Disneyland & California Adventure ~ Anaheim, California

First, notice the photo and who earned the better score!

Today was Day 2 of our 3-day parkhopper pass, and we went to both Disneyland and California Adventure.

After putting our stuff in the Disneyland area locker (again, $7 per day for the smallest locker, which we can easily fit a backpack fairly full), we went to California Adventure, which is a California-focused theme park. It is smaller than Disneyland, but no less fun and full of exciting times! California Adventure seems more teen to adult oriented, although there are some attractions for the little ones.

As we meandered trying to get our bearings, we walked by some Cast Members (Disney-speak for staff) and heard, "5...4...3...2...1...Congratulations!" We each won a Disney Dream FastPass! So a FastPass (which is free), as we learned yesterday, is a way to get to the front of the line in the more popular attractions (Disney-speak, again, "attraction" = "ride"). Not all attractions are part of the FastPass system, but many are, such as Space Mountain and the Tower of Terror. The way the FastPass system works is you go to the attraction and slide your admission ticket through their FastPass machine and you get a FastPass ticket -which is like a reservation of when you can go back and enjoy the attraction. The FastPass ticket will have 2 times, such as 10:30 - 11:30. This means that at any time after 10:30, you can go to that attraction and go in a separate line that takes you to almost the front of the line, and you get on much quicker than waiting in the long "stand-by" line. The second number, in this case 11:30, only means that you cannot get another FastPass at any attraction until after that time. Basically, you can't hoard a bunch of FastPass tickets. Now a tip - Disneyland and California Adventure FastPass systems are NOT linked, so you can hold two FastPasses simultaneously, one at each park. Now, what we were awarded was a Dream FastPass, which is a plastic card with the name of every eligible FastPass attraction on it. This gave us one FastPass "ticket" to every attraction, without any time restrictions - we could go on any attraction at any time, and did not need to wait a certain period of time before using the FastPass again. How did we get it? By just happening to be in the right place at the right time. Knowing it would be busier in the afternoon/early evening, we held onto our Dream FastPasses until later in the day, then hit every attraction back-to-back - it was a blast!!!

Of course, all this FastPass action got us hungry, so we enjoyed burgers in California Adventure's Taste Pilots Grill and later, dinner at the Pacific Wharf Cafe where they served soups in sourdough bowls. Although we didn't partake, there is alcohol served in California Adventure, but Disneyland is a dry county.

Two big events happened in Disneyland today - one was the start of Disney's Christmas Season with "A Christmas Fantasy" Parade, with many favorite Disney characters singing Christmas carols, with a guest appearance by Santa himself. The other was the "Believe..... In Holiday Magic" Fireworks Spectacular which was a fireworks display set to Christmas tunes, and a had a special finale of snow! Tip - if you want to see any parade, or any fireworks in Disney, get a place about an hour before the event - if not, you'll be standing behind the 6'6" man and his equally tall friends.