Disneyland is billed as the happiest place on earth...probably for a reason. Disneyland California opened in 1955 and California Adventure opened in 2001.
This was our 3rd trip out there. Here is a glimpse of what we discovered.
We had a pretty good idea of what was in store and we got very surgical in how we went about.
A little bit of research and I had gotten the top few things that we could potentially work into our schedule. There are always new attractions and always good to do some research. We had stayed inside the park in our first visit since it was all new then. Being veterans now, we stayed at the Embassy Suites with the Annaheim shuttle for transport - the free breakfast was a huge plus. Would be neat to take the bullet train into Annaheim a few years down the road
Got the corporate 3 day hopper pass. This qualified us for an early entry (7AM) instead of the regular 8AM, but only a certain days have this early entry available (Tue, Th, Sat). We didn't find it worthwhile to lose sleep and get there early.
Day 1 - we spent in Disneyland. It was a long day, starting at 10AM and by the time we got out it was 8:30PM. The first half day we spent in Tomorrow Land. Started with the Jedi Training. Both our boys made the cut list, got selected and were standing upfront with the Jedi training. That was a good experience.
We had already gotten the fastpass for Buzzlighter Astro Blaster before getting to the Jedi training. The key to Disneyland is to prioritize - get the fastpass and at the soonest elegible hour get your next fast pass. The Buzzlighter ride was enjoyed by all of us. The only fallacy in this ride is not being able to see how your shots are going and whether it was my shot that got the bullseye lit up. Well, they have fixed that with the Toy Story Mania - more about that later.
That done, we we walked up to the Adventureland and got the fast pass for Indian Jones - that was for 7PM - it is very popular and we should have gotten that fast pass first. We missed the Nemo Submarine Voyage as it does not have the fastpass. We had a filler on the 3rd day and we ended up doing it then. It is one of the next gen Disneyland attractions. Is it a movie that is playing underwater or is it a hollogram, or is it a robotic animation hard to tell.
Our kids are not into the roller coasters and that made our ordeal a lot simpler. It was the day after xmas and there were crowds galore. It needed the expert navigation of VT station to get through the horde. The lunch line was painful and everyone at the restaurant was stressed out. Made us think why we hadn't packed sandwiches as we usually do.
We had taken fast pass to AUTOPIA and we got back to complete it. We walked through Fantasyland, kids took a few rides and Mickey's Toontown. Having completed that we got the fast pass to Haunted Mansion Holiday the only thing worthwhile in New Orleans Square. It was right after Indian Jones and that worked out very well.
Haunted Mansion Holiday is very kiddish nothing extraordinary that puzzled our mind - ho humm lackluster. We skipped the Pirates of the Caribbean since it didn't have a fastpass - might have been worthwhile.
We totally skipped the Critter Country and Frontierland. The parades never seemed to have gotten to me in years past and I finally rebelled and proposed skipping it altogether. Our boys agreed and we went scot free this time. We did catch a glimpse of it, but the boys quickly scampered away for the next ride. We got another fast pass to the Buzzlight year ride. And the parents were tired, but the boys were still gung ho on going all out.
That was it for day 1. We skipped the fireworks, ho humm again in my mind. It is mind boggling to find families camped out at 6:30pm for a parade at 8:30pm and fireworks at 9:30pm - totally escapes me. Also, it was freezing cold for us whipmy Californias
Disneyland has a lots of kids, I mean a lot...little kids and if you are not sucked into the vortex of toddler rides, you will do fine. Two days are more than sufficient.
Day 2-
We thought we had enough of Disneyland nd we decided to try out CA adventure, where we had spent only a few hours in previous trips. We got in at 10:30AM and got out by 8:30AM. The day turned out to be much warmer and that made it a lot easier.
We were pleasantly surprised by the lack of crowd in CA Adventure. The experiencse was a lot more 'rich'. We started the day by first getting the fastpass to Screaming over California - a pretty neat ride. We then headed to the Hollywood Pictures Backlot. The Monsters Inc got our visit first. It was alright - some neat 3D animation. We inquired about the Aladdin - Musical spectacular and based up on that we planned the rest of the morning.
We got back to GOLDEN STATE and the Screaming over CA ride. Try to be in the #1 station - that way you get to sit on the topmost station and not have to see dangling legs of other folks. This is a simulation and just spectacular.
Grizzly Park River Run would be good in summer, but we didn't want to get wet in December.
We had heard a lot about the Toy Story MidWay Mania.
This is again the next gen attraction. Kinda version 2 of the earlier popular Buzz lighter ride. You get to actually see your shots hit the targets in 3D, and see the point being tabulated and compared with everyone else when your ride is done. Wonder which came first, LaserQuest or this one... I could totally get it why kids enjoy playing video games as much. I took this one four times, got a score of 80,000, jumped to 100,000. We were back the next day, I got to 130,000 and 132,000. It certainly got me a nice aerobic workout and my arm was totally stressed out after taking this ride twice in a row. THe key is to take the sling between the index and middle finger and pull rapidly using the other hand to guide the cannon. This is where Disney land is heading to. Lot of Math behind the scenes to get this one for us.
We got back in time for the Aladdin show. Too short I felt when it was over. Spectacular as always. Flying carpets, elephants, magical sets and the genie as always was the star of the show - a hollywood career awaits him, shades of Robin William. Very well done.
We proceeded to Bugs Land, the 3-D bug adventure was alright, but nothing urged us to go back for a 2nd time. Nothing like an interactive attraction to keep the crowd coming. The rides in there are geared for toddlers too.
Decided to head back to Toy Story Mania in Paradise Pier. We decided to stand in the singles line, a lot faster. Fortunately, there was a technical hitch soon as we completed our ride and we got a 'fastpass' voucher to come back soon as it was up.
We then headed back to Hollywood Pictures Backlot to visit Crush. That is another next gen Disney Attraction. It is possible they use a voice modulator to create the crush like voice, but the animation still befuddles us. We visited the Animation Academy, which helps kids understand the concept of animation and definitely worth it.
Turtle Talk
We decided to call it a day.
Day 3 - We got into the park by 10:30AM, as we had to pack and checkout. We had pretty much gone through the majority of Disneyland and CA Adventure. We decided to go for reruns. Top priority was Indiana Jones, Buzzlight Year Astroblaster and Toy Story Mania.
Indiana Jones is exhilarating to say the least and definitely worth a repeat experience.
We spent the morning taking rides in the Toy Story Mania. Had our lunch (shorter or non existent lines here in comparison to Disneyland) and proceeded to Disneyland. We got fastpasses for Disneyland and to kill time we took Nemo, which turned out to be pretty good.
Pretty good chances this was our final trip to Disneyland and CA Adventure for a few years. It was enjoyable as always.
By 3:30PM we were all done
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