Pixar employees and guests were given passes to preview Cars Land at Disney California Adventure Park. Cars Land opens to the public on June 15.
Nelson, Nathan and I each got a badge lanyard souvenir.
Ticket to Cars Land
June 1st
On our way to Disneyland, Nathan was playing ‘boo’
Nathan eating banana
We got to Disneyland late at night. Since California Adventure Park closes at 10pm, we decided to go there for a while before heading to Sheraton Hotel. Electronica has been replaced with Mad ‘T’ Party at California Adventure Park. I still prefer Electronica.
After a long drive and since it was getting close to 10pm, we didn’t stay at the park long. We headed to Sheraton for our first night.
June 2nd
In the next morning, we checked into Disneyland Hotel. While waiting for Nelson to check-in, Nathan played around on the teacup chair.
Disneyland Hotel has three towers: Adventure, Fantasy and Frontier. Since we stayed at the Adventure tower last time, we decided to stay at the Frontier tower. The difference between the Adventure tower and Frontier tower is that we had a balcony at the Frontier tower.
My favorite thing in the room is the headboard where it lights up and plays a Disney music
We had lunch at the new place near our hotel called Tangaroa Terrace
Their food was actually good
The new pool at Disneyland Hotel is complete. So after lunch, we decided to go for a swim
Later in the day, we went inside California Adventure Park. At the park, we took Nathan at Redwood Creek. For some reason he was scared to go through the netted bridge
But he was brave to go through this small bridge
He liked going down the slide
We rode Toy Story Mania. His score is the one on the left.
Ghirardelli recently opened at California Adventure Park.
Our sundae sure doesn’t look the same as in the picture above.
June 3rd
In the early morning, Nelson got up before 6am to meet with two of his coworkers, Neftali and Edgar, to get a backstage tour of a few of rides such as the Pirates and Haunted Mansion before the park opens to the public. Nelson got to see how the rides work and learn about the history behind the rides. The person who gave them backstage tour works in the Imagineering dept for Disney.
Once Nelson came back to our hotel room, we went to the ticket exchange section to get our wristlets for Cars Land.
Afterwards, we went inside Disneyland Park to meet with another Pixar family for a character dining breakfast at Disneyland’s Plaza Inn. Nathan got to meet some Disney characters
Nathan playing with Kaya
Nathan dancing to the music. Funny how his accidentally dropped his milk on the floor. 🙂
Since the Cars Land preview wasn’t until 3pm, we hung out at Dsneyland for a while. Near It’s A Small World, we saw Merida who is the main character in the new Pixar movie Brave.
Around noon, we met with another Pixar family and got a special pass to ride Star Tours. We didn’t have to stand in line. A Disney employee guided us into the Star Tours ride and allowed us to ride it twice. When riding Star Tours, the riders experience different adventures. Since I was able to ride it twice in a row, I got to see two different adventures that I never seen before.
Before heading to the Cars Land Preview, we decided to go back to the Disneyland Hotel so Nathan can take a nap.
Since Cars Land isn’t open to the public yet, it took us a while to find the entrance. The entrance didn’t have a big sign like ‘Cars Land, enter here!’ So we kept walking around and around and saw these Disney employees standing next to a big door. Since we saw some people going in, we thought that perhaps that is the entrance to Cars Land. When we approached the Disney park employees, they asked us for our wristlet. Once we showed our wristlet, they opened the door for us and we walked into Cars Land!
Unfortunately, we couldn’t take pictures and videos in Cars Land since it isn’t officially open to the public yet. But we got to ride all the three rides in Cars Land: Luigis Flying Tires, Radiator Springs Racers and the Mater tracter ride. The Radiator Springs Racers ride was the most popular ride. The regular line for Racers was too long so Nelson and I took turns looking after Nathan and went through the single rider line. The single rider line was really quick. Nathan isn’t tall enough yet to ride the Racers. Nelson, Nathan and I enjoyed riding Mater’s tractor. We rode it like about 3 times.
When nighttime came, the neon lights in Cars Land turned on. I like Cars Land at night more because of the neon lights. It really felt like I was in the movie. Here is a video clip of the neon lights. I didn’t feel like leaving Cars Land. It was supposed to close at 9pm, but since there were still some other Disney/Pixar families in the park, we didn’t leave the park until 9:30pm.
Even though pictures were not allowed at Cars Land yet, there were Disney photographers taking pictures for guests. But we can’t download the pictures online yet until June 15 which is the day when Cars Land opens. Pixar’s own photographer was there too. We had her take a picture of us.
For lunch, we ate at Flo’s V8 Cafe in Cars Land. I had sirloin with mash potatoes. It was pretty good.
June 4th
We checked out of Disneyland Hotel and hung out at Downtown Disney for a bit. At the World of Disney store, we bought Nathan a Dumbo pillow.
Before driving back home, we went to Company D and I bought little toys for Nathan.
While driving home, we encountered a dust storm on I-5. We have been on I-5 many times but never experienced a dust storm. On way home, we also encountered rain and strong winds!
