Back to Disneyland Finally
It's been a while. I finally have something to write about that isn't game related. My mom and I finally got to go back to Disneyland yesterday. I probably would have gone earlier if not waiting to hear about the replacement for the annual passes. And then the announcement finally came, and the new passes arrived on August 25th. Even though we didn't have to we got ours on that day. They are pretty much the same with the exception of needing to make reservations for your trips. I was glad I could get back to Disneyland again, but our first visit there since the parks closed down wasn't without its headaches and stress.
The first thing is things have obviously changed just driving to get into the park. They removed a turn lane for getting off the freeway for instance, which was the first anxiety trigger for my mom, and then to get to the parking structure they took us in a whole different direction. We were sent to the new structure. I'm not sure if the old structure was open or it was filled up already. Another thing is the use of the Disneyland app to scan yourself in with the pass barcode and basically needing to use the app for other things as well. That's another nightmare I will get into in a little while. So we got through and parked. That part was smooth enough, but then we were kind of stuck in a land of confusion about where we were supposed to go to after leaving the structure. There didn't seem to be any directions or anything, but we figured we'd just follow where the people were walking. We entered the former tram loading area on the left and then made a right turn around where they check your bags. OK. After that, where do we go from there? I knew they weren't running the trams anymore, so was prepared for a walk to get to the parks. Followed the people again, and found out they're having us actually walk down the road the tram takes. WTF? And this, this … is a looong walk. It's probably a mile. It's absolutely ridiculous that they're making people do this, and on top of that, after you've been walking around the parks all day, you have to make that long walk back again to get to your car. It's not friendly to people to with disabilities. I hope one day they'll change that and bring the trams back, but for now it's uncertain. :/
After what seemed like an eternity, we finally made it to the esplanade. With the new passes (and the tickets I guess), you have to pick a starting park and then you can't crossover to the other park until 1 pm. It's sort of a bummer, and I wonder if they'll ever change that. We chose DCA as our starting park because I wanted to check out the new Avengers Campus first. We got in line and got ready to get scanned in when the app wouldn't load. Great. I've heard stories about this. Disney's wifi is bad, ect, and unfortunately it happened to us. The guy told us to exit the line and come back to the front when we got it to work. It makes me so mad. That's the problem with relying on phones or apps to enter the park, and then if it doesn't work, then what? You're screwed? Well after leaving the line, the app still wouldn't load, so I told my mom to try turning her phone off and on again, and then it worked and we got in the park. Let me tell you, we're not going to rely on Disney's spotty wifi again. Next time we're going to print out the barcodes for the passes, and hope that's acceptable because if it isn't, I don't know, we'll throw a tantrum. Stupid stupid idea not to have physical passes anymore. Of course you can buy a physical pass for $20, but it's made of paper. :/ No thanks.
I was hoping I would be feeling that emotional blissful feeling when entering the park for the first time since March 2020, but the stress of the morning ruined that tbh. I was just relieved we could finally get into the park. So we headed over to Avengers Campus. It is small, but so was A Bug's Land, the land it replaced. There was a show going on with Black Widow and Captain America, so we watched it. The choreography is a little silly, but otherwise it's pretty entertaining to watch. The Dora Milaje that came out were cooler. I pointed out the Pym Test Kitchen to my mom where I wanted to get lunch later. I should note that it was very crowded. I was actually shocked after hearing about how people online have been talking about shorter lines and all. After doing some searching online later when I got home though, it sounds like the reason is that the SoCal 3-Day pass deal was expiring soon, so that's probably why people were flooding the parks. Sounds like it was just a case of bad timing on our parts sadly. Of course how could we have known? But back to the Avengers Campus … we didn't do virtual queue for Web Slingers, the new Spider-Man ride. I didn't plan on doing that though. It might not have been a good day to try anyway. It may have been difficult. I've heard it's not super special, so it's not a big deal really. Maybe next time, or not? Because I want Disneyland to be our starter park next time.
We left the area, and went to Cars Land. Standby time for RSR was 90 minutes, so we went in the single rider line as usual and it was pretty much a walk on. Now, masks are still required indoors, including rides that go inside or are enclosed, and that includes RSR. Before the mask requirement was only for those who were unvaccinated, but then Delta happened and they brought it back, but fortunately you don't have to wear them outdoors. If you did, I don't think I would come. I was kind of worried about my mask flying off on the ride. Didn't happen, but it's all I was really thinking about while I was riding unfortunately. :/ My mom told me she got sat next to a mom and a little boy who was crying. The mom apologized, but my mom said it was OK, she understood. Silly moment, but I saw a sign saying exit, but it led to a wall. I realized my mistake and remember you go up some stairs. Has it really been that long that I got disoriented about where I was? LOL. I blame the stress. I even had think about what side you had to exit the car.
After that ride, we headed over to the Little Mermaid ride. Even that ride had a longer than usual line, but it was still short. Then I thought about going in the Grand Californian hotel because they had an Oogie Boogie in there to check out, but decided against it because we would have to deal with the app madness again trying to get in the park again. I think I'm going to develop PTSD over this lol. So instead we watched people on Grizzly River Run, that is until we spotted the cat. The same cat I think I've seen a few times over the years now. His/Her name is Snicker. They like to hang out there. She/He was busy grooming themselves and wouldn't even come over when a cast member was shaking a bag of food. Ah well, we had to watch her/him from a distance.
Then we decided maybe we should head back to Avengers Campus to try mobile ordering our food for the first time. I could tell my mom didn't really like didn't like using an app to order food. I didn't think it was that bad, at least not compared to the other issues we had with the app. We ended up sharing what's called a PB3 Superb Sandwich. It's basically a PB&J and banana and bacon sandwich. Weird eh? It was good though and came with tater tots and a mini banana smoothie. The tots were well made too. I had a sip of the smoothie, but let my mom have the rest. That was the fun of the Ant-Man themed restaurant. Some foods were big and others small. Before we went to get a table I had a mask incident. I was getting ketchup and spilled some on the tray and it got on my finger. I instinctively brought my finger up to my mouth in an attempt to lick it off, and of course got it on my mask. Panicky, I looked at my mask when we were outside and sure enough I got ketchup on it. So I had to throw it out (We've been using those disposable blue medical masks), but luckily I brought a spare. I brought a spare just in case something did happen to my mask, and obviously something did, so good thing I thought to bring another. All good. All filled up with food then, we still had some time to kill before 1pm. My mom was on a mission to find some dalmatian socks because she wants to be Cruella for Halloween. So we went in and out of shops without success.
Getting ready to cross over to Disneyland, my mom tried opening the app again and we had issues again. Grr. Turned the phone off and on again, but now she had to sign into her account again. Luckily we had also written down what her password was. Got it to work again. They took our photos for the passes. I wanted to go to Snow White first because it had been given a face lift. The line was the longest I had ever seen for that ride, but we waited. It wasn't a super long wait I suppose, but my feet were really starting to hurt. The wait was worth it however because the new and improved Snow White is absolutely beautiful. The colors and lights and animation were really pretty. At one point I said, “Wow.” A lot of the ride is the same. The major change is they got rid of the scary trees. I always liked that part, but it's OK. The ending makes more sense with Snow White and the Prince's happily ever after. I was highly impressed, and that was probably the highlight of the day.
After that I wanted to go to Toontown because they are building the new Mickey's Runaway Railway. Not opening until 2023 I think, but at least I could see if anything was happening over there with construction. Well it isn't easy to miss. There's a big eye sore of a building behind where they used to have the mountain backdrop. There was even a funny sign that said, “What building? There's no building here.” From what I heard about the ride though, it sounds like it will be fun. While we were there we took a break on a bench before heading over to the Jolly Holiday for a sweet treat. :)
Halloween always brings some yummy treats. We each got the Mickey Mummy Macaron, which is just a cookies and cream macaron. It was good. Then I looked to see what the wait times were for rides again, and told my mom that Star Tours only had a wait time for 15 mins. More ouchy feet, but I just had to get another ride in. I was sitting on the very end near the door and unfortunately didn't have a great view because a tall guy was sitting in front of me. It didn't really matter though. It was still fun. I would have liked to go on Jungle Cruise too since they updated it, but I guess that's going to have to be for next time. Those were the only rides we did. Just those four. It was too crowded to do anything else. Despite the crowds, I never felt unsafe or anything because everyone masks up. Disneyland is very strict about that.
My mom was still on her mission of finding the dalmatian socks, so the rest of the time was spent going in and out of stores to look for them. I sneakily said we should go around Frontierland and Adventureland maybe hoping to spot a ride with a short line. :P We could have gone on Indy. It was only a half hour wait, but we probably needed to head home anyway. There were no dalmatian socks to be found. My mom will probably just buy white socks and make spots with a pen or something. Then came the looong walk back to the car. It is really killer, and I'm not looking forward to doing this every time we want to go. We were a little lost again trying to figure out how to get back into the structure, but luckily a cast member in the distance directed us with gestures. I think we'll have this down next time.
So, that was our day. It honestly wasn't that great of a start for coming back Disneyland. There was too much stress involved initially. While the weather wasn't extremely hot or anything, luckily (That's another downside to reservations. You don't know what the weather is going to be like on a particular day), but it was still rough. My legs are really sore today. And the app is well, just a joke. Never again are we going to completely rely on it. We'll bring in printed out versions for our passes next time, and pray that works. That was the worst part of the day. I don't like the anxiety of thinking you can't get into a Disney park without a piece of technology working. There's a few things I wish: I wish we could have trams again, I wish we didn't need a stupid app, and I wish we didn't have to worry about making reservations. The last one I'm sure I can't do anything about, but maybe the other two something can be done about eventually. For now, I think this is more stress than it's worth. But maybe we just had a bad day and our next trip will go more smoothly and the crowds won't be as crazy. There were a few happy moments though, like resting and watching a marching band go by, the revamped Snow White, and little mini parades. There is still a little joy to be had. I think maybe once the pandemic is done, things will get better. They have to right? None of these things will stop me going to Disneyland.
The first thing is things have obviously changed just driving to get into the park. They removed a turn lane for getting off the freeway for instance, which was the first anxiety trigger for my mom, and then to get to the parking structure they took us in a whole different direction. We were sent to the new structure. I'm not sure if the old structure was open or it was filled up already. Another thing is the use of the Disneyland app to scan yourself in with the pass barcode and basically needing to use the app for other things as well. That's another nightmare I will get into in a little while. So we got through and parked. That part was smooth enough, but then we were kind of stuck in a land of confusion about where we were supposed to go to after leaving the structure. There didn't seem to be any directions or anything, but we figured we'd just follow where the people were walking. We entered the former tram loading area on the left and then made a right turn around where they check your bags. OK. After that, where do we go from there? I knew they weren't running the trams anymore, so was prepared for a walk to get to the parks. Followed the people again, and found out they're having us actually walk down the road the tram takes. WTF? And this, this … is a looong walk. It's probably a mile. It's absolutely ridiculous that they're making people do this, and on top of that, after you've been walking around the parks all day, you have to make that long walk back again to get to your car. It's not friendly to people to with disabilities. I hope one day they'll change that and bring the trams back, but for now it's uncertain. :/
After what seemed like an eternity, we finally made it to the esplanade. With the new passes (and the tickets I guess), you have to pick a starting park and then you can't crossover to the other park until 1 pm. It's sort of a bummer, and I wonder if they'll ever change that. We chose DCA as our starting park because I wanted to check out the new Avengers Campus first. We got in line and got ready to get scanned in when the app wouldn't load. Great. I've heard stories about this. Disney's wifi is bad, ect, and unfortunately it happened to us. The guy told us to exit the line and come back to the front when we got it to work. It makes me so mad. That's the problem with relying on phones or apps to enter the park, and then if it doesn't work, then what? You're screwed? Well after leaving the line, the app still wouldn't load, so I told my mom to try turning her phone off and on again, and then it worked and we got in the park. Let me tell you, we're not going to rely on Disney's spotty wifi again. Next time we're going to print out the barcodes for the passes, and hope that's acceptable because if it isn't, I don't know, we'll throw a tantrum. Stupid stupid idea not to have physical passes anymore. Of course you can buy a physical pass for $20, but it's made of paper. :/ No thanks.
I was hoping I would be feeling that emotional blissful feeling when entering the park for the first time since March 2020, but the stress of the morning ruined that tbh. I was just relieved we could finally get into the park. So we headed over to Avengers Campus. It is small, but so was A Bug's Land, the land it replaced. There was a show going on with Black Widow and Captain America, so we watched it. The choreography is a little silly, but otherwise it's pretty entertaining to watch. The Dora Milaje that came out were cooler. I pointed out the Pym Test Kitchen to my mom where I wanted to get lunch later. I should note that it was very crowded. I was actually shocked after hearing about how people online have been talking about shorter lines and all. After doing some searching online later when I got home though, it sounds like the reason is that the SoCal 3-Day pass deal was expiring soon, so that's probably why people were flooding the parks. Sounds like it was just a case of bad timing on our parts sadly. Of course how could we have known? But back to the Avengers Campus … we didn't do virtual queue for Web Slingers, the new Spider-Man ride. I didn't plan on doing that though. It might not have been a good day to try anyway. It may have been difficult. I've heard it's not super special, so it's not a big deal really. Maybe next time, or not? Because I want Disneyland to be our starter park next time.
We left the area, and went to Cars Land. Standby time for RSR was 90 minutes, so we went in the single rider line as usual and it was pretty much a walk on. Now, masks are still required indoors, including rides that go inside or are enclosed, and that includes RSR. Before the mask requirement was only for those who were unvaccinated, but then Delta happened and they brought it back, but fortunately you don't have to wear them outdoors. If you did, I don't think I would come. I was kind of worried about my mask flying off on the ride. Didn't happen, but it's all I was really thinking about while I was riding unfortunately. :/ My mom told me she got sat next to a mom and a little boy who was crying. The mom apologized, but my mom said it was OK, she understood. Silly moment, but I saw a sign saying exit, but it led to a wall. I realized my mistake and remember you go up some stairs. Has it really been that long that I got disoriented about where I was? LOL. I blame the stress. I even had think about what side you had to exit the car.
After that ride, we headed over to the Little Mermaid ride. Even that ride had a longer than usual line, but it was still short. Then I thought about going in the Grand Californian hotel because they had an Oogie Boogie in there to check out, but decided against it because we would have to deal with the app madness again trying to get in the park again. I think I'm going to develop PTSD over this lol. So instead we watched people on Grizzly River Run, that is until we spotted the cat. The same cat I think I've seen a few times over the years now. His/Her name is Snicker. They like to hang out there. She/He was busy grooming themselves and wouldn't even come over when a cast member was shaking a bag of food. Ah well, we had to watch her/him from a distance.
Then we decided maybe we should head back to Avengers Campus to try mobile ordering our food for the first time. I could tell my mom didn't really like didn't like using an app to order food. I didn't think it was that bad, at least not compared to the other issues we had with the app. We ended up sharing what's called a PB3 Superb Sandwich. It's basically a PB&J and banana and bacon sandwich. Weird eh? It was good though and came with tater tots and a mini banana smoothie. The tots were well made too. I had a sip of the smoothie, but let my mom have the rest. That was the fun of the Ant-Man themed restaurant. Some foods were big and others small. Before we went to get a table I had a mask incident. I was getting ketchup and spilled some on the tray and it got on my finger. I instinctively brought my finger up to my mouth in an attempt to lick it off, and of course got it on my mask. Panicky, I looked at my mask when we were outside and sure enough I got ketchup on it. So I had to throw it out (We've been using those disposable blue medical masks), but luckily I brought a spare. I brought a spare just in case something did happen to my mask, and obviously something did, so good thing I thought to bring another. All good. All filled up with food then, we still had some time to kill before 1pm. My mom was on a mission to find some dalmatian socks because she wants to be Cruella for Halloween. So we went in and out of shops without success.
Getting ready to cross over to Disneyland, my mom tried opening the app again and we had issues again. Grr. Turned the phone off and on again, but now she had to sign into her account again. Luckily we had also written down what her password was. Got it to work again. They took our photos for the passes. I wanted to go to Snow White first because it had been given a face lift. The line was the longest I had ever seen for that ride, but we waited. It wasn't a super long wait I suppose, but my feet were really starting to hurt. The wait was worth it however because the new and improved Snow White is absolutely beautiful. The colors and lights and animation were really pretty. At one point I said, “Wow.” A lot of the ride is the same. The major change is they got rid of the scary trees. I always liked that part, but it's OK. The ending makes more sense with Snow White and the Prince's happily ever after. I was highly impressed, and that was probably the highlight of the day.
After that I wanted to go to Toontown because they are building the new Mickey's Runaway Railway. Not opening until 2023 I think, but at least I could see if anything was happening over there with construction. Well it isn't easy to miss. There's a big eye sore of a building behind where they used to have the mountain backdrop. There was even a funny sign that said, “What building? There's no building here.” From what I heard about the ride though, it sounds like it will be fun. While we were there we took a break on a bench before heading over to the Jolly Holiday for a sweet treat. :)
Halloween always brings some yummy treats. We each got the Mickey Mummy Macaron, which is just a cookies and cream macaron. It was good. Then I looked to see what the wait times were for rides again, and told my mom that Star Tours only had a wait time for 15 mins. More ouchy feet, but I just had to get another ride in. I was sitting on the very end near the door and unfortunately didn't have a great view because a tall guy was sitting in front of me. It didn't really matter though. It was still fun. I would have liked to go on Jungle Cruise too since they updated it, but I guess that's going to have to be for next time. Those were the only rides we did. Just those four. It was too crowded to do anything else. Despite the crowds, I never felt unsafe or anything because everyone masks up. Disneyland is very strict about that.
My mom was still on her mission of finding the dalmatian socks, so the rest of the time was spent going in and out of stores to look for them. I sneakily said we should go around Frontierland and Adventureland maybe hoping to spot a ride with a short line. :P We could have gone on Indy. It was only a half hour wait, but we probably needed to head home anyway. There were no dalmatian socks to be found. My mom will probably just buy white socks and make spots with a pen or something. Then came the looong walk back to the car. It is really killer, and I'm not looking forward to doing this every time we want to go. We were a little lost again trying to figure out how to get back into the structure, but luckily a cast member in the distance directed us with gestures. I think we'll have this down next time.
So, that was our day. It honestly wasn't that great of a start for coming back Disneyland. There was too much stress involved initially. While the weather wasn't extremely hot or anything, luckily (That's another downside to reservations. You don't know what the weather is going to be like on a particular day), but it was still rough. My legs are really sore today. And the app is well, just a joke. Never again are we going to completely rely on it. We'll bring in printed out versions for our passes next time, and pray that works. That was the worst part of the day. I don't like the anxiety of thinking you can't get into a Disney park without a piece of technology working. There's a few things I wish: I wish we could have trams again, I wish we didn't need a stupid app, and I wish we didn't have to worry about making reservations. The last one I'm sure I can't do anything about, but maybe the other two something can be done about eventually. For now, I think this is more stress than it's worth. But maybe we just had a bad day and our next trip will go more smoothly and the crowds won't be as crazy. There were a few happy moments though, like resting and watching a marching band go by, the revamped Snow White, and little mini parades. There is still a little joy to be had. I think maybe once the pandemic is done, things will get better. They have to right? None of these things will stop me going to Disneyland.