We did have a negative experience in the Haunted Mansion... I had seen it on the map and said, "Hey, cool... a haunted mansion." Becca was very excited to go in there, but then when a lady on the train ride described it as being pretty scary for young kids, we tried to dissuade Becca. We weren't that worried about Evee... she's more apt to laugh at being caught off guard, but we knew Becca could get pretty upset at loud noises or sudden jolts, especially in the dark. And sure enough, that's exactly what happened... (spoiler alert) At the beginning, everyone walks into a room, which then appears to be sinking, or the ceiling raising up (you're in an elevator, essentially), and then everything goes suddenly dark and there are loud thunder claps with lightning and everyone screams. Becca was definitely freaked out and was crying. We tried to console her best we could and explain how it was just a show. She calmed down a little, but then when we got into the car to go for the main part of the ride, she sat on my lap and when they lowered the bar it was really tight and it felt like Becca was being crushed. I was sucking in my gut best I could to give her room and yelled for them to lift it off of us, which they did. She was fine, thankfully, but it gave us a good opportunity to bail out of the ride and leave through the side exit. She was still upset for a few minutes once we got outside, but then she was fine. Evee said, "I wasn't scary of the ride." We think that meant she wanted to go on the rest of the ride... she was fine the whole time. But regardless, we thought it best to avoid that and go on the Winnie the Pooh ride next. The Heffalump/Woozle part was a little scary for me, but the girls did fine with that.
LeAnn and Catarina joined us later and we had dinner and went on some more rides, including the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. LeAnn talked Becca through the potentially scary parts of that, and she was okay for that one, though her impression of pirates is a little different now compared to her view of pirates like Captain Feathersword. That was my favorite ride when I went to Disneyworld as a kid, but of course they've updated it to include scenes from the recent films. I was impressed with the detail of the sets and the animatronics. I would have sworn it was really Johnny Depp in there... I wonder what they pay him to sit in there all day?
We ended up leaving at about 8 and said our goodbyes to LeAnn and Catarina. It was great to see them and we hope to be able to come back this way every year or so to hang out some more with them. I have to add a special thanks to Danny's mother, Diane, for getting us the passes. That was really great. We probably wouldn't have been able to go, otherwise, and it allowed us to get some nice souvenirs, including the cool mouse ears + tail hats that the girls are sporting in some of the pictures below.
We drove to the L.A. KOA, and I thought that my beloved GPS had failed me, because it brought us to a neighborhood that was definitely not a safe place to have a KOA. But it turned out that I had mistyped the address, so after some driving around to find an internet connection to check the right address, we got to the right place. We told the girls to go back to their bed and lay down, expecting to go back there in a few minutes to do the bedtime routine (story, song, prayer, hugs, etc.), but when I went back there they were both sound asleep and snoring pretty heavily. It was a long day, but a whole lot of fun.
Lots of pictures today. Here are a few... LeAnn took some others that I'll add later.
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