Indiana Jones
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| David just after he took me on Indiana Jones |
If you ask David what his favorite ride in the whole world is, he will tell you Indiana Jones.
California Screamin'
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| Just after our awesome ride on the California Screamin'! First time doing a loop is a rite of passage, at least in my family. |
David fell in love with roller coasters this summer at Kings Island. I was the same age when I became obsessed with roller coasters. So I was so happy that I got to go with David for his first time on the California Screamin'--it was his first time on an upside-down roller coaster! (I was eight the first time I went on a roller coaster with a loop, at Busch Gardens in Florida, and I think it was the highlight of my childhood!) David loved it!! He rode it five other times during our trip, for six total! We started calling him the Screamin' King!
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| David asked me to take his picture with the California Screamin' when the coaster was in the loop. |
Star Tours
Of course this made David's list! How could it not?!
Jedi Academy
Greg and I hesitated initially to do this. Volunteers are chosen from the audience to train as padawans, and, while it's a big group, there is no guarantee your kid will get picked ... which can be absolutely crushing. (As one mom said, "Way to go, Disney, for figuring out the cruelest possible way to break my son's heart." Yeah, I'm not sure Disney quite has this one perfected yet. I appreciate that you don't have to pay for it, unlike a lot of the princess experiences, and you can see they've managed to squeeze in as many kids as possible ... but for a Star Wars obsessed kid not being chosen is devastating. And even more devastating for the parents!) We weren't sure David could handle not being chosen, and I did not want the Jedi Academy to ruin our whole vacation.
But David expressed a lot of interest in going. So we talked at length with him about it. And then, like any good helicopter parents, we devised a careful plan to get him picked! It worked. (Or we were just lucky...) I'm saving my tips for a How-to-Get-Your-Kid-into-Jedi-Academy blog because what the world needs is another website on how to go on a Disney vacation. (But I will say is that our plan included a light saber, leveraging the early admission day over at California Adventure, and a total willingness to exploit our baby.) Anyway, David was chosen, and I cannot express in words the immense relief I felt.
With the burden of "Will my kid be chosen???!!!" lifted, there was nothing to do but sit back and enjoy the show. It was really fun, more so because David was so into it. You could see that his imagination and suspension of disbelief were at work. He was focused and serious like he is in karate. It was awesome.
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| David and the other padawans receive their light sabers. |
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| Learning the light saber. |
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| Look at the concentration. |
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| Nice moves. |
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| Uh, oh. It looks like they have some visitors. This isn't going to be good... |
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| Darth Vader tries to persuade the young padawans to join the Dark Side. He is not successful. |
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| Oh no! Now Darth Maul is there to join forces with Vader to prove to the padawans the power of the Dark Side. |
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| David battles Darth Maul, defeating him! |
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| The young padawans successfully fight off Darth Maul and Darth Vader, who retreat in defeat. |
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| The storm troopers get out of there too. |
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| Hooray for the padawans! They are strong in the Force. They celebrate their victory. (David is right in the middle.) |
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| Here come the new padawans. |
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| Time to graduate. |
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| Congratulations, graduates. Look how serious and David is. |
Iron Man
David is not into superheroes at all. But he makes an exception for Iron Man. So he was excited about the Iron Man exhibit in Tomorrowland. All of the Iron Man suits were on display. He also loved getting "suited up" as Iron Man (through Xbox) and testing out the new Iron Man suit.
Another one of David's favorites was spending his "mad money" from Aunt Janell. My family and I share happy memories with Janell of a trip we took to Disneyland when I was in high school. She sent David and Mary "mad money" for the trip. They loved the idea of it--money you could choose to spend on whatever and your parents couldn't boss you about it. David chose an Iron Man Lego set from the Lego store in Downtown Disney. He was really excited and very definite about it. So there was definitely an Iron Man theme running through our trip, along Star Wars, the princesses, Mickey Mouse, and all that.
The Pixar Parade
On our first day, when we were at California Adventure, we had a moment of crisis in the afternoon. We had done everything we had set out to do, so without an itinerary we were lost. Should we go back to the hotel and swim? Should we leave and come back? Should we go for more rides? Try to see a show or something? I think I've mentioned that I am not a parade person, so, for me, that wasn't an option. But Greg decided we were going to watch the Pixar Parade, no matter what. He pointed out that going to the parades is something you just do when you go to Disneyland. (This was his first trip to Disneyland, and he and his kids were going to have the classic experience, despite his wife's anti-parade quirks.)
Well, hooray for Daddy. Because David LOVED the parade. LOVE LOVE LOVED it! He was absolutely wowed by the floats, and he was thrilled to see the characters! (I was surprised by how much David enjoyed seeing and meeting the characters on this trip. I thought he might be too old for it, but he cited meeting Mickey Mouse as one of his favorite things. He also really liked exploring ToonTown--he was totally pretending it was all real. It was precious to me to see those moments with David, when he let the magic be real. He is so sweet.)
David's favorite parts of the parade were the Bug's Life float with the acrobats and seeing Mater at the end.
Other Favorites
Goofy's Kitchen
Autopia
Building a light saber
Buzz Lightyear
Grizzly River Run
Swimming and making a new friend (from Canada)
Meeting Mickey Mouse
Visiting Minnie's House
Meeting Winnie the Pooh
Eating at the Hungry Bear
Finding Nemo Submarine Ride
Both parades
Jungle Cruise
Going on rides with Mommy
