Our California Adventure (Semi) Live Trip Report - Day 2 - Disneyland

Today was going to be a rest day, but we decided to do Disneyland instead. We got the Southern California CityPass, so we get three days at Disney, a day at Sea World, and a day at Universal Studios. So, off to Disneyland we go!

First thing's first. Rin and I love Disney. More specifically, we love Walt Disney World. We know that Disneyland is different, and we were expecting the differences. But I don't think we were really prepared for them. As we were driving in, we could see parts of the park: the Matterhorn, Space Mountain, and same of the facades. Then, we realized we could see into backstage areas. No big deal, we've seen backstage before at WDW, but it's kind of weird to see it before you're even in the park.

So we parked, got the shuttle through  the streets of Anaheim, and headed into the park. Disney's California Adventure is off the the left, and Magic Kingdom is off the the right, and we were headed to Magic Kingdom for the day. Bag check was pretty cursory, I'm pretty sure we could've had several knives in our bag without anyone noticing, but what can you do?

First impression? It looks like WDW. Which makes sense, since Main St in WDW was based off of Main St here. Then, we saw the Castle. That was a huge shock. I've seen pictures of Sleeping Beauty's Castle online, and I knew it was shorter than Cinderella's Castle, but, again, I wasn't really prepared for this.

Look at this. There are trees taller than the Castle.

The size of the Castle became an issue later in the evening when the fireworks were happening. But more on that later.

So yeah, we were underwhelmed. But, we were off in search of rides. First stop: Pirates of the Carribean. It's Rin's favourite ride at WDW, so we thought it was a good first ride. The line was a bit weird. I mean, at WDW, all the lines are really  themed, and basically hidden. This one felt more like a line at Canada's Wonderland. Basically just like they put the line wherever there was room. This was a trend that continued through the day, most noticeable on Space Mountain, where you just line up on the roof.

This was taken from in the line to Pirates. Kind of strange, seeing the rest of the park from the line.

Pirates itself was awesome though, and we both finally felt like we were in Disney. There's a lot more to the beginning of this version than in WDW. You go past one of the restaurants right near the beginning, which was kind of cool, and then moved into an elaborate cave system. after that, it transitions (mostly) into the Pirates we know and love. There were a few minor differences, but it was still awesome.

After the ride, we wandered a lot, checked out some shops, including one dedicated to Nightmare Before Christmas, which was awesome, then decided to check out Haunted Mansion. I've always heard awesome things about Haunted Mansion at Disneyland, but I thought it basically felt exactly the same as WDW. Maybe the awesomeness happens around Halloween or Christmas when they actually theme it differently.

The Haunted Mansion. I have to say, I do like the plantation style building.

Oh, one thing I haven't mentioned yet. Cast Members. As soon as we walked into the park, we noticed that the CMs somehow felt different than at WDW. Not as friendly, perhaps. Not as stellar at their jobs. This is something that continued for the entire day, save for one or two exceptions. We also noticed something you'd never see at WDW: Cast Members out of place. By this, I mean CMs in the wrong uniform for their area. I'm not sure if Disneyland doesn't have utilidors, or if the standards here just aren't as high, but there were several occasions when we saw a CM in, say, a Tomorrowland uniform walking through, say Frontierland. Kind of strange to see. We also saw three uniformed CMs eating while on stage, or walking with their lunch in hand. Again, not something I've ever seen at WDW. As Rin put it, Disneyland is the Happiest Place on Earth, not the Most Magical they don't need Magic. And I kind of agree, WDW has magic coming out of every orifice. Disneyland, not so much.

Anyway, back to the day. After some more wandering, we happened upon a Character meet with Pooh, Tigger and Eeyore. So, naturally, we got in line. And were the only two people without kids there. We've gotten used to this at this point. We got our pictures, but we were surprised that neither Eeyore nor Tigger had PhotoPass Photographers, so we could only have one person in each picture. When we got to Pooh, I asked the PP Photographer to take a picture with my camera, which he then handed off to the Character attendant, who took one picture. I was lucky it turned out, since the camera was on Manual mode (I assumed the PP Photog would know how to use it). The PP Photog just stood there, didn't take a single shot. Huh.

A good shot, none-the-less.

After this, we naturally checked out the Winnie the Pooh ride, which was mostly the same as its WDW counterpart. Nothing special, but still fun.

Earlier in the day, we had grabbed a FastPass for Indiana Jones Adventure on the way to Pirates. Neither of us had any clue what the ride was like, but it was the first FastPass we saw, so we got it (I have to say, I like that the CMs tell you that you have to come back during the window, and not after, or you won't be let in). Now, our time was up, so we headed back. As we were headed in, we were trying to figure out what was going to happen. First, we were thinking water ride, but that didn't really seem to make sense. Then, I had an epiphany. It felt like it would be like Dinosaur. And by that, I mean the ride vehicles would be like Dinosaur. And I was right! I loved the ride, but Rin was terrified for most of it, she's not a fan of snakes, and there were snakes abound. The ride ended with the iconic boulder rolling toward us, just as we 'fall' through the floor and it misses us. This part could be cleaned up, I think, since the boulder clearly stopped before we fell. Otherwise, I'd go back on in a heartbeat. Rin, maybe not. I feel like it would be an awesome addition to DHS back in Orlando. Maybe to replace the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular.

Where does one go after joining Indy on an adventure? Why not keep the adventure going on Jungle Cruise! I always think that this ride really depends on your Skipper, and I think the same holds true here at Disneyland. Sadly, I wasn't a huge fan of our Skipper, more obnoxious than funny. She had her good moments, but mostly it just fell flat. The ride itself is mostly the same as at WDW, so nothing special to report here.

That zebra sure is dead tired.

I think it was around this time that we decided to get some lunch. Now, usually, Rin and I plan like mad people when we go to WDW. We know the names of all of the restaurants, we know the menus at most of them, and we have our ADRs booked 180 days out. This trip, not so much. So, we relied on the map. The Dining descriptions on the maps leave a lot to be desired, but we settled on Carnation Cafe. It was decent. The fried pickles that we had as an appetizer were awesome, but the burgers were just ok.  Part way through the meal, we decided to split a malt, which was delicious, bu probably a bad idea, since I ate and drank so much I felt like I might be sick by the end of the meal. Oops. Our server was great though (although I really wasn't sure about her at first), and there was a chef wandering around greeting everyone, which was nice (I fell like he used to be a chef, now he's only there to talk to people at the tables).

After I recovered from our meal, we decided to head over to Space Mountain, and picked up a FP for Start Tours on the way. Sadly, as we were in line for Space Mountain, the ride went down. We waited a bit longer, then the wait time went from "We're not sure when Space Mountain will be back up" to "It's going to be an extended delay of kind of a long time," so we left with the mass exodus. This wound up being fortuitous, since we happened upon two storm troopers wandering around. First time I've seen a storm trooper in real life.

I honestly can't think of a good caption...

The storm troopers led us toward Innoventions (bit odd seeing Innoventions in Magic Kingdom), so we went in, mostly to see the Iron Man suits. Innoventions was cool, but nothing compared to its Epcot counterpart. I did enjoy the 'Dream Home' exhibit, and would love to be able to automate my house like that. The electricity it takes to run that place must be astounding. The kitchen is freezing because of all of the servers they have underneath the floor. The Iron Man suits were cool too, they have Mark 1 through Mark 7, and then Mark 42 ('Man-Man' from Iron Man 3).

Mark 1

Mark 42

After Innoventions was a slew of rides. We hit the Mad-Tea Party (another ride that made me feel like I was in Canada's Wonderland), which was awesome as always, then Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, which was cool, and we were both thrown by the ending. I'm not sure why all of the hype about it though. Next up, our FP for Star Tours was up. Again, this feels a lot like the WDW version, which is a good thing. This is one of the few lines that I felt was truly immersive. And the ride was great too, though, of all of the possible combinations out there, I'm about 99% certain that we've had the same one at WDW.

After leaving Innoventions, Matterhorn loomed in the distance, calling to us. We had walked past it earlier, but the line seemed so daunting, we decided to skip it (we actually couldn't figure out where the line started, since it seems to wrap around the entire mountain. This time, the line was shorter, and though we're still not sure where the line starts, we found a gap in the chain, and popped in there before walking up to the end of the line. I have to say, the Bobsleds were pretty good. Not the perfect roller coaster (I don't think Disney has yet to manage a truly great coaster), but it was good. And it through me around like mad, which I love.

Toon Town was our next stop. We went mostly on a whim, as we were pretty sure there wasn't really anything that would interest us. Sweet merciful crap, we were wrong. We did Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin, which was great; I love any ride where I can make myself spin as fast as possible. The line was great too. In fact, Toon Town felt the most 'finished' of any area at Disneyland. Everything just worked, and nothing seemed like it was out of place.

Rin got locked in Toon Town jail...

...it's ok though, she got out.

Then, Rin noticed a roller coaster. We can't say no to roller coasters, and this one looked like it might actually be a proper roller coaster, with twists and turns and drops and everything that makes a roller coaster good. So, we got in line. Rin kept calling it Goofy's Go Coaster. Turns out it was actually Gadget's Go Coaster. Oops. Anyway, the coaster was good, but not as good as we'd hoped. And very short. Too short. I suppose it's technically a kids ride.

I took a few pictures in the area, which was fun, since it was dark, and I got to pull out the GorillaPod. This one's probably one of my favourites.

It wound up a bit over-exposed because of the ECV that went by, but I like having the light track from it go through the shot. And it was better than I expected. I honestly thought I was gonna wind up with a picture of whiteness.

Finally, it was almost time to go home. We wanted to watch the fireworks ("Magic" in Disneyland, as opposed to "Wishes"), and I wanted a good spot to get some pictures. So the search began. We checked out the train station first, but there was a flagpole in the way. So we wandered up to the roped of area in the middle of Main St. I sat down near the back, set up the GorillaPod, and all looked well. I should mention, my GorillaPod sits about six inches off the ground. Suddenly, CMs came around asking everyone to stand so that "we'd all have a better view."

I don't know about you, but I'm 5'8" and Rin is about 5'6". If someone taller than us stands in front of us (and there are a lot of them out there), our view is suddenly shot. And with a castle as short as this, that's a big deal With Cinderella's Castle, it's tall enough to see above people. Not so with Sleeping Beauty's Castle. I can't imagine the 5 and 6 year olds out there that suddenly had 5' tall people standing in front of them. But, anyway, everyone stood, and my view, along with my camera's, went out the window. So, we resigned to just watch the fireworks through the heads of everyone in front of us. I got a couple of shots, but I'm too shaky to take proper night time pictures without a tripod.

Magic was good, but doesn't hold a candle to Wishes, which makes Rin cry every time. Magic did not do the same. And somehow felt a lot more disjointed than Wishes does.

Finally, time to leave for the day. But wait! We still haven't hit Space Mountain. So back we went. And we made a stop at Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters. I beat Rin with just over 100,000 points to her 70,000ish points. I still don't understand how people manage 999,999.

The line to Space Mountain seemed to move much faster than earlier, and we were on in what seemed like no time. I forgot that Space Mountain here is 2 people wide instead of 1, which is inconsequential, but something to note. As we were going up the giant hill, I expected something amazing to happen. Like being shot up the hill Hulk style, or actually having a drop at the end. But alas, nothing so great. At first, it felt like we were going really slow, but the ride quickly picked up, and we were going fast enough to make my eyes water. I think this is the one case where I prefer this ride to the WDW version. It was just so much faster, and more twisty. One point to Disneyland.

And then, we left. We stopped at Denny's on the way home for "supper." I hate myself for going to Denny's when there are so many restaurants around here that I've never been to, but it was like 1:00am, and it was the only place I knew would be open. It was satisfactory, but nothing amazing. A decent comfort-food type end of the day.

I think I'll do a small picture dump now, since I have a bunch that I just want to show off.