A California Adventure

Disney decided to shut down their Tower of Terror ride at California Adventure theme park. K loves that ride and wanted to get over there one last time before it was gone. We had some timeshare points to burn and as luck would have it, found an available room for 2 nights at the Grand California Hotel right next to the park.

Hotel lobby all decked out for the holidays.

Unfortunately, the weather forecast wasn't in our favor for Saturday's park visit, but we thought we could squeeze in the outdoor attractions before the rains arrived.

First stop: Tower of Terror!! The line wasn't too bad and before we knew it we were headed into the service elevator!! I forgot how fun the ride was and how many short drops it does before the longest, final drop.

My buddy, Arturo, reminded us to grab a fast pass for the Cars ride and it was a good thing we did. It was barely 10am and our pass printed out for 7:30pm!!

We spent the next few hours walking around the park, riding the rollercoaster after some coaxing to K. Luckily, by the time we stepped in line it was only 5 minutes long!! No time to dwell on it.

Weather holding off.

We both really enjoy the Toy Story ride since it's very interactive and essentially a target shooting game. Once again, the line wasn't too long and we started knocking the targets off left & right.

Who won?? ;)

After lunch the skies were beginning to turn ominous, the rain was coming. We hopped on one more ride as the drops began to fall.

We were gettin' our kicks.

The rain picked up and began to soak us, the raincoats just weren't enough. We opted to take a hotel break in hopes that the storm would pass by quickly. A few hours later the rain had stopped and it was almost time for our Cars ride. We also wanted a nighttime ride in the Tower.

Spooky!! Made better by the actual storm!!

Back row, center. K screaming!!

 The nighttime Tower of Terror experience was worth it. They left all the lights out enhancing the dropping sensation a bit more. Very well done Disney.

The walk-up line at Cars was almost 2 hours!! We were through with our fast pass in 15 minutes. It's a really fun ride, but not 2 hours of waiting fun.

We got out of there just in time for the holiday light show over the lake.

About to be lit up with lasers.

Just like that our day was done. In spite of the weather break, we hit all the attractions we wanted to do. It was a fun day being a kid again and K fulfilled her childlike wonder for the time being..

The next morning we dined with a few Disney characters before making the drive back to the desert.

We're in bear country.

Is that Chip or Dale??

It was a fun 2-day getaway and not too crowded considering it was Thanksgiving weekend. We were both a bit surprised when it rained almost the entire way back to Phoenix. That doesn't happen too often.