The Happiest Trip on Earth

Warning: This is a long one. Pics to right in slideshow.

They really hit the nail on the head when they (Disney) said

"Disneyland is the happiest place on earth."

For Christmas, four out of five of us got a trip to California. Poor Tali stayed home :( We all felt a little bit bad leaving her in Alaska, but I highly recommend leaving babies and toddlers home if you're planning a trip to any ---land.

We flew out of AK when it was about -15 degrees (that "-" means negative) and into SoCal where it was in the seventies. Ahhh-successful trip already. We immediately drove to Carlsbad, went swimming, met up with Grandma and Grandpa Jensen and went to bed early so we could start the fun in the morning at Legoland!!

We all had a blast and quickly learned that our kids aren't weenies. All they wanted to ride was the biggest roller coaster and the wettest rides - over and over again. There weren't any lines, so we would run from the end back to the beginning. Which brings me to my next recommendation: Go when no one else is there. When there are no lines, everyone is even happier!

We spent two days at Legoland. We rode the big rides, the kiddie rides, explored MiniLand (full cities made of Legos), and raced our own Lego vehicle creations. My HS friend and college roomie, Pam (aka Beavis), and her family met us at Legoland the second day. We had planned to eventually hit Legoland's Sea Life Center, but we never made it. And I hear we missed out. But I don't know if anyone could've been happier.

That night we drove to Temecula and stayed at Pam & Chet's house. They have three little ones, Audrey, Ty and Luke. And it was even warmer there - high 70's. We played the Wii, went to the park, ate Mexican food, rocked out on Pam's drum set, Karaoke'ed, set off the pool alarm, had a kids' slumber party, stayed up way too late talking, and deprived Audrey of a day of school. And then we left . . . on our way to Disneyland and California Adventures Park!

And guess what? It got even warmer - now in the 80's! One day it got up to 88. And still, no lines! Did I say it's the happiest place on earth? It's true. Maybe California Adventures Park is a little happier. Either way, we were so happy by the end of this trip that we almost popped! We rode every ride at both parks and some of them several times.

Our faves:
Josh - California Screamin', the big upside-down roller coaster that's he's just barely tall enough to ride.
Liz - Splash Mountain and Grizzly River Run. She got drenched several times. She couldn't stop gigling every time we rode Grizzly River Run.
Tiffanie - Tower of Terror. Everyone loved this one and I didn't mind riding it over and over again.
Matt - Soarin' over California & Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters. He liked other ones, but we made him choose originals.
Family favorite (my 3rd Recommendation) - Disney's Aladdin-A Musical Spectacular. It's like Broadway Disney-style. A definite must-see!!

Recommendation #4 - Ariel's Grotto. Quite an auspicious name, eh? This was a spectacular lunch with princesses. The first thing the fancy maitre'd tells you is the price . . . and it was steep. I almost gave the reesponse probably 50% of people give - okay, I guess we'll eat pizza or burgers again. But Matt is a sucker for Liz so we stayed. We met Ariel, Aurora, Cinderella, Belle and Snow White and ate a gourmet lunch - seriously. The food was amazing. Fresh mozarella, fresh fruit and veggies for an appetizer. A truly gourmet salad. Real food - pasta, tri-tip, salmon, etc. And a platter of finger-size desserts, including a large sea shell made of white chocolate. Liz wanted to save it and bring it home. But we explained . . . and then ate it.

We spent 3 days at these two parks. We walked all day and then chose a favorite ride for after dinner and ran from the end to the beginning. Then we rushed to Fantasmic at Disneyland and the Electric Parade at Disneyland. Then we'd go to the hotel and swim until 10pm. And still the kids woke up every morning at 8:30 and got us moving so we could be at the gates at 10am. I was so impressed with Josh and Liz, if I do say so myself, because they never complained about walking or being tired. The timing was perfect - they both crashed the last day. Liz fell asleep on the shuttle back to the hotel. Josh made it to swimming one last time, but barely stayed awake during his apres-swim shower.

And the next morning we flew home. Were we sad? Back to recommendation #1 - leave a little one at home so you're even excited when the trip is over. We were all giddy to get home to Tali.

We flew home on the day of the "Miracle on the Hudson." I wasn't sure if seeing all that footage while waiting in the airport would make the kids nervous or not. I think the answer was "not." Last year we all were on a turbulent flight into Anchorage where the plane dropped 300 ft. in 3 seconds. Everything hit the ceiling, hovered for a second, and then slammed onto the floor. On this flight into Anchorage, we had to stow everything early to prepare for turbulents in similar windy weather. They ended up being mild, but when the ride started getting bumpy, the Josh and Liz both threw their arms in the air! Maybe we rode a few too many roller coasters.

Lastly,
Recommendation #5 - Take care of your camera. Sadly, we lost our camera at Disneyland. (If you happed to have stolen it and also happen to be reading this, you'll need to know that when you turn it on, you have to gently flick the shutter to get it to open. And if you zoom in and want to zoom back out, you have to turn the camera off and then back on to get the zoom to reset. Or you could just mail it to me and I'll give you a slick $100 reward!) Anyway, we lost all of our pictures of Legoland, Pam's house, and the first day and a half of Disneyland. And I just discovered that I had not yet downloaded our pictures of Christmas Day. I guess my photo-albuming just got a little break :) I was super sad about that, but being in the happiest place on earth can do wonders for things like that. On the slide show to the right are our meager pictures. We bought a disposable camera and clicked a grand total of 20 pictures. But it was funny to watch everyone hold the camera out, realize there is no LCD screen, and then slowly bring the view-finder to their eye like it was a suspicious foreign object.

Recommendation #6 - Go to Disneyland! As soon as your kids are 42"+, GO TO DISNEYLAND! If your kids are grown up or you don't have kids yet, go to Disneyland! It's the happiest place on earth!