Southwest Holiday Adventure Part 4 of 6

Check out part 3 of our adventure if you haven’t, yet.

We started out the day at Disneyland.

Our first ride of the day was Indiana Jones.  It was a fun dark ride, especially since we love Indiana Jones.

In true Disney fashion, even the elevator is themed to the ride.

Anna got to drive.  Well not really, the ride took care of itself but she liked to think she was driving.

Is that a monkey or Buddha?  Maybe it’s a monkey’s uncle.

Anna telling me where to go.  And she was right…  😉

It’s a nice touch and will actually take you to another section of the park.  We’d have ridden it if we didn’t have Jeff’s wheelchair.

The Jingle Cruise should have been good as I like the corny jokes.  However we didn’t have a good guide and you couldn’t understand half of what she said.

I thank God daily that we didn’t do It’s a Small World.  I do hear that the holiday version is much less annoying.  Still…

Have you seen so many strollers in one place?!?!  Welcome to Disney.

What an awesome travel trailer!!

On ride photos must be allowed here.

The crew.  Watch out!

Here’s the Disneyland castle in the daytime.  I wasn’t overly fond of the color scheme but hey, it’s not my castle, right?  When I get my own castle I can decorate it in a color of my choice.

Please do.

A live band playing outside the Fire Department.  This was more of what I expected from a live band at Disney.

We took a lunch break at Downtown Disney.

We were celebrating Anna’s birthday so we took her to the House of Blues with a new menu inspired by Aaron Sanchez, a chef we are familiar with from the Food Network, specifically as a judge on Chopped.  The food was certainly good and the service even better.

Happy birthday!

My bacon wrapped meatloaf was delicious.

Back at the campsite for a short break.

On her birthday, Disneyland was fun, but Outlet shopping is even more fun.  We found one close by and took her there.

Wow, a Vans Skate Park.  I had never seen one of these.

Not only was it a Vans outlet store (I admit, I like some of their shoes), it is also an indoor skate/bike park.  It was awesome!  If only I had one of these nearby when I was growing up.

Of course everywhere we look there is a Forever 21.  Jeffrey and I waited outside enjoying the beautiful California winter weather.

Soon we made it back to Disney and headed back to California Adventure.

The Mad T Party was going on with a live band.  The music was much better than what was in Disneyland the previous night.

There were lots of cool sights to see with lots of lights.

We were really here for Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sully to the Rescure, which we really liked, but also enjoyed the Mad T Party at the same time.

Another shot of the fun of the Mad T Party.

Back to bugs land, I was informed that the restrooms were an upside down tissue box.  Nice detail!

We headed back to our favorite ride for one last trip on the Tower of Terror.

We hope you enjoy some of the lights as we wrapped up our visit.  We saw more than I could write about and share pictures of but we hope you enjoyed some of the highlights!

The next day we headed about 10 minutes away to Knott’s Berry Farm.

Jeff waited patiently as it took us over 45 minutes to park.  We knew we were in for a busy day.

The rest of us weren’t so patient.

We waited a long time to get our tickets and threw in some Fast Lane passes.

This area was NOT a ghost town this day.

We had to wait in yet another line to process our fast lane tickets.

There is a lot of country/farm theming to Knotts Berry farm.  It has a nice atmosphere.

We rode most of the coasters thanks to the Fast Lane passes.  Without them we’d still be waiting in line at this moment.

We also experienced the Calico Mine Ride which was fun for all ages.  It is due to be shut down this year for complete overhaul so I can’t wait to see it afterwards.

I thought this was a prop but it really is a Stagecoach entrance.

Is this the stagecoach?

The train is decked out for the holidays. The line was too long and we had enough to see that we had to pass this time.

On to Silver Bullet, another coaster in the park.

Here’s the line for Silver Bullet, at least 1 1/2 hours.  With our Fast Lane pass it was about 15 minutes.  It was well worth the money.

There is lots of great things to see everywhere you look.

Jaguar is a good fun family coaster.

Sierra Sidewinder is a really fun spinning coaster.  I like it because it doesn’t spin excessively like some spinning coasters and is just a lot of fun.

Ghost rider is the only wooden coaster in the park and we thought it was downright awful.  It was so rough and it felt like the ride would never end.

Ah, here’s the stagecoach!  It really is a true stagecoach with real horses and all.

Here’s a quick shot of Jaguar…

…and Silver Bullet.

I was the only one who wanted to brave the newly refurbished Log Ride.  The two hour wait was reduced to a near walk on with a fast pass.  It’s not at the level of Splash Mountain but it was still better done than most log flumes.

We considered a snack but not with lines like this.

We’ll be back but not sure how soon!

We wanted to experience Mrs. Knott’s Chicken Dinner Restaurant but it had a line as long as the rides in the park with at least an hour wait.  Next time!

Instead we opted for our In-n-Out Burger credit.  My wife liked it slightly more than Whataburger but the rest of us still gave the edge to Whataburger.  I wouldn’t turn either down but the selection is better at Whataburger.

Click here to continue to part 5.