Day 5: Disneyland

Today’s Flickr Gallery | July 24th: Disneyland. When I was six years old, I made my one and only visit to Disneyworld in Orlando, Florida. At the time, I quite enjoyed myself. Thirteen years later, I’m glad to say I experienced much of the same enjoyment one comes to know only by having been there for yourself! That being said, apart from the video above, I’m going to try and detail what we did do.

After a two and a half-hour drive down to Anaheim, we arrived at the ripe hour of 9:30 to find parking already beginning to fill up.  Given that Disneyland itself closes at midnight, we had designs on spending the entire day there. And, while we ended up leaving at around 10:30 instead of midnight, I can assure you we didn’t have to work too hard to tire ourselves out =P.

We visited quite a few attractions and rode a ton of rides in both Disneyland and Adventureland:

• Pirates of the Caribbean (in the video)
  • This was a nice opening ride, nothing too spectacular, but Pirates of the Caribbean has always been a nice series.
• Haunted Mansion
  • Similar to the Pirates ride, in that it was another ride where you sit in a car and it takes you through multiple rooms.
• Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
  • The second roller coaster we rode. Good fun . The clearance on some of the turns was rather low, lol…had to make sure I kept my head in, and low.
• Davy Crockett’s Explorer Canoes
  • We had, by far, the best guy ever leading our canoe. Filled with an abundance of wit, his humor kept us entertained throughout the ten minutes or so that we paddled around the lake
• Splash Mountain
  • The name makes it pretty obvious: A few gentle slopes riding in a log before you’re thrust down a fifty-foot drop at high speed. Water rides are always enjoyable, without exception
• Indian Jones Adventure
  • The first coaster we rode. Really fast, with, I might add, quite a thrilling ending where the rolling ball was hurtling towards us before we were thrown down into an abyss.
• Tarzan’s Treehouse
  • A walk through, well, Tarzan’s fictional treehouse. Looking back, those were good movies. I may have to watch them again at some point when I get back.
• Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue! (also in the video)
  • But…before I watch those, I think I want to watch Monsters, Inc first. Like the Pirates ride, this was basically an abbreviated trip through the film. Mike, Sulley and Boo were all great.
• The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
  • I was too scared to ride this one in Disneyworld, but not here, haha. It wasn’t nearly as scary as I remembered it, though the drops were quite substantial-substantial enough to make my head hurt a little thereafter from all the jostling.
• Muppet Vision 3D
  • The first attraction we visited at Adventureland, this was a nice 3D adventure directed by Kermit and his motley crew, in 3D, with the occasional water spray getting us in our seats as well. We were a bit sleepy at this point, however, and the dark lights only further encouraged that
• Mulholland Madness
  • Another quick ride in cars, the thrill here was the sheer speed and the breakneck turns at significant heights.
• Soarin’ Over California
  • After spending forty minutes in line to experience a ride we weren’t exactly sure of, we were strapped into the shoulder-type seats, raised maybe a hundred feet in the air, after which we were then treated to an IMAX-like trip through California, with the seats rotating and tilting in sync with the video to really complete the experience.
• Grizzly River Run
  • Normally, you’ve got six people in a massive inner tube strapped in as you barrel down rapids getting copious amounts of water splashing everyone. Imagine that experience, but with only two people, positioned mostly on one side of the ring, and you can imagine that even more water filled our tube =P. This was the last ride we rode, and it was, I must say, quite fitting after a long, hot day walking through the park.

As the day wore on, the park definitely filled up with more and more families. I must say, just as with the Grand Canyon, the wonderful thing about seeing such a large mass of people is that, unlike aimless wanderers and window shoppers in malls—which, I must say, I’ve grown waaaay too accustomed to—everyone, regardless of age, generally had a happy demeanor, eager to explore just as many attractions as the next guy!

One of the nice things they’ve introduced in recent years is the idea of the “FastPass”, which essentially lets you get a ticket to come back to a ride in a few hours, rather than standing around in line. When you do come back, the line you get in is relatively short, assuring a good experience for those who do choose to go this route. FastPass isn’t something they’ve got available on all rides, however, but if you do your planning right, you’ll get a good chance at going on a good number of attractions with as little waiting time as possible. And if you’re lucky, if you hang around the FastPass location unsure about whether its worth your while to get one, someone else leaving the park might just offer their own tickets to you, as we experienced at the Grizzly River Run.

Around one thirty, we decided to get lunch. Who knew it would take so long to find corndogs in Disneyland? After a half hour of searching across the park, we finally found them at the Stage Door Cafe. While I had chicken nuggets, Rafaela had the corndog, which, now that we look back on the experience, wasn’t the best choice: She threw it up a few hours later .

We also made a stop to one of the souvenir stops, to look at hats. I had been eying Mickey’s Sorcerer’s Apprentice hat most of the day since I first noticed it, and by the time we actually went in to try them on, I was almost sure I wanted to get it…which I did, just a few hours later .

Towards the end of the day, after riding all that we had, we made it a point to return to Disneyland (in the latter part of the afternoon we went across the way to Adventureland after spending most of our time at Disneyland) for the 9:30 fireworks show. And, as with most everything else, it didn’t disappoint.

We actually had FastPass tickets for Space Mountain at 10:30, but as the fireworks show ended and we made our way there and got in line at 10:00, we were both a bit tired and decided to call it a day. Another two and a half hours, augmented some by the traffic leaving the park and surrounding Anaheim and LA, and this magnificent day came to a close.