From Vegas to Disneyland

So, I left you all having won big in the Veneitan. That took Kate and I to about 2:30am. Given we had to leave for the airport about 8am that morning, we though we had better call it a night. Alas, by the time we got back to the room, wound down and packed it was getting closer to 4am. Oh dear.

I got to sleep fairly quickly, but even quicker did 7am roll around and I was back up. I was fairly functional thankfully (Kate a little more in struggle-town) and got us up, organised, checked out, and into a cab to the airport. Our delightful Irish ex-pat cabby spent the next 15 minutes cussing his way through stories and continually talking about the cold weather. Strange for a cabby to start dropping f-bombs from the moment you get in the cab, but it was a great surreal way to start a day when on 3 hours sleep.

An uneventful check in and flight meant we were back in LA at midday. An hour later we were checked in to our new hotel in Anaheim. Anaheim you ask? Really? Of course! What did you think we would do if in California for a few days before heading to Mexico? DISNEYLAND!

Back at the original

So we wasted precious little time and legged it to that most glorious and evil of empires. It is easy to poke fun or tut-tut at Disneyland, but for Kate and I, it means shenanigans. And this time of year means Christmas shenanigans no less. Good times! So we sucked up our lack of sleep and ventured into the frey.

Shag Tiki Hut!

Given we were having a few days we took it easy, mainly wandering. It was busy for a week day… and still bloomin’ cold, but we were in no hurry. We did a bit of a wander through some of the shops on Main Street. We even came across some Shag’s! Super exciting. Must… resist… buying… more… Shag… prints…

Like Haunted Mansion, but even better!

Watch out for Pumpkin Heads

First ride stop was the Christmas-ified Haunted Mansion. Nightmare Before Christmas! Super exciting for both us given it is one of our favourite rides AND movies. And it was fun. Typical Haunted Mansion, but with lots of Jack Skellington really.

Dodgy character

From there we wandered some more, dropping into the smaller rides. It seemed Disneyland was having a bad day as many rides were stopping temporarily due to problems. The cold? Who knows but it was getting a little frustrating.

But it didn’t matter as it was parade time, so we lined up like all the thousands of others to check out the parade, Christmas themed. It was OK, but both of us remarked it was nowhere near as impressive as the one in Tokyo Disneyland.

Kate proceeded to terrorise the kids

The next couple of hours we popped into some quite rides, like Toad Hall and also I got to get a little pride back from Hong Kong on Buzz Lightyear Blasters. A little pride, still a lot more to go.

Catching up with my old mate Pluto

But by now it was 8pm and we were cold and had really hit the wall. On the way out we decided to check out the Abe Lincoln anamatronic show. While the USA-isms were hard for a foreigner, I gotta say that robot Abe Lincoln must really have freaked people out back in the 60’s. I reckon he holds up well.

With robot Abe inspiring us, we legged back to our hotel to crash. In the space of 24hrs we had  done 2 Vegas shows, won in the casino, slept for 3 hrs, flown to LA, shuttled to Anaheim, then spent 6 hours at Disneyland. What did you do yesterday? 🙂