It was a dark and stormy afternoon, this past Tuesday, as we headed out to the “Happiest Place on Earth” for their special Halloween celebration. When I woke up Tuesday morning it was raining, not just raining, but pouring! The kind of pouring that Texans call, ” a cow pissin’ on a flat rock” pouring. I live in Southern California, the only worry we have in October are wildfires, not rain, thunder, lightning and hail.
With the weather the way it was and the forecast showing it only gettng worse, I called Disney to see if we could get a rain check since I had purchased these tickets for the family in advance for this particular day. They nearly laughed me off the phone and pretty much told me that I could buy a poncho from one of the many gift shops and to pretty much suck it up. So we packed up the kids and headed to the Happiest Place on Earth.
When we got there, we loaded the kids up in the double stroller and put their rain coats on. We headed out of the parking structure, which is conveniently located about a mile from the park entrance. You can take a tram from the parking structure, but that would mean we would have to break down the stroller and all its contents (I tend to over pack when on outings so my stroller usually looks like a yak or sherpa heading to base camp of Everest). 
It was only a light drizzle so we decided to “go for it”. About three minutes into the walk, the heavens open up and we get soaked. It is raining cats and dogs!
I have PD1 holding a unbrella and trying to referee her from stabbing her sister in the eye with the umbrella spokes that is sitting behind her. While trying to do that, I am not paying attention to where I am going and walk through puddles that could support a school of fish.
We finally get to the gates, I am soaked, the hubs is soaked, but the kids are fairly comfortable and dry. As we enter through the security portion of the entrance the Disney staff, must have taken pity on my “drowned rat cat” appearance and did not force the issue.
As we head in there are a million people there! How could this be? It is pouring! Are there this many people as cheap and dumb as me to insisting on going to Disneyland in the rain? Everyone is wearing those infamous ponchos that the customer service rep told me about. I refused to not get one out of principal, which the only person it hurt was me, my rain jacket lost it luster of holding back the rain about an hour into the adventure.
While navigating through the park and you combine strollers, rain, people in ponchos and people texting, you are in the making of a huge disaster of pending foot, leg, hip, arm, back , neck and most of all butt injuries. The butt injuries are the most common because when someone is stupid enough to be pushing a stroller in the rain, while wearing a poncho that they can’t see in, and trying to text or twitter about how much fun they are NOT having at Disneyland, and they run over you, well lets just say the phone finds a new home.
Finally it is time for some rides! We unload the kids and head to Dumbo! The line is pleasantly short and we head into the loading section. As I am stepping into the pink elephant, I am welcomed with an ice cold drench to the feet. The friggin’ bottom of the ride if full of water! Oh great! Just great! Well, that explains why that ride had a short line. Shortly after my feet get drenched, they rid the water from each bottom.
After Dumbo we take refuge in the Merrry-Go- Round until the rain lets up. It is now dark and we head to Small World to only find that it is closed. Drat! However, there is a long line and at Disneyland long lines usually means something fun and exciting. I ask a random middle-aged guy standing in line with his family what the line was for, he said, “Candy!” Candy? I was puzzled. I know that during this event Disneyland has stations set up for the kids to go and grab a handful of candy from, but this line was something deserving of meeting Mr. Wonka himself.
I pressed the guy a bit further to the details of the “candy” and he said, “It is just candy!” I could not help but laugh out loud and say, “Seriously, you are waiting in an hour long line, in the rain, for plain Hershey bars?” He said, “Yes, it is all about the experience, plus they give you a lot of candy for the wait!” I replied back in my soaken, sassy tone, ” Well, if it is a lot of candy you are looking for, that is what Costco is for!” He was not amused.
I kept looking back at the line and it just kept getting longer and longer. The hubs kept saying that we may be missing something so I again asked a staff member and they verified it was just the candy line. Those people were insane! They had small children, standing in the rain getting soaked for a few measly candy bars! The hubs and I both agreed that we would rather have hemroid surgery than be that stupid.
The evening was full of misfits and odd ordeals. We managed to NOT stay dry, but we kept our humor and mockery of all the idiots we saw. We must have rode the Merry-Go-Round and Dumbo a million times and we did manage to traumatized PD1 on two of the rides, which I will address in part two of this series.
The moral of this story is don’t go to Disneyland ever while it is raining, even if you already have paid for your tickets in advance. You will only be surrounded by stupid, wet and insane people. The smart, dry and sane people stayed home and watched Toy Story and ate candy from Costco.
A Piece of the Pie Hole 