Weekend time, what are you going to do?!

I'm going to Disneyland! Not just the morning, or afternoon, but all day!

A good friend, Steve, and his wife Reyna were down in California at a wedding. I was convinced they came for E3, but I was wrong...it was a wedding and then an internal calling brought then to the happiest place on earth, Disneyland!

Steve and Reyna are Disneyland professionals! They have been so many times that they probably know the fast pass system better than the person who invented it. Because of this expert knowledge we covered a lot of ground during the day and had great seats for the show, Fantasmic, at night! With that in mind I had a few nostalgia missions that included Space Mountain, the Matterhorn, and Splash Mountain...but I left the direction up to the pros.

We started the day with a fast pass from Space Mountain! This is a great ride that is completely dark except for a few stars all around you. The stars don't provide enough light to show you which direction the track is going to twist, turn, or dive at next, but they sure make it feel like you are going faster than you really are. Mix that with the wind blowing in your ears and it is a screaming good time.

Next we hit the Indiana Jones ride, which was one of the coolest rides in my opinion. Essentially, there are thousands of combinations that the ride can take since there are many random decision points throughout the ride. These decisions include different directions that your car can go and Indy's speeches. Sweet ride with a great ending!

A couple other highlights were Pirates of the Caribbean, California Screaming, and Astro Blasters!

Pirates of the Caribbean got a nice update with the release of the new movies, but I miss the pirates chasing the ladies and their ale, but still a nice relaxing ride.

California Screaming was a new experience for me and this ride gives a cool twist on your traditional roller coaster. Instead of being pulled up to the top of an enormous height and being dropped, this coaster stops you about 100 yards from the first big hill. Then the speakers on the coaster by your ears countdown to launch! Once you launch you are pressed back into your seat only to get lifted out of it at the top of the first hill. Somewhere in the middle there is another great spot where the first car gets held over a nice big drop before the coaster lets go! Three letters for this ride...F-U-N.

One of my favorite rides at Disneyland was Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters! This is a cool interactive ride that gives you and a friend a ray gun to aim and shoot and different targets throughout the ride. Each target is worth a certain number of points, but if they are lit up they are worth even more. Then at the end the ride takes a picture of you and your friend in action, which you can email out once you are off the ride!

Watch out bad guys, these Space Rangers are good!

A day at Disney wouldn't be complete w/o dinner with fireworks in the air. They apparently have a fireworks show every night during the summer. We weren't to concerned with the fireworks because our last stop for the day was the show Fantasmic. This show has a mixture of live actors dressed as your favorite Disney characters and projections onto walls of water all over by Pirate Island. The show uses Mickey as our main character and his battles with some of Disney's most notorious villians create a great show.

Wow, this was a fun filled day, but how could it not have been? I was at the happiest place on earth with some good friends!