We got up early to pack and got ready to hit the road. We had a good breakfast with Andra at the Sierra restaurant before we left, and then we were on our way back to civilization!
We had been planning on going to Disneyland for months, and so Ji and Yuliana bought their return tickets to leave from LAX. I had been thinking that their flight left at 8pm, so I figured we would drop them off around 4 or 5 and then Mark and I could go to DL for a few hours. Apparently there was some confusion as to what time their flight actually was supposed to leave, or it got changed, or something, but in the end apparently it was to leave at 11pm, and they wanted to go to DL too. So we left for LA earlier than originally planned, and they arranged for an airport shuttle to pick them up from the park. Unfortunately though, we got stuck in some traffic and didn't get to DL til 3:30, and the shuttle would pick them up at 8, so they decided it wouldn't be worth the ticket price to only go in for a few hours. So they went to Downtown Disney while Mark and I went to the park.
It gave us some real cognitive dissonance actually! Main Street looks very similar to WDW's Main Street, so at some times we would get the feeling we were in Florida!
All we had to do is look at the castle (Sleeping Beauty's house) and we would know that we were DEFINITELY not in Florida! The DL castle is much, much smaller than WDW's, but still very pretty.
Mark and I wandered around for a bit, somewhat in shock that we were actually at DISNEYLAND! Our first ride was the Matterhorn, something unique to DL! It was a lot of fun!
We got fastpasses for Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin and then went on It's a Small World, which is about 10 times better than at WDW.
We went back to Roger Rabbit, and then went on the Alice in Wonderland ride.
I was sooo dehydrated by this point and felt terrible. LA is a desert. We headed back towards Main Street and had a quick dinner at the Carnation Cafe. Great baked potato soup! I drank about half a gallon of water/apple juice, and felt a lot better. We met Ji and Yuliana outside and went back to the car with them so they could get their stuff and meet the shuttle. It took the shuttle a while to figure out where we were, but eventually they got on board and made it to their plane on time.
Meanwhile, Mark and I went back in to DL. We went on Buzz Lightyear (better in FL) and made our way to Main Street to watch the fireworks. The show was called "Magical" and it was great! Dumbo flies around the castle, which is totally awesome. After the fireworks, we went on Pirates of the Caribbean, which is totally AMAZING. So much better than at WDW, and we spent a while trying to figure out why they would make it shorter when there is so much more space in FL. We're not sure.
We checked out most of the rest of the park, and tried to go on Splash Mountain, but it was shut down. We did the Winnie the Pooh ride, which had a really random ending, and then watched Fantasmic around the Rivers of America. I liked it more than the one at MGM. It was really cool!
After Fantasmic, we had time for one last ride on Pirates of the Caribbean. On the way out we stopped in a store that was about 75% Nightmare Before Christmas and 25% Haunted Mansion. Mark freaked out! The cashier said that Tim Burton had been in there a few weeks prior. Too bad we don't have a store like that in FL!
We made our way back to the car and drove to our hotel in Newport Beach. We were exhausted and ready for our "free day" on Monday!
Part 5 tomorrow!
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