Lekta
05-25-2004, 12:40 PM
This will be long winded, so I decided to just post it in segments. If enough are interested by it, I will continue to post it. If not, I'd rather not take up valuable space with my ramblings... :fez:
Here it goes-
TRIP REPORT 5-17 to 5-24
Disneyland, DCA, Universal Studios Hollywood, Knotts Berry Farm, Hollywood, Balboa
WHO: ME, 26
WIFE, 22
It all started on a very early Monday morning, the air thick with building anticipation. The plane, on time and landing at the precise moment as scheduled. The passengers, eager to get off the plane.
As my wife and I wandered over to the rental car company bus pick up, we wondered how quickly we could get to Disneyland. Well, after about 15 minutes of the bus drivers sudden swerving, hard breaking, no look driving, we arrived at the car rental agency. Fox Car Rental is the precise name. We ended up renting a 2004 Ford Focus for a hair over $120 for the week. Not too bad a price!
The first thing that we noticed about this agency is the unprofessional office/waiting room. Not only did ALL of their computers go down, but they all went down TWICE, and that is just in the time that we were there. The second thing (and a biggie in my book), our brand new nifty Ford Focus smelled as though the Witches of Eastwick had performed animal sacrifices with a tamed circus monkey in the back seat. In other words, it smelled like rotting flesh. Now, for the life of me, my wife and I scoured the entire vehicle top to bottom and we could not discover the origin of this smell, which was now dubbed “the hideous odor.”
After discussions with the rental agency, they informed me that it would take about 30-60 minutes to get another car checked out to me. I figured that the odor would go away, as we could not find any reason for it, and we quickly departed, pent up excitement to get to Disneyland boiling out. Suffice to say the smell stayed with the car for the duration.
We arrived at our hotel (Alamo Inn) without incident, checked in, and unloaded the hearse….errr car. After spending approximately 10 minutes in the hotel room, I knew good and well why I had been advised against renting a room here. Three words: Dark, dirty, and depressing. Oh, and the MASSIVE cockroach located behind the front door. I stealthfully asked my wife to get something out of the car (she is horrified by roaches), smashed the creature and disposed of him. Now, in my head I’m a bit upset and plan to talk to the hotel manager, but, I don’t let on to my wife. I don’t want her vacation to start out horribly.
OK, now on to the real reason everyone reads these – DISNEYLAND!! We hurried over to the park at about 1pm. From our vantage point at the hotel, it looked like a hop, skip, and a jump to Disneyland. Well, try a leap, sprint, and a run. It was quite a walk indeed. Mental note, don’t stay at Katella hotels unless training for decathlon.
Upon arrival, we shot straight for the Blue Ribbon Bakery to grab some mocha’s. There isn’t much finer substance on earth then a Blue Ribbon mocha. After drinking our coffee, we wandered over to Pirates, saw a very short line, and hoped aboard. I love the small improvements that they made. Next we got Splash Mt. Fastpasses. We then jumped into line at Indiana Jones, as it was quite short also. I agree with a lot of folks on here regarding the bugs in the headlights… it doesn’t even match up with what headlights would appear as on the wall. They aren’t square. However, it was an enjoyable ride as always. We would have loved to see the snake move though.
Remembering that we still haven’t been over to the Tower, we went there next. Got a fastpass and got into line. The lined moved somewhat quickly and soon enough, we were aboard. One thing I noticed is that they waste no time after seating you and closing the elevator doors, that ride starts immediately. Anther thing I noticed, now, don’t get me wrong, we LOVED it, it is just so darn short. Another drop or two would do wonders, or perhaps another animation/special effects door near the end. At any rate, it got our thumbs up approval. As a side note, my wife loved the way that the picture taken during ToT made her hair look like it had a lot of volume. I only share because I care folks…. =P
Over to our personal favorite, California Screamin. Great ride as always. Next up in the walk around DCA, the Maliboomer. For some reason the Maliboomer has always inspired a deep fear in me, for no apparent reason other then the fact you get shot 1000 feet into the air. I had ridden it once a couple of years back and I remember it not being too bad, so I said what the heck. I was right, it was a piece of cake. More mellow then ToT by far in my book. The only difference is that you can see the ground the whole time. But again, this ride is too short. Why not drop the riders down with the same velocity as they were shot up? It just felt like a really fast ride up and then gently lowered down. Simple.
On to Grizzly. We have only ridden this one time in all our ventures for the simple reason that we don’t like to be wet while we walk around. We thought, oh well, it is a nice day out and some people don’t get soaked. I guess we just hoped we would be the lucky ones. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I could have tried, but I would have failed. We got absolutely, 100% SOAKED. The reason being the geyser. Now, we had watched others go through the geyser prior to us getting on. Every time the geyser shut off before they got to it. Well, wouldn’t you know, it just so happened to not shut off for us. Not only was there not a single item of clothing on either of us not soaked, but our passes got soaked too, thus forcing us to get a Fastpass card from guest services each and every remaining day on our 5 day pass, per park as the barcode was unreadable….=( However soaked we got, we thought the ride was fun, minus the geyser
Here it goes-
TRIP REPORT 5-17 to 5-24
Disneyland, DCA, Universal Studios Hollywood, Knotts Berry Farm, Hollywood, Balboa
WHO: ME, 26
WIFE, 22
It all started on a very early Monday morning, the air thick with building anticipation. The plane, on time and landing at the precise moment as scheduled. The passengers, eager to get off the plane.
As my wife and I wandered over to the rental car company bus pick up, we wondered how quickly we could get to Disneyland. Well, after about 15 minutes of the bus drivers sudden swerving, hard breaking, no look driving, we arrived at the car rental agency. Fox Car Rental is the precise name. We ended up renting a 2004 Ford Focus for a hair over $120 for the week. Not too bad a price!
The first thing that we noticed about this agency is the unprofessional office/waiting room. Not only did ALL of their computers go down, but they all went down TWICE, and that is just in the time that we were there. The second thing (and a biggie in my book), our brand new nifty Ford Focus smelled as though the Witches of Eastwick had performed animal sacrifices with a tamed circus monkey in the back seat. In other words, it smelled like rotting flesh. Now, for the life of me, my wife and I scoured the entire vehicle top to bottom and we could not discover the origin of this smell, which was now dubbed “the hideous odor.”
After discussions with the rental agency, they informed me that it would take about 30-60 minutes to get another car checked out to me. I figured that the odor would go away, as we could not find any reason for it, and we quickly departed, pent up excitement to get to Disneyland boiling out. Suffice to say the smell stayed with the car for the duration.
We arrived at our hotel (Alamo Inn) without incident, checked in, and unloaded the hearse….errr car. After spending approximately 10 minutes in the hotel room, I knew good and well why I had been advised against renting a room here. Three words: Dark, dirty, and depressing. Oh, and the MASSIVE cockroach located behind the front door. I stealthfully asked my wife to get something out of the car (she is horrified by roaches), smashed the creature and disposed of him. Now, in my head I’m a bit upset and plan to talk to the hotel manager, but, I don’t let on to my wife. I don’t want her vacation to start out horribly.
OK, now on to the real reason everyone reads these – DISNEYLAND!! We hurried over to the park at about 1pm. From our vantage point at the hotel, it looked like a hop, skip, and a jump to Disneyland. Well, try a leap, sprint, and a run. It was quite a walk indeed. Mental note, don’t stay at Katella hotels unless training for decathlon.
Upon arrival, we shot straight for the Blue Ribbon Bakery to grab some mocha’s. There isn’t much finer substance on earth then a Blue Ribbon mocha. After drinking our coffee, we wandered over to Pirates, saw a very short line, and hoped aboard. I love the small improvements that they made. Next we got Splash Mt. Fastpasses. We then jumped into line at Indiana Jones, as it was quite short also. I agree with a lot of folks on here regarding the bugs in the headlights… it doesn’t even match up with what headlights would appear as on the wall. They aren’t square. However, it was an enjoyable ride as always. We would have loved to see the snake move though.
Remembering that we still haven’t been over to the Tower, we went there next. Got a fastpass and got into line. The lined moved somewhat quickly and soon enough, we were aboard. One thing I noticed is that they waste no time after seating you and closing the elevator doors, that ride starts immediately. Anther thing I noticed, now, don’t get me wrong, we LOVED it, it is just so darn short. Another drop or two would do wonders, or perhaps another animation/special effects door near the end. At any rate, it got our thumbs up approval. As a side note, my wife loved the way that the picture taken during ToT made her hair look like it had a lot of volume. I only share because I care folks…. =P
Over to our personal favorite, California Screamin. Great ride as always. Next up in the walk around DCA, the Maliboomer. For some reason the Maliboomer has always inspired a deep fear in me, for no apparent reason other then the fact you get shot 1000 feet into the air. I had ridden it once a couple of years back and I remember it not being too bad, so I said what the heck. I was right, it was a piece of cake. More mellow then ToT by far in my book. The only difference is that you can see the ground the whole time. But again, this ride is too short. Why not drop the riders down with the same velocity as they were shot up? It just felt like a really fast ride up and then gently lowered down. Simple.
On to Grizzly. We have only ridden this one time in all our ventures for the simple reason that we don’t like to be wet while we walk around. We thought, oh well, it is a nice day out and some people don’t get soaked. I guess we just hoped we would be the lucky ones. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I could have tried, but I would have failed. We got absolutely, 100% SOAKED. The reason being the geyser. Now, we had watched others go through the geyser prior to us getting on. Every time the geyser shut off before they got to it. Well, wouldn’t you know, it just so happened to not shut off for us. Not only was there not a single item of clothing on either of us not soaked, but our passes got soaked too, thus forcing us to get a Fastpass card from guest services each and every remaining day on our 5 day pass, per park as the barcode was unreadable….=( However soaked we got, we thought the ride was fun, minus the geyser