the happiest place on earth

When I bought our tickets for the first time we went to Disneyland, I looked into getting year passes, but saw that the 365 day "Magic Access Pass" was really expensive. There are weekday passes that cost less than the price of going twice, but I didn't think that seemed like a good deal either because you can't use them on weekends, and there are blackout dates during holidays. My friend Jocelyn has one, and it makes sense for her because Rachel is still free since she is two, so she takes her to Disneyland literally once a week! We have a standing invitation to join them, but I'd have to pay full price for a ticket for me and for Leila, and Annika would be bummed if went without her, so we've never taken her up on the offer.

But we were thinking about going to Disneyland during spring break, and I know it's on my mom's list for when she comes in October, so I went back to the website and looked closer at the dates for the weekday pass. It turns out that despite the blackout dates, there still are dates during all of our holidays this next year that would work to go. And Leila and I can now join our friends during the week, and if Linc wants to go when he comes, we can. There are also a few weekend dates throughout the year that are open with this pass. And how often do you live in a place with a Disneyland? May as well take advantage!

So I reserved passes online and we "just" needed to pick them up at the ticket booth when we arrived.

Well... I guess our first clue should have been that the train to Disneyland was probably three times as crowded as when we went on that Saturday in September. Yikes! We finally got off the train and the line was sooooo long to get tickets! If only we'd picked up our passes the day before at one of the locations in Kowloon we could have just skipped ahead, and from now on, we can just skip ahead (they actually scanned our fingerprints, so that's what we'll do from now on!), but instead we had to stand in line fooooorrrrrrevvvvvveeeeerrrrr. Clearly the park was busier than usual thanks to Spring Break and Easter!

We finally got in, and went to one of the rides that we hadn't done last time- the Space Orbit, or something like that. It was another long wait, but this time Leila was excited about it instead of scared.
After that we met up with Jocelyn and Rachel who decided to join us, even though they'd just been on Tuesday (they really love Disneyland!), and we decided to go meet some of the characters. We chose Pinnochio because it was the shortest line up!
While we visited Pinnochio, Mike stood in line for us to see Minnie Mouse. Leila had burst into tears from fear of Pinnochio and was whimpering at the prospect of meeting Minnie. But when it became our turn, she suddenly became brave and had hugs and kisses for her.

Annie was pumped to show her the Minnie Mouse shirt she'd worn especially for the occasion. Minnie even clapped her hands to show her how much she appreciated the effort! :)

After that, we had to once again get in line so we could see the showing of "The Golden Mickeys"- (Disneyland's take on the Academy Awards) which was something else we hadn't had time for last time. It's in Cantonese, which is why we opted out last time, but there are lots of Disney songs with all the characters, so the girls loved it. The funny thing is, they've barely even watched any actual Disney movies, and Mike and I are really out of date as well. They showcased Lilo and Stitch, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Mulan, and Tarzan and we haven't seen any of those ones!

We came out of the Golden Mickey's to find out that it had started to rain while we were watching, and quite hard, too! What??? That wasn't in the forecast! So we hurried into "It's a Small World" which the girls were set on doing so we could stay dry.


Such a classic! They love it as much as I did when I was four! BTW, Mike says he was posing for me when I snapped that picture. It wasn't actually because he was so taken by the tulips in Amsterdam.


After "it's a Small World", we looked and it had gone from raining to pouring! We tried to wait it out, but it was crowded (of course... like everything was today!), and it didn't look like it was going to let up, so we decided to get the stroller and make a run for a restaurant to sit in. Unfortunately all our hoodies in the basket of the stroller were now soaked, and we only had one small umbrella with us. We said goodbye to J and R who were heading home, and ran to a restaurant, but of course it was completely crowded with a line-up to go inside. I think Annika had actually been directly under the rain that was pouring off the edge of the umbrella, because she was more wet than the rest of us. All three layers she had on were so soaked that I could wring them out. So as her luck would have it, that meant she got a new t-shirt because there was no way we could have made it home with her being as soaking wet as she was! At least our Magic Access Pass gets you a bit of a discount in the gift store. HA!

So, we called it a day and headed home, once again standing in line forever for an extremely packed train. I felt bad for all the tourists who may have only had today at Disneyland. At least we can come back, and maybe it won't be as busy or wet! When has it poured this hard in Hong Kong? Not in recent months, anyway. Oh well... Annika said she still had fun, but she had more fun last time. Leila said that she did have fun, which I don't think she ever said about last time. She was way too traumitized. But is it really the "Happiest Place on Earth"? I don't know... I saw a lot of meltdowns as we walked through the crowds.