Disney's California Adventure

After the cruise through the Panama Canal, we had a couple days in California visiting relatives. We had one day to be tourists in the Anaheim area, and Chuck wanted to take me to California Adventure. When it first opened about 10 years ago, I heard terrible reviews, so it was not something I was really looking forward to. I do so love Disneyland and was hoping we could go there, but he and I had been to the Magic Kingdom in Orlando at Disney World a few years ago, so after much discussion, and my doing some research on the internet, we decided to go to California Adventure. I don't know how I missed this, but it's actually a Disney Park. I hadn't ever heard that it had any connection to Disney. That made me much more interested in going as I love most things Disney. The day was absolutely perfect at 68 degrees and sunny. We couldn't have asked for a better day temperature wise. The admission price to go is fairly expensive and that seemed ridiculous to me, but then again I am "The Coupon Lady" and there were no coupons or bargains that I could see. Oh, yes, I forgot, Chuck did get a senior discount of 2 whole dollars!!! I was thinking that Walt Disney would probably not be very happy about the small a discount for seniors seeing as he was a senior citizen when realizing his dream of opening Disney Land. But I guess some savings is better than none!!! So we were off to explore the state of California at this park. When doing my research, I found a list of rides that were must experiences and also the ones which were best to use a Fastpass for. We headed right to those rides when we got in, but one of them, even when using a Fastpass, meant that we wouldn't get to ride it till between 7:00 and 8:00 p.m. which was ridiculous since we were planning to leave the park before then. Some of the rides we did go on were Soarin' Over California (one of the best rides I have ever experienced) Radiator Springs in Cars Land, and The Aladdin Show...which was extremely entertaining even for adults. I did catch a glimpse of Mickey, Minnie, Donald Duck and Pluto which was really fun. We got a tour of a sourdough bread bakery, complete with a free sample, which you know Chuck loved since he's a huge fan of sourdough bread, and went to the Ghiradelli Chocolate Shop for ice cream in the afternoon. I had a chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream there that was one of the best I have ever had! We went on a few other rides and ended the day with a Pixar parade that was a lot of fun. There were characters in it from A Bug's Life and Toy Story, but I did miss Mickey and Minnie and the original Disney gang in that parade. If I can figure out how to get pictures on this blog, I will post one of Chuck and I posing with a statue of Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse...one of my favorite pictures from our trip.( Okay...I figured it out as you can all see below!!!) All in all, I really enjoyed the day and am glad Chuck suggested we go to California Adventure.