Almost 16 million people visit Disneyland each year – and this year, we were four of them! I’ve been to Disney World before – but never Disneyland – and Q and I were probably just as excited as the girls when we headed there on Tuesday morning!

The park was extremely crowded (as should be expected this time of year), but it helped that we met up with friends who were familiar with the layout and could guide us to the best spots and quickest lines. We couldn’t possibly hit all (or even close to all) the rides, but among the ones we got on were Autopia, Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (a roller coaster, and one of my favorite rides in the park), It’s a Small World (of course!), Pirates of the Caribbean (another classic), Space Mountain (Zoe’s favorite of the day), The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Captain EO and Toy Story Mania. Zoe also saw a show and got a dance lesson from Snow White and several others during the Disney Princess Fantasy Faire, and she spent much of the day meeting and getting autographs of various characters (including the Evil Queen, one of the few not pictured below).

We’ve taken Zoe to a lot of amusement parks, and I half-wondered before our trip if Disneyland would still feel special to her. Turns out I needn’t have worried: Disney may be an amusement park, but it is much, much more than that – and as cliched as it sounds, it really does feel magical. (And, at least for me, some of the magical feeling stemmed from being able to share with my kids something that was so special to me as a kid. When I heard the refrain of “It’s a Small World” and watched the girls’ eyes light up as they soaked everything up – well, it doesn’t get much better than that.)

-M

Greeting Minnie:

Zooming through Autotopia:

Waiting patiently:

Meeting with Mickey:

Smiling with Alice and Mad Hatter:

Entering It’s a Small World:

“It’s a world of laughter, it’s a world of tears…”

Taking it all in:

Dancing with princesses:

Watching Snow White:

Goofing around with Tigger:

Moping with Eeyore:

Posing with Pooh:

Heading home:

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 29th, 2011 at 2:04 pm and is filed under 65.Two kids-December 11. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.