30 Sept: Las Vegas to Disneyland

Last day in Vegas and time to say goodbye to Connie. We decided to have brekkie in Paris. In Vegas. You know what I mean. It was a lovely breakfast – I had a divine crepe with lemon and caramelized pineapple, caramelized pineapple anything is always good.

We all packed up and jumped into our cars to head over to the Vegas sign for some farewell photos. How organized was this place! They had a nice, orderly line with a guy at the front who’d take your photos for you. And he even knew all the best poses (I guess when you’ve been doing it for that long…). We took lots of pics and then some crazy ones over to the side while everyone else took advantage of the free photographer. Jamie and I did the jumping photos, but we had to jump too many times. I think sometimes Mark has bad timing on purpose. We saw Grandpa from the Addams family and he was certainly a bit weird. Looked good, had the coffin on wheels and all, but he was all about bagging Hilary Clinton. Jamie decided on a photo with him anyway. Hey, it’s Vegas, right? 

Connie and I said a very tear-laden farewell and we waved goodbye as her and Kelly drove off into the sunset (sunrise actually, nah, more like mid-morning brightness) in their flashy convertible. We jumped in the car and headed for Disneyland. A day of many mixed emotions.

We drove into Anaheim and made our way down Harbor Boulevarde. I was almost beside myself in the back of the car, and couldn’t get over the fact that we were driving past THE Matterhorn. I didn’t want to look but I didn’t want to not look. This was the start of a 45 year old dream. I have wanted to go to Disneyland since…. forever. I remember Walt Disney on TV on Sunday nights, I have a vague recollection of the Mickey Mouse club on TV when I was very little. My grandparents gave me ‘world books’ and one had a section on Disneyland that I poured over. And then my father took my stepbrothers to Disneyland when I was 7. The first time I saw ‘the internet’ was with Mark – he asked me what I wanted to look at. I chose Disneyland and so it was my very first webpage as well. And we were there.

I had bought tickets through Disney, a special deal – and we were to pick up the tickets that afternoon for our first day there on Monday. We were meant to go to this special Disney tourism centre, on the outside of the park and so we headed over. On the way we walked between Disneyland Park and California Adventure. I admit, I cried. It was so surreal. We finally found this little office we were meant to collect the tickets from and … it was closed. They didn’t open again until 9:00am Monday. I was beside myself because this meant that we wouldn’t make park opening and would miss a couple of hours of the quietest time at the park. If you’re a Disney tragic, you know how important this is. We rang and spoke to someone and then to someone else and then another person and no one would help. Disney tourism office sucks the big balls. I put my big girl pants on and we headed over to the Disneyland Hotel where I proceeded to have a not so big girl tantrum – tears and all. After lots of explaining and a very caring cast member (staff member) on the other side of the desk, we had our Disney tickets and a special badge for me stating it was my birthday (which I wore every day from then on in). It stopped my tanty and I was very grateful that they fixed the problem.

We went back to the motel and unsuccessfully tried not to watch the Disney fireworks and went to bed, ready for Universal studios the next day.

 

Click here for Vegas farewells.