A Disney Parks Around the World Journey: Day 19 – Disneyland and Disney’s California Adventure

“Here You Leave Today And Enter The World Of Yesterday, Tomorrow And Fantasy” – Walt Disney

This is it boys and girls. The final push. Today we are doing parks 11 and 12, Disneyland and Disney’s California Adventure.

Today I actually did get to wake up, as I actually did fall asleep unlike yesterday. I woke up at 6:45AM and I actually feel refreshed. It was the best night of sleep in quite a while and I don’t feel jet lagged at all.

It’s one of the most beautiful days we’ve had this vacation, but ironically of all the Disney hotel room views we’ve had it’s definitely not the most beautiful.

I eventually go and fetch some breakfast from The Coffee House, which is a quick service restaurant/coffee shop at the Disneyland Hotel. I have to walk through the courtyard to get to The Coffee House which is close to the convention center.

Lucy orders two bowls of Fruit Loops, Kendall and I split a breakfast burrito, and I get some milk and a Diet Coke. I am in sticker shock after being in Asia for the last week as the total for that little bit of food was $36 dollars. We aren’t in a hurry as we aren’t meeting up with my friend until 10:00AM, so we all have time to shower and get dressed. We also have time to do the laundry this AM as well so we do our final load of laundry this vacation.

After the endless laundromat debacles this vacation I have never been so excited to get back to a typical US laundromat.

This laundromat was pretty much everything I had ever dreamed a laundromat should be. It has not one, not two, but THREE WAYS TO PAY!! Two options via the phone and one available IN THE LAUNDROMAT. I take nothing for granted after the debacle on our second night at Disneyland Hotel Paris.

It also has large dryers, and for the real kicker, the dryers actually dry in a standard amount of time!!!! It’s a miracle!!!! No damp laundry here!! I can’t imagine a better start to a day… except for maybe Notre Dame beating Georgia.

We leave our hotel at 9:50AM to meet up with my friend Dave and his wife, Nathalie. It’s a short 8 minute walk through Downtown Disney to get to the entrance of the park. On the way we spot a not so hidden Mickey that has sadly had it’s ear blown away.

We meet Dave at the picnic area right outside the park.

Today we are using his wife’s cast member benefit to be their guest in the park for the day. We meet up with Dave and Nathalie and we enter into Disneyland and we do NOT head to wheelchair rental. Yep, that’s right Kendall is gonna go without the wheelchair today. She’s been training for today since the accident 2.5 years ago.

So far this trip she’s walked a partial day at Disneyland Paris, a half day in Shanghai, and a full day in Hong Kong Disneyland, which is a VERY small park and more akin to walking around a small regional amusement park. For size comparison, Hong Kong Disneyland is about 1/5 the size of Epcot. Today is the true test to see just how far she’s come in recovery, in that this is Disney at it’s fastest and finest, with us doing both Disneyland AND Disney’s California Adventure at a VERY fast pace. This would be a hard day for some adults with two healthy feet. This is our final park day, and she had been avoiding pushing herself too much as before if she redlines her foot, we would potentially have had a very difficult time completing the vacation as it can take days for her to recover if she pushes it too hard. Today we are gonna throw caution to the wind and say “Screw it!” as it is our final park day and we fly home tomorrow. The absolute worst case scenario is that we use wheelchair assistance to get through the airport.

After entering we buy the Lightning Lane Premier Pass immediately. I’ve never heard of this selling out in Disneyland unlike Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios, but we’d rather not risk it. This pass allows us one Lightning Lane per ride in both parks. Given it is the last day of Christmas break we anticipate it to be super busy and we only have one day for both Disneyland and California Adventure. It is very pricey at $399 per person, but this will help us significantly reduce the zigzagging across the parks in order to make Lightning Lane return times. This normally wouldn’t be too big of an issue, but given Kendall is going without a wheelchair, the Premier Pass will help make the day significantly more manageable from a walking perspective.

We start the day with the traditional walk down Main Street U.S.A. This being our 6th and final castle, it really feels underwhelming to be honest. It’s even smaller than I remember it.

Size isn’t everything though, and it’s beautifully decorated for the Christmas season.

I see the famous Walt Disney Statue and and take the obligatory picture.

For our first ride of the day we elect to go on an absolute classic, Mr Toads Wild Ride over in Fantasyland.

It’s been since 2017 that we have ridden this so the ride feels pretty novel to me at this point. It’s definitely nothing spectacular, but at this point this ride along with many others in Disneyland are basically considered National Historic Sites by Disneyland faithful, just without the actual protection of the National Park system. So regardless if a ride might be underwhelming by today’s standards, the chance of some rides ever being removed or replaced is pretty remote.

This is one of those rides.

Not too far away are the Matterhorn Bobsleds. The last time we were here in 2017 we did it at night, so this is a totally different experience seeing it during the day. We take the Lightning Lane and the wait is about 10 minutes.

I totally forgot just how much fun the Matterhorn was, and I also totally forgot just how long it is. In the current age of ultra fast coasters and launches, the rides have obviously gotten shorter in length. It’s definitely one of the more unique rides this vacation being an entirely downhill ride weaving into and out of a mountain much like a bobsled.

We all love it, and it’s definitely one of our favorite rides this vacation.

Next up is another mountain, Space Mountain.

Disney World being our main home park is our standard for Space Mountains, and as such every other Space Mountain in the world is measured against it. The ride vehicle here is a 2-2-2 arrangement rather than the single file rocket that Magic Kingdom has.

The track here is much smoother than the one in Magic Kingdom.

Aside from that the theming is pretty much identical and unlike the international versions there is no hint of Star Wars anywhere.

In my head it felt just a little faster, but I’m not sure if that’s just because it’s smoother or if it really was.

Nearby is Star Tours which is the exact same as every single other Star Tours and the very original Star Tours. Dave and Nathalie had basically been graciously serving as our personal guides so far today, and had not been going on many rides due to the lines, but Star Tours was a short 15 minute wait so we all go on it together. The boarding area here definitely pales in comparison to the Tokyo version.

This was the very first time we got the Ahsoka ending with the Purrgils which are the space whales so that was a treat. Per Dave he says that is the same ending every single time right now, so I guess Disney is really pushing Disney+ right now.

We then decide to leave and head over to California Adventure as we plan to end our day in Disneyland as it closes at midnight. We cross the turnstiles, and have officially completed our 12 park challenge.

It felt pretty anticlimactic to be honest, and I think part of that is that we had been to Disneyland and California Adventure before so it wasn’t something new. It was kinda neat to think we did do all 12 parks over a course of 16 days though. I was looking for someone with some buttons so we can get a congratulatory button, but didn’t see anyone and didn’t feel like waiting in line at guest services.

It’s about lunchtime and we are all getting hungry now so we start to walk over to eat at Sanfransokyo Square. We pass Grizzly mountain on the way.

Sanfransokyo is the fictional city where Big Hero 6 takes place.

This area was previously known as Pacific Wharf prior to its retheming in August 2023. It’s basically a big outdoor food court with multiple food options. Lucy and I went to the Lucky Fortune Cookie for some chicken teriyaki and potstickers. Kendall, Dave, and Nathalie went to Aunt Cass Cafe where they all got a bread bowl with mac and cheese. It takes a while to find a table, but we eventually stalk one down and eat our food. The potstickers and chicken teriyaki were pretty good, and I enjoyed it. The mac and cheese and bread bowl did not disappoint either, but it is pretty hard to mess up mac and cheese.

Of note, we are starting to get messages from friends back home that we our area is getting funded with snow. There’s not much we can do about that now, but it could definitely impact our travel plans when we fly home tomorrow. We’re supposed to get between 12-14 inches, but we know just how accurate the weathermen are. We’ll just have to hope the planes keep flying and they can get the roads cleared up enough for us to get home from the airport. I do a quick check of our Ring camera at home, and yep, it’s piling up fast.

Radiator Springs Racers is right next to Sanfransokyo Square so we head there next.

The Lightning Lane lane is only about 10 minutes so we have a short time to check out the queue which has some fun details.

This is basically the same ride as test track with some minor track differences and significant thematic differences.

Everyone has their own opinion, but I find it superior to Test Track in nearly all facets. The beginning is truly stunning and feels just like a drive through the canyons in the movie.

Really the only thing that test track really beats Radiator Springs Racers, is that in the final part of the ride, Test Track tops out at a much faster speed so it is more thrilling in that aspect.

It is just an incredibly well themed and beautiful ride and a ton of fun.

We then walk back through Sanfransokyo Square to get to Pixar Pier.

We hadn’t been to Pixar Pier since it was rethemed from Paradise Pier and I was VERY skeptical how the infusion one Pixar into a Victorian Era boardwalk would work. I thought it would be incredibly cheesy and a cheap way to infuse more IP into the parks. In all honesty, I didn’t hate the retheming. It was actually tastefully done, and minimally intrusive, and for the most part actually made a reasonable amount of sense.

Our next ride is the Incredicoaster.

We have not been on it since it was rethemed from California Screamin’. Much like my skepticism for Pixar Pier, I held a great deal of skepticism for how they were going to incorporate the Incredibles into this coaster.

I must say, I was again wrong. The Incredible theme works way better than I anticipated, and the ride was a blast as always, and one of the best roller coasters in all of the Disney Parks, and at this point, we’ve basically done them all, with only Big Thunder Mountain in Disneyland remaining.

Toy Story Mania is next up as it is also in Pixar Pier.

This ride is probably the most thematically coherent with the Pixar Pier theme, and in all honesty, was probably one of the reasons they thought of the idea as it was here before they ever rethemed the area. It is identical to all the other Toy Story Mania’s with zero differences. I got the worst score I’ve had this vacation. I think despite there being ample time between parks, I could feel my arm fatiguing more quickly. You can only pull that plunger so fast, and I think my fast twitch muscle fibers were just burned out.

Angry Dogs is nearby. We do not buy an Angry Dog, but I find the name and stand quite amusing as does Lucy.

As we continue to walk around Pixar Pier we enter Bing Bongs Sweet Shop.

They have some really cute food items here.

We don’t buy any as we aren’t that hungry right now, but Lucy does buy a slushy and some candy.

Continue the day here.

Read about the previous day here.