The Happiest Place on Earth
Trip Start
Sep 20, 2007
1
20
31
Trip End
Nov 18, 2007
Anaheim, California
Friday, October 26, 2007
There was definite magic and aura about the place. The adults have as much fun as the kids. grown men walk around with Mickey ears on and couples wear his and hers Disney t-shirts. The Disney philosophy is all about having a super, swell time. Everyone from the "cast members" (people in costumes), vendor sellers to the street sweepers are overly friendly to the point of annoyance. Mr D himself must have been a clean freak as Disneyland would have to have the highest concentration of garbage bins per square metre of anywhere in the world. You can't walk 5m without walking past a 'trash can' - no excuses for littering. In keeping with the "family-friendliness" of the place there's strictly no smoking and smokers looked liked herded cattle, shoved into little out of the way places that are signposted with warnings - "smoking contains chemicals that can cause cancer and birth defects." In fact the whole park is spotless and the gardens perfectly manicured. The attention to detail is phenomenal and I reckon you can go on a lot of rides a 100 times and spot something new each time. Most of the rides were pretty tame, no big adrenaline thrills but enjoyable nontheless. Actually some felt like being on a bad acid trip (or how I'd imagine one to be) with talking animatronic puppets and trippy pyschedelic lights. Rides included:
* Peter Pan's Flight
* Dumbo the Flying Elephant
* The Mad Hatter's Tea Party
* Pirates of the Carribean
* Splash Mountain
* Space Mountain
* Buzz Lightyear and the Astro Blasters ... etc etc
Elle's not a big thrillseeker so it's been a running joke that I thought she'd get motion sickness on the Mad Hatter's teacups. I had fun with that one (NB: to her credit she did go on rides I didn't think were possible for her). Our 1st day was pretty full-on and very long. In between rides, catching shows and wandering around we were there for about 12 hrs (not including travel time!). We left early in the evening, thinking we'd see the fireworks display over Sleeping Beauty's Castle on our 2nd night. We regretted that decision as the firework's were not scheduled the next time we visited.
DCA is loosely based on showcasing California's landmarks and attractions, so the names of the rides were a play on Californian locations or features eg 'Maliboomer', 'Grizzly River Run', 'Californian Screamin'' The rides here had more of an edge, especially the rollercoaster which was particularly thrilling. Also good was the 'Twilight Zone Tower of Terror,' which is set around the haunted Hollywood Hotel. You sit in a 'possessed' elevator that wizzes you up and down between floors, culminating in a free fall from the top floor where the elevator doors open and you see right across the park (once was enough for Ellen). The 'Aladdin- A Musical Spectacular' was a show worths seeing. It was done on a grand scale with good special effects. The wise-cracking genie was the highlight, throwing in a lot of funny pop-culture references about Britney Spears etc. It was in the line at 'Califronia Soarin' that a couple of people from Utah struck up a conversation with Ellen. These enlightened individuals were surprised English was spoken in Australia and asked whether Sydney held the Winter Olympics in 1998. Enough said.
For the 2 days we were there we managed to go on just about all the rides and see all the shows - no easy feat given the size of the place and the amount of queueing you do. As I said it's a big place with a lot of ground to cover, which probably explains why we saw so many fatties in motorised wheelchairs. Honest to God we saw that many fatty boombahs in wheelchairs, and I don't mean a touch overweight, they were the size of humpback whales. You knew they weren't genuinely disabled when they could park the chairs and get up to go on rides, or use the toilets, or line up for hotdogs. It was really pathetic. The food at Disneyland doesn't help. With so many 'dining' outlets you'd think you could eat something nice but its all just a different variety of shit. It's hamburgers, hotdogs, popcorn, hamburgers, fries and hotdogs. You could also buy a turkey leg (massive!) and a curious thing called a 'churro', which looked like a sugared deep fried stick of donut dough.
Before leaving we parked ourselves just north of Main St in a primespot for the famous Disney Parade of Stars. The floats had performing characters of all the Disney favourites: Snow White and the 7 Dwarfes, Alice in Wonderland, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Goofy, and of course Mickey and Minnie. It was a fitting way to finish off our Disney experience.
