Disneyland Day One

Well it was a bit hard to get up after last night, but Disneyland was waiting! We were a bit behind schedule but hit the road at a decent time. We drove right past downtown L.A - on the way we wee slowed by two accidents. Pretty crazy considering it was a Sunday morning. Were people in a hurry to get to church?

There was a massive interchange about halfway between Anaheim and Los Anngeles, the drive seemed pretty easy on the way down (god it was tough on the way back Monday night). We intended to check in at the hotel and walk down but we got in the wrong lane and ended up in the Disneyland carpark. Probably worked out for the best that way anyway, as it was starting to get on in the morning. Also by the time we had checked in and got back to Disneyland it would have been 11.00 or so.

The carpark is massive. You could land a plane in there. Well its just so huge that you think you could. Sherry got a photo on the last day we left and you cant see the end. Its like the carpark at Chatswood - ie 6 stories or so - but 10 times as long and 10 times as wide. We parked on the Diasy level this morning and walked down to where the shuttles take you to the main entrance. The shuttles are about 8 carriages which can fit 5 people on each row and have about 6 rows. So they are moving 250 -300 people at a time. And there are shuttles constantly picking people up. One leaves and another one arrives straight awat. They need too to, because thee are that many people queuing to get on. Mini Denise Richards was sitting in the next aisle with about 5 other friends. I found out later when talking to one of them that it was a 16th birthday.

After a short ride on the shuttle, passing some cool displays in the gardens, we were at the downtown disney stop. We then queud up to grab our tickets and this was probably the longest wait we had all day apart from Splash Mountain.

I expected massive waits. I thought we would be lucky to get on maybe 3 rides all day considering it was the weekend. It tunrs out i totally understimated the organisation of the park and how they operated things smoothly, efficiently and deceptively sometimes to maximise the happiness of its patrons. The parks are so well run that today was quiet for them. They would have the capacity to handle so many more people. It was like a quiet day at Dreamworld, but there were still so many poeople there. They jsut have that many ways of minimising wait times it's not funny. Fastpasses and multiple copies of the rides.

The entrance to Disneyland was awesome. We got some good entrance snaps and then headed into Disneyland's Main St where the parade is held and all the shops are located. I didnt realise that Sherry didn't see too much last time so when she said - Let's go wherever it was kind of relieving yet alarming. I thought we would have a plan to go exactly where she hadn't gone but we went much more free and easy. We got a few snaps at the Walt Disney Fountain and helped others get their photos too. Then off we went!

First stop - Adventureland!

With a jungle theme there are 4 attractions:

Adventureland

37 - Enchanted Tiki Room

38 - Indiana Jones Adventure

39 - Jungle Cruise

40 - Tarzan's Treehouse

First off we went and got Fastpasses for Indiana Jones. This meant we could go back later and skip the queue's. We then went around Tarzan's Treehouse which had no wait time. That was a cool way to start.

There was a tiger in the house just up from the start making the occasional growl or grumble and we thought it would be a cool photo for me to put my head in its mouth, so I did and the tiger just lets with the biggest ROAR! ever! Purely by chance too and I just bolted in fright. hahahah - it had to be by chance because i went back and did it again to get the photo done and it didn't make a peep. hahaha. We saw some cool views of Frontier land and Critter Country up here too.

Would be nice if your mates told you they were coming over for a suprise visit.

New Orleans Square

14 - Disneyland Railroad

15 - Haunted Mansion

16 - Pirates of the Caribbean

We then walked towards New Orleans and saw that the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction only had a 15 minute wait time. Sherry said that that was really short for that one as it was really popular. So we decided to bite the 15 minute bullet. This attraction had the most amazing production value. It starts off by scaring the hell out of you, but is then just a gently cruise through the darkness while depicting various aspects either from teh movie or just of pirate life in general. As you start you here a chant 'Dead...Men...Tell......No....Tails. Dead.....Men....Tell.....No....Tails!!'
That part and a cool hologram of Davey Jones were the scariest parts, but you were constantly in fear of something else happening. Through the following sequences there was plenty of 'Yo Ho Ho Ho A Pirates Life for Me!'. There was no great climax to the ride which explained the non-plussed look of punters while we were waiting and watching people get off the ride.

We then tried to get another fastpass for the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, but found out that you could only get one fast pass at a time. So we headed back to the Indiana Jones exhibit which we were now within our window to ride on.

It was pretty cool just walking past hundreds of people waiting in line. You ahve to wonder what they are thinking standing in a massive queue and we are like....Ta Ta! DId I mention the production value?? i had no idea where the ride started. We were walking through a crypt area and it was dead quiet. i was wondering if spikes would shoot out or something. Just an amazing way to set teh mood. Sure enough though the ride was further in and there was a bit of a queue. For the ride we were sitting in a largish rollercoaster - similar to the car we were in for Pirates that sat about a dozen people. This one was a herky jerky ride through the dark. I guess to simulate either being on horseback or something. The massive relics that spoke, the large snake, the lgihtning affects that shot across the sides of one of the rooms. But the coolest part was at the end - when the Raiders of the Lost Ark massive Stone Ball looks like its about to roll right onto you. That was really awesome.

We then walked down to Frontier Land and got Fast passes for Thunder Railroad and we then headed back to Critter Country. Sherry got her photo taken with Eeehhaw and we had a browse around one of the souvineer shops.

Critter Country

32 - Splash Mountain

33 - Davy Crockett's Explorer Canoes

34 - The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

We then thought we'd stop of for a feed at the Hungry Bear Restaurant. We both had bacon cheesburgers - and it was a kind of build your own job in terms of the sauces. Sherry fiared better than i did i think with her mayo/ketchup combo. It was ncie to sit down for a while just to slow things down. Some ducks came up hoping for a feed, but a couple of youngsters were doing there best to shoo them away.

After lunch we decided to kill some time before our fastpass ride by going on the Splash Mountain Ride. It had a 35 minute wait time, so by the time the ride finsihed it the window for our fastpass ride would have started. We ended up chatting to this elderly couple in front of us who lived in SoCal (South California). They were i reckon in there early 70's and here they were going on the Splash Mountain Ride. They gave us some suggestions of places to go while we were here - Redwoods, Some Danish village. Couple that with the suggestions Alex gave and we have some good ideas of things to do. I want to go to Yosemite too. Grand Canyon, Vegas. It's almost a fullboook with all of those and the suggestions.

We all went on the ride together and hahhaha what a blast. Really funny, You get satched and then you get all the Critters in teh darkness doing there stupid cackles and croons. I found the downhill drop in the dark, followed by the hens and bandits absolutely hysterical. Then we climbed up for the final big drop down teh front. It was a pretty steep drop conisdering you aren't strapped in. Once off the ride, we took a photo, of the photo we could have bought and said cheerio to the elderly SoCal couple.

Frontier Land

21 - Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

22 - Pirate's Lair on Tom Sawyer Island

23 - Frontierland Shootin' Exposition

24 - Mark Twain Riverboat

25 - Sailing Ship Columbia

26 - Big Thunder Ranch

27 - The Golden Horseshoe Stage

We then looked at our fastpass tickets and were alarmed to realise they expired in 5 minutes. We had miss-read the times. So we bolted our way all around teh Critter Country Lake up to Frontier Land and up to the Big Thunder Mountani Railroad. made it! Phew!! This was actually a rollercoaster. Not a trainride. It was pretty good fun - no major drops or anything - just lots of high speed corners.

We then walked into a goat petting zoo. They seemed pretty happy just to sit there eating, but you couldnt help but think it must be hard on them to have strangers coming up and patting them all the time. They felt just like Ugg Boots.

Another celebrity sighting for Sherry.

Fantasyland

52 - Alice in Wonderland

53 - Casey Jr. Circus Train

54 - Dumbo the Flying Elephant

55 - Disney Princess Fantasy Faire

56 - "It's a Small World"

57 - King Arthur Caroussel

58 - Mad Tea Party

59 - Matterhorn Bobsleds

60 - Mr Toad's Wild Ride

61 - Peter Pan's Flight

62 - Pinocchio's Daring Journey

63 - Sleeping Beauty Castle Walkthrough

64 - Snow White's Scary Adventures

65 - Storyboo0k Land Canal Boats

66 - Pixie Hollow

My fantasy land of food.

We then found ourselves in Fantasy Land. Here we went on Pinocchio's Daring Journey first off. That was pretty cool. It was just one of those sit down in a kart on rail jobs and they tell you a visual story as you ride through.

King arthur's Denver sword

We then got a frozen lemonade and went on the "It's a Small World" Ride. It seemed so familiar like it had already been done - but in some crazy nightmare version. This was much more enjoyable. It's a ride that's meant to depict peace and harmony across the entire world. Sherry yelled at me for getting in the way of one of here photos. Hahah - How about starting off with peace across relationship with your significant other first? Then progress onto friends, strangers, countrymen and then foreigners.

Tomorrowland


68 - Astro Orbitor
69 - Autopia
70 - Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters
71 - Disneyland Monorail
72 - Disneyland Railroad
73 - Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage
74 - Honey, I Shrunk the Audience
75 - Innoventions
76 - Space Mountain
77 - Starcade
78 - Star Tours

We didnt do any of the Mickey's Toontown land.

From there we went over to Tomorrow Land and saw a 3d show called 'Honey I Shrunk the Audience'. It actually had Rick Moranis playing his role, as well as one of the guy's from Monty Python hosting the awards ceremony. I've got to say all of the characters actually have their proper voices in most of the shows. So for Woody Tom Hanks would have done some extra voice work, same with Ellen DeGeneris for her Finding Nemo fish. But yeah this was pretty creepy - first off he multplies the mice and they start running around the audience. You feel the things brush against your legs and Sherry was like AHHH! I was so much of a chicken i lifted my legs. Then a massive a cat head came out and it just looked creepy so i looked away. I have it on Sherry's authority that it turned into a snarling lion. I'd already had my fill of snarling beasts today anyway. Then after we were shrunk down the massive snake starts causing trouble. Im not going near that thanks.

The Finding Nemo Ride was one of the best we did. While in line we saw a bit of the Jedi Trianing Acadamy. i saw a bit of it before and thought it looked lame, but while in line Darth Vader and Darth Maul came out. That bit was cool as. Good way to pass the time while standing in line. Once in the submarine it was cool hearing the Aussie voice overs - I guess Finding Nemo is set in Ausrtalia. Hahah in the submarine i told so of the people on the ride that i was Austrlaia and then threatened a young girl by saying 'You'd better eat your veggies otherwise I'll be seeing you on the dentist chair'. haha. The coral looked cool, and then when the submarine goes deeper you see cool parts of the movie - the trip at school, Bruce the recovering shark "i am not a ruthless killing machine', the fish with lights, the jellyfish, the whale (although the submarine was the big yellow whale.

Good idea. Drown Mushroom Gorge.

After that we went on the Autopia ride. We jumped the queue again using the Smart pass although it wasn't really needed. Our car was a bucket of poo - It had no get up and go. The car behind us went ride up our butt.

When we got off I saw that The Jedi Academy training was on again so i bolted down to get some good photos of Darth's Maul and Vader.

We then went back to Fantasyland for some Yodelay Eehoo action on the Matterhorn. That was scary at one part because it sounded our carriage was groaning due to the weight. That get's you wondering whether it will stay on the tracks. Sherry later told me that it was a groaning mountain goat. It was cool seeing the yeti's as you screamed around the corners. I've decided the scariest thing about rollercoasters is the fear of hitting my head and also the fear that the safety harnesses will not hold.

We then found that we still had time to do Star Tours before we had to leave to the Hotel in time to meet Alison and Todd for dinner at Bubba Gump Shrimps. The Tour was pretty cool. Everyhone got really excited when you went into lightspeed. Sherry found it really hot and smelly. She also got motion sickness.

We saw some pretty cool things in the Star Wars Shop. Sherry was suprised that I didnt make my own light sabre. But yeah it looked lame. Unlike the really cool R2D2 backpack. hahah - it was massive, but when you opened up the one zip the storage capacity was miiniscual. After going on the Star Tours Ride the guy behind the counter made a really photo of me as Obi-Wan - but i thought that Shery had already done a better job with my windows background photos. Just the hue of my face didnt suit - although the hair did look really good. haha. But gawd - way to pricey.

We then got on the Monorail which turned out to ba a bad move because it dropped us off way way outside the park. We walked back to the Shuttle karts and got on one with a bunch of excessivley alrge people in the row behind us. One of them said 'This has to be the slowest kart ridef ever!'. hahah funny on so many levels. She should have been grateful that she was moving at a speed unnatural to her eanyway and also it was probably her and her friends' weight that was slowing the kart down in the first place.

We got to our hotel, checked in and then drove back downtown, parked in a parking garage and walked to Bubba's. We put our names down and hung around outside. We also had a bit of a look in the souvenier shop. Our names were then called and we were told to go inside and wait behind more people. It was like being at teh Doctor's. You wait and then you get called up to wait some more.

It was good to eat with Alison and Todd. They had done the L.A bus tour thing where yo g and see all the sites. The meals wree pretty crazy. All in all it was good - but just maybe a little too expensive for fried food. I had some clam chowder which was nice too. The shrimp nachos were not saucy enough. The staff did heaps of Happy Birthday chants for people. It was cool to see the staff have a good time, even if they werent. Hahah Alison ordering something without shrimp. Kind of like an 'in your face' to the whole place considering it is a shrimp place.

We then drove back to their hotel to watch the fireworks from the rooftop. We heard them going off and went to where we thought the noise was coming from, but we couldnt see anything.. so we did the bolt down to the other end. A gate was locked 'The Key! The Key!' We then got up to the top and saw an awesome fireworks display.

Then it was time go back to our own room and I fell asleep instantly. I think Sherry watched some TV and in my sleep I yelled at her to turn it down.