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April 27, 2012

Day 71, 27th October 2011. Disneyland & Disney's California Adventure, Anaheim.

We were up at 7.45am this morning to get ready for our engagement photoshoot. Normally I am always for staying in bed until the last minute that you have to get up, but this morning I had to make sure we looked extra beautiful because we were going to be captured on camera. I had finally decided on wearing jeans, and a cute white top that I had bought from American Eagle a few weeks ago. Those of you that know me well, will know the fuss I made about the dress I bought especially for the photos. Well I'd worn that for the wedding, and felt like going for a more casual look. Also, it was way too big because I'd lost so much weight on the trip, at the wedding Kirsty had to pin and clip me in to it, and there was no way Gary was going to be able to do that, plus I wanted to be comfortable and I would have kept having to re-adjust it.

This brings me to my next point, lets address the elephant in the room (the elephant on the blog?!?).... yes we were having engagement photos done and we were already married. We decided ahead of time not to say anything to the photographer, but decided to keep our rings on because they wouldn't be that noticeable.
Also, unless I know you from some sort of Disney Bride/Wedding reason, you are probably thinking, 'what the hell are they having photos taken for?'. Well lots of Disney brides do this kind of thing, and it seems to be the norm in the USA to have engagement photos taken. So thats why.

So we were all ready to leave by 8.45am, and I was still questioning my outfit choice as we were leaving, I wasn't 100% happy with it but I wasn't really 100% happy with any of my options. Looking back on it now, I definitely made the right decision and I'm glad I wore what I did. We were at the park just after opening.

Halloween decorations at the park entrance



As soon as we arrived in the park, we went to put all our stuff in a locker so that we weren't lugging it around when we were having the photos taken. Once we had done that we waited right at the front of the park for our photographer, Reuben. Reuben worked for Beverly Hilly Photography, who we had booked the shoot with. I had looked at a lot of photographers beforehand, but we ended up going with them because of 2 reasons. One was that they had a really great price, and the second was that they were preferred by Disneyland to shoot weddings. This was better for us because it meant that we didn't have to pay for their park admission and they also knew the parks really well.

Reuben started taking photos of us straight away, and over the next 2 hours took 569 photos. So of course I haven't shared them all here haha. Gary was not comfortable having his photo taken at all and kept telling me in between takes that he hated me LOL. We started with photos on Main Street.








We got quite a lot of attention from other guests, and cast members, who must have been used to this kind of thing and kept saying to us 'Congratulations on your engagement' which was so awkward. A few days ago we had been walking around with our 'Just Married' badges getting wedding congratulations from people!



Then we had castle pics. Unfortunatley I'm not in love with any of our castle photos, I think I look weird in all of them.



Awkward lifting pose haha, Reuben made us do it.


We felt like idiots doing this jumping, but it actually came out really cool





Reuben was really nice and chatty with us, and tried to make Gary feel more at ease having his photos taken. He chatted with him about football and stuff.





Gary hates this photo, because his bum looks really big haha


It was nice and quiet in the park so we did some ride photos on the Carousel.






And we got to do Teacup photos which is what I wanted most




















Just to add, the week we were there It's a Small World was closed, I was so sad about that, but at least we got some photos by it.


Toontown photos







Gary was not impressed when Reuben asked him to jump over me in this photo, but I think it came out cute.



Then we did some shootin'









Then Reuben got Gary to pretend he was proposing to me, LOL


I LOVE this one.. looks like we are somewhere really exotic



And this one I love too...




This next photo is what Gary calls his 'signature photo'. Gary hated having these photos taken, and hates photos of him in general. The second he saw this photo he changed his mind because he looks so good in it. I've never know him to be happy with a photo in his entire life, but he loves this one. It's a shame I look like such a weirdo in it with my eyes half shut and my hair all weird.




The back down to the park entrance at the end of the shoot.





Well, sorry for the photo overload, but I totally love all our photos. Reuben did a great job, we gave him a big tip at the time, but he deserved an even bigger one after seeing the photos. We didn't get to see them for about another 3 weeks, but we were so happy with them. He was a really lovely guy and knew the parks well. Beverly Hills Photography were so great to work with and I would recommend them to anyone.

We collected our stuff from the lockers, and it was getting really hot, so we went back to the hotel to change before heading back over to Disney to finally visit California Adventure.



It was so exciting going into a park that I had never been to before and had no idea what it was like. Of course I knew what was there from all my internet research, but you never really know what it's going to be like until you are there. First stop was Soarin'. Well in DCA they call it Soarin' over California, even though it's the exact same ride Soarin' in Epcot.





I've always loved Soarin', but it was even more cool than usual this time because we had been to so many places that we were soaring over. The Golden Gate Bridge bit and the Yosemite bit made me feel all emotional because they were some of my favorite places that we had visited on the trip and it felt so good to be able to go on the ride and say we had been to those places in real life. I got so excited and kept saying to Gary 'OMGGGGG we've been there' constantly. Nobody is ever going to want to ride Soarin' with me ever again because I will always say it.


Next we went on the Grizzly River Run, which was a walk on, it was good, we enjoyed it and we didn't get too wet.





Then it was time for Ariel's Undersea Adventures. I was SO excited about this, I know it's hardly a thrilling ride, but Ariel is my favorite, and me and my mum have been saying for years that they should make a Little Mermaid themed ride, so from the moment they announced that it was opening I have been looking forward to it.







It did not disappoint, it was really good. Totally a Disney magic ride. We then went on all the other Paradise Pier rides. There is a spinning rocket thing that I don't know the name of, the Silly Symphony swings, and California Screamin,. We didn't go on Toy Story Mania because we were going to go on that at opening time tomorrow. We loved California Screamin' a lot, it was a really good roller coaster, it even impressed Gary, which is hard to do.




I really love these swing rides for some reason, so the fact that it was Disney Silly Symphony themed made this a very fun ride for me. Gary of course doesn't seem to enjoy any ride that isn't a thrill ride.





Next, we walked over to the other side of the park, passing the bit where they are building the Cars land on the way. I love that they call it 'Ornament Valley' like Monument Valley, haha, things like that amuse me.


A Bug's land, the theming here was so cute! It's all kids rides apart from It's tough to be a bug, but it was the cutest area of the park, I love the way it was all put together.



Obligatory Bug Eyes picture. LOL at Gary's face.


Beauty and the Bees. It's all the little details that they put into the parks, like this, that make them so special I think. The attention to detail is another thing that puts Disney above all other theme parks.



The Hollywood Tower Hotel lurking in the distance...


Look at these cute lights, I actually would have these in my home if I could!



Tower of Terror time!


The layout of this ToT was exactly the same as the Paris version, apart from the fact that it was all in English. Every time we go on ToT in Paris we hope that we will get the english version, and we never do. We only got it once and it was the very first time we went on it, quite soon after it opened. I feel like they never do the english version in Paris any more which makes me sad. 



After Tower of Terror, we went back to the hotel and laid around the pool for a while because the weather was getting really hot (finally). There were 2 pools at the hotel, the normal swimming pool was surrounded by buildings so there was no sun. So we laid around the kids pool because there was a lot more sun there. I got annoyed though because there were so many children and they kept squirting water at us. HAHA maybe we shouldn't have laid there is we didn't want to be annoyed by kids.

At about 5.30pm when the sun started to go in, we went back up to the room to shower and get ready to go out for dinner. We walked down to the Anaheim Gardenwalk, and we were finally going to be able to go to the Cheesecake Factory.





The food was so good!!! Like the best food we have ever eaten, ever. I had some fish, with sweet potato fries, and Gary had a steak. It was totally the best meal we had ever tasted. It was expensive, but worth it 100%. We had to have a dessert of course, as it was the Cheesecake Factory. Gary had a strawberry cheesecake and I had a red velvet cheesecake. They were also amazing.



After our lovely meal, we were so full that we didn't really want to do anything else, so we just went back to the room and fell asleep. The past 10 weeks of being tired were catching up on us and all we wanted to do was sleep. 


1 comment:

  1. You're photos came out great! I love that you got all the best out of DL in the parks! Reuben shot my friends DL wedding and did a great job so I'm glad you had a great time with him too. Gary looked terrific. I don't know what he's talking about. He reminds me of a young Steve McQueen in some of the shots. I'm not sure if he was famous in the UK, but he was a famous movie star here in the 60s\70s so you can tell Gary I thought he looked like a movie star in these pictures! ;)

    I'm glad you got to try Cheesecake Factory! I love it. I've had every dessert on their menu so yeah I like it there! lol

    P.S. It's become quite common now for couples to do "Just Married" sessions and "Anniversary" sessions in the parks, so in a way, it's like you guys set the trend! ;)

    P.S.S. The flying rocket was the Zephyr. I'm glad you enjoyed all of DCA - even the kiddie rides.

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