We woke up to streets wet with rain. The forecast said it would be sunny and warmer than Wednesday. Well, it was warmer, but definitely not sunny. Fortunately, we had planned for it to be rainy the entire time, so we had umbrellas, raincoats and even a pair of boots. Since there was also a rather brisk wind at times, we decided to visit Walt Disney Studios as most of the attractions were of the sit-down-in-a-nice-warm-theater variety. Also, the rain kept the crowds down and we had another day of almost no waiting in line for any rides.
We first went to the Art of Disney Animation building. We walked into a large room where there were lots of hands-on displays showing the history of the development of animation. There was a little movie with Roy Disney, Jr that brought back memories of me and Dad watching "America the Beautiful" in that stand up theater with the rails you could lean on for support. I loved that thing. Mostly I loved being with my Dad while we watched that movie. But I also liked how your stomach did flips like you were really going up in the hot air balloon as well.
There were two actual sit down theaters inside where we watched two very different shows. One was a montage of lots of clips from different Disney animated movies. They showed the whole range of emotions, and how well animation could convey and also make us feel very different emotions quite deeply. Of course, they showed poor little Bambi crying for his mother in that pitiful little voice. Some of the clips were in French, some were in English, some were in German, some were in languages I couldn't tell what they were, probably Italian. Then we all got up and trooped next door to the second theater. There we watched a cute little interaction between a live actor on a stage, Mushu the dragon from Mulan on a screem, and some of the people who created him on a second screen. The show was in French, but there were headphones where you could choose another language. Unfortunately, the volume was turned up so loudly on the French, it was a bit difficult to hear the English, but we managed okay. Our kids never complained, or seemed to think it was odd that everything was in French, with a bit of English here and there. They are used to everything outside the home being in a language other than English, so it didn't faze them a bit, that it was the case at Disneyland as well.
When we got out of the theater, the rain had lessened a bit, so we went to the ride Noah had been most anticipating, Cars Race Rally. The line was a bit long, but not bad, about 20 minutes. We were really blessed the entire trip with short rides, and have decided that we will go at this time of year from now on. Noah was so excited to ride in Lightning McQueen, he even wore his Lightning McQueen underwear that day. Oh the utter disappointment when we got close enough to the ride to see that Lightning McQueen and Mater were mere decorations and that the ride was three nameless cars, not even from the movie. Someone dropped the designing ball on that one. :( But the cars did spin around in a rather fun, queer feeling in your tummy kind of way, but not so much that you wanted to toss your cookies afterwards like on the Teacups. Again, Nick, Lexi, and Papa sat this one out. It had started to rain more as the ride came to an end, so we headed over to another theater til it cleared up a bit.
Animagique was probably the coolest thing we saw at the parks. Nick and I got a kick out of hearing the differences in translation for the announcements made before the show. Of course, we didn't understand any of the French, but the English and German said two totally different things! I think because the two cultures have such unique attitudes about public behavior in general, they had to warn them differently. Basically, they were trying to tell you not to take any flash pictures during the show. In English, they told us it was because it could temporarily blind the performers, causing them to stop the show, and making everyone in the audience mad at you. In German, we were told it was because it could bother other members of the audience whose eyes were adjusted to the darkened theater. Catch the subtle dig that Americans don't care about others, rather what others think of them? The highlight of the show was when bubbles came shooting out of the ceiling and fish and squids starting "swimming" above us in the air. Mickey spoke only in French, Donald Duck only in English, and it was surprisingly easy to follow the story that way.
We finally got Nick and Chris to go on a ride next. Flying Carpets over Agrabah. Lexi and I watched and took pictures from a platform built over the ride just for that purpose. It was enough like Dumbo that they finally stopped asking to go on it again. (That had the longest wait of any ride we went on, 30 minutes, which was an eternity for our kids and something I was happy to not have to endure again.) Sophie got to control if they went up or down, since Sarah got to control it on Dumbo.
We wanted to leave the park a bit early so that the kids could get a decent nights sleep. We didn't arrive until noon because they were so tired from the day before, and we really wanted to enjoy the last day with no sleep-deprivation impeding our fun. But there was just time to go on one last ride, the Studio Tram Tour. This was a fun ride where we got to see parts of old movie sets, and experienced an "earthquake". Sarah was very frightened that the tram was breaking as it shook all over the place, but I kept reassuring her that it was supposed to happen. There was fire as well, but that was real. We could feel its warmth from several feet away. It felt good, though, my toes were cold! Then a flood of water came to extinguish the fire, and Sophie ended up getting splashed a bit, but as it had been raining all day, that wasn't anything new, and she didn't mind. The tour guides spoke in French and English, so we were able to understand it all.
Just before the exit we were able to measure the strength of our screams with a cute little display for Monsters Inc. Sarah and Nick were able to scream so loud, even the passersby were startled. As we walked by Tower of Terror, they made sure to tell me that they were never ever going to go on that ride in their whole life. Listening to the horrified screams of everyone who was on it was enough of a warning for them. I told them to give it a few years and they may just change their minds.
Unfortunately, a woman who had to run to the atm to pay for her month's worth of groceries and a super slow checker combined to make our dream of getting the kids to bed impossible. We were trying to run in and just buy some stuff for sandwiches for dinner and snacks for the next day, but it ended up taking longer to do that than go on Dumbo! Papa bought us all ice cream at Ben and Jerry's, though and we happily munched on those on the walk back to our hotel room. Amazing how a scoop of New York Super Fudge Chunk can change your mood so abruptly. Lexi managed to sneak a bite as well. Fortunately I noticed the piece of walnut in her mouth before she fell asleep and choked on it. She literally grabbed the cone from my hand and forced it to her mouth before I could even react. She also had a few tastes of yogurt on this trip, and loved every single one.