Turboman
02-13-2008, 10:10 AM
I’m a long time reader, huge Disney fan, first time trip reporter from Portland, OR. Ideally, Disney trips are spent with the wife and kids, but in this case it was just me. I had a nearly-mutilated one-day park ticket that’s lived in my wallet for a year, and business meetings Monday morning in Irvine, leading to an opportune time for a Disney visit.
I didn’t get off the tram until just before 1 PM, but since it was Lincoln’s birthday (or, uh, somewhere near Lincoln’s birthday), parks were open later than usual. I was hoping for a quiet day, but it was fairly crowded for a what I had hoped was a random Monday. As it was, I had a lot of time to explore since I had decided not to venture into Fantasyland without kids.
I like Downtown Disney, but it’s weird to get off the tram, excited to get to Disneyland, and hear Fleetwood Mac. Don’t get me wrong, I think Fleetwood Mac is good music for doing Fleetwood Mac-y type things, whatever they may be. But even my plane down from Portland to Orange County played Disney music during boarding (the Aladdin's Genie Make-A-Wish plane), so couldn’t Downtown Disney do the same?
I went through the main entrance, leaving the world of today behind and entering the world of yesterday, tomorrow and fantasy. Immediately after passing through the sign, my blackberry stopped working. Those Disney imagineers have thought of everything.
I raced down Main Street and headed for everyone’s first stop when entering Disneyland – the Little Red Wagon for a corndog. We had corndogs on our last Disneyland trip out of necessity (waiting for parade, grumpy kids) and they were the greatest corndogs ever. I had to reconfirm this discovery, and start a trend of eating ridiculously unhealthy for the rest of the day.
Picked up a Splash Mountain fastpass and then had to start getting on rides if I was going to surpass my poor effort at Disneyland Paris in October ’06 (I went on 4 rides, although in my defense I just flew in and hadn’t slept for 36 hours. I apologize to the French people for the presence of a mostly incoherent wanderer to their park).
Rode Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean with mild 15 minute waits. I’m OK with being at the parks by myself (I’ve been to Disneyland solo 5-6 times, Magic Kingdom in Florida and the afore-mentioned trip to Disneyland Paris, if that can even be counted), but being in the front row of Pirates made me mildly self-conscious as I was sitting in front of some young kids. They were craning trying to see how the wench auction was going around this large-headed fellow in the front row.
Heading off of Big Thunder Mountain, I made an impulse buy – a turkey leg. I hadn’t had one of those in years. Turkey legs go from amazingly awesome to disgustingly gross faster than any other food on earth. The first bites were great, but it slowly deteriorated and I couldn’t finish. I also made the mistake of not getting enough napkins – I grabbed three, when I really needed 127.
I picked turkey out of my teeth all the way over to Tomorrowland, grabbed a fastpass for Buzz Lightyear and rode the Matterhorn. For some reason, there seemed to be some doors left open in the Matterhorn that weren’t meant to be open, so you’d go flying by and be able to see into the maintenance rooms. The sights, in order, were “abominable snowman's red eyes, crystals, broom closet, abominable snowman, etc” It was a unique and awesome ride.
I took the train from Tomorrowland back over to New Orleans Square, as I love the dioramas (although I wish they’d mix it up a little: I want to see the cougars fight the T. Rex) and wanted to check out the old Frontierland train station. My blackberry worked when we were parked at the Main St Station, but stopped working as soon as we moved again. I am still amazed.
I was a little early to pick up a fast pass for Indiana Jones, so I went on the stairmaster, er, Tarzan’s treehouse to work on my calves.
The Splash Mountain ride was also a different experience. Initially, they put two young kids in the front of the boat, but neither was tall enough for the front seat, so they moved back a seat, leaving me in the middle, two giant humans behind me and the front seat empty. The end effect was that we rode through Splash Mountain doing a wheelie. We were hitting places we were not supposed to hit; on the plus side, no one got very wet.
Buzz Lightyear is a great ride, but I’m just terrible at it. I got 87,000 the first time and could hear the trash talking in my head from my wife who routinely cleans my clock at it. I did some practice shooting at the Frontierland shooting arcade, and that seemed to be improve my game as I got 120,000 the next two times, although that can also be attributed to the ride being stopped and me lighting up one target for a few minutes.
I stopped into Innoventions, which has neither innovations or inventions, but is instead a room mostly filled with Xboxes. Not that I’m complaining, as Guitar Hero was able to confirm what I had already suspected: I rock.
I also played with the machine that shows what you look like when you’ve aged, which was completely alarming. I have no idea what’s going to happen to my eyebrows in 30 years, but apparently they’re going to disappear. I would recommend to Disney that as soon as you pick Male or Female, it should spit out a picture of Robert Redford or Sophia Loren, not the “Big Al from Happy Days after a terrible facelift mishap” that greeted me. I am now very concerned for my face’s well being.
Shaken from my Innoventions revelation, I ventured over to Star Tours. I hadn’t been on Star Tours in a long time and I really love that line, but unfortunately I ran into one of the Five Most Annoying People at Disneyland (not that I get annoyed at Disneyland, because I’m so happy to be there. But if I was annoyed, these would be the people I would be annoyed at):
5. Flash photographer in Haunted Mansion or Pirates of the Caribbean
4. Large group who figures out their next attraction by standing in the middle of the pathway (the bottleneck between Indiana Jones and Bengal BBQ is a magnet for these people).
3. Teenage kid who passes you while you’re in line (this happened in the Splash Mt fastpass line, when I stopped to let someone in the standby line take picture of something or other. I’m sure the picture was terrible, but I’m sure it was better than having the side of my head in it. Fortunately, the rest of the kid’s party did not pass me, meaning the kid had to remorsefully move back behind me).
2. The 27 people who cut in line to catch up to the one person in their party way up ahead
- and –
1. The guy who stands too close behind you in line, to the point he’s stepping on your heels.
Unfortunately, we had a #1 in the Star Tours line. Double unfortunately, that #1 was me. I was so caught up at looking at the droids, that I stepped on the ladies foot in front of me. I deeply apologized, but then amazingly did it again a few minutes later. I did it a third time while waiting to board. The lady seemed relieved when we actually sat down and I was unable to do further harm to her heels. I’m not sure what came over me, but it was most have been some sort of aberration in the force.
Back to Indiana Jones, which would have been fun except someone in my car looked into the eye of Mara (it was NOT me). As opposed to gaining the ability to see into the future, we were robustly shaken for three minutes.
Since I had not had any meat for a full hour, I hit up Bengal BBQ for some fantastic skewers. While waiting in line, two Japanese girls asked me if this is where they could get turkey legs. I pantomimed and pointed to their map to the turkey leg stand, mostly because I couldn’t say “NO!! You’re making a huge mistake!” in Japanese.
As the parade started, I decided it was time for Nemo, which turned out to be a 45 minute wait. Thankfully, the blackberry started working again. I can’t imagine standing there for 45 minutes with nothing to do. I guess a normal human could have talked to the people in line, but the couple behind me was making out and the people in front of me seemed wary of my heel-stepping status. So, I pretended to be busy doing important blackberry things while really just reading about fantasy baseball.
It was finally time for my first ride on Finding Nemo, which I really enjoyed. I had been on the old subs before and I have been on the Nemo ride at Epcot, but I thought that Disneyland Nemo > (Old Subs + Epcot Nemo).
I concluded the day by performing a completely illogical itinerary that had me going back and forth between New Orleans Square and Tomorrowland a few more times (Pirates to Buzz Lightyear to Haunted Mansion to Space Mountain to Big Thunder Mountain) before exiting.
That's it - thanks for reading. I applaud anyone who’s reached this point, which has to be close to the longest trip write-up vs actual trip length. Next time, I will promise to be more terse.
And apparently, the blackberry outage was a national, not a Disneyland thing, but I didn’t know it at the time.
I didn’t get off the tram until just before 1 PM, but since it was Lincoln’s birthday (or, uh, somewhere near Lincoln’s birthday), parks were open later than usual. I was hoping for a quiet day, but it was fairly crowded for a what I had hoped was a random Monday. As it was, I had a lot of time to explore since I had decided not to venture into Fantasyland without kids.
I like Downtown Disney, but it’s weird to get off the tram, excited to get to Disneyland, and hear Fleetwood Mac. Don’t get me wrong, I think Fleetwood Mac is good music for doing Fleetwood Mac-y type things, whatever they may be. But even my plane down from Portland to Orange County played Disney music during boarding (the Aladdin's Genie Make-A-Wish plane), so couldn’t Downtown Disney do the same?
I went through the main entrance, leaving the world of today behind and entering the world of yesterday, tomorrow and fantasy. Immediately after passing through the sign, my blackberry stopped working. Those Disney imagineers have thought of everything.
I raced down Main Street and headed for everyone’s first stop when entering Disneyland – the Little Red Wagon for a corndog. We had corndogs on our last Disneyland trip out of necessity (waiting for parade, grumpy kids) and they were the greatest corndogs ever. I had to reconfirm this discovery, and start a trend of eating ridiculously unhealthy for the rest of the day.
Picked up a Splash Mountain fastpass and then had to start getting on rides if I was going to surpass my poor effort at Disneyland Paris in October ’06 (I went on 4 rides, although in my defense I just flew in and hadn’t slept for 36 hours. I apologize to the French people for the presence of a mostly incoherent wanderer to their park).
Rode Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean with mild 15 minute waits. I’m OK with being at the parks by myself (I’ve been to Disneyland solo 5-6 times, Magic Kingdom in Florida and the afore-mentioned trip to Disneyland Paris, if that can even be counted), but being in the front row of Pirates made me mildly self-conscious as I was sitting in front of some young kids. They were craning trying to see how the wench auction was going around this large-headed fellow in the front row.
Heading off of Big Thunder Mountain, I made an impulse buy – a turkey leg. I hadn’t had one of those in years. Turkey legs go from amazingly awesome to disgustingly gross faster than any other food on earth. The first bites were great, but it slowly deteriorated and I couldn’t finish. I also made the mistake of not getting enough napkins – I grabbed three, when I really needed 127.
I picked turkey out of my teeth all the way over to Tomorrowland, grabbed a fastpass for Buzz Lightyear and rode the Matterhorn. For some reason, there seemed to be some doors left open in the Matterhorn that weren’t meant to be open, so you’d go flying by and be able to see into the maintenance rooms. The sights, in order, were “abominable snowman's red eyes, crystals, broom closet, abominable snowman, etc” It was a unique and awesome ride.
I took the train from Tomorrowland back over to New Orleans Square, as I love the dioramas (although I wish they’d mix it up a little: I want to see the cougars fight the T. Rex) and wanted to check out the old Frontierland train station. My blackberry worked when we were parked at the Main St Station, but stopped working as soon as we moved again. I am still amazed.
I was a little early to pick up a fast pass for Indiana Jones, so I went on the stairmaster, er, Tarzan’s treehouse to work on my calves.
The Splash Mountain ride was also a different experience. Initially, they put two young kids in the front of the boat, but neither was tall enough for the front seat, so they moved back a seat, leaving me in the middle, two giant humans behind me and the front seat empty. The end effect was that we rode through Splash Mountain doing a wheelie. We were hitting places we were not supposed to hit; on the plus side, no one got very wet.
Buzz Lightyear is a great ride, but I’m just terrible at it. I got 87,000 the first time and could hear the trash talking in my head from my wife who routinely cleans my clock at it. I did some practice shooting at the Frontierland shooting arcade, and that seemed to be improve my game as I got 120,000 the next two times, although that can also be attributed to the ride being stopped and me lighting up one target for a few minutes.
I stopped into Innoventions, which has neither innovations or inventions, but is instead a room mostly filled with Xboxes. Not that I’m complaining, as Guitar Hero was able to confirm what I had already suspected: I rock.
I also played with the machine that shows what you look like when you’ve aged, which was completely alarming. I have no idea what’s going to happen to my eyebrows in 30 years, but apparently they’re going to disappear. I would recommend to Disney that as soon as you pick Male or Female, it should spit out a picture of Robert Redford or Sophia Loren, not the “Big Al from Happy Days after a terrible facelift mishap” that greeted me. I am now very concerned for my face’s well being.
Shaken from my Innoventions revelation, I ventured over to Star Tours. I hadn’t been on Star Tours in a long time and I really love that line, but unfortunately I ran into one of the Five Most Annoying People at Disneyland (not that I get annoyed at Disneyland, because I’m so happy to be there. But if I was annoyed, these would be the people I would be annoyed at):
5. Flash photographer in Haunted Mansion or Pirates of the Caribbean
4. Large group who figures out their next attraction by standing in the middle of the pathway (the bottleneck between Indiana Jones and Bengal BBQ is a magnet for these people).
3. Teenage kid who passes you while you’re in line (this happened in the Splash Mt fastpass line, when I stopped to let someone in the standby line take picture of something or other. I’m sure the picture was terrible, but I’m sure it was better than having the side of my head in it. Fortunately, the rest of the kid’s party did not pass me, meaning the kid had to remorsefully move back behind me).
2. The 27 people who cut in line to catch up to the one person in their party way up ahead
- and –
1. The guy who stands too close behind you in line, to the point he’s stepping on your heels.
Unfortunately, we had a #1 in the Star Tours line. Double unfortunately, that #1 was me. I was so caught up at looking at the droids, that I stepped on the ladies foot in front of me. I deeply apologized, but then amazingly did it again a few minutes later. I did it a third time while waiting to board. The lady seemed relieved when we actually sat down and I was unable to do further harm to her heels. I’m not sure what came over me, but it was most have been some sort of aberration in the force.
Back to Indiana Jones, which would have been fun except someone in my car looked into the eye of Mara (it was NOT me). As opposed to gaining the ability to see into the future, we were robustly shaken for three minutes.
Since I had not had any meat for a full hour, I hit up Bengal BBQ for some fantastic skewers. While waiting in line, two Japanese girls asked me if this is where they could get turkey legs. I pantomimed and pointed to their map to the turkey leg stand, mostly because I couldn’t say “NO!! You’re making a huge mistake!” in Japanese.
As the parade started, I decided it was time for Nemo, which turned out to be a 45 minute wait. Thankfully, the blackberry started working again. I can’t imagine standing there for 45 minutes with nothing to do. I guess a normal human could have talked to the people in line, but the couple behind me was making out and the people in front of me seemed wary of my heel-stepping status. So, I pretended to be busy doing important blackberry things while really just reading about fantasy baseball.
It was finally time for my first ride on Finding Nemo, which I really enjoyed. I had been on the old subs before and I have been on the Nemo ride at Epcot, but I thought that Disneyland Nemo > (Old Subs + Epcot Nemo).
I concluded the day by performing a completely illogical itinerary that had me going back and forth between New Orleans Square and Tomorrowland a few more times (Pirates to Buzz Lightyear to Haunted Mansion to Space Mountain to Big Thunder Mountain) before exiting.
That's it - thanks for reading. I applaud anyone who’s reached this point, which has to be close to the longest trip write-up vs actual trip length. Next time, I will promise to be more terse.
And apparently, the blackberry outage was a national, not a Disneyland thing, but I didn’t know it at the time.