California - Day 4 - Our Last Day?

When we missed our initial flight out to California, Kevin and I were so bummed that we'd have one less day to spend out there. We had something different planned for each day and now we had to choose something to cut out. We talked to several different customer service reps (both on the phone and in person) about extending our stay one day, but they wanted to charge us $1700 in airfare to do so. Obviously that's ridiculous! We then started looking online for cheap deals but we couldn't find any in our budget. Finally we just accepted that we were losing a day.


So, Day 4:
New Years Eve. We had decided to spend our last day in California at Disneyland!!

We woke up at 7am. Showered. Got dressed. Ate. Then Kevin, Trent and I got in the car for the 90 minute drive to Disney. Trent napped the entire time. We drove alongside the Pacific Ocean for a little while, which was beautiful. Actually, every time we got on a highway we had a scenic drive. It's just so hilly and beautiful out there!

During the 90 minute drive I decided to call Disneyland and ask them where we should focus our time with a one year old. We didn't want to waste time wandering around looking for stuff appropriate for Trent - we wanted to maximize our time and go directly towards the Trent-friendly stuff. While on the phone the operator informed me that "today is Disney's busiest day of the year". OOOOFFFF COURSE IT IS! But really, who would have guess it?! They actually stay open until 2am on New Years Eve and do a whole celebration at midnight. She told us it might be in our best interest to go back another day - but of course we didn't have another day, so we went anyway.

We parked in a Disney designated parking lot and walked to the park (even though they offered shuttles). It was such a beautiful day!!! Really, couldn't ask for better. Here's Kevin buying our tickets!


We bought park-hopper tickets so that we could enter both parks, but we started in Disneyland Park. It was packed!!!! On top of that, Trent just wasn't in the best mood. He had zero interest in standing in lines or being in his stroller or being held. But we made the best of it. Here's a picture from the first ride we went on in Disneyland. It was actually kind of scary, but Trent didn't mind. He seemed pretty unphased by the entire experience.

Here we are in line.

This is what happened when we were in line at a different ride. A not-so-happy Trent

Of course we had to do Dumbo!

We took a little break to buy Trent some Mickey ears and to have a snack. Our break happened to be at Were Rabbit's house, so we got some cute pictures.

(thanks aunt joani)

Toontown was really cool.

We lucked out and found another play area where Trent was able to crawl around and have some freedom. This play area was actually Goofy's front yard - but Goofy wasn't around, so it wasn't very crowded. Again, Trent thoroughly enjoyed himself.

Eventually we made our way inside Goofy's house where Trent was able to sit in Goofy's chair and play with his furniture.

We really need to get one of these for our house. He LOVED it!

Eventually Goofy returned home and the place got mobbed. We took that as our cue to go get lunch. After eating we found Mickey's house and got in the ridiculously long line to meet him.

Then we just wandered around the different areas of Disneyland, stopping when we saw fit.

When it started getting late we headed over to Downtown Disney to have dinner at the Rainforest Cafe. It was early enough that the wait wasn't long at all. Trent seemed to like some of the cool effects the restaurant offer, but he seemed unphased by other things. He enjoyed the gorilla below.

We got him that cool souvenir cup

While at dinner I noticed I had a voicemail. A voicemail from US Airways. A voicemail informing me that my flight for the next morning was canceled and they were sorry for any inconvenience this caused. That was it. While part of us were glad to get another day in CA, the rest of us was not looking forward to dealing with rearranging our flight, dealing with the rental car people, imposing on Lauren, etc. We decided to wait until we got to our car where it was quiet to call everyone.

We left the park around 7pm with a pooped Trent in hand. The kid slept pretty much until the next morning.

Before leaving we spotted this light display. It's kinda hard to make out, but it basically says 2010, but instead of zeros they use Mickey ears. It was cute.

On our way home Kevin dealt with the airline. We had a few options but decided to go with a flight that was scheduled to take off the exact same time as our original flight home, except one day later. We were fortunate enough to get seats next to each other without a problem. The car rental place didn't give us any trouble, nor did Lauren or my in-laws (who had to pick us up from the airport). So, in the end we got back that day we missed at the beginning of all this. We got back to Lauren's and climbed into bed around 9. Being New Years Eve there was alot of music and noise close-by, but it wasn't loud enough to bother us. Lauren and her roommate were both out celebrating the new year.