Disneyland - Thursday 8th November

Got up about 8am, showered & got ready for a day, well part of a day at least, at Dsineyland.  Had breakfast at the hotel then headed off about 9.15am.  We arrived at the carpark at about 9.50am and I was amazed at how many people there were.  It was a bit overcast with some bits of sunshine and not a public holiday.  We got onto the Disneyland tram that takes you from the carpark to a part of Downtown Disney close to the entrance, we made our way towards the entrance, went through the security bag check, got our tickets then entered Disneyland at about 10.05am.  I was a bit disappointed at the entrance, I had expected it to be a WOW moment but there wasn't even a sign saying "Disneyland".  Anyway, we went through the tunnel and out on to Main Street, which is where most of the shops are.  We checked the map to decide which way to go and started to the left with "Adventureland" and watched the Tiki show, which was animatronic birds & flowers talking & singing.  It was actually quite enjoyable.  Next we went on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, followed by the Haunted Mansion, on which I kept expecting spiders to jump out at me, none did tho.  We then made our way to Critter Country and went on the Winnie the Pooh ride.  When we got off the ride we saw a line of people & saw that they were lining up to have their photo taken with Tigger, so we joined the line.  We got our photo taken with Tigger, went around the corner & there was Eyeore, got a photo with Eyeore, went around the corner and there was Winnie the Pooh, who we also got a photo with.  We then headed back to the New Orleans Square and had a quick lunch before heading off to explore more of the park.  We made our way through Frontierland, didn't go on any rides here, to Fantasyland - the entrance of which is the iconic castle one sees in most of the Disneyland photos.  I went thru the Sleeping Beauty Castle which has books in glass cases which tell the story of Sleeping Beauty below dioramas depicting that part of the story.  It was quite fun actually, and I saw a little girl (about 7) dressed completely as a princess - so cute!!!  We then made our way to the Matterhorn Bobsled ride, which was fun, altho I kept sliding from side to side on my seat as we went around the corners.  After that we made our way towards the It's a Small World ride, and I got sidetracked by a face painting stand & got my face painted.  I then saw a name painting stand, so got a couple of those done, and then we got into line for the It's a Small World ride.  G was surprised that I knew the song and that I had grown up with the World of Disney on tv, just as she had.  This was probably the longest ride we went on, and it was just as I have seen on tv & in movies, except part of it was christmas themed.  I didn't get many photos as we were always moving and my camera was not being co-operative.  I did get video tho.  When we came out of the ride it was starting to drizzle and we made our way to Mickey's Toontown.  We spent quite a bit of time in the store there looking at all the merchandise, then we left and walked down the road towards Chip & Dale's Treehouse.  We then went into Mickey's house and followed the directions to his movie barn to get out photo taken.  We got our photo taken with Mickey, followed by a photo with Goofy as we left the barn.  By this time it had started actually raining, luckily I had brought my umbrella with me.  We made our way out of Toontown back to the name painting stand to pick up my items and then it was onto Tomorrowland.  By the time we got to Tomorrowland it was dark but that was ok as both the Space Mountain and Star Tours rides were inside, and both had the longest lines of all the rides we had been on.  They also weren't just a ride, they were an experience which made it all the more enjoyable.  After the Star Tours ride we made our way back to Main Street and decided not to go to Disney California Adventure as it was 6.30pm, we were a bit wet & quite tired.  So we went to the photo place to look at the photos that were taken by the Disneyland photographers, and I got 3 of them printed out.  I can access them online via a Disney website and thought I could download them, but then found out that it was $14.95 per photo (10 photos would cost $149.50) so decided not to do that.  We then made our way up Main Street looking at a few of the shops, decided not to buy anything as we would visit the Disney Depot store the next day as they would probably have cheaper stuff, and finally left the park at about 7.15pm.  We caught the tram back to the carpark & headed home.  Next to the hotel is a Denny's Restaurant so we decided to have dinner there.  G dropped me off at the hotel & headed home and I headed up to my room where I transferred, sorted & renamed photos, checked emails & facebook, skyped with my brother for an hour or so and finally headed off to bed at about 2am.

COUNTDOWN: 6 DAYS UNTIL MY FLIGHT HOME - 8 DAYS UNTIL I LAND IN AUCKLAND.