California Adventures (California Trip Day 7)

We spent day 7 at California Adventures. Sadly, we only booked one day there, and we had to get as much in as possible. I really wish we had booked two days. There was so much to do, and one day was simply not enough to do everything! Looking back on this day, we did a crazy number of things in one day and I give my boys so much credit for holding it together (for the most part).

We woke up early and rope-dropped the Web Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure ride, where you helped Spider-Man shoot rouge Spider-Bots that were running amok in Spider-Man’s laboratory. This ride reminded me of the Ninjago ride in Legoland, but easier to aim and better executed.

After Spider-Man, we headed to Car’s Land to enjoy the town and go on Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree and Luigi’s Rollickin’ Roadsters rides. The standby line for Radiator Springs was too long, so we decided to purchase Lightning Lane passes for the afternoon.

After Car’s land, we made our way to the Pixar Pier and went on as many of the rides as we could while the wait-times were still short. We were able to ride on the Golden Zephyr, Goofy’s Sky School, Jessie’s Critter Carousel, Jumpin’ Jellyfish, the Little Mermaid – Ariel’s Undersea Adventure, the Toy Story Midway Mania, and the Silly Symphony Swings.

Ev and Con were going to ride the Incredicoaster, but Con changed his mind at the last minute. Ev regretted not going by himself, but I told him it’s ok, it gives us something to look forward to on our next trip to Disneyland.

At noon, I had lunch reservations at the Lamplight Lounge. We ordered the Lobster Nachos ($23), the Potato Skins ($15), and the Kung Pao Bao ($21). Gray ordered a Goofball Island (Simply Fruit Punch, Minute Maid Lemonade and Raspberry purée), Con ordered a 2319 (a frozen mock tail made with Strawberry Purée, Cream of Coconut and Pineapple juice topped with Coca-Cola), I had an Open Ocean with a Splash (frozen cocktail made with Barcardi Raspberry Rum, Bols Blue Curaçao, Liquid Alchemist Orgeat (Almond), Agave Nectar and fresh lime juice) and Ev had a beer. The drinks were good and the food was excellent. Nachos are one of my favorite foods (a close second after sushi) and these were probably the best nachos I’ve ever had at a restuarant.

Unlike the day before, things didn’t go totally according to plan almost from the getgo. There was an issue with the Disneyland App and we were unable to book anything with the genie+ service for about two hours in the morning, so we had to improvise. We had also purchased Lightning Lane passes for the Radiator Springs Racers in Cars Land, but when we got there, the ride was down. We were given the choice of coming back at a later time when the ride was back up or wait in line for an unspecified amount of time. Those two things wrecked havoc on my plans for the day and we ended up meandering through California Adventures in a half-hazard manner.

Since it was a little hot, we decided to go on the Grizzly River Run next. I wasn’t sure if Gray was going to make the height for the Grizzly River Run and he juuust made it! Unfortunately, Gray was the unlucky one of the group who got soaked. It as still a fun ride and great way too cool off during the summer. Then, we headed to the Redwood Creek Challenge Trail, which was a two acre forest themed outdoor play area, with rock climing, log slides, a ropes course, and the scariest ride in the park – the zip line tire swing at the Sequoia Smokejumpers Training Tower.

Fortunately, Radiator Springs did reopen, so we headed back to Car’s Land. Because the ride was down for a few hours, they were pretty much only letting Lightning Lane holders through. The standby lane was over two hours and even with the Lightning Lane passes we waited about 30 minutes.

After that we went Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue! and the Soarin’ Around the World ride. Soarin’ Around the World was not on ouWe almost didn’t go on the ride because Ev gets motion sick from stationary rides where the screen moves and we suspect Gray is afraid of heights. It’s a good thing we ended up going becuase it ended up being Gray’s favorite ride of the entire trip!

To beat the afternoon heat, we headed to the Animation Academy, where the kids got to draw their own character sketches following step by step instructions from a talented animator. The kids loved it so much that we ended up doing four sessions and stayed for over two hours. We drew Tigger, Groggu (baby yoda), baby Dori, and Eeyore. Con enjoyed this activity so much that he asked the next day if we could go back or if there was a similar animation studio in Disneyland.

I was so impressed with he boy’s drawings and the boys really enjoyed this activity. I think the boys could have stayed for at least another round or two, but but we needed to leave because we had reservations for the World of Color Dessert Party and we wanted to eat before the show. We grabbed a variety of food through mobile ordering and went to stand in line for the Dessert Party.

We ended the night with the World of Color Dessert Party. The dessert party came with a plate of desserts for each of us and two alcoholic beverages for the adults (champagne, beer, or a cocktail) and light-up souvenir cups for the kids with as many non-alcoholic drinks as they wanted. They each had a fancy cherry drink, sprite, and a hot chocolate. Our dessert plates had crackers, three types of cheese (cheddar, pepper jack, and Brie), grapes, a chocolate covered Mickey Mouse Rice Krispies treat, a blueberry glazed bunt cake, a cookie, and a chocolate cheesecake.

As expensive as the dessert party was ($89 per person including tax and tip), I think it was worth doing at least once, especially if you have young kids. I honestly don’t think the boys would have lasted standing for the entire 30 minute World of Color show. We had spectacular seats and it was nice to be able to sit and relax and not to have to stand up for the entire show. It was such a fantastic day.

Disneyland (California Day 6)

Our first day in Disneyland was so wonderful. At times, it was a little overwhelming, but all the planning I did before the trip really helped. For the first day, we focused on Fantasyland, Tomorrowland, and the Star Wars Galaxy, and ended the night watching the Fantasmic show and fireworks.

To get the most out of our day at Disneyland, we tried to get in as many rides as we could in the morning, when the lines were still short. Then took a slower pace in the afternoon.

We decided to rope-drop Fantasyland on our first day and went directly to the Peter Pan ride. Due to COVID, they weren’t having the magical morning, so the park was completely empty when we got there. Running, I mean walking at a very swift pace, through Sleeping Beauty’s Castle with our boys to get to the Peter Pan ride was pretty magical.

We gave ourselves two hours to ride as many rides in Fantasyland as we could before moving to Tomorrowland. That morning, we were able to ride on Peter Pan’s Flight, Dumbo the Flying Elephant, Casey Jr. Circus Train, Mad Tea Party, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, Pinocchio’s Daring Journey, and the Snow White’s Enchanted Wish.

Ev and I realized that the boys were not familiar with most of the characters in these rides because we haven’t watched many of these older’s movies with the boys. Looking back, we should have prepared them more by having them watch some of the movies (Pinnochio, Peter Pan, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, etc) before coming to Disneyland. But, it was ok, they seemed to enjoy the rides anyway.

We spent about an hour and half at Tomorrowland before our lunch reservation. We started with a ride on the Astro Orbitor, then switched off riding on Space Mountain with Con (it was too scary for Gray), rode on the Star Tours ride, and finished our morning off with Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters.

Because I knew it would be really long days for the boys, I tried to schedule a lot of down time for the kids for lunches and in the afternoons. I made reservations at the River Belle Terrace at 11:30 and ordered the Fantasmic dining package ($50 adult/$30 child). The dining package came with a three-course meal and seats in the reserved area for the Fantasmic show at 9 pm that night.

We tried to eat outside as much as possible and scored a great table for people watching. For lunch, I had the catfish sandwich with a strawberry pistachio salad. Ev had a Cuban sandwich with red beans and rice and the boys both chose vegetable crudite plate, mac and cheese with fruit, and potato bites (tater tots).

For dessert, we chose the chocolate dome dessert that had mango sorbet and cake inside, chocolate monkey bread, and the kids both had the chocolate pudding. We packed up the leftover grapes and tater tots, which the boys ate as snacks later that day.

After lunch, we spent the majority of our afternoon in the Star Wars Galaxy. We hung out with the Stormtroopers, boarded the Millennium Falcon ride and flew it into the ground (the kids were the pilots!), let the kids roam around playing with their “data pads”, jointed the Resistance on the Star Wars Rise of the Resistance, and shared a drink at Oga’s Cantina.

Everyone agreed that the Star Wars Rise of the Resistance ride was the best ride in Disneyland. We didn’t think the kids would last in the standby line, so we bought lighting lane passes. The ride was impressive and very much worth the cost!

At 3pm, we had reservations at Oga’s Cantina, which is a Star Wars themed bar. Before coming to Disneyland, I debated whether or not to take the kids to Oga’s Cantina. There is limited seating (most of the bar is standing only), and I was worried that the kids wouldn’t be comfortable. In the end, it worked out and I’m glad we went.

When we checked-in, I asked if we could get a booth and they said we could because we had reservations. Yay! The kids were comfortable and we had a great view of the bar. Initially, I was planning to order some of the snacks with our drinks, but we were so full from lunch, we decided to just have drinks only. Connor had the Jabba Juice ($6.50), which was Simply Orange with pineapple, kiwi, cantaloupe, and blueberry flavor-filled boba. Grayson had the Hyperdrive (Punch It!) ($6.00), which was Powerade Mountain berry blast and white cranberry juice with black cherry purée and sprite.

I had the Tarkenian Night Flower ($18), which was a blend of gin, elderflower liqueur with ginger and huckleberry garnished with a sweet hibiscus flower. Everett had the Coruscant Cooler ($17), which had Maker’s Mark Bourbon, Maraska Maraschino liqueur, Carpano Antica sweet vermouth, cranberry and lime juice. Both were very easy to drink. My sweet hibiscus flower was tasty!

We spent the rest our time casually exploring the Star Wars Galaxy and letting the kids play around with their “data pads.” Disneyland has and App that you can download onto your phone to turn it into a data pad that can be used to interact with the Star Wars galaxy. The kids would play little games to make droids move or go on quests to scan crates around the land or intercept transmissions that would unlock items that they could collect.

We ended the afternoon with rides on the Matterhorn, King Arthur Carousel, and It’s A Small World. Ev said he liked the It’s a Small World ride because it was air conditioned and long enough that he could take a nap. Haha.

We decided to get a quick bite for dinner and mobile ordered food. We ordered slices of pepperoni pizza ($8.50) for Con and Gray from the Alien Pizza Planet in Tomorrowland, and Corn Chowder in a Bread Bowl ($12) and Jambalaya ($16) for me and Ev from the French Market. Gray bought himself a lollipop that was as big as his face and Con bought himself a bag of cotton candy.

Once we had our food, we waited in line to get good spots in the reserved seating area for Fantasmic. We were the third group in line so we were able to get really good seats in the front row. We ate dinner, watched Fantasmic! and the fireworks show, and then headed back our hotel tired but happy.

Dinner with Goofy (California Day 5)

Day 5 of our California Trip was primarily a travel day. We let the kids sleep in late, had a leisurely breakfast, and then drove from San Diego to our hotel, the Best Western Park Place Inn, which was across the street from Disneyland entrance on South Harbor Boulevard.

After we settled into our hotel, we explored Downtown Disney, walked around the Disneyland hotel, and ended the night with dinner at Goofy’s Kitchen. I wanted to do a character meal and debated whether to do the character breakfast at the Plaza Inn in Disneyland, a breakfast buffet at he Storytellers Cafe at the Grand Californian Hotel, or a character dinner at Goofy’s Kitchen at the Disneyland Hotel.

In the end, I decided I preferred dinner over breakfast/brunch and opted for Goofy’s Kitchen the night before our first day at Disneyland. I thought it would be a good start to our Disneyland portion of the trip. I booked reservations early and was happy that I got my desired reservation time – 6pm. This was the first time eating at a buffet in such a long time, and it was lot of fun for us and the kids.

At the start of dinner, we took pictures with Goofy in his “kitchen” before being seated at our table. The waitress took our drink orders and then we set off to the buffet, which had a good variety of kid and adult foods. There was a pizza bar (with regular and dessert pizzas), a full salad/appetizer bar, a carving station, and huge dessert bar. I particularly enjoyed the cocktail shrimp and crab claws from the salad bar, and the steak from the carving station.

Throughout our dinner, they would play music and Goofy, Minnie, Pluto, Chip & Dale would parade around the dining areas, briefly visit each table to interact with the guests and pose for photos.

Connor especially loved the dessert bar and went back three times. I’m pretty sure he ate more dessert than he did dinner, but we were on vacation, so we let it go. 🙂

Even I couldn’t resist the dessert bar either made myself a soft-serve ice cream cone with sprinkles a macaron.

The dinner wasn’t cheap – about $70 for adults and $40 for the kids, but it’s Disney so you expect to be paying an arm and a leg. The food was good for a buffet and got the kids excited for Disneyland. I don’t know if I’d necessarily do it again, but I’m glad we were able to do it for the kid’s first time to Disneyland.

LEGOLAND (California Trip Days 3 & 4)

On days 3 and 4 of our California Trip, we took the boys to Legoland. Carrie’s family was also able to join us, and the kids had a blast playing together.

We decided to stay on property because we wanted to have the convenience of just walking back to our hotel at the end of the night – totally worth it. I had a hard time deciding between the two hotels on property – the Legoland Hotel and the Legoland Castle. Ultimately, we choose the Castle because even though it was slightly more expensive, it had a huge outdoor playground and movie area that we thought the kids would love.

The Legoland Castle was about $1,125 (after taxes and parking) for the night, but I thought it was a good value and worth the price. The Legoland Castle was fully themed throughout. We selected the Knights & Dragons theme for our room, which merged seamlessly with the common areas of the hotel. The room had a king size bed, a good sized bathroom, and a separate room (bunk beds) for the kids.

Our stay came with a free buffet breakfast at the hotel’s restaurant, the Dragon’s Den, 2-day park hopper tickets for our family to all three areas of the park (Legoland, Sealife Aquarium, and Waterpark) and early access to the Ninjago, Coastersaurus, Fairy Tale Brook, and Coast Cruise rides on both days.

The kids also enjoyed in-hotel treasure/scavenger hunt, which required the kids walk through the property for “clues” (a series of numbers) that would unlock a safe in the boy’s room. It was a fun activity and each boy got to take home a small parrot Lego set as their prize. Con wanted to keep his treasure safe and put his lego set in the real safe and accidentally locked it thinking that it was the kids safe. Fortunately, the hotel was able to help and unlocked the safe for us.

Our plan for the first day was to: arrive before the park opened, check-in our bags at the Legoland Castle, spend the morning and have lunch in the Legoland park, move to the Legoland Waterpark after lunch until late afternoon, check into our rooms and eat dinner at the hotel, and finish up the night at Legoland.

This was Con & Gray’s first real amusement park and I think it was a good one to start with. They were both the perfect age for Legoland. We started in the LEGO NINJAGO World and the first ride we went on in was the Ninjago ride, which is a interactive ride where you move your hands like a ninja and“shoot” ninja stars at targets. The kids enjoyed the ride so much we went on it three times in a row.

Con was the ride king. All he wanted to do was go on the rides, the scarier the better. His and Ev’s favorite ride was the Techic Coaster, which was the fastest coaster ride at the Legoland (admittedly not very fast when compared to coasters in other parks, but still a lot of fun).

Gray, on the other hand, wasn’t a fan of the scarier rides, but it was ok, because there was so much to do. There was always a playground, lego build station, or some other activity to do while big brother was waiting in line.

On the first day at Legoland, we made sure to visit the LEGO Ferrari Build & Race exhibit in the Imagination Zone that had just opened earlier that summer. It featured a life-size LEGO Ferrari F40, made of over 350,000 lego pieces. Amazing!

To beat the summer heat, we spent the afternoon of our first day at the Legoland Waterpark. I don’t have too many pictures of the waterpark because water and my camera do not mix. But we did get pictures of the kids in the huge heater/dryer machine on the way out. It didn’t really get the kids that dry, but they had fun playing in the machine as it blew warm air at them.

The boys started to get cold, so we checked into our rooms and had dinner at the hotel. I wish I had taken better photos, but we sat outside, ate pizza and chicken tenders, and watched the Lego Movie. No matter how many times I watch that movie, I never get board of watching it. Everything really was Awesome!

After dinner we headed back to the park until it closed at 8 pm. We did some of rides that we didn’t get to do in the morning like the Safari Trek. We ended the night with Emmit’s Flying Adventure Ride, which was probably not worth the hour wait. Connor got motion sick and Grayson closed his eyes almost the entire time.

Another cool thing the kids got to do was collect pop-badges throughout the park. They were having an event and the kids were each given a lanyard. Then as they went through the various build type stations they were given a pop badge to collect. The kids also got badges because it was their first time Legoland and for staying at the Legoland Hotel.

Grayson’s favorite ride in Legoland was the Jr. Driving School in Fun Town. The Jr. Driving School is for children 3 to 5 years of age. Each kid is given their own car to drive and they tried to drive around a little oval track in one direction. It’s so funny to watch all the kids attempt to drive for the first time.

Inevitably, there was always one car going the wrong way or blocking the flow traffic for the rest of the cars. I give the employees on this ride a lot of credit because they were constantly running around trying to fix the traffic jams. If it was up to Grayson, he would have been perfectly happy just doing that one ride all day. He probably went on this ride at least 4 or 5 times and by the end he was getting pretty good at it.

Connor was old enough to drive in the regular driving school. Their course was a lot bigger and they were able to drive in any direction. Even though the kids were older on this course, it still got pretty chaotic at times. We saw one kid go full speed into a wall and scream “the car didn’t turn!” We then heard one of his parents sitting near us yell back, “YOU need to turn [the wheel].” It was pretty funny.

Connor on the other hand was a model driver. He stayed on the correct side of the road and came to a full stop at all of the stop signs. It’s funny, because that is totally Connor. Such a good law abiding citizen of Legoland. :). I hope this also means we’ll have an easy time teaching him how to drive when the time comes. Wouldn’t that be nice?

All the kids really liked the Adventures’ Club in Fun Town, and I think it’s one of the hidden gems at Legoland. The Adventurers’ was a scavenger hunt walk through where you explore various rooms to find keys hidden throughout the rooms. It was simple, but the kids had a lot of fun exploring the rooms. We must have gone through it at least 5 times. We had the hardest time finding one of the keys (it ended up being on the ceiling)!

On our second day at Legoland, we also went to the Sea Life Aquarium, which is a two-story aquarium near the entrance of the park.

The Aquarium was pretty cool. All the tanks had various lego creations. At the entrance, the kids were given passports that they would get stamped at various stations throughout the Aquarium. And, at the end, they each got a pencil for getting all the stamps. The passport game motivated the kids, but also made them focus more on finding the stamps stations than looking at the actual exhibits. It probably took about an hour to get through all the exhibits.

I thought visiting the aquarium was a good break from Legoland. The Aquarium was indoors and air-conditioned. I would recommend visiting in the afternoon to get out of the heat.

I think two days at Legoland was a perfect amount of time to spend at Legoland. We did everything we wanted to do, without feeling too rushed. I’m a little sad because this will likely be our one and only time visiting Legoland. I think the next time we travel to California, the boys will be too old for Legoland.

Exploring the San Diego Zoo (California Trip – Day 2)

On the first full day of our trip to California, we woke up bright and early to go to the San Diego Zoo. The San Diego Zoo is huge. We stayed all day, but it was still not enough time to see everything. We saw so many animals and walked a whole lot.

The zoo was a bit pricey ($65 adults/$55 children), but I think it was worth the price, considering we spent the entire day at the zoo. Fortunately, my friend Carrie and her family were able to join us and she had ha free buddy pass and three 50% off coupons that came with her family’s season passes to the zoo. She saved us a lot of money. Yay!

When we first got there we noticed that the lines to the guided double decker bus tour were pretty short so we decided to do that first. The 35-minute tour drove around the perimeter of the park. The bus tour gave us a good introduction to the different areas of the zoo, and I would highly recommend doing it if the lines aren’t too long.

The San Diego Zoo is so big that they also have an Skyfari Aerial tram that takes you between the front and back of the zoo and gives you a bird’s eye view of the entire zoo. Grayson is a little scared of the heights, but he made it to the other side like a champ.

We also spent a fair amount of time in the Northern Frontier section of the Zoo waiting for the Polar Bear to come out, but, unfortunately it never did. We did see a reindeer and I got some good pictures of the kiddos.

And, although we didn’t see polar bears, we saw lots of other animals at the zoo, including elephants, giraffes, leopards, monkeys, koalas, a ton of snakes and other reptiles, various birds, baboons, vultures, tigers, jaguars,and red pandas.

To our dismay, Con and Gray’s favorite part of the zoo was not animal related. Instead, all they wanted to do was play this interactive game in the Wildlife Explorers Basecamp (Kids) section of the Zoo. It took us a while to figure it out how to play the game (to be honest, we are still not really sure), but we think it was supposed to teach the kids about ecology and how there needs to be a balance of plants, herbivores, predators, etc to have a healthy eco system.

Overall, we enjoyed our trip to the San Diego zoo and would highly recommend visiting, especially if you have small kids or love animals. They have a huge variety of animals and it was probably the best zoo I’ve ever visited. The zoo is very hilly and you’ll do a good amount of walking, so good walking shoes are highly recommended.

San Diego Zoo
2920 Zoo Drive
San Diego, CA 92101
(619) 231-1515
sandiegozoo.org

The Ohtas visit California (Day 1)

After numerous reschedules and years of planning (all due to COVID), we finally took our family on surprise vacation to California. We managed to keep the trip a secret from the boys until the morning that we left for California. Ev got a video of our the reveal:

Connor was in shock and Grayson started cheering and twirling around. I’d say that is about the reaction that I was expecting from these two.

I was able to snag us some cheap round trip tickets from Honolulu to San Diego on Southwest Airlines. I thought $365.50 a ticket was a steal, especially since bags fly free with Southwest.

It was our first time flying Southwest and it was definitely an experience. The whole – no seating assignment and you won’t know where your family will sit – arrangement kind of stressed me out! I checked-in 24 hours prior to the flight as directed, but I still wasn’t able to get a good boarding group number. Fortunately, Grayson was under 5, so we were eligible to board during the family seating – between the A and B group. I was able to get 4 seats in the back half of the plane. Whew. I am so thankful we had the family seating option and will definitely be paying for early bird seating if we fly Southwest again once we no longer qualify for the family boarding.

The flight went smoothly and we got to San Diego without any problems. We arrived in San Diego in the evening, rented a car, and drove to my friend Carrie’s house where we spent the first two nights of our trip.