Epic Spring Break Adventures: A Touch of Disney & Corona Del Mar

Shortly after we booked our trip to California, Disney announced that they would be doing a "Touch of Disney" event, which happened to take place while we were there. We knew tickets would be high in demand, so we weren't sure if we could actually go, but we figured we'd at least try. Tickets went on sale early in March, but Disney is sneaky and doesn't announce times (I don't blame them one bit!) so from midnight on, Scotty was checking their website regularly until he eventually ended up in an online queue for several hours. The system crashed repeatedly, but by some miracle, after about 11 hours, he was able to get tickets! They had a limit of 8 - which happened to be the exact number we needed!

Touch of Disney (TOD) was held in Disney's California Adventure (DCA). Basically, it allowed us into the park to shop, eat, and just... be. A rip off? Well, yes! Essentially we paid money to be allowed to go into DCA to spend money! 

But that's okay! We were just so happy to be there, and you know what? It was magical even without the rides (though they teased us a bit and were running the rollercoaster). 

Each ticket came with a $25 food card, so we had $150 to spend on Disney food! And boy, did we eat! You had to order the food via app, and you had to select a time window. Some items were scheduled pretty far out. It was a lot like scheduling your fast passes except instead of saying things like, "We have to be to Guardians at 4:55 and Incredicoaster at 6:10," you'd say things like, "We have to be to Dole whips at 3:15 and corn dogs at 7:00." We had one food reservation that was pretty bad (it took well over an hour to get our food), but other than that, things were smooth, and we got to try some park food that we haven't had before. I went off the deep end and drank a ton of soda on this trip, but let me tell you why... Coke tastes so good in Disneyland. The 20 oz bottles are served right off ice, and there is nothing better in this world. My only disappointment was that they weren't serving soup and bread bowls - one of my favorite things to eat at DCA. 

By the end of the night, we were all sick, and that's when Scotty showed up with two plates of funnel cake fries announcing, "We still had $40 left!" 

We were at TOD from about 3:00 until they closed at 8:00. When we left the park, who was waiting for us outside the gate? None other than Mark, our fellow Hamilton and Disneyland fanatic and commissioner of the event known as Brocation. A few days before spring break, Mark's daughter and her friends decided to hit up Mark for a trip to Anaheim, and well, he was pretty easily convinced. 

While Disneyland has been closed for COVID, they've been working on some new security procedures. They have a new area for trams (which are not in operation currently), and now, in addition to bag screening and metal detectors (and temperature checks, which should just be temporary, but heck, who knows anymore), you now have to walk two by two and be checked by a dog. I'm all for safety, but how sad is it that we live in a world where these procedures are necessary?

Since the trams weren't running, we had to walk about a mile from the designated parking area to DCA. I was really nervous about all the walking and wasn't sure if I was going to be okay. They had wheelchair rentals at the parking garage, and I had to seriously contemplate whether I needed one. I ended up pushing onward. My body was sore and fatigued (I'd describe it as "five days of Disneyland body" without the five days at Disneyland) but other than that, I felt pretty good. I was able to do all the walking, and I moved from sitting to standing without experiencing a lot of pain. At the end of the night, I felt amazing. Sore, yes, but it was tolerable, and I could move! I walked the mile back to the parking garage and got in the van, amazed that I did it!

Then my entire body went haywire and by the time we got back to the condo, I couldn't move. 

There is something about Disneyland! I've teased my mother-in-law about it for years. She deals with chronic pain (and boy am I ever learning a life lesson about having compassion for people who experience chronic pain), and when we have gone to Disneyland, it's like her pain doesn't exist! Then when we leave Disneyland, she can't function.

Well, my friends, I experienced it first hand! There is a Disneyland healing phenomenon. Is it mental? Probably. Or maybe there's something in the churro dust. 

That night and through half the next day, I was pretty messed up. In addition to the pain, I also developed some serious edema (it actually started before the vacation but got increasingly worse after being in the car and on my feet so much). So the next day was the perfect day to hang out on the beach. We stopped by Jack in the Box (per tradition) and bought way more bags of food than 8 people would ever need and then spent a few hours at Corona Del Mar. 

The beach ended up being quite the educational experience because we kept stumbling across these little gelatinous blobs that looked like they might be jellyfish. After doing some intense googling, we think they might have been salps. We also found some velella (velellas?) Turns out, Scotty has a weird habit of smelling things he can't identify - which is something I'd never realized until Amber pointed it out. I was quite amazed at how frequently he would pick up things on the beach to sniff. But I guess it's worth the risk because he properly identified some tar (which ended up stuck to all of us on either bare feet or the bottoms of our shoes) and a mango pit. 

After the beach, we went back to the condos, and the kids swam at the pool for a while. Then we went to Ruby's Diner for dinner (we love the Crispy Green Beans there!)

TO BE CONTINUED...