The great big Disneyland post (lacking pictures!)
I've been back since Friday, and I thought I would get to this yesterday, but I ended up feeling a bit sick yesterday afternoon/evening, so I just ended up laying in bed for the rest of the night. There will be no pictures because I haven't uploaded them to my computer yet.
I went to Disneyland with girltype from Sunday until Friday. We spent Monday through Thursday in the park. It is the longest time that I've ever spent at Disneyland. But we'll start on Sunday. We get to the hotel and we ride the elevator up to the third floor. The elevator smells of urine. We do some quick stuff, like checking the TV (this hotel, when we went in 2007, had the SHITTIEST selection of channels ever. I don't lie... they had MTV Tres (MTV for Mexicans), but not MTV Uno. What the hell is up with that?), and breathing a sigh of relief when they updated their channel list incredibly. We were happy to have VH1... which, ironically, we did not end up watching. All they showed was Jessica Simpson. No thank you.
Downtown Disney was where we spent the first day. I had heard there was a cupcake store and I was thrilled to try it. Alas, it was closed, and that made me sad. So, we did some shopping. There's this store called Vault Disney, it has nice clothes, including a shirt with Donald and Daisy from an old short where Donald is courting Daisy and Chip and Dale get in the way. I love that cartoon. Sadly, the shirt is for women, so I didn't get to wear it. Sad face. When we get to the world of Disney store at the end of the strip we walk in, grab some stuff and a FIRE ALARM goes off... I had what I wanted in my hands only to have it yanked away. Pretty fail. I also got my season pass. 300 bucks? Oh well. Considering that a single day in the park costs 91 dollars, I basically made about 70 bucks on the admission price with my season pass, so I came out in the end. Plus I'm going again in December, so that's just extra money. We're finally able to get back in the world of Disney store later, but not before we eat at the rainforest cafe. We get damned good seats, although we're right under a bright light, so that part kind of sucked. Then we walk home.
Day 1 at Disneyland and the first thing we WANT to do is watch Captain EO (the whole reason we went), but it's down. So we go on Space Mountain instead. Space Mountain is fun. Then we look at the MJ merch, including the 'limited edition jacket.' It cost 170 bucks, is 100% nylon, and has no insulation. MJ, we love you but we ain't spending that kind of cash on a jacket of sheer fail. Finally we see Captain EO, and it is wonderful. MJ is truly a gifted performer, and every time he comes on screen the audience cheered. One thing that I think is unfortunate about EO (and this is the ONLY complaint) is the fact that they really don't have the effects worked out. Sometimes the theater would shake, sometimes it wouldn't. It was very odd. We ride a bunch of the good rides (I have a weakness for Small World, I won't lie. I LOVE that ride... it's easily top 5 for me...) at both parks and basically get the 'big things' out of the way for the most part. Since we're staying at a cheap motel that does not have the holy 'send my crap to my hotel' function that I covet, we do our spending at night before we leave that first night. By that time all the MJ shirts are basically gone except for double x. Luckily, I'm double x. We also ate at Goofy's Kitchen, the best character meal in the park. It literally blew girltype's mind, which is good. They had princesses there. We also got pictures with Donald (THE KING!!!!! DONALD IS LIFE!) and assorted other characters of lesser importance.
At 4 in the morning, there was a 4.4 earthquake. It woke me up, but didn't wake up girltype. I'm a very light sleeper, though. I go back to sleep pretty quickly, however. And, really, a 4.4 is nothing. I survived the Loma Preita, thank you very much.
Day 2 was spent very much like Day 1, checking off things that we hadn't done yet. Since we are going to be there for 4 days there is really no need to rush and try to do everything. When we see characters we want to stop for pictures we do that. I believe Day 2 is also when I saw someone who I graduated high school with working in Tomorrowland. Oh yeah, one other lament about Disneyland? No famous people. I just want to know that there's a famous person that is at the park when I'm there. I'd like to think that I can keep myself contained. However... if it's something that I LOVE, like Scott Clifton, all bets are off. The point is moot, but I would still like to be there once when there's someone else there that is a name. To kill time in California Adventure, we do the art animation thing a bunch of times. I did very poorly with Minnie when I was there in the summer, but my Donald picture came out quite good. I'm very proud of myself. I did the King justice! Oh yeah, in the morning we did the Princess walk because, hello, Tiana was there. Alas, our pictures with Tiana came out subpar. girltype is quick to blame me, but it was actually the person taking the pictures with our cameras that failed. My pictures were also blurry. We were denied. Later, we see her on stage in New Orleans square singing her songs and decide that we need to see that later. Little did we know that it isn't a daily thing and it was the last day to see her do that before we left. Sigh. We sit around waiting for the fireworks and we have pretty good seats. The fireworks are very nice. I liked the show during the summer better, but wishes is still an incredibly impressive show.
Day 3 starts off in Fantasy Land. The day before we were able to cross off Peter Pan, which is quite a task if you've ever been to Disneyland (THE LINE! SO LONG! SO NOT WORTH IT!). We are quick to deduce that if you want to do ANYTHING in Fantasyland, your ass needs to be there in the morning and hope that the grace of god is with you because that place is crowded to all hell, with the strollers of doom, all day. Strollers are the bane of a childless Disneyland visitor's existence. It's true. We run around doing other things, including Toy Story Mania, which also has the line of doom. It is the only ride in the park that does not allow handicapped visitors to get to the front of the line. I find that part rather angering, since the line is so long and it is pretty much in the sun so those poor people gotta wait and some of them can't really express their discomfort. It was really warm the first three days. Way worse than I was expecting. Tolerable, because I'm from California, but still. On Day 3 we watch the parade. The second best moment of the park visit comes on Day 3. During the parade, Pluto sees my This Is It shirt (it was the only thing I had with a little bit of green on it) and he points to MJ and I nod. Pluto proceeds to MOONWALK, FLICK KICK AND CROTCH GRAB!!!! Oh, it was magic. Pluto is our people. I wish I would have known he was doing it so I could have recorded it. Alas, it will live on in my memory only... but live on in my memory it will!
Day 4, our last day, and we tie up some loose ends. While we're killing time we watch a special with Steve Martin and Donald Duck in one of the rooms. It is very funny. Donald wants to cut Steve Martin. We allow this, because Donald is King. We also take a picture with MJ in the area because his picture is on the wall (next to Miley Cyrus... where's the justice in that statement, I wonder? THERE IS NONE!). It is also the only day that we can watch Aladdin, since it only runs from Thursday to Sunday. It is SUPER crowded and I don't understand why they are getting rid of it for Toy Story. The Genie is funny. We watch it twice. The second time is better because there's this moment where a member of the audience boos Aladdin after he's like 'yeah, I can't give you that wish I promised you...' and Genie says 'that kid totally called you out!' He then proceeds to improvise for like a minute. SO FUNNY. The last thing we do is watch EO before we go back to our room for sleepy time. Before I leave, I get stopped by a questionnaire lady. One of the questions is 'how excited are you for your next park visit on a scale of 1 to 10?' I say 10. I was pretty burned out by then, but not so much on the park just because it is a really tiring experience, but by December I will be ready to go!
Day 5 we have another character meal lined up. This time at the Mickey and Friend's breakfast. Formerly known as the Lilo & Stitch breakfast. We take a picture with Daisy (THE QUEEN!), and the next people who come have to take it with the tool Mickey. It pleased me. We also got pics with Daisy and Minnie in the same shot, excellent. The food is pretty subpar, but by that point my stomach wasn't feeling all that much. We go to the airport. LAX is seriously the most confusing place in the world. We have to take a shuttle to our gate, which sucks. But before that we have to check our bags and there's this Mexican family of doom who is at the baggage place for like 20 minutes. They have at least 5 huge ass bags to check. I assume they're all over 50 pounds, so it costs them a pretty penny to do that. Once we're on the flight we're in front of these people who have never met but proceed to talk for the entire flight. It isn't a very long flight, about an hour, but they just keep on talking. Finally, we get to San Jose and go home. I see my kitty (he was hiding for like 10 minutes from me!!! OLIVER, YOU DO ME DIRTY!!!).
All in all, it was a very good trip. The only thing that would have made it better was if I had more money to buy that Donald plaque that was at Off The Page. If it is still there at Christmas it is going to be the first thing that I buy. I hope by the time I go back there will be less construction, because it does make getting around certain parts of the park very annoying, but I understand why they do it, to make the park better for us, so I deal. I don't like it, but I deal.
And there you go.
Remember: PLUTO LOVES MJ!
I went to Disneyland with girltype from Sunday until Friday. We spent Monday through Thursday in the park. It is the longest time that I've ever spent at Disneyland. But we'll start on Sunday. We get to the hotel and we ride the elevator up to the third floor. The elevator smells of urine. We do some quick stuff, like checking the TV (this hotel, when we went in 2007, had the SHITTIEST selection of channels ever. I don't lie... they had MTV Tres (MTV for Mexicans), but not MTV Uno. What the hell is up with that?), and breathing a sigh of relief when they updated their channel list incredibly. We were happy to have VH1... which, ironically, we did not end up watching. All they showed was Jessica Simpson. No thank you.
Downtown Disney was where we spent the first day. I had heard there was a cupcake store and I was thrilled to try it. Alas, it was closed, and that made me sad. So, we did some shopping. There's this store called Vault Disney, it has nice clothes, including a shirt with Donald and Daisy from an old short where Donald is courting Daisy and Chip and Dale get in the way. I love that cartoon. Sadly, the shirt is for women, so I didn't get to wear it. Sad face. When we get to the world of Disney store at the end of the strip we walk in, grab some stuff and a FIRE ALARM goes off... I had what I wanted in my hands only to have it yanked away. Pretty fail. I also got my season pass. 300 bucks? Oh well. Considering that a single day in the park costs 91 dollars, I basically made about 70 bucks on the admission price with my season pass, so I came out in the end. Plus I'm going again in December, so that's just extra money. We're finally able to get back in the world of Disney store later, but not before we eat at the rainforest cafe. We get damned good seats, although we're right under a bright light, so that part kind of sucked. Then we walk home.
Day 1 at Disneyland and the first thing we WANT to do is watch Captain EO (the whole reason we went), but it's down. So we go on Space Mountain instead. Space Mountain is fun. Then we look at the MJ merch, including the 'limited edition jacket.' It cost 170 bucks, is 100% nylon, and has no insulation. MJ, we love you but we ain't spending that kind of cash on a jacket of sheer fail. Finally we see Captain EO, and it is wonderful. MJ is truly a gifted performer, and every time he comes on screen the audience cheered. One thing that I think is unfortunate about EO (and this is the ONLY complaint) is the fact that they really don't have the effects worked out. Sometimes the theater would shake, sometimes it wouldn't. It was very odd. We ride a bunch of the good rides (I have a weakness for Small World, I won't lie. I LOVE that ride... it's easily top 5 for me...) at both parks and basically get the 'big things' out of the way for the most part. Since we're staying at a cheap motel that does not have the holy 'send my crap to my hotel' function that I covet, we do our spending at night before we leave that first night. By that time all the MJ shirts are basically gone except for double x. Luckily, I'm double x. We also ate at Goofy's Kitchen, the best character meal in the park. It literally blew girltype's mind, which is good. They had princesses there. We also got pictures with Donald (THE KING!!!!! DONALD IS LIFE!) and assorted other characters of lesser importance.
At 4 in the morning, there was a 4.4 earthquake. It woke me up, but didn't wake up girltype. I'm a very light sleeper, though. I go back to sleep pretty quickly, however. And, really, a 4.4 is nothing. I survived the Loma Preita, thank you very much.
Day 2 was spent very much like Day 1, checking off things that we hadn't done yet. Since we are going to be there for 4 days there is really no need to rush and try to do everything. When we see characters we want to stop for pictures we do that. I believe Day 2 is also when I saw someone who I graduated high school with working in Tomorrowland. Oh yeah, one other lament about Disneyland? No famous people. I just want to know that there's a famous person that is at the park when I'm there. I'd like to think that I can keep myself contained. However... if it's something that I LOVE, like Scott Clifton, all bets are off. The point is moot, but I would still like to be there once when there's someone else there that is a name. To kill time in California Adventure, we do the art animation thing a bunch of times. I did very poorly with Minnie when I was there in the summer, but my Donald picture came out quite good. I'm very proud of myself. I did the King justice! Oh yeah, in the morning we did the Princess walk because, hello, Tiana was there. Alas, our pictures with Tiana came out subpar. girltype is quick to blame me, but it was actually the person taking the pictures with our cameras that failed. My pictures were also blurry. We were denied. Later, we see her on stage in New Orleans square singing her songs and decide that we need to see that later. Little did we know that it isn't a daily thing and it was the last day to see her do that before we left. Sigh. We sit around waiting for the fireworks and we have pretty good seats. The fireworks are very nice. I liked the show during the summer better, but wishes is still an incredibly impressive show.
Day 3 starts off in Fantasy Land. The day before we were able to cross off Peter Pan, which is quite a task if you've ever been to Disneyland (THE LINE! SO LONG! SO NOT WORTH IT!). We are quick to deduce that if you want to do ANYTHING in Fantasyland, your ass needs to be there in the morning and hope that the grace of god is with you because that place is crowded to all hell, with the strollers of doom, all day. Strollers are the bane of a childless Disneyland visitor's existence. It's true. We run around doing other things, including Toy Story Mania, which also has the line of doom. It is the only ride in the park that does not allow handicapped visitors to get to the front of the line. I find that part rather angering, since the line is so long and it is pretty much in the sun so those poor people gotta wait and some of them can't really express their discomfort. It was really warm the first three days. Way worse than I was expecting. Tolerable, because I'm from California, but still. On Day 3 we watch the parade. The second best moment of the park visit comes on Day 3. During the parade, Pluto sees my This Is It shirt (it was the only thing I had with a little bit of green on it) and he points to MJ and I nod. Pluto proceeds to MOONWALK, FLICK KICK AND CROTCH GRAB!!!! Oh, it was magic. Pluto is our people. I wish I would have known he was doing it so I could have recorded it. Alas, it will live on in my memory only... but live on in my memory it will!
Day 4, our last day, and we tie up some loose ends. While we're killing time we watch a special with Steve Martin and Donald Duck in one of the rooms. It is very funny. Donald wants to cut Steve Martin. We allow this, because Donald is King. We also take a picture with MJ in the area because his picture is on the wall (next to Miley Cyrus... where's the justice in that statement, I wonder? THERE IS NONE!). It is also the only day that we can watch Aladdin, since it only runs from Thursday to Sunday. It is SUPER crowded and I don't understand why they are getting rid of it for Toy Story. The Genie is funny. We watch it twice. The second time is better because there's this moment where a member of the audience boos Aladdin after he's like 'yeah, I can't give you that wish I promised you...' and Genie says 'that kid totally called you out!' He then proceeds to improvise for like a minute. SO FUNNY. The last thing we do is watch EO before we go back to our room for sleepy time. Before I leave, I get stopped by a questionnaire lady. One of the questions is 'how excited are you for your next park visit on a scale of 1 to 10?' I say 10. I was pretty burned out by then, but not so much on the park just because it is a really tiring experience, but by December I will be ready to go!
Day 5 we have another character meal lined up. This time at the Mickey and Friend's breakfast. Formerly known as the Lilo & Stitch breakfast. We take a picture with Daisy (THE QUEEN!), and the next people who come have to take it with the tool Mickey. It pleased me. We also got pics with Daisy and Minnie in the same shot, excellent. The food is pretty subpar, but by that point my stomach wasn't feeling all that much. We go to the airport. LAX is seriously the most confusing place in the world. We have to take a shuttle to our gate, which sucks. But before that we have to check our bags and there's this Mexican family of doom who is at the baggage place for like 20 minutes. They have at least 5 huge ass bags to check. I assume they're all over 50 pounds, so it costs them a pretty penny to do that. Once we're on the flight we're in front of these people who have never met but proceed to talk for the entire flight. It isn't a very long flight, about an hour, but they just keep on talking. Finally, we get to San Jose and go home. I see my kitty (he was hiding for like 10 minutes from me!!! OLIVER, YOU DO ME DIRTY!!!).
All in all, it was a very good trip. The only thing that would have made it better was if I had more money to buy that Donald plaque that was at Off The Page. If it is still there at Christmas it is going to be the first thing that I buy. I hope by the time I go back there will be less construction, because it does make getting around certain parts of the park very annoying, but I understand why they do it, to make the park better for us, so I deal. I don't like it, but I deal.
And there you go.
Remember: PLUTO LOVES MJ!