On Thursday, Rony and I hopped on a plane for LAX to join my friend and her family on a trip to Disneyland in Anaheim! I've actually been once before when I was little and I remember absolutely nothing about it. Nothing at all. So this was basically my first time. I'm gonna be honest, I get travel anxiety hardcore. Alex had gotten there the day before so they were going to be at the park all day, we decided against renting a car and so that meant we were gonna have to Uber from the airport to the Airbnb where we were staying.
It was an hour long ride. I hate talking to strangers and it seemed like torture.
The flight went relatively smooth. I tried to sleep through take off and landing to lessen my anxiety and overall it worked until we went through some clouds and oops, turbulence.
We landed at about 3pm, had to figure out how to get to the cranky Uber driver, and then rode in awkward silence the whole hour. LA drivers are the worst and yeah, crazy drivers did not help anxiety.
When we got to the house, it was wonderful! Three rooms with the best beds ever and a gorgeous garden in the back. There were lemon and lime trees growing out front!
We both decided to just stay in and order food and watch a movie while we work on last minute projects and Inktobers. Alex got home around 10 and we planned out the following day.
For Friday, we only got tickets to the Halloween party so we could get there as early as 4pm. That left most of the day for adventuring. Saturday was going to be Disneyland the whole day and Sunday we were going to Universal Studios. Good plan.
Friday
Friday morning we got up and Alex's family had reservations at Goofy's Kitchen. They were nice enough to invite us and add us on and we got to have breakfast with the characters! It was super cute and the food was pretty good and adorable. I wanted to eat EVERYTHING. Pluto, Minnie, and Chip & Dale would come by the tables and interact with us and the whole place was decorated in Halloween.
Dale snuck up behind Rony while he was on the phone and startled him, Alex's mom accidentally called Pluto Goofy, and Rony missed out on seeing Minnie so we got a girls picture with her.
We walked around Downtown Disney a bit and saw Legoland, all the pumpkins, and the different stands. The place was huge and I still feel like we didn't see everything.
Rony had to stay at the house and finish working and doing his costume for the party so we went to the beach and laid in the sand, drove up the coast, and visited a neat little cafe called Creme & Sugar. They're very popular because they created the Mermaid and Unicorn Hot Chocolate. I saw online they had a Nightmare Before Christmas menu and had to go.
We were not disappointed.
I got the Deadly Nightshade Hot Chocolate and it was purple with cotton candy that turned black when melted and a ton of chocolate and sprinkles. It was huge. Alex got the Pumpkin King and her mom got the Oogie Boogie latte while her sister got a Unicorn Hot Chocolate. It was so much sugar but totally worth it.
We headed back and by the time we got to the house it was 5pm. We rushed last minute to help Rony with his costume while I got dressed. Alex had missed out on getting a Halloween party ticket so we decided to try and find someone selling theirs. We got SUPER lucky and found someone with an extra one so I gave her one of my extra costumes and quickly helped both of them get done up.
I was a bat, Rony was a skeleton, and Alex was a witch. It worked and we were comfortable which is what matters.
Disneyland was only 10 minutes from the house so we Uber'd there and got there just when it was really starting. They gave us Trick or Treat bags and a map and it was chaos. Non-Halloween people were leaving and it was super packed.
Our party tickets got us access to both Disneyland and California Adventure so we decided to do Disneyland first. The castle was lit up and there were pumpkins EVERYWHERE. It was amazing. Mostly everyone was in costume and the characters were all walking around. Once we got passed the Party Only areas, it was a lot less crowded. We found some Halloween exclusive merch, went and ate at the Red Rose Tavern, and started on the rides.
I cannot do all rides. I'm no good on drops. I can do turny roller coasters and even upside down ones, but the ones that are just steep drops are no go. So I was a little anxious. We got to trick or treat around the park, take pictures, and went to the Haunted Mansion. It was amazing and fully done in only Nightmare before Christmas. We did the teacup ride also and found out if you spin it fast enough with three adults, it goes waaaaaaaay too fast and almost gets you sick.
We saw the Halloween parade which was amazing (Hades and Jack were my favs) and were in a spot to see the Halloween fireworks but they canceled them because of the wind. And then these two dudes got in a fight next to us over who knows what so that was intense.
Rony was on a hunt for these light up orange bat ears the whole night and a garland of light up pumpkin mickeys and we could not find them all night. Finally when we went to California Adventure, we found the garland but no ears.
We were tired and exhausted, but had one last ride to do. The line was "short" for Guardians of the Galaxy After Dark so we lined up for that. The inside is pretty cool with different objects from the Collector and everything. And the lead up was awesome with an animatronic Rocket.
Do you see my face?
That is the face of someone about to beat the shit out of her friends because they said it wouldn't be that bad.
It was that bad.
Remember how I said I don't like drops? Yeah, only drops. Worse, GRAVITY DROPS. The kind of drops where they speed you up and let you fall naturally. I had actually looked the ride ahead of time. It looked cute with the cast all trapped in the Collector's jail like system. After Dark is not that. You are monster bait. It is pure black. There were like 2 stops where they showed you story scenes and they were like 1 second long. IT IS JUST DROPS.
I almost had a panic attack.
It was a big ol bag of NOPES.
So yeah, that's how we ended the Halloween party. I was fully awake then! We got our stuff, took a pic with the Headless Horseman statue and peaced the fuck out. Our Uber driver was nice and had Sailor Moon on his car and we chatted on the way back to the house. I think we passed out as soon as we got home.
Besides the Guardian ride, Halloween was pretty perfect. It was fun and we got a ton of candy and saw costumes and we got to be big ol kids for the night.
The next day, we'd get to do it all over again!
Tune in tomorrow for that adventure
-Sam <3