Disneyland Day 2: evening (June 28, 2025)
We headed back into the park for a 4:30 dinner reservation at Blue Bayou. I was really excited to get a reservation here because I’m a sucker for ambiance. On our last trip to Epcot, we ate at San Angel Inn, and it was so much fun to watch the boats go by. To have the chance to do that with Pirates of the Caribbean - could it get any better?! We did have to wait a bit for a table but the wait paid off! They took us to a table right down by the water. At dinner, we chatted a lot about what a lucky family we are to have these experiences. My kids and I decided to get prime rib. I liked it but thought it had a little too much salt; my boys devoured theirs. My husband had the filet mignon and said it was the best thing he had eaten on vacation.
After dinner, my kids really wanted to explore the Adventureland Treehouse, so we climbed through. We loved looking at all of the details and picking out our favorite room. Then, we took another ride on the Haunted Mansion with a lightning lane. As we were exiting, my husband realized that he didn’t have his backpack. He ran back down the exit to get it but then it occurred to him that he left it at Blue Bayou. Luckily, the restaurant had it and we were back in action. We re-rode BTMM with a lightning lane.
At this point, we decided that we needed to head down Main Street. Goofy was the last member of the Fab Five that my boys had not yet met. He was scheduled to come out at 7:00pm and 8:00pm, so we only had two changes before the end of our trip! We got to Main Street and asked a cast member where to look for him, and they pointed us to a door next to the Mad Hatter. We watched Minnie and Mickey come out. But no Goofy. I asked another cast member who seemed to be a supervisor, and she said that, unfortunately, Goofy was running late because he was helping Max with some homework. She said that he’d definitely be out at 8:00 and suggested we come back a few minutes early and wait near the door.
So, now we had an hour to kill. We had a lightning lane for Space Mountain so went there first. Our third ride was just as much fun as the first two! At this point, it was a bit after 7:30, and we didn’t want to commit to another ride because we didn’t want to miss our last chance to see Goofy. We thought we’d take the train back to Main Street and ran into Stitch’s dance party along the way. My older son was not into dancing. My younger son wasn’t either but really wanted to meet Stitch. He did his best attempt to get close, but he never really got in there. In his mind, he danced with Stitch so we’ll take it! (In reality, he danced in proximity while Stitch engaged with other kids. As long as he was happy!) Then, ironically, the woman who seemed like a supervisor sort of cast member appeared from a building with Goofy and Pluto in some sort of space suits. They were waving and dancing but did not seem like they were going to be signing autographs. And my kids needed autographs!
It was around 7:45, and we needed to hustle back to Main Street to meet Goofy where he could sign an autograph. My husband’s feet were sore, so we planned to split up. I would walk with the kids back down Main Street. He would take the train to New Orleans Square and meet us at Pirates of the Caribbean so that we could ride it one more time. Once down Main Street, the boys and I waited patiently by the door. At this point, people were seated all along the curbs for Paint the Night. A cast member came out the door, and I explained that we were waiting for Goofy. When Goofy finally came out - Mickey was with him! The cast member told us to follow them as they escorted Goofy and Mickey to Town Square directly in front of the train station. In the meantime, everyone waiting along the curb took notice and began to send their kids out to meet Goofy and Mickey. Luckily, the cast member made sure that we were at the front of the line. So, for their last character meetings of the trip, my guys got to meet both Goofy and Mickey right in Town Square! My younger son told Goofy, “I’ve been waiting the whole trip to meet you!”
We walked up to the train station to try to catch the train from Main Street to New Orleans Square and save ourselves a couple of steps on the way to Pirates. I heard from my husband that a train had come through the Tomorrowland station but was too full for him to get on, so he needed to wait for the next one but had been waiting awhile. When we got up to the Main Street station, the line was out the door. A woman in line told me that a cast member had said that another train would be by in a few minutes. I have no pulse on this at Disneyland but, given what my husband said and the length of line, had my doubts. So, we decided to walk to Pirates and hoped my husband would meet us there (do you sense any foreshadowing?)
At Pirates, the wait said 20 minutes but looked like it wasn’t too bad (again - thanks Fresh Baked for teaching me how to look at a line and decide), so we hopped in without my husband, who told us that he was still waiting at the Tomorrowland station and to go on without him. We were on in about 10 minutes and took our final ride on the best ride at Disneyland.
When we came off the ride, I saw a text from my husband that he waited for 20 minutes and another train had never come. He also got no indication from cast members that there was a problem. Once we got on Pirates without him, he bailed (not before having a nice chat with a California couple who used to live in our home state) and decided to meet us in Fantasyland, where we planned to do a few nighttime rides. At this point, the plan sort of unraveled because Fantasmic crowds were out in full force in Adventureland and the area around the castle was closed in anticipation of fireworks. My husband was sitting and waiting for us at a table in front of Enchanted Rose, but I couldn’t figure out the quickest way to get there. I tried a “shortcut” through Rancho del Zocaolo that I had found on our first day, but the courtyard was all roped off (I did get a great picture of my kids in this beautiful empty courtyard near the Royal Theater). I consulted a cast member, who said our best bet was to go through Frontierland. So, we headed back into the fray and around and finally did find my husband.
At this point, he and my older son were getting really tired. My youngest really wanted to ride Dumbo, and we hadn’t ridden Casey Jr. We made a plan to ride these as a family but then decided that we would split up. My husband and older son would head back to the hotel, and my younger son and I would stay at the park until we had enough. So we rode Casey Jr and got to sit in one of those cage cars, to my kids’ delight. We then got in line for Dumbo that promised a 15 minute wait but didn’t seem to be moving too quickly. My youngest really wanted to ride, so we planned to stick it out. However, the fireworks started while we were in line, and the ride shut down (I had read that some Fantasyland rides did during fireworks but did not realize Dumbo was one of them).
At this point, my husband and oldest were feeling exhausted so we bailed so that they could head back to the hotel. I kept pointing out the fireworks as we headed towards Tomorrowland, but no one was interested. My husband and oldest were just determined to get back before the fireworks ended and the crowd was on the move. My youngest was determined to make it to the Finding Nemo submarines, where there was a posted 5 minute wait. I shouldn’t have been surprised. My kids just aren’t into the nighttime stuff. So, off we all went with barely a look back (although there was a decent view of a bit of it from the entrance to Finding Nemo).
My younger son was so excited to have some one-on-one time, and I let him lead our adventure. At this point, it was around 9:30ish. He was very excited about the Finding Nemo submarines and really liked them. We were the last ones in, and I was glad to be sitting on an end. The ride itself lasted longer than I thought and was a bit more interesting than I expected. It was incredibly slow loading, so I was happy we did this in the evening and were able to walk right onto a submarine because, even with one leaving immediately, it took awhile.
Then, we saw that Autopia had a 5 minute wait, so we decided to do this next. I was originally going to just jump in line, but I noticed that they were only running 2 lanes and the line looked slow-moving. I figured I’d book a lightning lane and was glad I did. The wait was actually over 15 minutes because a car died in one of the lanes, and they had to shut down the whole track while they pushed it off. But it was a beautiful night, and my little guy was just so, so happy to be out late and getting to call the shots.
The last thing he wanted to do in Tomorrowland was Star Tours. We had ridden this a bunch at Hollywood Studios, so it wasn’t a priority in my original itinerary. I booked a lightning lane but didn’t need it. It was a total walk-on.
At this point, it was a bit after 11:00 (Autopia and Finding Nemo subs really ate up a lot of time). My kiddo really, really wanted to get dessert from Tropical Hideaway. I had mistakenly mentioned this to him before our trip when he was so bummed out about the Tiki Room being closed, and he did not forget. I placed a mobile order for they last window of the night. He also wanted to ride Dumbo and maybe Pinocchio and, if we had enough time, Snow White. I wasn’t sure if I could make it from Tomorrowland to Fantasyland for three rides and then Tropical Hideaway before closing, but we decided to give it a try!
We started with Dumbo, which had about a 10 minute wait. He was happy to get the elephant he wanted! We named her and happily flew over beautiful Fantasyland. Now, it was 11:30. It was getting close. We hopped in line for Pinocchio which was the most walk-on of walk-ons (I don’t even know if anyone was in front of us). Then, we rolled the dice and got into the (very short) line at Snow White and pretty much walked onto that too. Fantasyland success! And we realized that we ended our Disneyland trip with the very ride that we started on on our first day. We’d come full circle!
Then, we hustled off to Tropical Hideaway to pick up our special treats! (I also was feeling confident in our timing at this point, and we stopped to do the castle walkthrough; it was on my list but something that only I was interested in - my kiddo indulged me and we had fun looking at all of the little scenes and then walking out and through the castle all lit up).
Tropical Hideaway was a truly magical way to end our trip. We were one of the last parties there and sat at a table far from any other people overlooking the Jungle Cruise as the final boats were coming in. The tiki torches were going, the lighting was beautiful, and my kid was just so happy to have a special treat (don’t worry, my husband also got a treat for my big guy on their way back to the Park Vue). We also discovered that there is a tiki bird on this patio, and he had a great view of it! Because the Tiki Room is both of our favorites, this was a special place to end our trip for the two of us.
As a bonus, as we were leaving the park, we stopped in the courtyard outside the Tiki Room to “say goodbye” to the tikis. When we had our first Disneyland day, there were construction walls surrounding the tiki room. Earlier on this second day, we had discovered that the construction walls had come down (we had hoped that Tiki Room was doing a sort of soft opening, but it was still closed). But! we were so happy to see this cute little courtyard. I have now seen that all of these tikis and the tree are anamatronic. These were not turned on while we were there, but my son didn’t realize what he was missing and was just happy to be able to see them at all.
We also stopped on Main Street to find the half-red, half-white light bulb at Refreshment Corner. My son spotted it and was so excited! Around 12:15, we headed out to the esplanade. My kiddo wanted one final picture. There was a 70th anniversary decoration in the middle that, the first time he saw it, made him laugh hysterically. He had nicknamed it “underpants castle” and greeted it every time we passed by on our way into and out of a park (once he said it, I just couldn’t unsee it). So, I took his picture in front of “underpants castle”, and we headed back to the hotel!
Total rides: 10 as a family (Older son: 12, Younger son: 18, me: 17)
Total characters: 19 (plus seeing Stitch and Pluto at the dance parties in Tomorrowland)
) We made one final stop in the store at the end of Mission Breakout because my kids had some important souvenir shopping to do. My older son picked out a Groot action figure, and my younger son bought the Starlord mask that he had been coveting since the first time we walked through the gift shop.
Or if nothing else, just focus on all the awesome memories we make.
