After checking all of the weather/traffic info last Friday, I headed out of my house around 3:45pm, after the worst was over. Unfortunately, after I was already on the road, Hwy 17 was closed down. It didn't sound like it would be closed for long, but it wasn't open yet when I got over to it. That was okay though, since my friend and her parents were stranded in San Jose with the road closed and all.
So, it took me 2x as long to get to Santa Cruz than it should have, but at least I made it there safely.
Then there was all of the stumbling around in the dark. Santa Cruz had been without power since 8am on Friday, and it didn't come on until 6:20am Saturday (I know this was the time, because I looked at my watch when the living room light went on and the printer woke me up making noise...).
Moriah and her husband and sister and I all hit the local diner for breakfast, then headed back to Merideth's house to wait for the parents to pick us up. We were on the road around 11:30am, and drove through the steady drizzle to Rancho Arroyo, where we spent the night in Moriah's grandmother's old farm house.
We got a pretty early start on Sunday morning, and made it to Anaheim around 1pm. It was too early to check into the hotel, so we gathered our tickets and headed into the park. First we hit the Matterhorn, where there was a small line, and Moriah's parents promptly abandoned us for good seats when only 2 were available (they were given a hard time about this for some time...). Here's the back of their heads as they start their family fun without the rest of the family.
We also hit the Haunted Mansion on Sunday, since it was going to be closed starting Monday, so it was our only chance. It was decorated for Christmas, inside and out.
It was pretty neat that it was all done up as the Nightmare Before Christmas, but I think I prefer it the normal way (my favorite, you know).
We stopped at a taco shop in Downtown Disney for a light mid-afternoon snack before heading back to the hotel to actually check in. It started to lightly sprinkle as we finished eating. By the time we were done checking in to the hotel, it was raining pretty steadily, but we didn't let it stop us. We bundled up and headed back out.
I have never been to Disneyland when the lines were so short! It was like we owned the whole park. (I don't know if I could ever go back in the middle of summer - we didn't wait over 20 minutes for anything until the very last night.) The Christmas decorations were really great too - here is the best shot I could get (in the dark and through the rain) of Cinderella's Castle.
More later - I have a lot of pictures to mess with still and need to send them out to Moriah to share with her family.
**Special thanks to Jill, who sent me a long email of park tips. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to read it until getting back, since all the power was off in SC before we left. Jill- we did actually eat at that Mexican place you mentioned.**
4 comments:
Glad you had fun. And were safe. In homage to you, I ordered more disney stuff from disneyshopping.com. I could not help myself. I think I'm going through DL withdrawls and have to live vicariously through you...and shopping! I hope you got to hug Mickey!
Kerri - Oddly enough, I didn't see Mickey at all!
I was sorry to the weather was stinky for you. I was actually a little worried about your drive down in those nasty storms.
I'm glad it didn't dampen your enjoyment in the least. Sounds like you had a great time.
How was the revised Pirates???
You're welcome sweetie! I look forward to reading Part 2!
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