Disneyland, 2014 - Day 4

Always hard to leave

It’s midnight and we just got home. This is the really difficult part about vacation because tomorrow everything goes back to normal. I am so happy to have this blog so I can relive our last day in Disneyland, which started at 5:30 this morning. Ashley was the first one up and she woke up Chad and me by asking if she could go down to the lobby and watch cartoons. She was the only one in the lobby besides the window washer and a few cast members which was an eerie feeling in a hotel that has over a thousand guest rooms. The Grand Californian has little chairs set up around a television set that plays old Disney cartoons. While she was watching Donald Duck, I walked around the hotel and bought coffees for Chad and myself. We let the teens sleep for as long as possible because it was going to be another non-stop day at the park.

Our fantastic lobby.

We arrived at Disneyland fifteen minutes before the Early Magic Morning and when they let us in, we ate a quick breakfast at Tomorrowland Terrace and then the kids and I went on Space Mountain, or as Chad calls it: Headache Machine. It’s interesting that he refused to go on Headache Machine yet the moment we got off that ride he agreed to go on My Back Hurts (his name for The Matterhorn) with Ashley where he got a headache that he refused to call a headache. While they stayed in Fantasyland, the teens and I went to Critter Country where Splash Mountain was closed. And Pirates was closed. And The Haunted Mansion was closed. Bad time to have technical difficulties, but all the rides were soon up and running and we spent the entire day riding them.

Extra Magic Hour perk #1: The feeling of having the park to yourself

Extra Magic Hour perk #2: This.

We spent eight hours at Disneyland, never even going back to California Adventure. We kept checking our watches and monitoring the time so we could squeeze every drop out of the hours we had left and still make it back to the hotel to catch our airport shuttle. 

When it was finally time to leave and as we stood on Main Street, shocked that it was all over, I said to the kids "Say goodbye. Who knows if we'll ever get to come back here." 

Ali said, "Mom, you are so dramatic." 

I told her, "Your mom's dramatic," and that all I meant is that one of us may die and we might never get to come back here together. Apparently that just made me look "more dramatic."

Chad and Ashley went to City Hall to see if the iPod had been returned. Ali, Jackson, and I went to the hotel’s bell service to retrieve our bags. As the bags were wheeled out, Chad and Ashley came back empty-handed and the shuttle pulled up to get us. We had timed the day perfectly.

Thirty minutes later, we were going through airport security at John Wayne Airport and I started thinking about an English paper I have due in two days. Just like that, we were back to reality. We roamed the tiny airport for a while, trying to keep ourselves busy until it was time to board. While we were sitting in the terminal, I checked my voice mail and there was a message from The Grand Californian's Lost and Found department. The anticipation was intense as I listened to our housekeeper tell us in broken English that she had found…. a pair of shorts on our balcony. No iPod. Just Chad’s swim shorts that he laid out in the sun to dry.

The family slept for most of the flight home. I read a little, thought a lot, and spent a lot of time reflecting on the memories we just made. The important stuff not written in a blog, but experienced among the five of us. It’s been twelve years since we started bringing our kids to Disneyland. In twelve more years, they will be 24, 26, and 28. Which means we will be bringing our grandbabies to Disneyland.  I hope you’re still reading our vacation blogs then. 

"I don't want the public to see the world they live in 

while they're in the Park. 

I want them to feel 

they're in another world." -Walt Disney

Until next time,

The Niemeyers