Disneyland Day 2 - Part 2

Well, I left you with a mean cliff hanger, so I'll get right back into things!  We hopped over to California Adventure to do a little exploring.  On a side note, I love how easy it is to park hop at Disneyland!

Buena Vista Street

First, I can't get over how different the entrance to California Adventure is!  Buena Vista Street is amazing.  It is so much better than it was before, it just felt more alive.  And so much more "Disney."  

Cars Land

Our next stop was Cars Land.  I'm so glad we had the opportunity to go and soak in all the area without trying to rush and get on a ride.  There is so much detail that I think you could honestly spend all day just taking it all in.  I think Imagineering really nailed this area.  It was seriously like walking into the movie (if the movie had people everywhere...)  It actually makes me really excited about the new Fantasyland in the Magic Kingdom.

More Cars Land - pictures really don't do it justice!

We finally tore ourselves away from Cars Land to see the rest of the park.  We were able to catch Insta-Concert: Just Add Water with Goofy.  It uses the fountains from World of Color.  It's adorable and a lot of fun.  The only ride we did was the Little Mermaid ride.  It's just a dark ride, but it was cute and I enjoyed it. It'll be interesting to see how similar it is to the one they put in the new Fantastyland at WDW.

Paradise Pier and Insta-Concert!

We had a lot of fun just soaking in the atmosphere and window-shopping.  It was really such a great day.

After our exploring we went back to Disneyland for lunch.  I had heard good things about the Hungry Bear in Critter Country, so that's where we went!  Before lunch we grabbed fastpasses for Splash Mountain.  We had a great lunch overlooking the Rivers of America.  After lunch we jumped on the Winnie the Pooh ride.  We had a few minutes to kill before Splash.  Splash is very similar to WDW, I might give the nod to WDW mostly for ride vehicles.  The ones at WDW are more comfortable!  Of course, I managed to get absolutely soaked on the ride.  Luckily we had decided to take a break after the ride anyway, so I was able to head back and change!!

Critter Country

We took a nice break and both had short naps which were really needed!!  We decided during the break to have dinner at Wine Country Trattoria...so at 5:30, we made a reservation at 7:30.  Talk about something that's different at Disneyland!

Before dinner, we stopped at Disneyland (yes, we really got use out of those Park Hoppers!) to see the SoundsSational Parade which we had heard was excellent.  We walked in and were able to grab seats right there on the curb in front of the Train Station.  We chatted with a few Cast Members as we waited for the parade to start.  It was really a great parade, a lot of fun!  Each float that came by had different movies with different music.  I would definitely recommend checking it out.

Parade

After the parade was over we hopped back over to California Adventure for dinner.  The nice thing about Wine Country Trattoria is that the seating was outdoors.  It was such a nice evening that it was really enjoyable!  After dinner, we stopped by Clarabelle's for a sweet treat of hand-dipped ice creams.  But more on dinner and our treat on another post.  This one is getting long enough!

We were finishing up just in time to head over to Disneyland (yes, again) for the fireworks!  Apparently they changed the show from the last time I was there.  I much preferred the old show, but Disney sure does know how to do fireworks! 

Oooo...ahhh...

Once the fireworks ended, we dragged ourselves back to the hotel and collapsed!  It was quite the start to the vacation!  Next up: the Cars Land run and my Mom's birthday!!