Disneyland
Friday 29 September 2006, 10:38 pm
When it was Mary's birthday, I took her to Disneyland for the day. She
promised she would take me to Disneyland for mine. We even bought a
season pass when we were there earlier this year. But Mary is taking
a class on resumés and job interviews next week (yeah, it's time
for us to start looking for jobs again). So we took our Disneyland
road trip this week.
On Friday, we
hopped back on the freeway, and 90 minutes later we were checking into
a hotel in Anaheim, ready to spend the rest of the day in
Disneyland.
At Disneyland, we went on all our favorite rides in both parks, and a
few new ones I don't remember going on before: Pinnochio and Snow White.
I tried a new strategy on the Astro Blasters ride and I came within
100 points of Mary's score, but she always beats me. This is the first
time I even came close, though. Space Mountain was very fast this time!
On the Tower of Terror, people on both sides of me were screaming
and grabbing the handles. leaving me nothing to hang on to. I still had
lots of fun! The line for Haunted Mansion was very long, because they
had just changed the theme to The Nightmare Before Christmas, and this
was the first day open with the new theme. It was funny instead of
scary. We liked it. They also changed the Pirate of the Caribbean
to match the movie more. Mary liked it, but I'm not sure if I did.
It seemed to have a few stretches with nothing going on, and the
music doesn't play all the way through the ride.
Eating
Eating gluten-free in Disneyland is very possible but always a chore.
This time, we obtained the special gluten-free menu from City Hall on
Main Street. It turns out that eating gluten-free in California Adventure
really means manually eliminating the gluten yourself: that is, eating
the hamburger without the bun, etc. We'd rather find a hamburger served
on a gluten-free bun. To find that, you have to go into Disneyland park
or to one of the outside restaurants. Here are the choices that particularly
appealed to us inside the park:
- Club Buzz will serve a hamburger on a gluten-free Kinnikinnick bun.
We eat these every time now.
- The Plaza Inn will serve gluten-free pancakes during breakfast hours.
(We were never in the park during breakfast hours.)
- Coke Corner will serve hot dogs on a gluten-free tapioca bun; but they
were out of buns at the time we dropped by.
- Pizza Port has two gluten-free selections: gluten-free pasta with your
choice of sauces, and pizza served on a gluten-free crust (probably
Kinnikinnick brand). At the time we dropped by, the line was so long we
were unwilling to wait.
Instead of waiting in the long lines, we decided to wait while sitting on
our bums in our favorite resort restaurant:
Storyteller Cafe in the
Grand Californian hotel. We've always had wonderful luck here finding
gluten-free alternatives, and this time was no exception. The chef
actually came out to chat with us several times. One of the waiters later
told us that this particular chef had been with the restaurant since the
hotel had opened, and that he had been the one to push for gluten-free
alternatives on the menu. Anyway, he helped us eliminate questionable
items from the grilled salmon meal, and he also made us gluten-free
macaroni and cheese (Mary loves this), and, ta-dah, two different pizzas
made on gluten-free Kinnikinnick crust. This is the first time we'd had
gluten-free pizza since we found that restaurant in Sedona last April,
and it was a real treat. We got one with ham and pineapple, and the other
with sausage and pepperoni. The chef even discussed with us how he gets
the Kinnikinnick crust to be tasty: defrost only part way in the microwave,
but make the pizza with the crust still slightly frozen. Don't put any
oil on the crust. Bake the pizza in a hot convection oven. We don't have
a convection oven at home, so he suggested trying an oven hotter than
usual, 375 or even 400 degrees. He also suggested putting the crust
directly on the oven grates instead of on a stone.
Counting the Points
We were both surprised that we lost a couple pounds even while we were
away at Disneyland and San Diego. But there was a heck of a lot of
walking in there ... too much maybe. We both came back sore.
