Disneyland

Of all places on earth that kids desire to go to this has got to rank near the top. Obviously, that's the whole point of the design; to create a dreamland that kids can live out their imagination at. While I was growing up we seemed to be able to frequent DL several times. I think the few things that were around back then that still hold kids attention would be the Materhorn, the Haunted House, The Skytram, and driving your own car on those tracks. There probably were a few others but they weren't the main attractions.

So by the time we had three kids we decided to take them on their first trip to Disneyland. Morgan was 5, Jesse, 3 and Cory 1 1/2. We were quite brave now that I think about it in terms of their age but we went with Jim's folks so we thought we had it all covered. We started out on the wrong foot from the moment we entered into the place. Jim and I figured we would have our own fun and the kids would tag along and enjoy whatever we did. So what did we decided to do first? We gave the two youngest to the grandparents to watch for a while.. and took Morgan on the Starwars ride.

If you haven't been on this ride I'll explain it to you. Entering the building and walking through the mazes works pretty much the same as most rides. The difference with this one is that the ride never moves. You enter into a Space shuttle type vehicle that seats probably 30 people in rows of about 6. A bar comes down and straps you in tight. Then a screen opens up in front and C3PO is standing there talking to you about your trip to some planet. The whole thing from there on is a movie with moving seats. They make the contraption move and shake just as if you were actually moving.

My first inkling that this was the wrong ride to take Morgan on was right at the beginning when the movie started and it felt and looked like we were moving. She had big huge eyes while she said, "Where are we going?" Right after that question the movie showed we were going to fly down this steep incline and she started to scream. I held her.. she screamed... I didn't even get to see the movie because I was trying to keep her from seeing it.

After that we decided to calm her down and do something more mundane.. like Michael Jackson's Movie. Of course it was 3-D and at one point soon into the movie, he reached his arm out to the audience and she screamed.. So I didn't get to watch that movie either and took her outside. She would have absolutely nothing to do with any rides after that for hours. I think we finally convinced her to ride Dumbo later on.
The littler ones couldn't ride too many themselves so needless to say.. the day consisted of lots of walking around.. and not many rides. Tom Sawyers tree-house proved to be a salvation playground!
We did get a break later on that night when the grandparents stayed in the hotel with the sleeping kids and we ran back to actually go on some of our own rides.
We haven't been back since. Maybe now that we are moving to CA we can manage to go back and actually have a good day.