Disneyland Day 1

Princess Sycely ready for her first day at Disneyland

The four of us, joined by Far Nanny and Papa Scott made the short walk across the street to Disneyland. What a totally overwhelming, spectacular sight! I can’t even imagine how being surrounded by all that “magic” must have felt for our little Princess. Our first stop was Sleeping Beauty’s Castle where you can walk through and “experience” the various parts of the story. Lem, Sycley and I rode the Snow White ride and Lem and Sycely followed that up with a flight on the Dumbo elephants. Sycely and I took a spin on the Pinocchio ride then we all headed over to Toontown where we encountered our first chacter-Minnie Mouse. It wasn’t long until we bumped into Goofy and Pluto as well. We finished up in Toontown and hoofed it over to Califronia Adventure where we had yet another surprise in the works for Sycely-we were having lunch with the Princesses!

Sleeping Beauty's castle

Lem and Sycely on the Dumbo ride

Lem, Sycely and Papa Scott heading to Toontown

Ariel’s Grotto is a super fancy, spare no expense, Princess haven of a restaurant. On the way in you’re greeted by Arial herself and you stop to take pictures then they lead you to your table. The menu features a three course meal including a delicious three tier anti-pasta platter, an entrée of your choosing and (my favorite) a huge tray of delectable desserts-including edible white chocolate Ariel and a big white chocolate conch shell. Once you’ve ordered a Page character comes around to talk with your table and tell you about the Princesses you’ll be meeting. The Page at our lunch was a wiry old many from Zurich who stopped to visit with us twice. Sycely was super friendly with him telling him all about how Cinderella is her favorite princess, that she lives in Alaska and is a big sister to her little sister Ella (who was napping with Nanny.) Soon the fanfare (literally) began and a second Page came out and welcomed us to the royal meal and sang a song about the wonder of dreams come true, etc. As this was wrapping up, Page from Zurich came and whispered to me that we’d been chosen as the Celebration Family of the day (whatever that was.) He told me we get to help introduce the first Princess. As I was barely processing what he was saying Singing Page was introducing the “Wheeles Family hailing from the great land of Alaska” and they were ushering the three of us up to the front to read from the Page’s scroll. We read the introduction for the first Princess and who should it be but CINDERELLA! She came in and came up front and spent several minutes just with Sycely, hugging, talking, twirling like any two old friends would do. It all made for fabulous video footage! After a few minutes of special visiting up front Sycely and Cinderella walked hand in hand back to our table for a few more sacred moments of memory making.

Introducing Cinderella...

I assumed they chose one family for each Princess, but apparently the big hoo-rah is only for the first Princess, so the next three each came in individually but with a little less hoopla than the first. Second came Sleeping Beauty, followed a few minutes later by Belle. Jasmine rounded out the bunch a few minutes later. Each Princess comes around to your table and spends a few minutes talking with you and there are of course LOTS of opportunities for picture taking. How they expect ANYONE- 3 or 43- can eat a meal in there, I have no idea. Our fairytale lunch was by far the most memorable and spectacular experience of our whole trip-given a little extra boost by whatever made them choose us as their Celebration Family.

After our lunch we headed back over to the Disneyland side and met up with Far Nanny and Papa Scott for the rest of the afternoon. We rode the Adventures of Pooh ride, met and took pictures with Pooh Bear and tried(unsuccessfully) to convince the girls they needed a break from all the excitement and were ready for naps. After throwing in the towel on napping, we packed up the towels for swimming. We headed down to the pool for dip in the water and sunshine. We got everyone dried off, redressed and ready for more Disneyland fun.

We headed back over to California Adventure for the Disney-Pixar parade-something Sycley was REALLY looking forward to. While we waited for it to start Lem and Sycely checked out the Bugs Life rides. The parade was an astounding demonstration of costuming, choreography, music and that good ol’ Disney “magic.” All our favorite Pixar friends were there- Nemo, Marlin and Dory, Woody and the gang from Toy Story 1 and 2, the crew from Monster Inc and SO many others. After the parade we went a round on the Monsters, Inc ride (one of my favorites) before the park closed then headed back to the hotel and got the girls fed and to bed. Lem and I left my mom with the baby monitor and headed over to the nearby Bubba Gump’s for some tasty dinner. Then, having walked about a thousand miles and being “Disneyed” out for the day we hit the sack.

The crew from Monsters, Inc.

Woody and the Toy Story gang

Flik and Atta from Bug's Life