Justin and I got to celebrate our 2nd wedding anniversary, while our dear friends Kathy and Alex celebrated their 1st wedding anniversary, at the happiest place on earth – Disneyland!
I will be the first to admit that I always go through through major Disney withdrawal whenever I have to leave Disneyland (cut to me sprawled on my hotel bed wearing my Mickey ears as I pathetically play “Part of Your World” on my iPhone on our last night.)
Anyways. The goods, and some of the highlights from our trip.
We kicked off our trip by catching a baseball game since Justin is a huge sports fan. The rest of us came along more so to eat, and because Justin paid for our tickets to lure us in going.
We took a picture of the Concession chart as a handy reference through our food choices throughout the game. Definitely not your typical hotdogs and nachos here.
We ended up getting some waffle fries and grilled cheese sandwiches, both of which were super.
Justin of course needed his beer.
And we settled in for the game. We also had a mid game churro break at some point.
The following day kicked off our 1st out of 3 days in Disneyland. California Adventures was our first stop, and of course, the first ride we ran for was the Radiator Springs Racers as soon as the park opened. It was apparent that everyone else at the park had the same idea, but we were lucky enough to get on without much of a wait.
It’s a great ride, but be prepared to wait if you aren’t prepared to get there early before the crowds hit.
The Cali heat gave us a great excuse to cool off in many ways, like this salted caramel hot fudge sundae we got at the Ghiradelli Chocolate Shop.
La Brea Bakery Cafe is also another great find. Alex gave their clam chowder a try and we were impressed by the in-house made sourdough bread bowls that it came in. We were so impressed that we actually came back on our third day for lunch here.
And how can you forget all the disney treats? I love the amount of effort that goes into all the Disneyfied treats, including these huge sugar cookies. They can be found EVERYWHERE.
We stumbled upon the Pixar Parade so we took a break to check it out. It’s so fun to see how detailed these floats are, and it was themed out to all the Pixar movies, including Toy Story, Cars, Monsters Inc, the Incredibles, and Bugs Life.
I also indulged myself in a giant chocolate chip Mickey cookie.
We also caught the “World of Color” show that same evening. If you’ve never seen it, you totally have to. It’s a half hour water show where they use water and special effects, much of which where the water is used as a canvas and images are projected onto it. It was so great.
You can actually get fastpasses to this show, which grants you access to a closer viewing area (and this fastpass doesn’t interfere with your other ride fastpasses)
We spent day 2 in the Magic Kingdom Park. Justin was stoked to hit up the Star Tours ride which he missed the first time he went to Disneyland, and we also checked out Buzz Lightyear’s shooting game as well.
We also got ourselves a serving of Dole pineapple whip soft serve at the Enchanted Tiki Juice Bar by the Enchanted Tiki Room. The line ups for this place are LONG so get it earlier in the day if you can. 
We stopped for lunch at Cafe Orleans. The food there was pretty good, though if I were to go again I’d probably get Justin’s Monte Cristo sandwich. It was like a sandwich using fried doughnuts as bread. Hohhh
We also made a pit stop for some refreshing mint julep at the Mint Julep Bar, also picking up some fresh hot Mickey shaped beignets.
To escape from the mid-day heat, we retreated to the “It’s a small world” ride.
Or what I also called “iI’s a long ride, after all…”
Because we had to catch Fantasmic, we had a quick dinner at The Palace, which is a cafeteria style restaurant offering a bunch of different food options. I went for the roast beef which came with mashed potatoes and green beans. It also came with a biscuit but I asked for apple slices instead which they happily obliged.
Day 3 was split between both California Adventures and the Magic Kingdom to catch up on anything we missed the first two days, and re-doing some favorites (like California Screamin’)
I was dying for my photo op with Russell from “Up,” one of my favorite Pixar films. In order to do that, we had to join his Wilderness Explorer team. We were probably the most mature bunch in the audience. By like…25 years.
I was also the first in line for my photo. I didn’t push any kids. Promise.
And check out my huge badass cookie #2, and Kathy’s passion fruit macaron that we got at the Jolly Holiday Bakery on Main Street.
And we gave our feet a rest by watching “Mickey and the Magical Map”
We checked out downtown Disney for a bit, and their Lego Store which had some impressive Lego sculptures.
We spent our last two days hitting the outlets and hitting the beach, as well as hitting up some more great food.
We had dinner at Musha Restaurant just off of the 3rd St Promenade, where we enjoyed a great izakaya meal. We order a whole bunch of things, but here’s a sample of some of the dishes.
And on our very last night we had a great dinner at Gen Korean BBQ house, VERY reasonably priced at $20 per person! The array of unlimited side dishes was great, and the list of different types of meats and items you could order (both raw and cooked) was really impressive! Epic.
And on the morning of our flight before heading home, we had our last meal in California at Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles. Alex is a huge fried chicken fan so I knew that he had to give this place a try, and he really liked it. Fried chicken and waffles, what’s not to love?
I’m still trying to work off all this food.
So worth it.
Cookies and Cravings and Calories, Oh My... 