cars land

‘ello, lovelies!

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving weekend that was filled with delicious mounds of food, great company, and sweet deals! And if you didn’t celebrate it, I hope your weekend was full of delicious mounds of food, great company, and sweet deals anyway, because food is awesome and so are cool people, and everyone did some sort of shopping this weekend, riiight? Plus Cyber Monday is tomorrow. AH!

Like I mentioned in my last couple of posts, my boyfriend and I went to Disneyland for a few days to celebrate our one year anniversary!!! We even got some “Happy Anniversary” buttons and wore them the whole time we were there, and so many people wished us a happy anniversary, or congratulated us — the latter we were kind of thrown off by. I mean, you congratulate a couple when they get engaged or married, right? But surviving a whole year is an accomplishment in and of itself because relationships are HARD WORK — and, not to get too into my relationship, but Tim and I pretty much only get to see each other during the weekend, or every other weekend, so to be able to stick together through long distance and other obstacles is pretty amazing. Therefore, congratulations were well deserved!

Disneyland during the holiday season is quite a spectacular site — everything is way more shinier and sparklier and the whole place is much more magical than usual. What do I mean by “much more magical than usual,” you ask? Isn’t Disneyland ALWAYS magical? Well, yes. Of course it is! But with all the holiday decorations and trees that have ornaments bigger than my head and Sleeping Beauty Castle all decked out in pretty lights and faux snow… all those details make it possible for Disneyland to be WAY MORE MAGICAL than usual. And the Haunted Mansion gets a The Nightmare Before Christmas makeover which is one of the top reasons why I think Disneyland is at its best during this time of year. 🙂

So, the rest of this post shall be a photo spam! I’ll sprinkle in some wordy bits throughout, but I hope you enjoy these photos as much I enjoyed my time spent at the ~~Happiest~~ Merriest Place on Earth!

I took so many pictures of this dude. I think this is probably the best shot of the bunch.

I spy Sparky from Frankenweenie. Do you?

Jukebox made out of old car parts. If you look closely, there are car radios inside!

Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree is the only ride in Cars Land that we got to go on, and despite the annoying soundtrack (I feel so bad for the folks who operate that ride), it was really fun! The line to get fast passes for Radiator Springs was just as long as the line for the actual ride itself. Ridonkulous, right?! I didn’t want to wait 3 hours to get a ticket to go on a ride at a later time and then go back and wait an extra 30-45 minutes to go on the ride. Y’know what I’m sayin’?

I’m not a huge Cars fan, but Cars Land was beautifully executed! We had lunch at Flo’s V8 Cafe and I had an Apple Cheddar Pie that was pretty damn tasty. Next time I go in January I’ll be sure to take more pictures of Cars Land. I was too caught up in the atmosphere to snap some photos.

I wanted to be a Can-Can dancer when I was little because of the ones on It’s a Small World. They’ve always been my favorite.

My sister has been raving about the deep fried pickles at the Carnation Cafe on Main Street. I HATE pickles. However, I discovered that when they’re deep fried they are delicious. So weird. Tim ordered them because he figured I’d never have tried them if he didn’t. And I swear if I lived closer to Disneyland I would go there all the time and have a blog dedicated to their food!

I felt that my blue and green tartan blazer matched well with the decor inside Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. I’d also like to note that this ride is extremely effed up — you end up dying of drunk driving and the ride ends with you going to hell! Seriously. I still enjoy it though.

It literally hurt to take this picture. The sun in our eyes was no bueno.

Tim kicked my ass on the Toy Story Mania ride. 😦 It’s okay though, I always kick his on the Buzzlight Year ride — it evens out.

There were a few costumes from Once Upon a Time displayed in the Hollywood Backlot (California Adventure), but the glare on the window made it impossible to take pictures. I’m kind of questioning if they were the ones actually used on the show anyway because Charming’s costume looked horrifically dinky when Josh Dallas looks all kinds burly. So here’s a picture of the book! Or maybe it’s a replica. I don’t know. o,0

F*ck yes, Lego Prince Phillip!

Tim and I decided to do a special World of Color dining thingy at Wine Country Trattoria — you get to eat a fancy dinner that includes an appetizer, entree, dessert, a complimentary drink, and tickets for the reserved section of World of Color. While making reservations the woman was telling us that adults could get a special alcoholic beverage that has a glowing cube, and since kids like the glowing cube, they have special cups for kids and glowy things — The Little Mermaid for girls and Lightning McQueen for boys. I totally ordered the kid’s drink because I wanted the cup. Our waitress was really thrown off by my ordering it. Haha! Glowy Ariel is kind of creepy though. And I think I left her at the hotel. 😦

The reserved area we were assigned was smack dab in the middle! But then a nice Cast Member (in case you don’t know, that’s what Disneyland employees are called) on the lower deck told Tim and I that he could let us go to the front row for an even better view. He felt that we had an unfair advantage since folks would be coming in and we’d have to look over their heads. And he also noticed our “Happy Anniversary” buttons and said he wanted our anniversary to be special. 😀

I was also freeeeezing because my dumb ass wore a skirt in the evening, so I was really excited about the part of the show with the pyrotechnics. Insta-warmth! Except when all the pyrotechnics went off, there were also tons of misty bits. So… yeah.

I’ve been wanting to take a picture with Winnie the Pooh while wearing my Doctor Pooh shirt for nearly a year, and I FINALLY did it on our last day there! I thought Pooh Bear was coming in for a hug because he had his arms spread out, but then he stopped and pointed at my shirt and started clapping. And then he blew me kisses as I was leaving. I love Winnie the Pooh ❤

Eeyore poked our buttons as a means to say “Happy Anniversary!” to us. At least I think that’s what he was doing. You can never tell with that guy on account of him being perpetually gloomy and all.

And that concludes my photo spam! Hope you all enjoyed. 🙂

Cheers,
Nina

sleeping beauty castle disneyland — My home away from home.

In late April my sister randomly texted me asking if Tim and I would be able to make a last-minute trip to Disneyland on May 15, 16, 21, or 22. We were good to go on the 21st, but why those particular dates? In honor of Fantasmic!‘s 20th anniversary (I was 6 when it premiered… o,0), Disneyland held four special performances for Annual Passholders. AND I HAVE ONE, SO I COULD GO! <– it’s my first one, it’s rather exciting. Plus the 21st was mine and Tim’s 6-month anniversary, so I was all excited about that and the fact that we could get buttons. Except for some reason I was under the impression that it was 7 months, so that’s what we wrote on our buttons. My bad.

We left on Sunday afternoon and arrived at the park a little after 6 and met up with my sister, her boyfriend Ryan, my cousin Brian, and his girlfriend Jolene at Small World. What I forgot to take pictures of were all the goths roaming around the park (it was goth day!). It was kind of weird. Anyway, after Small World we headed to California Adventure since they have booze and pretzels filled with cream cheese! No wonder why the Karl Strauss beer station is Ryan’s favorite attraction at California Adventure. 🙂

pacific wharf karl strauss california adventure disneyland — Karl Strauss is one of San Diego’s local brewing companies.

disneyland we're celebrating buttons — Those should say 6 months… oops.

For breakfast, we ate at Tangaroa Terrace at the Disneyland Hotel. The prices weren’t too shabby and we got to order our food on touchscreen menus — so Jetsons!

disneyland hotel tangaroa terrace rex toy story — It’s Rex!!!

tangaroa terrance breakfast disneyland hotel toy story rex — Tim’s french toast was really tasty. I got some sort of breakfast wrap that was loaded with eggs.

rex toy story disneyland indiana jones — Rex explores the artifacts sitting outside of Indiana Jones.

Cars Land has yet to open, but when you stand up by the benches at the Blue Sky Cellar you can get a really good view of it. Like most, I’m not the biggest Cars fan, but I’m really excited to explore this new area when it finally opens. It looks sick. And all the concept art and scale models of Radiator Springs looks SO AMAZING.

cars land california adventure disneyland resort — My sister discovered the “miniature” effect on our camera. Pretty neat.

cars land concept art — Cars Land concept art from the Blue Sky Cellar.

cars land luigi's flying tires concept art california adventure — Model for Luigi’s Flying Tires.

blue sky cellar california adventure disneyland resort — Imagineer’s desk I would assume.

it's a small world disneyland — It’s a Small World via miniature effect.

My sister and I waited in line to take a picture with Merida from Brave. We were the only adults there that weren’t accompanied by a child. Haha! The picture didn’t turn out well though, sooo I shall not be posting it here. At the end of the meet & greet you get to shoot a bow and arrow! I think I drew back to far, because the arrow bounced on the side and came back. The cast member said, “You’re trying to kill us all!” o,0

brave bear cubs disneyland pixar — The bears from Brave!

black swan disneyland sleeping beauty castle — I found Natalie Portman!

Tim and I took a long break before we headed back to the park. Since the Fantasmic! performance was a special event, the park closed at 1 am and New Orleans Square, Adventureland, and Frontierland were all open. There were also special food items on the menu at different restaurants, including a bacon/macaroni & cheese hot dog. Who comes up with this stuff? I was feeling a bit too sickly to eat the special foods, but I was able to enjoy popcorn shrimp and a dessert skewer the next day (though the food is special towards the performance, they start serving them at 4, so those who can’t go can still get a taste).

fantasmic! 20th anniversary annual passholders performance disneyland — These fancy lanterns were scattered around the Rivers of America.

berry brownie skewer disneyland fantasmic! 20th anniversary annual passholders performance — Berry Brownie Skewer! OMG, I wish I had milk to help me tame this beast.

fantasmic! cupcake 20th anniversary disneyland annual passholders performance — I didn’t get to try this, but according to my sister it wasn’t that tasty. Too bad. It’s the most epic cupcake I’ve ever seen!

fantasmic! 20th anniversary annual passholders performance maleficent dragon — Maleficent is without a doubt the best Disney villain. She’s a fairy that turns into a dragon. ‘Nuff said.

fantasmic! 20th anniversary annual passholders perfomance disneyland — The grand finale!

At the end of the night, some Disney characters lined up by the train station to say hello to guests. As Tim and I walked hung out around the hub in front of the castle and Main Street, the speakers boomed the Fantasmic! theme over and over and over. It was fun the first three times, but then I thought, “They must be doing this to drive us crazy and get us out of the park.”

I have soooo many more pictures to share! So keep a look out tomorrow for Darth Vader, little padawans, a techno looking rabbit hole, and much more. 🙂

click here for part 2