Spring Break 2008, Disney Style

April 11-12, 2008 -- We planned a Disney extravaganza for the final weekend of the girls' spring break. Earlier this year, Emelie was awarded a trip to the Magic Kingdom by earning stickers for good performance at school. (The same behavior modification program we leveraged for getting her a cat.)

I took Friday the 11th off from work and we spent the day at California Adventure. With the Disney 2Fer ticket, we thought we'd do a full day at each park. California Adventure has evolved nicely during the three years or so since our latest visit. The day was highlighted by Sydney's first loop-de-loop rollercoaster experience, Lunch with the Princesses, during which we were announced as the Royal Family and got to publicly announce the arrival of the princesses, and a Pixar parade that was only rolled out a few weeks ago.

We spent the entire day in C.A., then adjourned to our beloved Grand Californian resort at about 5. The girls are turning into room service addicts, just like their parents.

Saturday morning, after awakening to the subtle strains of ambient music played over the grounds of the resort, we dashed for the monorail and got into the park an hour before its general public opening. As usual, this is our number one reason for staying in the hotel. The strategy paid off again this year. The Finding Nemo ride is the newest attraction in the park, updating the previous submarine ride that's been a Tomorrowland fixture since Disneyland opened. A line that was about two hours long later in the day took us about 10 minutes that morning. I've gotta say, the ride is really cool. Beyond the simulated submarine experience, you get a Cliff Notes version of the entire movie reenacted underwater with holographic images that move alongside the sub. Very well done.

For some unknown reason, the temperature spiked to nearly 100 degrees, even though it was 70 the weekend before. We got most of our rides out of the way during the morning, then kind of slogged around from water ride to frozen lemonade stand to cool shade the rest of the day. We've become pretty crafty about playing the FastPass system and definitely maximized our time for the remainder of the afternoon. We went back to the hotel at around 4:30 and spent an hour or two in the pool there.

Before leaving, we upgraded our tickets to Premier Annual Passes so we can go back anytime we want, with no blackout dates. That took some of the pressure out of having to stay as long as possible this Saturday.

In fact, at the time of this writing, we already used our new passes the following Saturday (the 19th) and just went to the park for dinner. We ate in the Blue Bayou restaurant that is inside Pirates of the Caribbean, rode Buzz Lightyear and watched the fireworks at 9:30 that we're always too tired to stay up for.

I'd say we're fully Disney-fied now.