West Coast, by Land and Sea - Day 2

Can you say rocky start? We can but we don’t want to.

In all seriousness, we misunderstood our passes, which led us to make plans to start our day in DCA at 9 am. But due to the misunderstanding… we couldn’t get into that park until 10.

The short notes are sometimes Autism is hard - an unexpected change of plans can be hard on anyone. But for our young man he can get entrenched in an emotion and really struggle to move past it.

Checking out the Disneyland Trains exhibit at DL. 

We ended up going into Disneyland for a little bit. We grabbed breakfast and Hubby and daughter were able to get a ride on Space Mountain, while I worked with our son to shake off the frustration and move beyond it. He and I enjoyed another showing of Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln - we had the place to ourselves. Then we met the others at the gate for DCA to restart that part of our day.

We were able to grab Fastpasses for Radiator Springs Racers as soon as we got into the parks, so we had Fastpass times of shortly after the park officially opened. Not entirely sure how hubby managed that… he has a way with Fastpasses that we all appreciate. [Editor's note: I could write a couple paragraphs on the ins and outs of the MaxPass feature at Disneyland, but let's just say that the ability to get Fastpasses for one of the parks while in the other park is really helpful.]  The Fastpasses were active from 10:00-11:00, so we rode Soarin' first before heading to Cars Land.

For some reason the fact these cars have working rear view mirrors was really interesting to me. 

He also grabbed fast passes for the new Guardians ride - so he ran off to that after we won our race. The kids and I went off to explore. We decided we wanted an slightly early lunch… so that became our focus. We all found something that worked and we had a nice relaxing lunch while we waited for hubby.

Once he found us we continued with rides - Jumping Jellyfish, Little Mermaid, Goofy’s Sky School and Toy Story. Along the way he had some lunch… we make sure he gets food.. Don’t worry. [Editor's note: Actually, I mainly snacked. There are lots of different snack foods at DL that I often want to eat, but usually I'm not hungry enough between meals to actually get them. I solved this problem by skipping the meals...]

I WON!!!!!  [Editor's note: ...]

The rest of the time in the park we all caught favorite rides, Grizzly River rapids, monsters Inc, Maters Junkyard Jamboree and the street car.

We left the park late afternoon to have a short break at the hotel before dinner.

Photobomb. Silly kids

After our mellow break in the room we drove to GardenWalk to meet some long time friends at CPK.

Huge props to the kids for enduring a long dinner of adults talking and a huge thanks to our friends for enduring the frequently interruptions that parents may find commonplace. You are all amazing and thank you.

OK. Now we have eaten our fill… and then some… now what?

The young man and I are heading back to the room for more chill time… I appreciate the time to write up the blog 😉. Hubby and our sweet girl are heading back to Disneyland with two fast passes burning a hole in their pocket… I am guessing they will do Big Thunder Mountain and the Matterhorn before calling it a day.

Last train of the night.... Big Thunder Mountain. 

Not sure the schedule tomorrow, but it's our last park day so we have a list of must do rides, wish us luck!