Originally, my husband and I had book Saturday and Sunday nights at the Grand Californian (at the smokin' Dapper Day price), but after some consideration we decided we wanted to drive up Friday night so we could get early entry Saturday. The Grand Californian and many other local hotels were sold out by the time we decided this, so we booked Howard Johnson. Mind you, this was not the Howard Johnson near the park (which is what I thought I had booked), but the HoJo on Katella near the 55. It was AWFUL! And no where near the park. My bad, I should have done more research, but we only had to spend one night there. So we checked into our hotel around 6 and took a taxi ($35 one way!) to the park. Ouch.
I had worked the overnight shift the night before, so at this point I'd already been awake over 24 hours and was rather frustrated with how the trip was going so far. Luckily, as soon as we got to the park all of the negativity was wiped away.
When we first got to the park we got in line for Aladdin, but after standing there for 10 minutes we realized we were STARVING! So we got out of line and headed to Flo's. We had never eaten there before, and we're always trying to find new food to try at the park. We ordered the strip and pork. Sorry for the awful quality of the photos. I promise the food isn't really this blue:


The food was tasty and the portions were very large. I'd eat there again.
After Flo's we stopped by Tower of Terror to grab fast passes. There were signs on every machine, a CM warning everyone to come back during the printed time, plus a new warning on the fast passes:

Enforcement has begun!
We decided to head to Tow Mater's Junkyard Jamboree until our FP window opened, and stopped for a picture with Tow Mater himself on the way.

I got bored in line so started taking random photos in the queue:



We hadn't been on the ride at night, and I really loved how it looks with the lights and all!! I love taking pictures of us during the ride because they always turn out so funny

After we were done with the Jamboree (which is quickly becoming a favorite of mine), we headed over to Tower of Terror.



Thanks to a thread on this site, I now notice the face on this thing ^^^^ And yes I know it's totally obvious but I am not the best at picking up on things like that! Haha
My husband earned a rider swap pass from a CM because he helped a woman in a wheelchair transfer on the ride. I was proud of him. We never ended up using it... it doesn't have a date on it so I'm hoping to maybe use it another day?

Our photo might be my favorite one ever. We try to make the funniest faces possible on all the ride photos. This one is a gem:

You're welcome.
I think that's enough for now. I'll finish up our first night there when I get a chance, then it really starts to get good!

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