We had been talking a lot about taking Riley to Disneyland but as time slipped away from us we were thinking we would take a big trip next summer. While we were in Arkansas Jason just said one day "we need to take her now...before I leave". We only had two weeks back at home before Jason left for AMOS, a 4 month intense leadership course in Las Vegas. But we started getting to work and made it all happen over Labor Day weekend! We decided to keep the whole thing a surprise from Miss Riley.
You see...she is COMPLETELY in princess world these days. She loves to dress up, pretend, and dance around like a princess all the time. Every now and then we will get a Disney magazine in the mail with the picture of the Disneyland castle on the front and she literally gasps and then says "Daddy...will you take me to that castle one day?" Well we were about to make her dream come true!
We picked her up from school on Tuesday with the car all packed and loaded and the iPad set up for her to watch some movies on the way down. We told her we were going to see some friends and to stay in a hotel. With her love for detail I was sure she would ask a million questions and we would have to fabricate this entire story by the time we made it to Southern California but that honestly sufficed her so off we went.
The drive to Anaheim is mostly blah and boring...just middle of nowhere driving. But as we got close to LA it started to get beautiful again!
We stopped for dinner before we drove to LA to miss the traffic and found a Chipotle with an outdoor patio and a great view!
We made it to our hotel around 9:30 and had to ask everyone that worked there to not reveal anything Disney as to not give away our secret. I whisked her up to the room quickly so she didn't see anyone in mouse ears or a souvenir bag from Disneyland...she would have figured it out real quick.
She got to sleep in her own bed like a big girl and was ecstatic about that...so off to sleep we went!
Friday morning we woke her up, she went with her Daddy to get us our daily Starbucks since there was one in the hotel, and then when they came back we decided it was time to give her the news. We sat her down, Jason gave her a fun Minney Mouse doll, and we told her!
We have some great video of the whole trip but I haven't put it all together yet so I'll share that when I do. Basically we don't think she fully understood and her first assumption was that we were going to the Disney store..hehe! She was obviously excited and then we told her the first things we were doing was having breakfast with the princesses so it was time to get ready.
I had brought several of her princess dresses and she chose to be Rapunzel the first day. She wanted me to blow dry her hair because she loves how long it is. Here she is checking herself out in the mirror before we left!
Our hotel had a shuttle that left every 30 minutes for Disneyland and it was great...just 10 minutes and we were at the park gates. We got there a little early and California Adventure wasn't open yet so we decided to take a quick look at "the castle" in Disneyland!
Family pic!
The characters were greeting us as we walked in and Riley was loving all the attention!
Her first view of "the castle"
After checking out the castle and a little bit of Fantasy Land we had to head to California Adventure to get to Ariel's Grotto for our special breakfast with the Princesses!
Riley got to meet Ariel first and she was SO excited!
Ariel was so sweet and Riley was just talking away with her...I love how endearing all of the characters were and how they made it so real for Riley!
Ariel even taught her a special pinky promise and said to her "Princess Riley, do you pinky promise that we can be best friends forever?" How cute!
We had to pry her away and get seated at our table. They had lots of yummy food but it was tough getting her to eat anything with the princesses coming and all! The would announce a new princess about every 10 minutes and then they would make their way around all the tables giving each little girl attention!
She met Mulan who she really doesn't know but it's a princess so it was still exciting!
Snow White was next and she was so beautiful and gave Riley a huge hug!
Then Cinderella...here she is with Riley making a princess pose!
Hugs from each princess were in order too!
Then one of Riley's favorites...Aurora who is Sleeping Beauty!
More hugs!
Breakfast was a blast and I think Riley was just in shock to see so many princesses. She talked about this being one of her favorite things we did!
We decided to spend the day in California Adventure and started figuring out what we were going to do when we spotted Lilo and Stich!
They wanted to dance with Riley before taking a picture with her!
We started off watching the Pixar Pals parade with the Monsters, Inc crew! It was great!
Can't imagine the excitement going on in her little mind!
Getting jiggy with the characters!
We made a pit stop in the bathroom and saw Mr. Incredible on the way so we had to stop!
We decided to head to the Disney Jr show next since Riley loves watching this channel in the morning!
It was a GREAT show and featured Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Little Einsteins, and Jake and the Neverland Pirates...three of her faves!
She was so interactive with the show and one lady came up to me afterwards and said "your daughter is just precious...she was just as much fun to watch as the show"...love it!
After the show we rode the Monster's Inc ride and then we headed to Bug's Life...first there was a short show to watch that was 3D...it had one part where spiders and all sorts of creatures were all over the room and Riley was literally screaming...we couldn't help but laugh but thankfully it was over soon!
Thankfully they had a lot of fun kiddo rides to redeem us from the scary show!
When we were first waiting for the park to open we had met a sweet family with a 3 year old girl and another baby due in January...what a coincidence! We kept running into Mike, Carrie, and Libby and the girls had so much fun together so we spent the rest of the afternoon with them and that kept the girls going!
We rode a fun train first!
The the bumper cars with Daddy!
The swings!
We decided to ride the Toy Story ride next and made our way across the park!
The line was a little long and Riley took a little power nap while we waited!
Next up was a ride on King Triton's carousel!
We got lots of advice from the Welch's on where to go, what to eat, what to wait in line for etc. and it was SUPER helpful! We decided to adopt their rule of "a cotton candy per day keeps the crankies away"...so it was time to get the girls some cotton candy!
Here's Riley and Libby being silly!
Next we headed to this adventure park where there was lots of playground type things to do...we had to burn off all that sugar energy!
The girls rode slides, crawled through tunnels, and just ran around for a while!
We had to say bye to Libby here...we actually ended up running into them again on Sunday...such a small world...but we had a great time getting to know them and spend the day with them and the girls were just too fun to watch!
We stumbled upon the Phineas and Ferb Dance party so we had to check it out!
Riley had a blast out their dancing with all the kids and even had to run over for a wardrobe change to put her Rapunzel dress back on half way through! The girl loves to spin and twirl in her princess dresses!
After the dance party we rode the new Little Mermaid ride..it was good but Riley got scared when Ursulla came out!
We decided to head on out of the park to Downtown Disney for dinner and call it a night. We had been there all day and no nap had occurred so we didn't want to wait to long and end up with a worn out toddler on our hands...oh and this preggo mama was tired too!
We ate at a blue's cafe and had a yummy dinner and then it was back on the shuttle to get some sleep!
Our first day was great...the park didn't seem too crowded at all and Riley had a blast and to see it through her eyes was truly magical!
