not going to renew them this year I am sure we will have Disneyland annual passes again. Celebrating our anniversary in Disneyland was the best way to end our year of Disney. 

We flew into Long Beach on Friday morning. Long Beach is easily our favorite airport to fly into. It is small and simple. It is so small that when you deplane you walk right down a stairway onto the runway. As soon as you exit the plane you feel like you are in California. When we took off from SLC I spotted our house from the plane. The flight was nice and easy. It went by surprisingly fast - especially compared to our flights from New York and Philly.

Long Beach now allows Uber to pick people up at the airport. Our uber driver told us that this change was made a couple of weeks ago. We were pretty happy because Uber is way less expensive and is a better experience than taking a cab.

We were at the park by around 11am. We started on the Disneyland side. Our first ride was the Matterhorn. It is a good first ride, especially if you get to the park late. Usually, it takes a little while for the line to get too long. Plus it is a ton of fun. Since the last time we came to Disneyland, they added fast passes to the Matterhorn (and Midway Mania too). 

They also brought back Space Mountain (it has been Hyperspace Mountain for most of the time we had our passes). While we liked the Star Wars theming we missed the classic ride. It came back on June 1 just one day before our trip. We could not have been more excited. Riding Space Mountain was a highlight of the trip.

We ate lunch on Friday at our favorite Disneyland restaurant - the Plaza Inn. They have the best fried chicken. It will always be our favorite place to eat in the park. We got a special electrical light parade cake for dessert. It was delicious.

Friday was a great day in the park. Really the whole trip was great. The weather was perfect. It was cool in the morning and evening and warm during the day. It really wasn't too crowded either. Saturday was the least crowded day with Tuesday being the most crowded. Summer is a great time to visit Disneyland. There are rarely any ride closures and it is less crowded than you would think. Especially on Saturdays when a lot of annual passes are blacked out. 

On Friday night we stayed for the electrical light parade. Alison saw this parade when she was a kid and I had never seen it before. We were both pretty excited. The parade is running for a couple more months before they are retiring it. We are glad we got to see it this trip. It was super old school with lots of classic Disney characters - Pinocchio, Alice, and Pete's Dragon. 

Saturday was our anniversary. It is hard to believe that six years have passed since Alison and I got married. It has most definitely been the best six years of my life. We have built a very happy life together. 

We talked a little bit about life and the things that surprised us about the last six years. If we would have had to guess six years ago we would not have thought we would have two master's degrees. We might have guessed we would have one law degree, which would be wrong. We would have also guessed we would have at least one kid, which would also be wrong. We would have guessed that we would have a house, which is correct. We would not have guessed we would have a cat, but we would have probably guessed we would have a dog. 

The whole point of this is that we could not really foresee everything that has happened in the past six years. We loved it. We are very blessed and have a lot of joy. We really can't ask for much more than that. 

Saturday was easily the best day of the trip. We started in California Adventure. We really wanted to ride the new Guardians of the Galaxy ride. It just opened the week before. We were pretty excited. We immediately got a fast pass. The fast pass line was crazy. It literally wound through half the park. Luckily we got there early enough that we were near the front of the line. The ride itself was so much fun. It had really cool animatronics and a fun story. The ride is rocking and moves a lot faster than the tower of terror. It is more randomized and has smaller ups and downs. Overall we liked Tower of Terror better. It was more suspenseful and had better theming. This ride though had more action and fun.

The good thing about the craziness around Guardians of the Galaxy is that other lines were short. The line to Radiator Springs Racers was easily the shortest we have seen it. Saturday was our best day. We rode every ride we wanted to and then some. It was perfect for our anniversary. 

Throughout the day everyone thought we were newlyweds. We wore matching shirts (that we bought the day before). Alison was mocking us all day, but she actually loved it. We were also wearing "happily ever after" pins (hence the newlywed thing) although in our defense they did away with the happy anniversary pins so the "happily ever after" pins were our best choice. We always love that cast members celebrate with you at Disneyland. 

We amassed fast passes throughout the day and we had a bunch line up perfectly in the afternoon. There was a two-hour period where we got to ride all of our favorite rides. We started with the roller coaster and ended with Midway Mania. We did a lot of running to make it work and we still ended up being 5 minutes late to Midway Mania. The cast member checking fast passes hesitated but ultimately let us ride. 

We had dinner that night at the Blue Bayou. It is a fun Disneyland dining experience. We decided this would be the perfect way to celebrate our anniversary. When we told them it was our 6th anniversary they gave us a table right at the edge of the restaurant. This way we could watch the boats going by in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Dinner was excellent - I got some delicious lamb and Alison had salmon. Then we shared a chocolate mousse for dessert. 

After dinner, we wandered around the park. We ended up on Main Street and we stopped by the silhouette shop. We had often discussed getting silhouettes made. We didn't really know how it would work - we thought it was probably some sort of machine that would take a picture and produce the silhouette. This couldn't be further from what actually happened. We entered the shop and met a nice lady who hand-cut our silhouettes. She has been doing this for 43 years. We each just sat on a stool and she talked to us for about a minute and then she was done. It was awesome. We love our silhouettes. This was seriously a highlight of the trip. 

On Sunday we spent the day in Disneyland. We got there early. We were at the very front of the line for rope drop. We headed straight to Peter Pan. Alison loves to ride Peter Pan. It brings back a lot of good memories for her from her first visits to Disneyland. Peter Pan is really the quintessential Disney story - all about wishing on stars and never growing up. It is so popular that it usually has a really long line. Since we were near the front of the line we only had to wait a couple of minutes. After Peter Pan, we ran over to ride Alice in Wonderland. Then we got breakfast at the Galactic grill. We walked by and it smelled so good. We both got breakfast burritos that were quite excellent. 

We spent the rest of the day running around riding all of our favorite rides. We also took time to enjoy the experience of the park. We walked up and down main street USA stopping in each shop. We also went to Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln. We ate lunch at the Red Rose Tavern. This is a new temporary Beauty and the Beast-themed restaurant in Fantasyland. It was awesome. The food was good, but the dessert was amazing. We got the grey stuff and it was truly delicious. We also watched Mickey's Soundsational Parade. We love that Disneyland is more than just rides. It is an experience.

We always eat ice cream while we wait for the parade to start

I played a practical joke on Alison. Often as a ride is starting we will talk about what we want to do for the ride photo. When we were riding Space Mountain I told Alison that we should make a funny face. She totally did and I did not. At the end of the ride, I told her that I had said we should do jazz hands not make a funny face. She chalked it up to a failure to communicate. We continued to have "communication" problems for the next few days. When really I was sabotaging the plan. I finally came clean and Alison was upset/relieved. She told me that she thought it was a joke, but didn't want to say that in case it would hurt my feelings. She is so thoughtful.

We ended our day riding Pirates of the Caribbean. It was the perfect way to end the day. Pirates sums up the Disney experience. It is larger than life and takes you into a totally immersive experience. It is Disney magic. 

Monday was a good day, but it started off a little slowly. The park opened at 9am rather than 8am and that makes a big difference in the number of people who show up in the morning. Our first priority was getting a fast pass for the Guardians of the Galaxy ride. By the time we got there a lot of fast passes were already gone. Our fast pass was from 12:55 to 1:55. That was a little disappointing. 

After we got our fast pass we headed out to the pier to ride a few rides. We made a loop through the park until noon when we went to see Frozen the musical. We have seen it a few times, but this was the first time we sat in the orchestra section. It is such a fun show and the orchestra seats made it even better.

Monday night was a highlight of the trip. I love spending nighttime at California Adventure. Cars land is awesome when the neon is turned on. It seriously looks like it came right out of the movie. We have been meaning to ride Luigi's Rollickin' Roadsters at night, but it has never worked out for us. We made it a priority and loved it. It is such a fun ride with the lights turned on. I also love the pier at night. There are few thrills that I love as much as riding California Screamin' with the pier lit up.

We ended Monday night with World of Color. It was back to the classic World of Color. We love it.

Tuesday was our last day at the parks. We started over at California Adventure. We had the perfect morning and got to ride each of our favorite rides. Then we bounced over to Disneyland. We rode It's a Small World, the carousel, Pirates, and the Matterhorn. We started and ended our trip on the same ride. It was such a great trip.

Even though our annual passes expire in a few days Alison is already working to plan our next trip to Disneyland. So for now farewell Disneyland - I know we will be back soon.