It POURED rain all morning at Disneyland. The intense rain threw off most of our plans to connect with cousins at the park, and we mainly just tried to survive.
Our first ride of the day was Peter Pan. R hid in a gift shop with Katie asleep in the stroller while Scotty and I tried out the ride. I expected it to be pretty tame, but it was very dark, very jerky and very, very loud. We couldn't communicate much during the ride but afterwards I asked for his opinion: "Did you like that ride?"
"No."
He had a much better experience on the It's a Small World boat ride with R. Katie and I hid out in another gift shop until they came out. I had borrowed my dad's 100% waterproof rain gear, so only my feet were getting wet. Everyone else was using cheap ponchos that we bought at a dollar store the night before.
My sister A is a total Disneyland Pro, so she guided us through our experience for the day, getting us FASTPASS tickets for the popular rides and minimizing our wait times. This was particularly important for rides that had a line-up outside in the rain. When I went on Space Mountain with my teen-aged neice I tried to be sure to embarrass her as much as possible.
Scott's clear favourite ride on the day was the Buzz Lightyear ride, which we were able to do twice in the morning. Normally, I would be a bit cynical about Disney's placement of a gift shop at the end of nearly every ride. However, on this day, I was more than happy to have a warm, dry place to hide for minute.
Eventually, the kids were all soaked and hungry and we had to retreat to our hotel for a respite and a change of clothes. I remember jumping in the car and racing all over the neighbourhood looking for an In-N-Out Burger or a Wendy's so that I could get R something that was gluten free. In the end, I got her a smoothie because there was NOTHING around that seemed suitable (we had heard that Disneyland had some gluten-free options, but the rain had driven us off the property). That bit of frustration was the turning point for the day, though. After that, the rain stopped and the rest of the day was really, really good.
The rain kept most of the crowds away that day, so we found that lines were pretty short for the rest of the day and we got to go on lots of rides. At one point, our group split up to get on some different rides and Scott went off with my mom and some of his cousins while we went on some other rides. Later on, when I saw him again he asked me, "Are some skeletons good guys?" Amused, I told him that I supposed that some of them were good guys. It wasn't until I related this story later on that I found out that he'd been on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride and my sister A had tried to talk him through the scarier parts of the ride by telling him that the skeletons there were all good guys and quite nice:
Uplifting things like, "I'm sure that nice skeleton is going to share that pile of gold with the other nice skeletons," and "Oh, look at the happy, fun, nice skeletons sharing a beverage and a laugh together at what must be a skeleton cafeteria of some kind. What fun!"
There was a short period in the afternoon when I was perfectly dry. It was right after changing clothes at lunch and right before I sat in the front of our log for Splash Mountain. The wave that came over the front landed exactly in my lap.
Katie loved all the lights more than anything and she reached out to touch them as we went passed. As the evening went on we managed to get Katie on the merry-go-round, and then my sister watched her while the rest of us went on the Matterhorn. As we waited in line and heard the distant roaring, I wondered if Scott would be totally freaked out by the snow monster, so I told him over and over that the Monster wouldn't get us. When we got off the ride he shouted to those waiting, "The snow monster never gets us!"
Despite his easy escape from the snow monster, Scott still became a bit uneasy when he caught sight of the Matterhorn from a distance. It was as if he suspected that the snow monster had come down from the mountain and was searching the park for him. I reassured Scott that the snow monster never leaves the mountain. I asked him, "Why do you think he can't get out of the mountain?" Scott said, "The snow monster can't get out because he has too much tape on him." I was going to explain that he's just a robot screwed to the floor, but Scott's explanation was so great that we accepted that one instead.
High winds denied us of the fireworks show, but we still got to see the Fantasmic nighttime show on the riverfront. We set ourselves up in a really good position in advance and got Scott some popcorn to wait for the show to start at 9:05 pm.
Unfortunately, Scott slept through the whole show. It's probably for the best though -- he doesn't handle 50-foot fiery dragons or 40-foot eels very well. I heard my cousin Eric had to talk his son Ammon through the ordeal.
The Magic Kingdom looks much more magical lit up on a clear night than it does coated in a drab morning rain.
