Our first evening in DisneyLand.....

Well our first night at DisneyLand has come and gone...and how lovely it was!  Jason and I were the first in our group to arrive at DisneyLand so we checked in and unpacked a bit and then decided to venture out of our room to get some light breakfast groceries----juice, bagels, cream cheese, fruit, etc.  The benefit of staying in the villas is you have a kitchen and so you could, in theory, cook and eat all your meals in your room----although we never do.  We always get breakfast, at least, but we never feel like we want to lose time in the parks or anything by coming back to make food.  Here in DisneyLand, however, everything is much smaller and closer together than it is in the resorts in Florida and so we've found that we can walk from both the parks and to our room in less than 15 minutes-----so if we ever decide to come out and spend a few days again...we may seriously consider doing some grocery shopping and just making meals to save a little money!

Anyhow......you don't want to do that on your first day in the park.......

.....so we did some light grocery shopping and then we were off to walk about the parks a little.  We also had to pick up our ticket vouchers for the show we were seeing later.  Like I mentioned in a previous post, the parks are PACKED.  This is a vacation week for schools and BOY CAN YOU TELL!!!  This trip has already, in just a matter of hours, made it very evident to me and Jason why we ALWAYS plan our trips during a more off-season!!! The good thing for us, however, is that we aren't really feeling a lot of pressure to "do the parks" this trip------the real focus is the cruises and having a chance to visit the parks is an added bonus.  So while we were in the parks we mostly walked around but we did ride two rides.   The first was the Alice in Wonderland ride.  It's cute.  You ride through the story of Alice in a giant caterpillar.  We wanted to ride it because the only other time we ever visited the California parks, it was closed for a remodel.  Here are some stock photos of the ride:

After that, we walked some more and then rode another of our favorites: the Haunted Mansion.

By the time we were done with that, we were ready to head back to our room because Johanna and Kimmy were arriving.  Our entire little group was finally all here about 8pm.  It was so amazing to see the girls again....even though by the time we were all together my body felt like it was after 11pm and I was starving (we were waiting for them to eat), so I felt like I got hit by a truck! LOL   Anyhow, we went down to eat in the lounge/bar area of one of the resort restaurants (Napa Rose), just hung out and chatted for a bit and then Jason and I had to get out to the park because we had evening reservations for "Fantasmic!" (a very cool fireworks and water screen and live stage show).  

This is one of our favorite things from the Florida resorts but we hate the way they do it in California because there are no seats, you basically stand and/or sit on the pavement and it's super crowded.....BUT they offer a special package where you can pay (and I do mean PAY----but, hey, it's vacation, right?!? LOL) to get a chair in a reserved section and they serve you a nice dessert box and you don't have to get there super early to claim a spot and you are comfy and fed.  So we decided to splurge.  Here are some pics of us sitting in our seats (taken by a sweet Cast Member---aka Disney staff for you non-disney folks) with my phone and some pictures of the very fancy little dessert box they had made up for each of us:

cheese, crackers, cookies, tarts, cheesecake, truffles, grapes and hot cocoa----YUM (now I have to do sit ups! LOL)

We enjoyed the evening very much-----we still like the Florida version better, but it was a nice end to our first night.  By the time we were done and back to the room it was after 11:30pm....which was approaching 3am by our body's clocks so I was READY FOR BED....and thank heavens for comfy Disney beds because I fell asleep like a rock!

Now it's morning, Jason is out of the shower, and it's time to get ready for another fabulous Disney Day!!!