Star Tours was the very first ride we took Ane on in Disneyland.  She LOVED it.  And after all I’ve done to ensure that she grows up as a dedicated Star Wars fan, how could she not love it?

Because of the immense marketing campaign linked to the Prequel Trilogy, Disneyland has quite a bit of Star Wars paraphenalia at the Star Trader store in Tomorrowland - including costumes, toys, and lightsabers (you can either buy a “plain” one, which our kids already own, a light-up one, or you can actually create your own by choosing a hilt, getting a clear blade, and then choosing a colored light and then assembling it).  But the crowning experience of the whole thing is the Jedi Training Academy at Tomorrowland Terrace.

The Jedi Master on stage picks about twenty to twenty-five kids from the audience to become Padawan learners, and they try to pick kids between ages four and twelve (sorry, Oddball, you are way too old) to participate.  Each child is given a Jedi robe and a practice lightsaber, is run through a basic defensive drill, and then Darth Vader shows up (along with a couple of stormtroopers and Darth Maul).  The Padawannabes (ha ha) are then divided into two lines - one line takes on Darth Vader on stage, and the other line fights Darth Maul on the ground floor.

Ane watched the show at first, uncertain if she wanted to be in it.  She quickly changed her mind when she saw other kids getting lightsabers and robes, but, by then, all the kids needed had been picked.  The Webmaster and I decided that she needed to see the whole show first, to let her see what she would have to do (and avoid a panic attack as one child had during the first show when he faced Vader - poor little guy just crumpled into tears, at which point everyone in the audience cracked up).  After seeing the whole show, Ane was convinced.  She wanted to be a Jedi Padawan.

So, Tad went to hang out in the air-conditioned arcade with Nana and Papa, while the Webmaster and I took Ane to the very next show to try and get picked.

She was the second-to-last kid to be chosen.  *whew*  It was the Fourth of July, it was hot, and Disneyland was packed.  I did NOT want to have to hang around Tomorrowland all day to get her into the show.

Ane was thrilled, and took her Padawan-in-training status quite seriously:

And when the time came, I was desperately hoping that she would get in the Vader line (though she does know quite well who Darth Maul is, there is a real coolness factor in getting to cross blades with Darth Vader).  She did.  Apparently, she still looked a little too nervous for the Jedi assistants, who really do try and avoid breakdowns on stage like we had seen earlier.  I was too far away with the digital camera, but the Webmaster (who had the video camera and taped the show) could hear one of the cast members asking Ane if she was scared.

“My mommy told me not to be scared,” she told the guy.

And she wasn’t.

She was the last kid in the show to fight Darth Vader.

After Darth Vader and Darth Maul have faced all the kids, they try to lure them to the dark side.  The kids, aided by Yoda’s voice and the Jedi Knights, refuse, and the Sith Lords leave, along with the stormtroopers.  The kids then line up, and are declared by Yoda’s voice and the Jedi Master to have acheived the rank of Padawan.

As each child turns in their robe and lightsaber, they are presented with a fill-in-the-blank diploma, stating that they are qualified to be Jedi Padawans.  I flattened Ane’s out carefully and got it home without a crease.  We’ll have to frame it.

Along with the Princess dinner and Fantasmic, this is one of the events of our vacation that Ane constantly keeps talking about.  I can’t say that I blame her.  After all, how many other four-and-a-half year olds do you know who have faced down Darth Vader?

She keeps saying, “I was the last one to fight Darth Vader, and I wasn’t scared, and I beat him!”

I’m so proud of our little Padawan.  And I’m so glad that she has these wonderful memories of our vacation.

We took a LOT of pictures.  And sometimes, we got some really cute ones.

And occasionally, our best sides made it into a picture.

On a side note, today is Disneyland’s 53rd birthday!  I’m thinking the 55th might be a fun time to go back…

If you don’t know, food is expensive when you’re on vacation.  Especially at Disneyland.

Granted, the food there is very good and very tasty.  But there are fast food places (even a McDonald’s) within the parks, and everything is inflated beyond what it costs in “the real world.”

If I had been able to, I would have brought two Costco boxes of Uncrustables with me and had the kids eat them at least once a day.  You can bring food into Disneyland, but not a full “meal” or picnic, and no glass bottles.  Plastic water bottles, milk, and juice are fine.  Snack food is also fine.  Baby food is also okay (for those with babies).  Because I couldn’t bring Uncrustables on the plane (and keep them frozen), and I didn’t have access to “the real world” on our trip (we traveled everywhere by shuttle van or tour bus), I instead packed a large quantity of Costco peanut butter crackers and cereal fruit bars in a shoebox (that was then packed in one of our suitcases).  Having those reliable snacks was a very good thing, because it warded off extreme hunger for the kids (and occasionally for us as well), and they never seem to get tired of them.  I wish I had packed more cereal bars, because we did start our days very early and breakfast usually wasn’t the first thing on our agenda.

One thing we finally learned to do was to keep a bottle of water on hand at all times.  I freely admit it - we are all spoiled up here in the Seattle area, because our water that comes out of the tap is quite possibly the best anywhere.  It really doesn’t need filtering at all.  By contrast… I swear I could taste every mineral in the tap water in Disneyland.  The only thing that helped was it being ice-cold - and it didn’t help that much.  So we spent a lot on bottled water on this trip.  Again, if I’d been able to, I would have brought a Costco flat of bottled water with me.  It would have saved us a pretty penny.

Still, the point of being on vacation is to eat those special foods that you can only get while on vacation.  So, on our first full day at Disneyland, the kids were treated to their very first Mickey pancakes at River Belle Terrace.

This is a must-do whenever you are at Disneyland.  The Webmaster and I even ate Mickey pancakes on our honeymoon.

As I’ve said, all of the character meals offer excellent food, but you can’t do that at every meal.  Well, you could, but then you’d be very broke later.  Splitting fast food between adults is a way to save money, though I don’t recommend doing it more than once a day.  My advice, when tackling Disneyland, is to eat a fairly large breakfast, and then go lighter the rest of the day, keeping in mind that there will be sweet snacks at different points.  And drink lots of water.

The other must-eat-at place we went to was Mrs. Knott’s Chicken Restaurant, which is just outside Knott’s Berry Farm.  We went for an early dinner, and feasted on the best fried chicken known to mankind.  It really IS that good.  I’ve always thought that staying near Knott’s Berry Farm would be neat, especially because so many things linked to the park are located outside of it (like the replica of Independence Hall and the shopping area and the restaurant), so you don’t even have to pay admission to enjoy these places.

Oh, and it really is the best fried chicken EVER.  Obachan’s funyu chicken is not this kind of fried chicken, so it is okay to say that Mrs. Knott’s is the best.  Funyu chicken is in a class by itself.

If we ever drive to southern California, I would be able to plan food a little more efficiently - especially since my kids tend to stick to their favorites and would be happy to eat peanut butter once a day.  Ever since we got back, that’s what they’ve been doing.  The Webmaster and I, in an effort to get ourselves out of vacation mindset and pay off the credit cards this month, have vowed not to eat out until our anniversary/Tad’s birthday (these are both on the same day) in August.  No takeout, no fast food, no sit-down restaurants, no drive-thrus, no pizza - nothing that can’t be bought at the grocery store.  I haven’t even touched Starbucks since we got back, either (though I don’t know if I can keep that up, but I’m sure going to try).  I’ve made every meal since we got back and a lot of it has been peanut butter and jelly for the kids.

They don’t mind, though.  I got out the large Mickey cookie cutter I bought on my honeymoon and I’ve been cutting their PB&J sandwiches with it.  Ane thinks it’s great, and Tad says “Mimmi!” every time I do it.  It makes the sandwich taste special, don’t you know.

As you regular readers know (and welcome to those of you who are checking in over here via Matthew!  I will be blogging about my out-of-computer meeting with him very soon!), Tad is not autistic, and he is not mentally retarded (though he may act like it sometimes).  He is, though, socially delayed and has some cognitive issues, not to mention our ongoing speech therapy saga.

Tad will turn three next month, and as of right now he has about 100 words and talks like an 18 month old.

He is also a bundle of kinetic energy that never rests, not even when he sleeps.  He is constantly rolling into the wall while he is in bed, thrashing about while he is asleep.

So, there were a lot of factors that made me nervous about taking him to Disneyland.  We knew we were taking the stroller with us, because even though we are making an effort to make him walk, crowd control is always an issue there, especially over a holiday.  Add to that his speech delay - if he was lost, he wouldn’t even be able to tell anyone his own name or age - and it made me very resolute in keeping a very tight rein on him.  As Resiss said, “I can just see it now - I’ll turn on the evening news and there will be a story about ‘Toddler boy jumps into Rivers of America at Disneyland’ and I won’t even have to watch it.  I’ll just know it’s Tad.”

Or, as Grandma said, “Have fun on your trip - and keep an eye on that boy.”

So, we did.  But even though we had four adults watching him, and we made sure that he got time out of the stroller, the single greatest asset that we had was the Guest Assistance Pass.

I blogged about this before our trip - one of the moms at my Tuesday morning prayer group is a former special ed teacher, and told me about this pass that allowed special-needs children to bypass lines in Disneyland.  After a little online investigation, I packed up some of Tad’s paperwork that details his diagnosis, along with the IEP front sheet from the school district that stated that he was being accepted for special ed preschool this coming fall.  I didn’t know if that would be enough, but nothing I had seen told me exactly what to bring, and probably for good reason.  Disneyland does not advertise this pass at all on their website - probably to keep people from acquiring them like a wheelchair in order to skip the lines on rides.  It is really intended to signal the cast members of Disneyland that you really do need their consideration.  I even saw kids in wheelchairs that had these guest assistance passes.

On our first day in Disneyland, I took Tad with me to City Hall on Main Street - home of Disneyland Park Guest Relations.  I had his paperwork out as I approached the desk and asked about the pass.  The cast member asked me why Tad needed the pass.  I listed off his delays and then said, “I have some paperwork here…”

She waved me off.  “I don’t need to see that.  I need to know, from you, why he needs this.”

I sighed.  “He is a ball of energy, and sometimes he becomes wild.  If I have to remove him from his stroller and wait in lines, he is not going to enjoy this trip and all, and may become a real problem to others in lines if he darts away from us.”

“You know that this won’t let you skip over all the lines,” she warned me.

“Even if we can just wait where he’s not going to be a bother to anyone else and he has some room to move around, it will be worth it,” I assured her.

She pulled out the pass.  ”What’s his name and how many are in your party?”

Wow.  Just like that, it was a done deal.  Meanwhile, Tad had squirreled away and was on the Guest Services phone, chattering into it.  “I’d grab that if I were you,” the cast member told me.  “He might be making new reservations for you.”

I grabbed Tad and his pass, thanked the nice lady profusely, and then met up with the Webmaster, Ane, Nana and Papa to show them the pass.

When the cast member told me that you would still have to wait in lines, it is true.  But you are waiting in the handicapped/wheelchair lines, which are usually at the exit to the ride.  And I think the longest we waited for a ride with Tad was 15 minutes at Pirates of the Caribbean.  The Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage ride line was easily 90 minutes long the first time we went on it - sometimes it was as long as 3 hours.  With Tad’s pass, we waited all of five minutes.

Because of the pass, we were able to take Tad on more rides, which made things much easier for us in planning our days.  It also meant that Tad was spending his time having fun, not constantly strapped into his stroller as a means of restraining him.

Sometimes, we didn’t have to use the pass at all, especially at “a bug’s land” in California Adventure, where the rides are all geared for young children and there really weren’t any lines.  When the line was short, we didn’t bother with the pass.  But because of the pass, we were able to go on Nemo three times, the brand-new Toy Story Midway Mania ride twice, Peter Pan’s Flight twice, Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters twice, and go on most of the other rides that Tad was able to get on without much of a wait.  The Webmaster and I still had to stand in line for the rides we couldn’t take the kids on (Indiana Jones, Tower of Terror, and California Screamin’, for example), and Ane had to wait (albeit in very short lines because of the times of day we went) in line at Star Tours twice.  Still, it was nothing compared to what having that pass did for us - and Tad.

I felt slightly guilty using it, mostly because Tad doesn’t have any outward behavior that really pegs him as a “disabled” child.  And cast members are not allowed to ask why you have the pass - only if the person the pass is for is with your party.  I knew that it was making my life a whole lot easier on this trip.  I also knew that if Tad were talking and behaving like an almost-three-year-old, I would have given up that pass in a heartbeat.

I was talking about it with my friend Aimee yesterday, when she called to ask about the trip and arranging play time with the kids.  She wanted to know if I was able to get the pass, and I told her yes, but that I’d felt a little guilty using it.  “Guilty??” she said.  “After all that you’ve been through with Tad, I think you should consider it a reward of some kind that you were able to get that pass!”

So, I will.  The pass made Tad’s vacation possible, and made mine and the Webmaster’s lives much easier.  He got a much better vacation than I had hoped for.  Thank you, Disneyland, for helping us out.  And I completely recommend it to any special-needs family.  It just makes Disneyland that much more of a friendly place for us to go.

And apparently, if you’ve been granted the pass once, if you return and bring your old pass with you, there is a much better chance you will be given a new pass.  I will remember that for next time - but still, I’m kind of hoping that when there is a next time, Tad will be able to whine loudly about the lines along with his sister, because he won’t need the pass anymore.