Day 4: January 11, 2014

Started off for the park at 4:30 with a dinner reservation at Blue Bayou for 7:40 pm, just in time to finish dinner and then be in the perfect spot for Fantasmic.

As they say, the best laid plans of Mickey Mouse....

Drove halfway to Anaheim before realizing I had left the Glow Ears at home, sitting there waiting in their Disney bag. OK, so we can still enjoy the show, right?

Maybe not. It might have been a good idea to check the schedule before leaving the house, or at least before getting to the park. No Fantasmic tonight, nor World of Color. Obviously, I should have realized they would be down for the seasonal changeover. At least we didn't drag the ears along for nothing.

The upside: since there was no Fantasmic, the paddlewheeler, or Mark Twain's Wild(erness) Ride, was still running in Frontierland, so we checked that off.

And how could we leave Frontierland without some shoot-em-up action at the firing range?

Having exhausted Frontierland's post-sunset possibilities, we struck off for Adventureland. Going around through the New Orleans side, we came to Tarzan's Treehouse, another new one for me. I remember when it was Swiss Family Robinson, 

but did not remember having been on it back then either, so we braved the fearsome ascent.

Barely did we catch our breath coming down from the tree, but found ourselves facing one of the most terrifying trips on Earth's Happiest Place: Indiana Jones's Adventure! As if the ride were not scary enough, the line for it is almost always an hour or more. I have (less than) fond memories of waiting in that line on a hot day, with the sun beating down through the jungle canopy and the rising odor of...well never mind. Tonight, the wait sign said "35 minutes"! So of course we dropped onto that one. Little did we know...

the line had been abandoned due to "transportation malfunctions." Two of these were announced while we stood and waited. But since Carl had never been on the ride before, we toughed it out and were rewarded with probably the shortest IJ wait time in history. 

Then it was off to dinner at the Blue Bayou. We arrived at 7:14 (so precise for New Orleans) and were given a blinker instead of getting seated early. Took some pix while waiting.

Finally, the pager went off at 7:46 for a 7:40 reservation. 

We ordered (Carl) strip steak and (me) Portobello mushrooms. Both entrees were very nice, as well they should be for the price. We also sprang for the Louisiana lemonade, featuring a glow ice cube. Cute!

Left the park while the fireworks were going. A great evening!