Phruby's trip reports

[Phroobar]

Since I go every few weeks to the Disneyland resort, I thought I would start a log of my adventures. My nine year old son has a deluxe pass and I have a premium one so I could keep parking. Today he was blocked so I went with my sister who has a premium AP. She is kind of a theme park junky like me so she is always will go with us. She has passes to USH and Knotts too. Since is this Easter weekend and spring break, I thought the parks would be a madhouse. My sister still wanted to go. To my surprise is was actually a very lite Saturday. All the APs were blocked except premium or signature levels.

I got there at 8:30am did some shopping in World of Disney. I picked up a Easter Egg Hunt map and chose the Cheshire Cat egg as my prize. My daughter loves that cat so that went to her. They also had some new Star Wars figures to add to my collection. That made the boy happy.

I decided I didn't want to wait in the security line over at theme parks so I headed over the monorail entrance and got in Disneyland a lot faster. My sister wasn't going to show up until 10 so I went to the Mexican food place next to Big Thunder and had a Mickey Pancake for breakfast. I got some good pictures of the trains entering the station. Big Thunder Mountain was only a ten minute wait so I rode that after finishing. I got some great pictures of the deforestation of the wilderness.

After that I rode Pirates and the Mansion which were both walk on. After I finished with the Mansion, my sister texted me that she was in the park. We meet at the Frontierland entrance and rode single rider on Indy. Single rider is a great thing. We did Indy in only twenty minutes. The posted wait was 45.

My sister want to ride the Mansion so I did that again. I asked why do you always want to ride this?She said "Because it's awesome!!". We picked up fast passes for Star Tours which had a 60 minute wait and headed over DCA. We did single rider again on RSR which only took 20 minutes again even with a 90 minute regular wait. We also rode the new Lugi's Rollickin' Roadsters. It only had a 20 minute wait. My sister loved the ride. It was "so cute". It was a little weird to be thrown in a difference directions during the dance but I got use to it. Everyone put their hands up during the finally spin.

We picked up fast passes for Soaring over California and watched the Jungle Book preview over in the Bugs theater. The movie and animals looked OK but it's no were as good as Zootopia. Bill Murrey was Baloo. It was time for Star Tours, so we went back to DL and then ran back over the DCA for Soaring.

Finally we had a half hour to kill before seeing Superman v Batman, so we went over to Trader Sams. My sister enjoyed the movie probably because she was pretty sloshed. I fell asleep because it was so slow. I guess you have to be liquored up to enjoy it. The only good thing about that movie was Wonder Woman. Why does DC movies have to be so dark? DC's comics aren't that dark. The movie just wasn't fun. There were no jokes and Lex should not be crazy like the Joker.

After the movie, I had to get home since my wife had a meeting

 

[Curious Constance]

I've always found Superman annoying. Loved reading about your trip!

 

[Rich T]

Single Rider lines are the best thing ever. My family's never had to use Fastpass for RSR; we do Single Rider every time and often end up in the same car anyway.

Right now I feel the same way about the new Jungle Book as I did about the old Dinosaur film: The first trailer was awesome and mysterious, but seeing all the animals talking in the second trailer killed my interest in it--made it suddenly seem so ordinary. Baloo sounds like Bill Murray phoning in his dialogue. I could be wrong; maybe it's just a bad trailer, but right now I think I'd rather go see Zootopia again.

[EDIT: I was so wrong: Jungle Book was amazing. ]

 

[Phroobar]

My nine year old son and I meet up with my sister last night at DCA. She wanted to check out the Food & Wine festival. She wasn't too adventurous on any of the food but did try out one of the local beers. We checked out the Season of the Vine movie in the Blue Sky Cellar since neither one had seen it before. We got disabled fast passes for RSR and bought dinner over at Flos until it was time to ride. The ribs are not worth the price. They are way too small. However the you can order double portions of the mashed potatoes which was really yummy.

Over at RSR we were about to ride when my sister need to use the restroom. My son and I took a ride without her. When we got off, the CM was nice enough to let us ride again with my sister. Pretty cool. After we got disabled fast passes again for Luigi's and we hung around eating pretzel bites and Red's frozen apple for desert then took a spin on Luigi's.

By then my sister had to go home so my son and I went over the Disneyland to ride Star Tours and have fun building some droids in the Star Trader. Finally we watched the Path of the Jedi and went home. We didn't do much in those five hours but we did have fun hanging around and relaxing. That's the way an annual pass should be.

 

[ran6110]

One more thread that I've cleaned out all of my comments!

 

[Phroobar]

One more thread that I've cleaned out all of my comments!

Not exactly sure why you are doing that.

 

[ran6110]

Not exactly sure why you are doing that.

Too many demeaning and snarky people here, so I'm clearing out my history as best I can before I shut down my account.

The message is simply a way I can search each thread to be sure I've cleared my actual posts out.

 

[Phroobar]

Too many demeaning and snarky people here, so I'm clearing out my history as best I can before I shut down my account.

The message is simply a way I can search each thread to be sure I've cleared my actual posts out.

You know there is an ignore feature. That way you never see a response from that person.

 

[dweezil78]

Too many demeaning and snarky people here

Have you ever been on a message board before? I've been on far too many. Yes, some of us here are sarcastic and argue with each other, but I've always thought of the Disneyland forum on WDWMagic to be some of the most respectful, down to earth forum'ers around. Sorry to hear someone rubbed you the wrong way, but you should take it in stride.

 

[Phroobar]

I went to Disneyland with my sister yesterday. No kids. For some reason at 11am Star Tours had a 110 minute wait while Space Mountain had a 150 minute. Not sure why that was. The fastpass return line started over by the Plaza Inn. They must have been down for the morning and had to catch up on fast pass or something. For the test of the day both rides had over 90-120 minute waits. Tomorrowland was packed!

We rode the newly painted Autopia. Interesting how the cars all have little Honda logos on them. Nothing much new except the video they show was Disney's look at future transportation. It reminded me of the movie that was part of Rocket Rod's queue.

We went into Launch Bay and looked for the new droid. It wasn't out so we left and headed for the Haunted Mansion. The Mansion had a 25 minute wait. We decided to go to DCA and ride Soaring for the last time. DCA was no wear near as packed.

We did the new Alice preview in the old Muppets theater. It was sad to see all traces of the Muppets gone. Outside still had the Frozen singalong banners hiding Muppet stuff. Next we had lunch over at beer garden area and then rode Mermaid. Next we did Maters and Luigis. We got snacks over at the Coze Cone. The chili cone is pretty good. Finally we did Toy Story Mania.

It was a pretty good day. When we left both parts were getting packed with kids for grad night. Maybe that is why SM and ST were packed?

 

[NobodyElse]

Too many demeaning and snarky people here, so I'm clearing out my history as best I can before I shut down my account.

The message is simply a way I can search each thread to be sure I've cleared my actual posts out.

Not casting judgement on your decision to leave, but it seems like there might be a better way to do it (rather than basically announcing that you're deleting comments in each thread, and then answering others questions about said posts, creating a seemingly never-ending cycle). Perhaps just delete the posts and move on? Or if you feel the need for some sort of bread crumb to search on, just leave a period or asterisk?

 

[G00fyDad]

Not casting judgement on your decision to leave, but it seems like there might be a better way to do it (rather than basically announcing that you're deleting comments in each thread, and then answering others questions about said posts, creating a seemingly never-ending cycle). Perhaps just delete the posts and move on? Or if you feel the need for some sort of bread crumb to search on, just leave a period or asterisk?

But, but, but attention-seeking behavior doesn't work that way!

 

[Phroobar]

But, but, but attention-seeking behavior doesn't work that way!

Not casting judgement on your decision to leave, but it seems like there might be a better way to do it (rather than basically announcing that you're deleting comments in each thread, and then answering others questions about said posts, creating a seemingly never-ending cycle). Perhaps just delete the posts and move on? Or if you feel the need for some sort of bread crumb to search on, just leave a period or asterisk?

Guys, your responding to a month old post from someone that isn't even active anymore that is totally off topic.

That is pretty rude.

 

[NobodyElse]

Guys, your responding to a month old post from someone that isn't even active anymore that is totally off topic.

That is pretty rude.

I guess your last post woke up this thread. When I started reading "new posts" I didn't notice the time stamps.

My apologies, but no true rudeness was intended.

 

[G00fyDad]

Guys, your responding to a month old post from someone that isn't even active anymore that is totally off topic.

That is pretty rude.

Actually I responded to a 27 minute old post.

 

[Phroobar]

A little change yesterday. The kids and I went to Magic Mountain on Memorial Day. Last month, they sent me a special 24 hour deal for annual passes for $40 each. I had to get it since regular admission is $60 and these tickets are normally $80. It will be fun to go during the summer and for fright fest this October. We got there when it opened and it literally took an hour to get though the metal detectors and park gates. Unlike Disneyland, each park guest must go though metal detectors and have bags checked. They are really slow at doing this but everything is checked. Once at the gate, they must scan your ticket and your index finger. For some reason this is a difficult thing for eighty percent of people going in. The machines seem to error all the time and are really slow. Once we were free to enter things got better.

We headed to the left and the New Revolution had a two hour wait. At least that is what the sign said. The line was pretty massive for it. They just reopened this ride with new trains and lap bars. It has the gimmick of making you wear a VR headset on the ride. Pretty lame. I would have opted out of the headset. We skipped that and rode Viper after a ten minute wait. We found most of the rides on this side of the park were ten minutes.

We took care of Ninja, Apocalypse and the Jet Stream. All great rides but Apocalypse is really rough. We did Batman even though the sign said 60 minutes. In reality it was 25. The problem with the wait times is they are not electronic and never updated during the day. There is no way to tell how long a line is. Twisted Colossus said it was hour wait but was really only a half hour.

The staff has improved for the summer and the ride efficiency is better. It is no were as quick as Disneyland but decent for Six Flags. One thing you see different is guests do not line jump as frequently as Disneyland ones do. It's probably because of all the signs that say this is a removal from the park and they actually do exactly that! There are also no strollers all over the place. The food is really bad and expensive though. It's best to bring water in your backpack and eat in the car in the parking lot.

For the most part, it was pleasant and clean. However they did cut down a lot of the old growth threes around Revolution and Ninja. It was pretty sad to see. They said the trees were interfering with the rides. It looks like no plants are planned for those areas beyond weeds.

There isn't much in the way of non ride entertainment. The Full Throttle area had a live band and the kids Bugs Bunny area had a few little shows otherwise there is nothing. We did see a meet and greet with Robin the boy wonder. Most of the rides were up and running regularly and the staff looks like they range between 16 and 20 and did a pretty good job when in teams. The individual ride operators are not as good. The guests seem to be mostly lower class poorer people between the ages of 14 and 30. There are not a lot of children running around even in the Bugs Bunny land. Basically the park quality is not Disney standard but its not suppose to be. The food is bad and the shops have weird selections of junk. A lot of the buildings could use maintenance but I did see signs of that happening slowly.

Basically you get what you pay for. If you want coasters this is the place. If you want anything else, go to Knotts.

 

[ForeverAnna]

Thanks Phruby. On my next few trips I'm planning to take a day and other parks. I'd forgotten about Magic Mountain. I'll have to add it to my list.