15 - The D. Place

Last night we went to Disneyland for the last time until next year. Now my mom secretly calls Disneyland "The D Place", which stands for The Dreadful Place. Indeed it was!

It was crowded beyond belief with Christmas tourists, like us, blankets upon blankets cluttering Main Street for the fireworks, and strollers set-up an hour and a half ahead of time for Fantasmic. Brad and I both had an open mind to stay for the fireworks if everything worked out, but after it took us half an hour just to get on the train we decided we probably weren't going to hang out for long.

We rode the train all the way around the park, had a picnic dinner, rode Jungle Cruise, and Pirates. The average wait for rides were half an hour to forty-five minutes, which is just too long to wait with three children and a hundred other people when you could just as easily wait until next month and use your annual pass again.

We decided to cross from Frontier Land to Tomorrow Land, board the monorail, leave the park, and allow the children to play at the Lego Store. Crossing over main street was a nightmare! The sidewalks were covered with blankets, three-quarters of the street was used for stroller parking, and the quarter left, if not less, was for us lowly pedestrians. It was awful! Only one or two strollers could move at once while stroller-less parents pushed their way through, stroller wheels caught on one an other's wheels, and we accidentally ran over the fireworks-waiter's feet. I was miserable and feeling stupid for dragging the children out of the house to see this disaster. So much for Christmas memories, I thought.

Well, that is until I passed two women whose stroller wheels had caught together. They began having words with each other about who was being separated from their party and whose fault that was. This was all in front of their children. Finally, one woman said to the other, "Yeah, well... figure it out!" Oh, it was a sad sight to see.

After that I decided to sing Christmas carols and be as happy as could be. The monorail line was another half hour! Thankfully I had brought my iPod, so I let the children watch a movie in the stroller while we waited. At first I felt guilty about having my iPod babysit for us, but that feeling passed to relieved for the peace.

My New Year's Resolution will probably be less TV for the kids and no renewing Disneyland passports. Too bad I renewed in September.