On our way to California!! Kayla stayed up the whole plane ride there.
She needed a variety of activities to keep her busy on this plane ride. In the past, she just watched her ipad the whole time. This time, I don't think she could hear the Ipad great at first, so she was losing interest in it. Good thing that I brought lots of coloring activities. Kayla is getting more and more interested in coloring and doing crafts.
We stayed at the Hyatt House Anaheim. It was a pretty decent hotel and was within walking distance to Disney. We are leveled up in the Hyatt rewards, so we were able to use our points and stay here for free. They also gave us an updated room and let us check in at around 10-11am.
Once we got settled, we decided to walk towards Disney and go to Downtown Disney. It's nice in California that everything is right next to each other. You walk through the same bag check for downtown Disney as you would the two parks.
We went to the Disney Store and bought a few things. We got a 100 year magnet, 5 christmas ornaments with characters that celebrate the 100 year anniversary, and we got Kayla a nice Frozen book. I got this backpack which I looooove. It is so comfortable to wear and looks so cute!
Here we are at Kayla's cupcakes where we had to stop and get some. They actually mostly had macarons and then a cupcake in a cup which was only ok to be honest. It was a bit overpriced.
Kayla and I in front of the 100 year pendant.
We were walking by a sweet tore and there was a guy handing out numbers... so we went in and they had the same sweet treats as they did in the parks. So we got a Mickey cookie, and then we went to Wetzel Pretzels for some pretzels. We ended up going to PF Changs for dinner that night.
Here we are ready for Disney... But don't let those smiles fool you... we had a rough night the night before. Kayla woke up at 2:30am and threw up. Then she was up throughout the night with diarrhea. At 5:30am, we went to go to the bathroom and she gently got her finger pinched in the door. It was just a mess of a night. I had a lot of adrenaline and I was excited to go to Disney the next day. So we all ended up waking up at 5:30am. The jet lag was definitely in our favor for Kayla to get up early this day. We stopped at Walgreens and got her some kids pepto bismal chews, and I kept giving them to her throughout the day. Luckily her tummy issues pretty much went away, but she still wasn't 100% herself for the day. Our Disney curse I suppose... happens during our last trip to Hollywood Studios too. *Sigh*
We got right in at 8am, and got to see the characters up close doing a welcome.
In line for Dumbo. I wish that we would have rode it twice right then, but it was up to a 15 minute wait and everything else was a walk on bascially... so I was stressed to try to get on other rides.
Hardly any rides in Fantasyland are on Genie Plus at Dinseyland, so I wanted to hit as many rides as we could before the lines got long. Little did I know, we were there on one of the only sold out days of the month and lines got long super quick. The only rides that Kayla really loved were Dumbo, the tea cups, and the carousel.
Thumbs up for Dumbo!
Dumbo was her absolute favorite. She had been talking for weeks that she was excited for Dumbo and that was going to be our first ride, and she kept saying all day that all she wanted was to ride Dumbo. And the line never got lower than 40 minutes all day!
We did ride on Alice in Wonderland, but Kayla doesn't love indoor/dark rides that much. So she wasn't 100% in love with it. I was worried about using our genie plus and "getting our money's worth" I put too much focus on doing rides. My lesson learned was to go more with the flow and not try to plan too much to do.
Happy girl on the carousel.
Daddy and Kayla
Happy family
Kayla loved the 100 year anniversary statues. She found Dumbo!
Minnie Mouse!
Then we got some pictures taken. I LOVE that Disneyland includes the photopass with Genie Plus in California! It was SO great! I was SO excited to have all of these pictures included.
My first magic picture!
Kayla was all about these silly tongue out poses during this trip.
Love this!
After some pictures we went to meet some characters. Toontown wasn't open, so they were all standing in the square. Every time we tried to get in a line to meet a character the line was closed. But we did manage to get in line for Daisy!
Our first time meeting Daisy!
Cody and I went on a few bigger rides using Genie Plus and switched off with each other. Kayla wanted to climb on the white rabbit statue.
White rabbit hug! We did a TON of prep before this trip to learn more characters. We tried watching Alice in Wonderland and Dumbo... but they are both so old and boring in the beginning (and maybe even entire movie) that Kayla fell asleep during them both.
More family pictures.
Magic picture! Look Minnie Mouse is in our picture!
Happy girl on daddy's shoulders.
Waiting in line for Dumbo.
Dumbo girl.
Mommy's turn to get to ride Dumbo with Kayla.
All of us waving to each other.
We ate lunch at Riverbelle Terrance for their Standard Fantasmic package. It was $50 a person, but you got an appetizer, entree, dessert, and drink. So it wasn't terrible for the price, but I didn't really love the food. I was happy that we were able to get a package though so that we had better seating for the show.
We were so silly waiting in line to meet the princesses.
We were playing with each other and having a good time.
We were getting each other with our tongues.
After lunch we went to meet the Princesses. You're guaranteed to meet at least two of them, and it's a surprise who you get. Kayla was thrilled to meet Ariel. This was the top of her list of who she wanted to meet. Here Kayla is twirling for her.
The princesses had such great interactions with Kayla! I didn't really know what to expect... I thought that they would just take a picture/sign autographs but they had a little conversation with her which was really neat.
Picture pose!
Hug! I love how Kayla loves the characters.
Next was Snow White. One great thing about Disneyland is that characters roam around and interact with guests. Well, while we were coming out... we walked past the Evil Queen, and she goes, "Was Snow White in there?" And Kayla all innocently says, "Yes, she's in there!" And the queen puffed up and stomped off like she was going to get her. It was pretty hilarious! And definitely magical!
Picture pose.
Hug!
Then we were delighted by our good luck to have Cinderella there too! Three princesses!
It was exciting to meet Cinderella. I'm sure some day Kayla is going to want an autograph book when she meets all the characters.
Hug!
Next we went over to It's a Small World and got there right before the parade was coming. We were several people deep, but Kayla could still see the parade a bit. Afterwards, we went on "Its a small world" and at first Kayla was a bit scared of it, but I love this version of it because they have Disney characters hidden throughout it. So Kayla loved looking around and trying to point them out. We also rode Autopia, and Buzz Lightyear. We also ate dinner at Alien Pizza Planet.
We explored the not quite ready Toontown area. I soooo wish this had been open because Kayla would have absolutely loved it! She had a blast in a few areas that were open already.
She was looking out of the window.
Telling me that she's "muscles" and was picked up the weight on the ground.
Jail breaking!
She loved the hopscotch on the ground.
She loved the night time parade. We didn't have great seats, but it was good for her.
She was very into it and kept calling out who all the characters were.
After the parade, she fell right asleep. We did not have a chance to adjust to the time zone, so after the 6:30pm parade it felt like it was 9:30pm-10pm to her. She was out right as we walked towards the area where Fantasmic would be. I had bought a lightning lane earlier in the day to ride Rise of the Resistance during this time. I went over to ride it, but it was broken down and probably not coming back up for the night. They also close it early at 9pm which is bullshit. So I had to find a guest service person around the park to get a refund. When I got back to Cody and Kayla she was totally zonked out, and Cody mentioned that it was starting to get cold and was incredibly packed at the park... and we couldn't take the stroller where we'd sit for Fantasmic, and it would be hell to leave right after with a stroller so he suggested that they just leave and I stay behind and have a few hours to myself at the park. That was a wonderful idea to me. They were happy to go home and I was happy to stay. I immediately used all three of our fastpasses to book Haunted Mansion, Smugglers Run, and Big Thunder Canyon. So I ran to Pooh's Corner to grab some churro toffee, and OMG it was the BEST thing ever! It was SOOO tasty. I had heard lot so of people posting about how good it is, and it did not disappoint. After I got it, I went in line to watch Fantasmic and had a perfect seat in the front row against the fence. I chatted with a magic key holder and their family for a while and took some trip notes on my phone. Then I got to watch Fantasmic. It was really nice... it's been so long since I've seen it. I will say that I prefer sitting on the bleachers in Orlando though vs the cold ground in california. I had a blanket to sit on, but it was COLD that night on the water. I wish I had a hat to wear and definitely needed my gloves on. I stayed right where I was afterwards to watch the fireworks, and it was an amazing view of the fireworks. I was sad initially to not get to watch them in front of the castle, but I really loved watching it by Fantasmic... moreso than in front of the castle actually. Afterwards, I went around the park with my fastpasses. I realized that I'm not a huge fan of the Haunted Mansion or Smugglers Run. If I don't ride them again, then I don't really care. Smugglers Run actually made me feel a bit sick and I couldn't get off fast enough. I realized that Big Thunder Mountain is amazing and probably my favorite ride of the night. Overall, it was a great day at Disney. We had a bit of rough start because Kayla wasn't feeling good, but it turned out to be a great day. And I loved having some time to myself at the end of the night.
The next day was the start of our absolute perfect Disney day. I don't think it could have gone better. The previous night, I had come up with the plan to upgrade my ticket to a park hopper and have Cody and Kayla go home after the parade again. We were originally going to go to California Adventure for the day, but I knew there just wasn't much there for Kayla and that she would absolutely prefer a day at Disneyland again. So in the morning, they went to Dumbo and I ran right to guest services to get my ticket upgraded. And I booked passes all day for the DCA rides that I wanted to ride at the end of the night. This was the formula for a perfect day, because I feel like I try to get too much in when we only have a day at Disney and work myself up a bit. I was totally cool to go with the flow and do whatever today, and it was LITERALLY the best day we've ever had.
We loved spotting characters walking around Fantasyland, and we saw Wendy and Peter Pan riding the carousel. We sat by them and they did funny banter with each other including "I spy" Wendy said that she spied a horse head, and Peter Pan pointed at all the horses around and Wendy kept saying nope... nope.. nope.. and when he gave up, she pointed to one REAL far off towards the castle that was a horse head by Bippidi Boppiti Boutique. We really went with the flow today, and I let Kayla pick what she wanted to do. I knew I had a couple hours later in the night to ride some big rides so I wasn't worried about how much we'd "get done" throughout the day. So we rode the carousel a few times.
There was no wait for the tea cups, so we rode it a bunch. This was Kayla's favorite ride of the day.
Silly girl in her teacups. She said that she just wanted to ride in them and that she didn't want to spin. Which was fine with us.
Silly family pic. She LOVED making silly pictures. Afterwards, we decided to hop onto It's a Small world.
On our way there, we saw that Mickey, Minnie, and Pluto were out right before the ride.... so we hopped in line. You waited in one line and got to meet each of them. Best of all the line wasn't all that long yet, because it wasn't advertised anywhere that the characters were there.
Taking Mickey's hand.
Look at that happy girl! She LOVES meeting the characters.
Happy girl.
Smile! We had the photo package again today, so I really wanted to take advantage of that.
Family picture.
Hi Minnie!
Minnie noticed that Kayla's dress had Minnie on it.
So funny!
Smile!!
Minnie greeted me and gave me a kiss too. :)
Family picture!
On her way to see Pluto.
Look at my baby!
Hi Pluto!
Family picture.
I had to pose like Pluto.
We had a great time on It's a Small World. We actually had a boat to ourselves, and Kayla LOVED it this time and was super into finding all the characters hidden throughout it.
When we got off, Kayla pointed and noticed Moana was walking nearby!
I was impressed with her, because I didn't notice... but she was on the look out.
Back to the carousel!
Now off to ride Winnie the Pooh! And we went to Pooh's Corner for some treats. Kayla picked out some Minnie lollipops, Cody got a chocolate treat, and I got more churro toffee. The woman working told me to heat it up for a few minutes and that it's even better... but it didn't make it that long. After Pooh, we decided to split up and I went to ride Rise of the Resistance. I had long heard that this ride was incredible and was an "experience." So I felt like I had to do it, because I don't know when I will ever do it again. I had also spent HOURS watching the new Star Wars trilogy so that I could appreciate the ride. It was a cool ride. I was in line with a couple of big Star Wars nerds and they were absolutely losing their minds on in. You're supposed to be in the resistance and get kinapped by Kylo Ren and the first order, and then the resistance rescues you. But before you get to the ride part, it's a walk through of the first order headquarters and they treat you like you are captive. It's a pretty cool idea. The workers are kind of like actors. Cody actually called me, because they split to go see the princesses. I was hoping that I'd make it there in time to go in with them, but he was telling me they were next in line and wanted to see where I was. I told him I wasn't even on the ride yet, and the guy working looked at me and started questioning me on if I was trying to contact the resistance to try to get rescued. It was pretty funny. It reminds me of the Harry Potter castle ride, where the wait is really part of the experience of the ride.
When I got back to Cody and Kayla they were getting seats to watch the Tangled show coming up, and she was really excited to tell me that she got to see Belle! She LOVES Elsa and Belle right now so this was a big deal to her.
Belle Hug.
She also got to see Ariel, who she is also into at the moment.
Here we are waiting for the Tangled show to start. It's a short funny retelling of the story in a little theater.
Rapunzel.
The two funny guys who tell the story.
Rapunzel and Flynn Rider. They came out a few minutes after the show to meet with whoever was left, but Kayla was shy for some reason and not interested in meeting them.
Next we went on a hunt for pictures! Kayla ran up to Dale for a pictures as he was walking around.
Then we tried getting in line for a few other characters, but their lines were closed. Then we saw a short line for both Chip and Dale! I told Kayla that our good luck continued!
Now it was time to take advantage of having photopass included. We got TONS of pictures taken!
This is one of my favorites. It's my facebook profile picture.
Love this one of them.
Love this one too!!! It's my phone screen saver. This photographer was great and I kept asking for more pictures haha.
Magic shot! I've always wanted a magic shot, so I kept asking for them.
Out front.
Love the 100 year overlay.
Main street picture. Look how small the castle in Disneyland... You can't even see it behind us!
Mickey Mouse statue.
Cute picture of us all.
Hands out like Mickey.
I really like this one.
Love the mouse in the back.
100 year anniversary.
After pictures, we were back to the tea cups! Kayla would say that she was ready to meet characters or ready for some more rides.
Then we were back to the Royal Theatre to watch the Beauty and the Beast show. Kayla really likes Belle right now, so she was excited for this show.
The guy in the blue played Lumire, Mrs Potts, and Cogsworth.. .and he switched rapidly between the charactes and nailed their voices. It was really impressive.
Kayla was excited to see Belle in her yellow dress.
The cast.
At the end they threw rose petals and Kayla was all about trying to catch some. She was so excited to get some.
At the end, we waited to try to meet Belle at the end. It took a while, but once they were done cleaning up she came out to meet the kids. Kayla got right in line to see her.
Smiles for Belle. It's so fun getting to meet all the characters. I think it is really the Disney difference. You can ride rides anywhere... but the characters, parades, and shows make Disney... Disney.
Once we were done meeting Belle, we ran over to try to catch the 3:30pm parade. We didn't have great views of it, but Kayla hopped up on Cody's shoulders so she could see better. She was hiliarous with the Coco float. We had watched Coco at home, and Dante would pop up every now and then in the float and she loved pointing him out. She also liked Pepita that came walking up after him.
She was so fun during the parade. We had done a lot of prep ahead of time, and I made sure that we watched all the movies of the characters in the parade so she knew them all. She was pointing and naming all of the characters.
Since we had come from the Royal Theatre, we had to go back that way to get our stroller, and we noticed that it was only a 5 minute wait to see the princesses. The princesses rotate all the time, so we decided to pop in to see who we could meet.
We were happy to see Princess Tiana, who we hadn't met yet. So that was exciting.
Then we went into the other room and it was Ariel. And she remembered Kayla from earlier in the day. With as many kids as they see, I was shocked that she remembered Kayla right away. We're talking, Kayla was last there around 10am and it was around 4pm now and Ariel remembered her! She has to probably 50-60 kids an hour... so I was really impressed. Kayla was thrilled. The interactions with the Disney princesses are really top notch.
Afterwards, we had a little time left in the day so we decided to head to ToonTown again. But on our way, we saw that the Lion King show was starting up. I was really hoping for the high energy/exciting show that Disney has at the animal kingdom. But the disneyland version wasn't as good. It was people acting out being the animals... and I don't know, I just didn't love it as much as the Animal Kingdom version. We actually decided to leave a little bit earlier and ordered our dinner from Red Rose Tavern, but Kayla put her foot down and didn't want to leave the show early. So I went ahead and picked up our order and Cody and Kayla met me a few minutes later.
After dinner, we snuck in a last minute mommy/Kayla Dumbo ride. Daddy went ahead and saved us a spot for the parade.
Our perfect night was complete by Kayla finally getting a good view of the parade. She was able to sneak down and sit on the curb to watch the parade which really made my day. She was so excited and kept talking and pointing things out to the kids sitting next to her. It was so cute! The two kids that were sitting on the ground scooted over so she could sit with them, and I was really thankful for it.
The night time version of the parade is just a little cool in my opinion.
I really liked Moana's float.
I loved sleeping beauty's dress... it changed color depending on which way you looked at it. After the parade, Cody and Kayla went home again... and I got to run around Disney's California Adventure. I had been saving up fastpasses all day for Soaring, Spiderman, Guardians of the Galaxy, Incredicoaster, and Toy Story Mania. I ended up letting my incredicoaster one go, because I couldn't make it in time. I really had to hustle around and find my way to things in the dark. It was slightly stressful having all my fastpasses due within a 2 hour time frame, but I got them in! I love soaring... and the new rides, Spiderman and Guardians were great. I'm so glad that I didn't miss them. I definitely think they should re-theme Hollywood Studios. The Guardian's of the Galaxy ride was way better then Tower of Terror. TOT is kind of creepy and boring in comparison. I also REALLY liked the spideman ride. It was a fun version of hitting targets with your hands... kind of like Toy Story Mania. I didn't realize what we were supposed to do in the beginning... I had no idea what the ride was. So it was pretty cool, but it was definitely an arm work out! I feel bad for Cody because I do feel like he missed out on this, but our day at Disneyland was really just perfect. We had the BEST day ever there... so I have no regrets on what we did. I wish we would have had 3 days at Disneyland honestly two at DL and one at DCA. After riding Toy Story Mania in the back of the park... I ran all the way back out to DL to watch the fireworks in front of the castle. And I have to say I was a little disappointed. Sleeping Beauty's castle is way smaller than Cinderella's in Orlando and it was hard to see the castle... let alone the projections on the castle. So I had to look at the buildings on main street to see the projections, but then the fireworks were the opposite direction... so it was a weird show to me. I liked the view from Fantasmic better. After the fireworks, I ran back to DCA to watch World of Color. Gosh I was tired waiting for this show... I feel like this happens to me every time I try to watch WOC. My legs hurt so bad that I couldn't fully enjoy the show. I had to lean against a garbage can. But the show was incredible. I really really liked it. It was the best of all three night time shows in my opinion. After WOC, I limped/walked back home and just made it back. I walked almost 31 miles those two days at Disney, but it was worth it.
The next morning, we had a 10:30am character breakfast at Story Tellers Cafe. Before we left, Kayla and I ran to Walgreens to look for some air freshener for our car (the people before us smoked weed in it so it stank the whole week. Every time Kayla got in she'd say "P-U daddy... why did you get the stinky car). And while we were there she saw a small Dumbo that she fell in love with and just had to have. We called him her baby Dumbo.
Kayla loves the character breakfasts! She gets so excited to see the characters.
There she goes hugging Pluto.
She was petting his nose.
His whiskers were tickling her.
It's so exciting to watch the characters roaming around and looking to see who would be coming to you next. We told Kayla that Mickey made her a special waffle and that if she ate it that characters would start to come over... she gobbled that waffle up.
We were the second table in our room... so the characters came to the other table first. So Kayla got a preview of who was coming. It was so exciting!
She couldn't wait to get to meet Minine!
Big smiles!
Next up was Mickey Mouse!
Look at that happy girl!
She loves the characters.
Hi Chip!
Pluto's back.
Petting him.
Yay Minnie!
Girl picture!
Family Picture.
Now Kayla decided that she needed to show all the characters her baby Dumbo. She loves showing off something to the characters.
I decided that we needed to try to get family pictures with the characters too.
Dale looking at Baby Dumbo.
Baby Dumbo is part of the family.
Pluto's turn.
Kayla was NOT leaving until Minnie got to see her baby Dumbo. She had to go potty and we went and I told her to hurry because we might miss Minnie. And she goes never mind! Me wait! And she ran back to our table, and Minnie was at the table before ours. Kayla sits down and goes "Phew!!! We made it" I didn't realize Minnie was going to be at our table so quick... we would have probably missed her if we hadn't come back. Here she is rocking baby Dumbo.
Minnie's the favorite!
Picture with Baby Dumbo.
We were at breakfast for a while because we were waiting to see all the characters a few times. It does take a while for them all to come back around. Kayla really wanted Mickey to see baby Dumbo. So we waited. As soon as he came over, you can see her handing baby Dumbo to him.
He did not disappoint, and pretended to make him fly. It was cute.
She was thrilled by it.
Family picture with baby Dumbo.
As we were leaving, we saw a 100 year anniversary display in the Grand Califorina's lobby. This display was made out of cake! Talk about your cake boss. How cool.
Afterwards, it was time to head to our resort for the week. We stayed at the Grand Pacific Palisades. It was a nice hotel, with a nice pool area that was heated, but it was just too cold the week were there to enjoy it. Temperatures were in the upper 50s-60s so we didn't get to go in.
They did have a little playground though that Kayla enjoyed playing in. Afterwards, we were all pretty tired from our Disney days so we just got Dominos Pizza that night and went to bed to try to recover.
Next day was pretty much a rest day. Cody started to get a stomach bug and wasn't feeling good at all. We went and got groceries at Walmart, and then stopped at a fresh strawberry stand. We knew it must be good because there was a constant line.
Turns out they were the best strawberries we've ever had! They were big and juicy and flavorful.
Big strawberry.
Kayla and I sat out on our balcony and ate about 15 big strawberries between two of us.
Afterwards, we decided to give Cody some rest time because he was feeling bad. So we walked around outside. We were right by the famous Carlsbad Flower Field. It is a HUGE field that normally has blooms of all kinds of flowers. Unfortunately, we were there a few weeks early to see it. The field was starting to bloom in one section so we got to see a little bit of it.
Selfie in front of the flowers.
Here's a portion of the field.
They had a bench area, that Kayla was running around and playing on.
She'd run and jump onto them... then run and jump to the next. Over and over and over... Afterwards we headed to the playground for a little bit and Kayla made some friends.
That night, I ordered food from the restaurant right on the property called Karl Strauss Brewing Company. They had a pretty good burger/fries.
The next day, we were originally going to go to Legoland, but Cody was still sick. Poor guy was up sick every hour all night. So I added Sea World San Diego onto Kayla and my tickets and we went for the day. Here we are in Sea World's version of the teacups. No lines for any ideas here all day long!
Flying Elmo ride... AKA just like Dumbo. We got to ride them over and over until Kayla was ready to move on.
Next we went to see the turtles getting their morning meal.
They had quite a few turtles here to watch.
They had a boat outside that Kayla was playing in.
Turtle Statue.
Next we went to the Sealion presentation where a trainer was talking about them.
Sea lions
I asked Kayla if she wanted to feed a Sea Lion, and when we bought the $8 tiny tray of 4 super small fish (I remember the fish being bigger when I was little)... the guy selling it told us to be careful of the birds because they will try to feed the fish. The railing was so far back that it was hard to throw the fish to the sea lions.
Here she goes throwing them! The guy was right... there were lightning fast birds swooping in to get the fish. The sea lions only got 1/3 first fish we threw.
So I told Kayla to dangle the last one up, so that the sea lions saw it, so that they'd get it before the birds... And SWOOSH in for the kill... a bird came and snatched it right out of her hands. She was devasted! She was devasted and crying. It ate her last fish and she said it bit her finger. She was mad at birds the whole day and would point angrily at any bird around the park in accusation that it was the bird that stole her fish or that it was going to take something from her. She also saw birds trying to steal fish in the shows and wagged her finger at them. I didn't mean for it to be a tramatizing experience. Poor baby!
She was so upset after the bird snatched her fish, that I figured it'd be best to go to an indoor exhibit.. and the sharks weren't far.
Kayla really enjoyed seeing the sharks, and she actually wanted to come into the room a few times.
Next was the Sea Lion show. It was the same show as Orlando. Kayla was really into it and she was point and clapping along. Gone are the days of her being scared of the shows.
Then we grabbed lunch and ate chicken nuggets in the dolphin stadium. We weren't up super high, but we weren't in the splash zone, but Kayla was really worried we were going to get splashed. It was kind of cold.
Afterwards, it was time for more rides!
We rode the flying Elmo ride a bunch of times and were in all the different cars because they were all designed differently. One was a cat, dog, knight, fish... etc..
We saw some characters, but Kayla was confused. And she goes those aren't real.. there's people in there. And I'm like... uhhhh... uh oh.
Quick picture and move on... and I was like yeah they are pretend animals... yikes...
We found another area with some rides to go on.
Then we were off to Wild Artic.
Kayla loves seeing the Beluga whales. She just likes the exhibits in general. I can't wait until she's older and we can do some animal encounters. It doesn't look like zookeeper for a day is around anymore, but I'd love to piece something together so she can interact with a bunch of animals.
The seal was looking the other way from us.
The walrus's were getting fed while we were there.
No fear!
Loves them!
Hi Mr. Beluga Whale. She was hoping it would come over to see her.
Trying to pet it. Afterwards we went to see the penguins.. the exhibit was on a moving walkway so you couldn't stop to look at them long. I will say that I do like Sea World Orlando better for nearly all their exhibits.
Kayla liked the killer whale show, and I made sure we sat up high enough that we couldn't get wet.
At the end of the day, of course we had to make a trip to see the dolphins. It was just us there, and Kayla held up her rainbow Minnie popper for them to see.
At first it was just one dolphin looking, and then it turned around and must have told it's friends...
Because before we knew it, there were 4-5 dolphins all jockeying to get position to see. They had a barrier up so that you couldn't get right up to the tank which I didn't like so we had to sit back a bit. Kayla was thrilled that they came.
The park closed pretty early that day... I think it closed at either 5pm or 6pm. So we didn't have a ton of time there. I asked her if she wanted to ride more rides or if she wanted to see the sharks again. She decided that she wanted to see the sharks. There was a family walking in right before us, and she was in a fluster to try to beat them and "win" so she dashed through the shark exhibit and cheered when we got out first. Then she was playing a for a while with a little boy in the area.
She threw a fit when it was time to leave though. Turns out, she did want to ride more rides. A nice worker came over and gave her a couple stickers of animals which helped with her tantrum and we were able to leave.
Pictures in front of the Seaworld sign.
I'm glad that we got to go for the day. I always like Sea World. I will say that I definitely like Sea World Orlando over Sea World San Diego. San Diego has a separate Sesame Place part, and I really missed that area from the Orlando park. It adds so much, and I feel like the exhibits/rides and everything are just better in Orlando.
My little cutsie! It was still a great day though. We were able to go on all the rides with no lines at all. It was so uncrowded that it was actually spooky at one point, because Kayla and I were the only ones around for a bit until the first shows started up and then we started seeing people.
It was a nice day, and a good way to let daddy get some rest so that he could feel better and start enjoying our trip with us. Definitely better then sitting in the hotel all day. For dinner we got take out from a really good mexican restaurant in the area, called Miguel's Cocina, and the food was really good.
The next day we went to Legoland with daddy! He was finally starting to feel a little bit better, so we were off to the park for the day. We were originally going to go to the zoo on this day, but since Legoland was a short walk from our hotel, we decided to go there instead.
Kayla really liked all of the creations out of legos.
She didn't know who this character was.. but it was a character and she wanted a picture with him haha.
Lego Lion! See her roar!
They had a safari ride that you rode in a little jeep, and you came across all kinds of lego animals.
Kayla rode with Cody in the morning on the ride. She always picks him for rides first...
Lego Girafe.
Lego crocodile.
Lego Monkeys.
Cody pointing out the lego lions to Kayla. I was thoroughly impressed with the things they built out of legos. It was pretty cool.
Lego gorillas. While the things they built thoroghout the part were really cool... they weren't very efficient at loading and unloading the rides. It seemed to take forever for them to load rides.
Ice cream! Kayla loves her ice creams and had to pose. After we rode the most UNCOMFORTABLE carousel I've ever been on, we split up for a minute so that I could ride Emmitt's flying adventure. It was freshly opened so I was like one of the only people in line for it (it still showed as closed on their app) and they waited for a full carload... so it took forever! So much longer than I thought it was going to take just because they were so slow. It was very similar to soaring and the difference of the loading was crazy.
Cody and Kayla went to the Duplo Playtown area, and it was absolutely incredible! Probably the best toddler play area that I've ever seen.
They had all kinds of different houses and the houses had legos in them for pretend play. It was really neat.
Here is a wider view.
One of the houses. They had a hospital, houses, jail, mechanics shop, a grocery store, a train that you could ride and pretend play with. I could imagine that this would be a gold mine for a stay at home mom that could run her kids up to play whenever if you were local.
Another toddler play area in the Duplo Play Area. It was TOUGH getting her to leave the fabulous play grounds that were here. What I found working as telling her that we were going to race her to next spot, and she wants to win so she'd take off like a bat out of hell running as fast as she can.
Driving a car
We went on a guided boat tour. The guide was funny and informative. She told us that the Lego Miniland which is replicas of different big US Cities took over 60 million lego bricks to build! It was all built to scale and very impressive. They had Washington DC, New York, Las Vegas, and were working on San Diego. It was pretty neat.
I was blown away by this lego elephant.
Kayla loved posing with all the things built out of legos.
And some more.
We ended up circling back around and going on the safari ride again. Then we went on the storybrook fairy tale boat ride. It had depictions of different fairy tales and Kayla liked it so much that we just stayed on it and went through it again. We were really lucky that there were hardly any waits the day we were there. We could walk onto almost all the rides or just stay on them and ride again. It was pretty cool. We also went back to the Duplo play area and she got to play there again.
This was a ride that Kayla liked called Sky Patrol. You can control the helicopter and lift it up and down and turn it around. We pretended like we were landing on things and had to hurry up and go back into the air. We rode it a few times.
Kayla LOVED this horse jousting ride! She rode it OVER and OVER and OVER. You were supposed to be 36 inches and 4 years old to ride it. The ride attendents were asking kids how old they were, and we told Kayla if she wanted to go on that she had to say she was four. During our first pass of the park, she said she was four and held up the right fingers and everything.
The second time, she said she was four but held up three fingers. The woman looked at Cody and asked him how old she really was, and he said she's four and we're working on the fingers... so she let her go on. And Kayla absolutely loved it. She kept riding it over and over again. She'd get off and there was no line so she'd run right back over and get on again. It was a pretty long track so Cody and I went to different sections to wave to her, and she had the BIGGEST smiles and absolutely loved it. The two workers were talking on walkie talkies about how cute she was and how sweet it was that she kept running back to get in line. It was hard to get her off of it. For the rest of the day, she kept saying that she was four going on five and was a big girl. She even wanted to ride in the number 5 helicopter because she was "almost" 5. She said it the next day after Legoland too and we had to correct her that she was only pretending to be 4 the day before.
They had a little plane ride, where you go on and it whips you faster in two spots. Kayla was laughing and squealing and it was so darn cute! We had the best time on it, and we were able to just remain sitting in it and rode it over and over.
I was SUPER impressed by the play grounds at Legoland. They were great! This is only half of their Ninja Training Camp play ground area. They had another really huge play ground area that we didn't end up making it to, because it wsa SUPER hard getting Kayla out of these areas. But they were A+ playgrounds. Probably some of the best playgrounds I've ever seen. Kayla had a blast playing on them. We ended up finishing our day by playing here, and it was only the worker going around and kicking people out that convinced her to leave.
We ended up having a great time at Legoland. I really liked that it was off season, because the lines were super short and we could ride things as much as we wanted. It was definitely a fun park, and I'm a fan now. I wish that we had a Legoland near us, because their playgrounds were outstanding. It'd be worth going just for that.
Kayla really didn't want to leave Legoland, and it was a fun day. I would definitely be interested in trying out the one in Orlando. In Orlando, they have a Peppa Pig theme park. If Kayla is still interested in Peppa Pig by next year when we go to Orlando then we'll definitely have to add it to our list of places to go. I'd like to do Legoland, Sea world, and two days at Disney. It's hard... so little time... so much fun stuff to do.
Our next day was the San Diego Zoo. Phew we had an action packed vacation full of doing things! I had done a little bit of research on the San Diego Zoo, and I realized that parts of it were uphill. So I tried to arraign our day to be walking mostly downhill. So the walk really wasn't too bad for us. We started our day by taking a guided bus tour around the park. I would highly recommend this! It was a great tour. I wish we had waited and sat up top so Kayla could have seen a little better. We did sit on the right hand side which was where most of the animals were (thanks research tip!).
At first, Kayla was really into the animals. We toured the monkey area first and they were active and fun to watch.
Hello Mr. Bamboon.
He was posing for us.
Looking at the monkeys.
Pointing out animals.
The San Diego zoo was overall kind of disappointing. They really didn't have any kids play areas. They had some statues of animals, but that was pretty much it. Sea World was definitely more exciting for Kayla because she could go on some rides, watch some shows, and see animals. She kept saying that she was ready for rides at the zoo, but there wasn't anything like that. There were also a lot of exhibits where I honestly liked Cleveland's version better. The tigers you could barely see, and their hippo exhibit (which I was super excited for) was under construction. We also had bad timing, because the elephants weren't out when we walked by. We also were sad for their giraffes, because there were 5 giraffes in a pretty small area. They had 3 gorillas but they were sleeping when we went by and the Orangutans weren't out either. Kayla was definitely getting antsy/bored towards the end of the day.
She did like this little seal area, where you could go into a polar bear den and pop up out of the ice.
The polar bears were my favorite exhibit. I thought their exhibit was great! And I was shocked to see 3 polar bears living in it. I thought they were solidary creatures, so I was surprised to see 3 adult polar bears together. When we were there they were getting lunch, so they were up and really active.
Next we went to the Elephant Oddessey area. First we played with the statues. Here is Kayla pouting because other people (especially the little boy) were on it with her.
Happy girl with the baby elephant.
Daddy and Kayla
Family picture! Afterwards, we started hearing this weird nose and I realized that the male lion of roaring. So we ran back over and listening to him for a few minutes.
The San Diego zoo has a massive koala colony. It is the largest colony outside of Australia.
Kayla climbing up a tree with pretend koalas.
Daddy helping her get to the top.
We saved Explorers basecamp for the end of the day. It was supposed to be a brand new kids area that opened within the last year.
They did have a little bit more for kids, but I couldn't help feeling like I was missing part of it? They had a couple of fun play areas, but I thought there should have been more.
Kayla climbing up ropes.
Playing in a tunnel.
This was really cool, and kind of what I expected from the area. Kayla walked on a suspended rope net, and right next to her was monkeys jumping around.
It's hard to see but you're at the same height as the monkey's climbing and playing around.
I thought this was super neat and kind of what I heard this part of the zoo was like. However, this was the only interactive/close up exhibit that we saw. We saw other climbing areas and a water area, but that was it.
Peek a boo!
Climbing on a animal statue.
More animal statues.
They also had some indoor buildings that had some exhibits for kids.
This was an area by a bees nest
They also had microscopes that took pictures of samples and then you could draw on it on the computer.
Overall, I'm glad that we went to the San Diego Zoo just to say that we've seen it. However, for it being the #2 zoo in the country and one of the top ones in the world... I wasn't overly impressed with it. I mentioned before that I think that the Cleveland Zoo is comparable.
This was a bucket list item for me though so it was exciting to get to check it out. Not sure how soon or if we would be back to it.
The next day we went to the USS Midway ship. My dad told me that my grandpa served in Vietnam on this ship. I wish I had some of this military information because they could have pulled up pictures and information on him for me which would have been really cool. Cody was really excited to see this museum, but Kayla was not having it.
Family picture in the enry way.
Heading down into the sleeping area. I did find it pretty interesting to see how they live on the boat and how much space they had.
Kayla liked trying to play with the equipment that was out.
There was a nice old man who used to work on the ship that was volunteering and was showing her some things. He showed her a magic trick. He had her push down some buttons and the last one was magic and popped all the other ones out.
She liked the control room and pretended like she was working. However, as we were just walking around and looking at stuff she was really bored. She was complaining and not really loving it. She wanted something hands on/fun to do. If we thought she was a little bored at the zoo the day before, it had nothing on this museum haha.
She did like pretending to drive the planes.
My active girl.
Mommy and Kayla flying together.
Daddy's turn to get to fly. Poor Cody was really excited for this place and we just didn't get to spend the time at it that he would have liked.
Smile!
Touring and going into planes was fun.
Look at me! Me working!
Kayla and mommy on a plane.
Sitting in areas on the ship. We did let daddy try to walk around a little more so that he could see more. I did like seeing where the soldiers slept. I'm sure Cody was thinking about the conditions that his dad lived/worked on when he was in the navy and I was thinking of my grandpa.
Flight prep area.
Control area.
All the different squardrons that have served on the USS Midway.
Trying to find something to play with... I thought the USS Midway was really cool, but it definitely wasn't something to bring a toddler to.
After the museum, we went to the Scripps Birch Aquarium afterwards. We only went because it was included in our tickets. I wish that Kayla and I would have went on a bay harbor tour and Cody could have went to the USS Midway. This aquarium was super small and not all that good. We really didn't stay all that long.
They did have a mini penguin area that was the coolest part.
Penguin statue.
She loves posing.
Hi baby penguins!!
So cool! Right next to them.
Watching the penguins.
Kayla was all about seeing sharks. Well... this isn't Sea Wolrd baby.. here's the little shark section that they had haha. With like... 3 or 4 sharks in it.
Here he comes!
Posing in the jaws statue outside.
Overall, I'd say that we had a decent trip to California. We were a little sad that the weather was in the upper 50s and it was too cold to swim. We have definitely become pool people in the past several years, so it was a bummer for it to be a little cold. Poor Cody also caught that stomach bug for a few days, so this definitely wasn't his best trip. I do think that our days at Disneyland were my favorite days that we've ever had at Disney. Kayla was so fun and so excited. I'm glad that we go to go to Disneyland and get to experience the differences to Disney World. I would love to get to go to Disneyland again. Cody mentioned maybe we would make Anaheim a couple day layover on our way to Hawaii in a few years, and I honestly LOVE that idea. I would love to get to take Kayla back to Disneyland now that Toontown is open. Sea World and Legoland were pleasant surprises and I enjoyed the lack of crowds that we experienced in California. I'm not sure if the parks in Orlando are ever not busy like that. I'm also glad that we got to experience the San Diego Zoo, because it was something that was highly (over)rated that I've always to see. While we had fun visiting parks during this trip, it's nothing that we couldn't get a better version of in Orlando, so we'll probably stick to Florida in the future... but I'm glad that we tried something different for a change.
