our original plan included the old lady's special friend and the bean in an effort to get boarding passes again for "rise of the resistance." but both flaked on us and so we found ourselves having another mommy & me date at the fabulous disneyland resort on an early sunday morning.
like the last time, we arrived at the parking structure just before it opened, which meant we scored a sweet spot not too far from the elevators. the security checkpoint is also really easy to get through that early, along with snagging seats on the tram. by 7:00 we were standing in the (already ridiculously long) line at the turnstiles.
they opened the gates not too long after that, so by 7:30 we were all scanned in and heading to starbucks to grab our caffeine. we sat down to drink our coffee and wait for 8:00 to get our boarding passes, and somehow the app glitched on her as she tried not to panic. she managed to get us into group 90, which wasn't great since anything after 80 is considered a "backup group." but that's okay - it's not like we hadn't been on it before. no biggie. and then as we were making our way back through downtown disney, the old lady nudged me and whispered "look...isn't that john stamos?"
OH. MAH. GAHHHHHH. you know john stamos is on my celebrity bucket list, and as we walked past we were debating whether or not to stop. the old lady said "well, he's spending time with his kid so maybe we should just leave them alone." she was totally right, and it made sense, but she took one look at my face and said "OMG mom...just go say hello to him while it's early and quiet and no one else notices him." i hesitated and she said "you know you're going to regret it later if you don't," which was also 1000% true. and so with my heart pounding and my legs shaking a little i walked over towards them. he turned as i got closer and smiled at me, and i smiled back and stammered out something stupid like "hi, i just wanted to come over and say a quick hello because i'm a huge fan!" he smiled and reached out to shake my hand as he said "well, hi, what's your name?"
i was dying.
"it's nice to meet you. i'm john, and this is my son," gesturing to his little boy (who is beautiful and adorable and was wearing the cutest little mickey mouse puffer vest). i bent down and said hello to him, and he grinned at me and went back to playing, and then i told john that i didn't want to bother them but that my daughter had encouraged me to say hello and he looked over at her and said "you guys look like sisters!" SWOON SWOON SWOON SWOON.
then he saw my phone in my hand and said "well hey, you want to grab a quick picture?" and i was so stoked that he offered and in my haste (because i was trying to be respectful and not take any more of his time and also avoid more people noticing who he was and causing a scene) i stupidly snapped just one shot. i thanked him, said goodbye to his little boy, and walked back towards the old lady on even more shaky legs and slightly watery eyes. OMG, yes, i am that much of a wackjob.
she just shook her head at me and laughed at how twitterpated i was, and as we got in line to enter california adventure she said "well, let's see the picture!" and thank goodness...it turned out like this:
we'd placed a mobile order to grab some breakfast over at flo's v8 cafe, and while it took what seemed like forever for it to be ready we finally got to sit down and enjoy it. she'd opted for the breakfast tamale, while i'd ordered the brioche french toast.
we grabbed a fastpass for goofy's sky school, which was available for us as soon as we were done eating.
i love how they upgraded all of the signage on the food & wine kiosks - so much cuter than the boring ones they've used in previous years. because it was still early and they don't open for business until 10:30 i was able to get pictures of them without hordes of folks crowded in front.
we wandered around the park aimlessly, hopping onto the monsters, inc. ride and then strolling through the hollywood studios area just peoplewatching and getting lots of steps in. this sign is on the building where spiderman usually does his meet & greet - which is also typically very crowded a little later on in the day.
then we stopped and bought our sip & savor pass before the lines got too crazy for it. 8 tabs to use at any of the festival food stands on any food item or non-alcoholic beverage:
from the LA style booth, this was the smoked bacon barbecue beef loco moco:
and the asian-style beef barbacoa street tacos:
from cluck-a-doodle-moo, the ranch fried chicken wings drizzled with buffalo hot sauce:
and the item we were both excited to try from one in a melon: the compressed watermelon and tomato with whipped ricotta and lemon olive oil. they take a chunk of watermelon and infuse it with red wine vinaigrette, and it made for a really nice flavor. changes the texture a bit, too, and the whipped ricotta is suuuuuper delicious.
we decided to head over into disneyland at that point, and after grabbing a bottle of water from pizza planet in tomorrowland i spied something interesting - a 10-minute standby line for space mountain. it must have been shut down and just reopened or something, and when that happens you have to go.
we were keeping an eye on the boarding groups being allowed into the rise of the resistance queue, and were pleasantly surprised to see that they were plowing right through those group numbers at a pretty good pace. it was somewhere around 1:00 when our window finally opened.
the line was actually quite long, and we figured that they must have changed their system to allow more groups to begin joining the queue and get through more group numbers. still, it wasn't a very long wait - maybe half an hour - and then we were there.
it really is such a great attraction. it's so much fun, and definitely worth the early morning. but now we've ridden it from both sides and so we decided that it'll be awhile before we head back with obtaining boarding passes being the primary goal. the special friend and the bean apparently don't seem to care one way or another, and so now whenever we hit up the 'land it'll just be for our usual laid-back, casual day of fun.
pretty fantastic day though, right? i mean...it started with meeting JOHN STAMOS. it was clearly destined to be a great day.
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