All the Ballparks Road Trip 2009 Day 5: Disneyland for My Dad's 50th Birthday

Yesterday, May 24, 2009, was my Dad's 50th birthday and Day 5 of our All the Ballpraks Road Trip 2009 (www.alltheballparks.com).  Because of the get in free on your birthday promotion, I made sure we made our Disneyland visit on his birthday to save us $69 (still spent $25 on his ticket, as we upgraded to Park Hoppers, but a good amount of savings considering we still have about 70 more days of road trip to go).  My brother was happy for this day and he says it is the only good day all summer, as he really is not into the whole road trip thing even though he does like baseball.

Below is my dad posing with the Happy Birthday ticket before we turned it in for a Park Hopper.  The ticket is only good for one park and when you turn it in you get a plain old Park Hopper pass.  They were nice enough to let us take a moment and take his photo with the ticket, though.

After getting breakfast at the bakery on Main Street the first ride we went on was the Jungle Cruise.  This was the first time we have ridden it when the wheelchair loading part was working and my brother enjoyed being able to stay in his chair and better enjoy the attraction.

After Star Tours and getting Buzz Lightyear Astro Blaster fast passes we headed over to California Adventure to wait in line to get in and then get on Toy Story Mania quick.  On the way to Toy Story Mania I took a quick photo of the Sun Wheel redone to be Mickey's Fun Wheel.

Below is my dad riding Toy Story Mania.  It is one of my favorite rides, but the line is often long and with there only being one wheelchair vehicle we have often gotten to the front of the line having waited in line 40 minutes to then have to wait 20 minutes for our turn using the wheelchair vehicle.  First thing in the morning, though, we had barely any wait in line and no wait for the wheelchair vehicle.

My brother and I on Mickey's Fun Wheel, which we went on right after Toy Story Mania.

After going back over to Disneyland to ride Buzz Lightyear and having lunch in Toontown we headed back over to California Adventure to use our Soarin' Over California fast passes.  We then went to the Blue Sky Cellar to see the plans for future things at California Adventure.  In there my brother enjoyed playing the Disney trivia.

Next we headed to Bug's Land.  Below is one of the bug statues in the area.

Below is one of the more hidden bug statues in Bugs Land.

Below is my dad and brother on Heimlich's Chew Chew Train.  My brother's expression is related to my dad doing one of the back stretches we are supposed to be doing daily as he also was turning his head around to take the photo.

As we headed back towards Toy Story Mania to ride a second time I stopped and got a grape vanilla swirl ice cream at Catch a Flav.  It was okay, but the grape flavor was extremely subtle and more like it was just purple coloring on the ice cream.

Back over in Disneyland we hit up the last few rides we wanted to do (Matterhorn, Tea Cups, and Dumbo).  Below is my brother having trouble sitting up as I spin us in the tea cup.

Before we left Disneyland I had Dad pose trying to pull out the Sword in the Stone.

My brother loves Wetzel Pretzel hot dogs, so we stopped and got him one before we left to go back to the hotel.

May seem odd, but the day at Disneyland was a nice and relaxing one, as we just went slow and did the minimal things we love to do and even got back to the hotel befoe 8pm.  Below is a photo of the 2009 Disneyland baseball I got as a souvenir to add to my baseball collection.