Also known as Disneyland!11! Bolstered by the good experiences that were had at Universal Studios and the iconic nature of the place we decided to deviate and try our luck at the Happiest place on Earth. Getting up early I have noted that most Americans don't seem to like getting up of a morning as theme parks open late (eg. Universal opens at 10) and stay open even later. I would have to say were were probably in the first hundred or so through the gates at 8am.
The first stop was the Matterhorn which was easy to find because it was the largest structure in the entire park, we were in line for about 20 minutes after the park had just opened. Now Disneyland is a fairly large place and they do not have preferred ticket lines meaning you will spend most of your time either walking from place to place or spend your time in a line waiting for a ride. What they do have is a system called Fastpass which allows you to get a ticket for a ride between a particular time where you then go into a priority queue and can skip over 3/4th of the line. However on super popular rides like the Indiana Jones Ride or Splash Mountain that still means a line wait of up to 20 minutes.
We spent the entire day at Disneylannd from 8am to 9:30pm (although it stayed open until midnight) and I think we walked the entire park at least twice over. We covered the rides Autopia (driving cars on rails - we were tricked), Star Tours (Star Wars diving in Death Star canyon), Buzz Astro Blasters (A massive laser shooting gallery - got a high score yay), Space Mountain (a completely indoor rollercoaster in the dark), Big Thunder (fast train coaster around a mountain setting), The Haunted mansion (an automated horror tour that has some very creative sets) Splash Mountain (a log ride where the first 2 will not just get wet
but soaked), Indiana Jones (a coaster of sorts with very elaborate and detailed sets).
There were other rides besides the big name ones like listed but a lot of these are the classic rides as I like to call them, like the Mad Hatters teacup ride, the Dumbo Ride, the large carousel and soforth. These rides were very children based and I steered clear of them. In pure action rides there were very few that appealed to me but then Disneyland isn't about action. I will say that the entire park is very well presented with very creative designs in all of it's sections and it was a sight worth seeing at least once in your life.
I admit I got a real charge out of the Tom Sawyer's pirate island which had dozens of
tunnels, jailcells, tree houses and other little nooks and crannies to explore. I think I was more enthusiastic about the place than the kids playing there, running about with my pirate accent. At least two people mistook me for a park actor because of my enthusiasm for the place. Of all the rides I went on I am hard pressed to pick a favorite as Space Mountain, Splash Mountain and the Indiana Jones rides all appealed to some other aspect of myself.
I will say probably the most fun from a purely sadistic viewpoint is Splash Mountain
because I got to be up front as the log came barrelling down into a pool of water soaking myself from head to toe as well as a lot of other people. As I understand it that shouldn't happen on that massive a scale. Foolish peoples allowing a 120kg Australian with a penchant for water based rides into the front seat.
The day was capped off with a spectacular fireworks show that lasted almost twenty minutes with music and voice acting form all the big name Disney and Lucas movies which was a real delight for me and was probably even moreso for the children in the audience. I don't know if I'll go as far to agree with Disneyland being the happiest place on Earth in regards to myself but it was very entertaining and nostalgic and it's worth going at least once even if half of it is built specifically for kids under 10.
No comments:
Post a Comment