Disney California Adventure

Our last hurrah of the summer was a trip to Disney California Adventure, and while it was still August, it was already Halloween there! The park was decorated and the after hours Oogie Boogie Bash event had already started.

Disneyland is also celebrating it’s 70th anniversary, so there are some fun features of the park in honor of that event, such as updated 70th anniversary targets in Toy Story Midway Mania, celebration parades and of course anniversary merch.

We are crazy people in that we usually leave our house around 6am to make it to the park in time for rope drop, and then we stay another 12-14 hours, which was no exception on this day. Whenever we start at California Adventure we rope drop Radiator Springs Racers, the line that is consistently the longest in part due to the fact they sell individual Lightning Lanes, but going on as a single rider can get you through the line more quickly. On one trip I think we were crazy enough to wait 3 hours for this ride, but it is definitely one of the best immersive experiences in the park. In fact the whole Radiator Springs area is so true to the movie, and probably my favorite place in the park.

Afterwards, we headed straight to buy Baymax bread at a cart near Aunt Cass Cafe and the Bakery Tour. It was not only cute, but yummy, and definitely enough for the three of us girls to share.

We then went to the Pixar Pier area to ride the Pal-Around Ferris Wheel, and my girls were freaked out by the swinging gondolas. It was actually the first time I got motion sick on this ride, but that must be common since as one of my girls pointed out, there were motion sick bags tucked into the side of the gondola.

Another highlight of the trip was the Guardians of the Galaxy Mission Break out ride, one of my all time favorites. They also had a fun Halloween re-theming of the ride that started after 2pm, and since Lightening Lanes were separate for the original version of the ride and the Halloween version, we went twice. Besides the video update to make the ride more spooky, it seemed like they changed the drop pattern to make the ride scarier as well. There is a great Behind the Attraction for Tower of Terror on Disney+ that explains the mechanics behind the drop pattern and how it was altered when they changed the ride to Guardians of the Galaxy, which I recommend if you like behind the scenes information like that.

We were also sure to ride the Monsters, Inc. ride before it closes early next year to make way for Avatar. It’s a shame to lose it because it’s such a cute ride and one of the only things really young kids can go on.

We hit up other favorite rides, such as Soarin’ Around the World and The Little Mermaid before park hopping over to Disneyland. It was hot and everyone wanted to go on Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. We had made reservations at Carthay Circle so we did go back to California Adventure for a little while, and I had this delicious pear martini.

In all, I think we walked about 20,000 steps and were exhausted by the time we went home. We had bought the three day Costco tickets, so we’ll be back again in October to enjoy even more Halloween fun, so more to come!