My family used Fastpass to get onto Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, which cut what may have been a nearly 60 minute wait to about 10. We got on the ride and all seemed well, but when we got up the first ramp to where the water falls over the rocks to the sides of the train, everything stopped. Hm, maybe a few glitches? We were stuck in that position for a while (what a great place, right next to the rushing water which made you feel like you were in a light drizzle) before the lights were turned on and everyone had to be escorted off the train and walked back to the entrance. We were all given passes to go on any other ride quickly, not just Fastpass ones. We don't need to use it though, so we'll just keep it somewhere as a memento.
That was the most interesting thing that happened today. It was a pretty long day, waking up at 7:30 AM and besides a 90 minute break at the hotel, walking around both parks until after 11 PM. We went to Disneyland first to ride Big Thunder (the time it broke down was at night), and then my mum and I wanted to collect a bunch of Fastpass tickets at souvenirs since each ride's ticket looks a little different. (In case you don't know, Fastpass is a way to decrease your waiting time by returning at a designated time later in the day. It's usually not that much later, and we tend to use ours way after the 1-hour period. I'm not sure why the tickets say to return between two times when all you have to do is return after the earlier time. It's a good system and is worth using if the wait for a ride is more than 30 minutes.) We went on the Pooh's Adventure ride, which was my third time. It's really cute and has the trippiest scene of Pooh's dream that involves a lot of fluorescent colors things, mirrors, rotating circles...if someone were on that ride and on drugs, they'd probably just freak out.
I can't remember what we did after that, but we went to California Adventure for lunch and went to the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire show. It was pretty cool, although I was bad at it. The person in the hot seat can win a Disney Cruise package by getting to the 1 million point mark. During the show I saw, two people ended up in the hot seat but only got as far as the first plateau of 1,000 points. Still, it's a lot better than how I would've done. One question asked what the gerund of a sentence was...huh? Oh well, they got a bunch of collectible pins...woo! The host of the show was amusingly overenthusiastic.
We all went to a Disney Playhouse show which was for really little kids, but it was still cute. I think it was based on shows on the Disney Channel, with that big bear and the big round headed yellow dudes, the boy and his fish, and the Winnie-The-Pooh puppet thing. It was kind of chaotic being surrounded by loads of little kids jumping around and stuff. Oh, what it's like to be that little...I have no idea! :\ My mum and I went to the animation studio to see some little movies about animation and Walt Disney. There was also an interative part that was awesomely decorated, and in one room you could record your voice into different Disney movie scenes. I tried to do one from Bambi...of course, it sucked, but it was interesting to see how much I sucked. I hadn't seen Bambi in a while and forgot that he was male.
We went back to Disneyland to eat dinner because we made reservations at the Blue Bayou restaurant in New Orleans Square. It's the restaurant that's inside the Pirates of the Caribbean building that's made to look like it's outside. It is kind of weird to go inside a restaurant in order to feel like you're outside, but...it's a fun idea too. Also, it's pretty much the only formal dining restaurant in the park. They didn't have a salad listed on the menu, but they had it as a side dish with the entrees so I just got a double portion of it. Also, beforehand I succumbed to the evilness of FOOD and bought trail mix. Doh! I knew it was all roasted, but I was really curious to see what it tasted like and whether it would affect me. So far I haven't had any problems and luckily, none of the nuts were salted. Roasted almonds taste WAY different from raw almonds. Raw ones taste better, if you ask me. Roasted pumpkin seeds taste better than the raw ones though. Anyway! Now I'm am deviating from my diet in little ways...not like I'm going to go to Disneyland again anytime soon. :| I was getting kind of depressed after watching my brother eating a confection of three marshmallows on a stick dipped in caramel, chocolate, and nuts.
After taking a little break at the hotel, we went back to California Adventure to see the Electrical Parade. I must've seen it a buttload of times by now, but it's always enjoyable. I don't like any other parades very much. It consists of loads of floats covered in...loads of lights, and it's a really old parade (since the 60s? Not really sure). I don't think it's been changed much in the past few decades. It used to be in Disneyland and when it was ending there some bagillion people showed up and staked out spots on the parade route first thing in the morning to see it. Yikes!
Right after that parade ended, we (along with hundreds of other people) went right across the Disneyland since California Adventure was closing. That was when we went on the malfunctioning Big Thunder. We decided to wait for Fantasmic after that so we could get a good spot. Fantasmic is a show that involved live characters, elaborate costumes, music, movie clips, boats, water, fire, fireworks, pyrotechnics...now that I think about it, maybe it was an attempt to shove every possible source of entertainment into one show. It's been around for a while, but it's still pretty cool. It all takes place in the river by Frontierland (I know it has a name, but I can't remember it) and movie clips are projected from behind screens made of misting water. It's never messed up when I've seen it, but if it were really windy then it probably wouldn't work.
Crap, I'm tired! I get to sleep in tomorrow, wooo!