As we are all feeling a little weary, I thought a little sleep in might be a good idea. According to Belle it was a terrible idea, as we didn’t get to the front gate until 8.20 when the gates open at 8am! We could not waste any time and need to maximise our day at Disneyland! Mind you, there were no real queues at the gate to slow us down on either day. We stopped long enough to get Abi a birthday badge, and then the many (25,000+) steps began!

As we overachieved our original list planned for yesterday, today we decided to focus on the rides with long wait times that we didn’t do yesterday. The girls were worried about leaving me at the entrance of the roller coasters to wait for them, but I am absolutely fine – I’d rather sit and people watch than ride a roller coaster! It also gives me some quiet time to get a bit nostalgic – this is only my second visit (out of about ten 🤭) to Disneyland without my parents, so I spent some time “in memory lane” while waiting for the girls.

Abi kept a list of the rides in the order we did them. At home as Belle was planning this leg of the trip, I told her to not have expectations too high given it is summer holidays and 4th July as well, so we chose 10-12 rides we hoped to do each day. After achieving 26 yesterday, today we did 21 rides. The only ride not achieved at all was the new Star Wars one called Rise of the Resistance (which temporarily closed a couple of times during the day and had no fast pass and wait times over an hour for the rest of the day). We managed to do the Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean both three times; the Matterhorn, Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh, The Little Mermaid and Mickey’s Runaway Railway (the newest ride in Toontown and one of our must-do faves) twice, and the girls even humoured me to do Its a Small World twice 😉 Crowds never bothered us, we only noticed them at the parade and fireworks.

We made good use of the Lightning Lane fast passes again, and also discovered the time saver of going single rider. At the CarsLand Radiator Springs ride for example (my version of a roller coaster!), the cars seat 6 in two rows of 3, so when say a family of four enters, there is a seat in each row left over for the single rider. Doing this ride this way, we got to do the ride twice, and I got to ride with Abi first and then Belle. This ride is one that is not eligible for the fast pass, but you can pay $20 per person to skip the queue. As we arrived, there was a 70 minute wait for the ride, which made us decide to go as single riders. We sauntered up the lane and were on the ride within 10 mins. I chatted to the couple next to me (their two teenage daughters sat with Abi in front of us and Belle was in the car in front), and discovered they had paid the $80 to avoid the line – the conversation became slightly awkward as they discovered we had not paid and made it onto the ride in a similar amount of time to them! 🤭

After another long but rewarding day, our weary legs stopped after the evening fireworks to share a Mickey Mouse-shaped beignet (pastry covered with powdered sugar) and a hot chocolate to determine our final moves. We planned to do Mickey’s Runaway Railway and Pirates one more time, but Abi suddenly felt unwell – she felt the hot chocolate was too sweet and mixed with marshmallows – but I felt as well as that, she had probably just reached exhaustion point. Let’s be honest, I have been known to break people on busy family holidays before now 🤭, and Abi was working full-time plus her part-time jobs right up until the day before we left.

We did the Pirates ride one more time, but decided to then head home rather than walking back through the length of the park to Toontown. Both girls this morning say they regret that decision and wished they’d done Mickey’s Railway again, but at 11pm it was the correct decision, especially given our transport to the airport was arriving at 6.30 this morning!

Poor Belle was quite teary as we exited the gates for the last time – she has spent months excitedly planning these two days, and watched countless hours of videos that gave her back stories and minute details of rides, and it was suddenly all over (exhaustion may have also been a factor in her tears, because…..well, going until we expire is how some think I holiday 😉). Through her tears she was very thankful she was able to join Abi on her adventure.

Today’s post is being written as we wait for the plane to depart from LAX to Hawaii. After falling into bed after midnight, we were up before 6am to pack and meet our shuttle service to the airport at 6.30am. We did not have time to have the breakfast included at our accommodation (it opens at 6.30am), so once we checked our bags in we stopped at Starbucks for coffee (acceptable, but not as good as at home) and chocolate croissants for our breakfast (acceptable, but not as good as the Mille-Feuille Bakery on the Upper West Side) 😉

Belle is still sad this morning that we are leaving Disneyland, but also that the girls’ trip is coming to an end. Abi is feeling much better after a good sleep, and I will make sure she has some decent sleep tonight as well (after all, I have monitored her sleep and eat schedules for nearly 21 years now….). While Belle and I bought Mickey Mouse ears to wear while at Disney, Abi brought from home the pair she bought here on our last trip 10 years ago to save me money. I did tell her to choose another shirt/bag/something as a souvenir of this trip, but between being low maintenance, indecisive and exhausted, she never chose something so is leaving with her birthday badge, and with wonderful memories of her girls’ trip 😉