Cooper Rules for Disneyland

Growing up as a Cooper, we went to Disneyland every year and spent several days there. With three hard-core brothers, and having a little die-hard Disney blood myself, we developed a unique strategy for experiencing the park.

1. Show up early enough to weasel your way to the front of the crowd in Main Street at the rope. Do this by any means necessary, but try not to step on any babies.

2. When the rope drops, run as fast as you can without looking like you're running to either Big Thunder Railroad or Space Mountain. Ride that ride as many times in a row as possible until the line gets too long.

3. Never dawdle, never waste time strolling leisurely in between rides, and never drink too much water and waste everyone's time with bathroom breaks. Always run. You can rest in line.

4. Never, never, NEVER watch the parade! That's when the lines are shortest! Plan out which side of the park you want to be stuck on beforehand.

5. Banned: It's a Small World, Captain EO, Toon Town, and musical shows in general.

That said, I was a little nervous to go to Disneyland with Isaac's family. Did they understand the rules? Would they be dawdlers? What if they wanted to split the day between Toon Town and Captain EO? Or worse yet, spend the day shopping?

While Isaac's family is not and never will be Coopers, I am fully satisfied with the day I had with that awesome family. Granted, we did break one of the cardinal rules and rode "It's a Small World", but the line was short, lessening the infraction. Here are some examples of how hard-core we were:



Yeah, we rode Space Mountain three times. Never buy the pictures. You can just take a photo of the screen.



Nathan, Karen, and Sierra, looking happy to be hard-core Disneylanders.



The happy couple. Isaac got a lot of compliments on his awesome "More Cowbell" shirt. (If you've never seen the SNL skit, here's a link: http://www.funnyhub.com/videos/pages/snl-more-cowbell.html)

If you look veeeerrrry closely at Isaac's face, you may notice that one side is hairier than the other. His electric razor died mid-shave and made for a funny-looking beard.



Nap-time. While not explicitly stated in the Cooper rules, nap-time at Disneyland is generally shunned in our family. But I decided to give everyone a break for good behavior.



The classic castle shot, just to prove we were really there.

As an added note, we stayed until closing at 11:00 PM. Hess family, you make me proud.