starting birthday princess week off right

the bean and i had actually kicked off birthday princess week with rope drop sunday, along with plans to meet up with our friends a little later that morning for a fun playdate.  we got there bright and early, walking through the turnstile and joining the growing crowd somewhere around 7:45 that morning.

and unlike our last rope drop sunday, the incredicoaster was up and running smoothly.  the queue was still pretty empty when we got back there, and we were on the ride and screaming our heads off by 8:07.

our next fastpass was for radiator springs, and with a little time to kill before our window opened we walked around cars land and took in all of the fun halloween decor.

 the pixar fest-themed posters had been replaced with halloween ones.

and then it was time for our ride.

bugs land is most definitely gone.  there are walls around the whole area, which also effectively cut off our shortcut from cars land to the guardians of the galaxy ride.  bummer.

with just a 5-minute wait for luigi's honkin' haul-o-ween, we hopped into a car to kill a little more time before our guardians fastpass window opened.

even with our fastpass, it took forever to get onto the ride because they were only running at 50% that morning for some reason.  oh well.

by then, our friends had arrived and so we headed over to the disneyland side to meet them for our next fastpass ride - space mountain, which has the annual halloween overlay to turn it into ghost galaxy.  on our way there we literally almost ran into the disneyland band, who was making their way out towards the castle for a performance.

the ride was fun, as always.

in the gift shop, the kids happily stood at the build-a-droid station and put together some robot creations.  the bean said this was her cheer team's official droid.

taking a turn on star tours is always a requirement with this group, which is nice since it's not the old lady's favorite attraction, so we don't get to do it often.

afterwards, the bean talked me into sharing a cream cheese-filled pretzel with her.  to be honest though, you know it didn't take a lot to get me to say yes.

we took some castle pictures together after that, with a stop at snow white's wishing well afterwards.

we decided to have lunch at plaza inn, where we indulged in some delicious fried chicken and lilcee picked up this fun sweet treat for me for an early birthday cake.

thunder mountain was next.

we went on pirates of the caribbean after that.

somehow, we also managed to squeeze in indiana jones and the jungle cruise too.

haunted mansion ended up being the bean's and my last hurrah for the day.  we'd been there all day, and with school and cheer the next day and a super busy week overall, i wanted to get her home to get ready and rested up.

that was one super productive day at the 'land!  with halloween still more than a month out, we have plenty of time to get our fill of the decor, rides and snacks before the *gulp* holiday stuff begins on november 9th.

holy cow.  the year's almost over!