Hopping!

The final day of our glorious three day whirl of Disneyland was a big ol park hopping day - we started the day at California Adventure (that extra magic hour is key) and ended the day at the Magic Kingdom. The weather continued it's pattern of gray, cloudy and cool - right up until thirty minutes before we were ready to leave and then the sun came out in absolutely brilliant fashion. *sigh* Once again - getting ahead of myself.

The plan - yet again - was to get fast passes for Radiator Spring Racers and then head straight for Mission Breakout...and yet again, it went off without a hitch. My Mom and younger sister rode Mission Breakout two times in a row and for the first ride, I once again walked through the ride because I wanted to take in more of the excellent ride themes and also - because I am a huge Marvel nerd. I then perused the store yet again and found so many things I would love to have, ha-ha!

We made some of the same steps on Wednesday as we'd made on Monday - we circled back to Soarin for one more ride, walked through the wilderness portion of California Adventure and snapped some pictures and then grabbed breakfast from Flo's; I got some french toast that was topped with bananas and caramel sauce and was pretty much to die for. Fueled with coffee and food, we hopped into a car to race one more time...

But wait - before we move on to the pictures from Cars Land and our final race, there are more California wilderness pictures...because we couldn't pass up all the good photo ops!

  

 

I may have posted one of the pictures more than once - but oh well, I think they're pretty cute pictures...so there you have it! After our race through Radiator Springs, we said our final farewells to my most favorite - Cars Land - and walked back over to the soon to be Pixar Pier section of the park. My sister made a purchase, we rode the Zephyr one more time and I braved riding the Jumpin Jellies - which honestly probably sounds like a joke. I do NOT like heights and even though this ride was basically a kiddie version of a drop tower that is only 40 feet high and has no actual "drops" - I was sort of a nervous wreck the whole ride...and my sister laughed at me the whole ride. Whatever - I did it.

After conquering a ride that challenged my fear of heights, we made our way back to Buena Vista Street to purchase California Adventure mugs and peruse the shops. We had lunch reservations at Carthay Circle; designed to be a replica of the original Carthay Circle Theater in Los Angeles where Snow White premiered. The restaurant is actually an almost perfectly to scale replica of the theater's member's only lounge - but doesn't' actually have a theater.

  

The food was delicious - the signature fried biscuits are incredible (stuffed with white cheddar, bacon and jalapeno and served with apricot honey butter) and while my Mom and sister weren't wild about the butter, I liked it! I'd definitely say not to miss out on those if you make Carthay Circle a dining choice. Having said that - the menu was not varied and I could not believe they didn't even have a chicken dish! Our server said the menu changes pretty regularly, but I did find myself pretty disappointed by the lack of variety. What we did have though - was all excellent and our server was top notch!

We made our way from California Adventure to the Magic Kingdom after lunch and with plans to drive back to Vegas later in the day, we wanted to get in a couple things before trying to be on the road by 4:00. My Dad's favorite ride is the railroad and while he wasn't with us, we decided to hop on and make a circle around the park on the train - just for him.

We realized pretty quickly that all the wait times were already teetering on 45 minutes to an hour and any fast pass we'd try to get would be after 4:00, so we made the joint decision that the one thing at the Magic Kingdom we wanted to ride one more time was definitely the Matterhorn. My Mom said it rattled her guts out the day before, so she found a seat under an umbrella in the shadow of the castle and Lindsey and I waited the full 40 minutes (probably the longest we waited all week for a ride), grabbed the front seats in the bobsled and zipped around and down the mountain one last time!

I will say again how nice and easy it was to be able to walk through Downtown Disney (we stopped at a couple spots along the way for last minute purchases) and the Disneyland Hotel lobby and out to the car. Disneyland certainly has nothing on Disney World where size is concerned and most of the time that can be a let down - but when you're ready to make your exit, the smaller scale of Disneyland is a definite plus!

The three days spent at Disneyland were wonderful and honestly - three days is more than enough to conquer everything there is to do at Disneyland. Granted, our three days were honestly more like two and a half but it was still plenty of time. I will say that we didn't really get the chance to check out the pool at the Disneyland Hotel, which had not one but two monorail slides... perhaps an extra day to slow the pace would have been nice, but the three days we had were wonderful and full of awesome memories I'll always cherish!

The ride home was - a bit long, courtesy of California and it's crazy traffic! The drive from Anaheim to Las Vegas is about four hours (maybe a bit more) and while the drive seemed quick on Friday afternoon, it seemed much longer on Wednesday afternoon! I had my alien macaron (filled with raspberry and lime - to die for) midway through the road trip and we stopped for a super fancy supper at Arby's somewhere around Barstow, California...

We spotted the light of the Luxor at almost thirty miles out - that thing is BRIGHT y'all - and arrived back at Lindsey's house around 10:30. It was nice to settle in again and I was very happy to see the bed and know that I didn't have to set an alarm for the next few days!