Disney California Story Tour at California Adventure!

This weekend we took the Disney California Story tour! A relatively new Disney Resorts tour, it's basically the California Adventure version of the Walk in Walt's Footsteps tour. Where that one went over Walt's history of forming Disneyland, this one was more about Walt's early years in Hollywood and the film industry.

We met at the Chamber of Commerce near the front of California Adventure 30 minutes before the tour started. The tour group hung out in a private lounge while we waited for it to begin, and, as with other tours, they gave us pins with our names on them, took our lunch order for later on, and gave us our audio devices.

Charity, our tour guide, took us all around California Adventure. Starting out on Buena Vista Street, where she explained the significance of various things, like how the number of buildings and street names correspond to certain years, or places of importance to Disney. The level of attention to detail is pretty crazy!

Elias is Walt's middle name, and his father's name

We got to go into 1901, the lounge next to Carthay Circle that's exclusive to Club 33 members. It was pretty cool (though not as cool as Club 33) and had a ton of pictures of Walt and his animators that I'd never seen before! We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, unfortunately.

We got to skip to the front on 3 rides - Soarin' Over California, Radiator Springs Racers, and Toy Story Mania. We had just gone on Soarin' before the tour started, but that's okay because it's a pretty great ride. We were in the row with the perfect view - B1. We'd also tried to go on Toy Story Mania before, but the line was too long, so I was pretty excited when they announced we'd get on it during the tour!

Three and a half hours later, it was time for lunch! I got the Roasted Turkey sandwich and a brownie, and my boyfriend got the Roast Beef sandwich and Mickey cookie! They also had some salads available. While we were eating, they gave us our special tour pins, as well as a pass to ride on any ride (sort of like a Fast Pass), as a consolation for not getting to do the Animation Academy class where they teach you to draw Mickey.

'Tanmi'?! Really?!

After the tour was over, we went over to Disneyland to check out the castle decked out in 60th anniversary decorations. We used our free pass on the Matterhorn, since we hadn't ridden it in a long time since the lines are always so long. It's been updated for the 60th anniversary with some new surprises!