9:30 AM- much better. I'm actually awakened by the maid knocking as we forgot to put the "privacy" sign on the door last night. That works out pretty good though as its time to get started anyway, lots to accomplish today. I carefully and gently poke the bear with a long stick to wake her up. Despite not getting a great deal of sleep, she awakes in a terrific mood. I ask her how we can arrange that mood every morning and her answer is "move us to Disneyland"! Fair enough.
I walk down to La Brea Bakery to pick up breakfast while Tracey hops into the shower and gets ready for the day. I get a couple of croissant breakfast sandwiches which are just amazing. They are so filling I can barely finish. Outstanding.
As I'm walking to and from the bakery I pass by a bunch of runners who finished today's half marathon. Never seen so many fit people in Disneyland before. Or anywhere in this country for that matter. Many of them are dressed in traditional running gear but many of them ran in Disney costumes, which is pretty cute. Must be hot in them though, especially for the guy that ran in the full-length Winnie the Pooh costume. OK I probably made that part up.
10:50 AM - off to Disneyland where we manage to finish off just about everything we want to accomplish in Frontierland and Adventureland in a few hours. It's not that busy in the morning but starts to get crazy as the afternoon starts to pass.
Of course, we keep with tradition and make Pirates of the Caribbean our first ride. We do Big Thunder Mountain, Winnie the Pooh and Splash Mountain, get wet (but not totally soaked) and then hop onto the railroad to take us to the front gates where we exit and head back to the room to change into our bathing suits to spend a bit of time at the pool before it's time to get ready for dinner.
Oh, and I thought I'd seen everything here, but this was a first for us: a cat. Not an animatronics cat, an actual living, breathing domestic cat, hanging out in the shade under a tree in the lineup for Big Thunder Mountain. I've named him "Thunder". It's crazy hot today, about 33 Celsius, so he's pretty lethargic and not moving much, but he pops his head up a couple times as if to say "could you people please shut up? I'm trying to sleep over here!!"
On our way back we stop for lunch and when I say "lunch" I mean Haagan Dazs ice cream. No judgement dammit I'm on vacation.
2:30 PM - we get to the pool and it's crazy busy, nowhere to sit at all, so we put our stuff down on the ground and hop into the pool for a quick swim and then give up. We will come back at some point during the next couple days, when everyone goes home. The next two days are supposed to be two of the quietest days of the entire year.
3:30 PM - back up in the room to relax for an hour or so before our dinner at the Chef's counter at Napa Rose. Very exciting. We actually wanted to do this last year when we were here celebrating our 10th wedding Anniversary but it just so happened that the restaurant was closed for upgrades that week. They have a food and wine pairing menu that they will customize for us based on our likes and dislikes, sort of a poor man's version of the incredible meal we had at Victoria & Albert's in the Grand Floridian Hotel a couple years back.
5:30 PM - We get seated promptly at the pastry portion of the Chef's counter. In other words we get to sit here and watch Chelsea, our resident pasty chef, make dessert right in front of us all night. Watching these delicious concoctions being created right in front of our eyes made us even hungrier than we already were; good thing we were about to embark on a 5-course wine and food pairing unlike anything we have ever experienced West of Florida.
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| Chelsea, and the view from our table. |
Let me just say that the entire meal was absolutely spectacular. As our servers brought us each course they explained what was in every dish, but a couple of the servers had thick accents so we didn't get every detail. What I do know is that I ate octopus and lived to tell the tale. the wine that they served me was also fantastic. Tracey wasn't quite as lucky as her wine wasn't always to her exact tastes but it did pair well with her food. Having said that, the wine was all top-notch. A definite must-do experience for future trips!!
Here are pictures of most of the food.
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| My first course, a 'salad' with spicy beef underneath and tempura lobster. |
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| Tracey's first course, heirloom tomato salad |
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| My second course, a bunch of seafood including (somewhere in there) octopus. |
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| Tracey's second course, pheasant and gnocchi with a jus |
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| My third course, a perfectly seasoned rib eye |
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| Tracey's dessert, peanut butter and chocolate cake with banana. |
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| My dessert, chocolate cake with toasted marshmallow and ice cream |
8:30 PM - three hours later we finished up and headed back to the room to change into more casual clothes. Back to Disneyland to catch the nighttime fireworks and parade. Both shows are new and exclusive to the 60th Anniversary so that is exactly what we are here to see.
Both shows are very good and quite different than what we have seen before. Again I will post pictures once we are home and can get everything uploaded. They did an excellent job at incorporating some stuff that they've never featured in their previous fireworks shows, like Winnie the Pooh and Frozen. And yes, they played THAT song. Boy that Adell Nazeem sure can sing.
11:30 PM - back in the room and about 10 seconds from collapsing from sheer exhaustion. Oh what a great day. And tomorrow will certainly be another one.
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