- In the Parks
- No
Another year, another trip to Disneyland. Visiting the parks on the holidays are one of my favorite things to do and this visit certainly didn't disappoint. I just wish we had opted to stay for another day or two.
I didn't take many pictures this trip, but I made sure to upload some of the good ones I had!
Disney's California Adventure
We spent our first real day here, and it was alright for the most part. I do feel like DCA is a one-day park if you ride everything, but outside of our first day I was completely fine with not revisiting. Unfortunately the same feeling didn't stand with my party.
And yes, the sign was broken
Radiator Springs and RSR
Still my favorite section of the park, I was pleasantly surprised to see that RSR had a 60+ minute standby wait, but the single rider line took no longer than 5. Luigi's Rollickin' Roadsters was playing Christmas music. The whole area was in holiday decor. Not much to say except this is hands down my favorite place to visit in DCA.
Pixar Pier
This was my first time seeing Pixar Pier in all it's glory. It's not as awful as the concept art makes it out to be, but the argument of "lipstick on a pig" still stands. I have ZERO idea what they're thinking with some of the stalls. And the Pier generally feels almost exactly the same. All I got out of it, was a few song / color changes. Some were good, some not so much.
I also tried Jack-Jack's cookie thing. It was okay. Warm, gooey, $5+. I get more pleasure from the Toll House cookie dough you can buy at any grocery store.
Incredicoaster
This comes as another pleasant surprise; I found Incredicoaster to be very cute, and a bit of an improvement over California Screamin'. I'll miss the soundtrack from Gary Hoey but the tubes lit up nicely, the characters were wacky in a good way and the soundtrack is alright. I could live with less emphasis on Jack-Jack but it is what it is. From the outside, I noticed that at night, when a train enters the lift section, the outside of the tubes will pulse as the train exits and drops. It's the little things lol. Ultimately I did enjoy Incredicoaster but it was nothing special.
Guardian's of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout
I'm hating this ride less and less every time I ride it. In a move that would most likely make @Disney Irish Bruh proud, I rode this attraction 2 or 3 times with my party. It was their choice but still
For the first time, we were taken to the right side "library" on two of the trips. On the first walk through, the CM was being unhelpful and wouldn't tell me where the easter eggs were. Most likely because he himself didn't know. But the second time, a woman was more than kind in letting us stay in the briefing room for a little bit after the video and showed us where everything was. I saw the HTH bookmark, the hidden Mickey figure, and the HTH CM hat. If you ever get the chance, I strongly recommend looking around for these little gems!
I started to notice a trend in the ride profile(s). They may vary slightly, but I feel there is the same amount of ascend-then-immediately-descent moments in every ride profile, and more than there was with ToT. At first this was causing me to have some nausea but after a little bit they all began to feel like the same thing.
The dance party is obnoxious and I don't think the TV screens are really 4k; at a closer look, you can see the pixels are pretty darn big. I just think they wow the audience with a high refresh rate and a colorful display. I really don't like the fact that they mainly use screens instead of effects but it is what it is. They most likely dumped all their funding into ruining the exterior and making a fun little museum at the entrance. And the raccoon animatronic, of course.
Trolley Car show
I wish they didn't do this as often as they do. We kept trying to catch a ride at the worst times and it was seemingly always when they were doing their Hollywood show thing.
Holiday festivities
We bought the 8 meal pass thing and used all the tickets on random stalls. Some of them were really good, others were above average. Overall I was impressed with some of the offerings they had and it was nice to try new things.
Disneyland
Now on to Walt's original!
Haunted Mansion Holiday
For those of you who have seen my posts, this won't be a surprise. I love Haunted Mansion Holiday, to the point where it's now my favorite thing to do at the Disneyland resort. I don't know what it is.. perhaps the chillingly excellent soundtrack from Danny Elfman, the way the Mansion lights up, the quality of the holiday layover.. It almost feels like an entirely new attraction yet they set it up in 3 weeks. The gingerbread house this year was top notch, the best I've ever seen it. On one of our ride-throughs, we got stopped on the descent before the graveyard scene, right under the vampire chewing on the chords. It's giggles were freaking my lady out and she was starting to get anxious hahaha. I can't stop singing HMH's praises.
As a disclaimer, I was a fan of the ride before I even knew what NBC really was. I recently re-watched it and realized it really is a great film.
Fireworks
Finally we were able to catch the fireworks (on our last 2 visits, they cancelled every night due to high winds). We watched in a terrible spot at the Jolly Holiday restaurant. I blame this on a member of my party who wanted to stay because "Main Street was a mess". it was still fun, especially watching a CM or two tell the SAME OLDER GUY AND WOMAN OVER AND OVER to keep moving in the walkway but they wouldn't. Then finally he snapped and said something about the trash cans being there so why couldn't he. This was a serious facepalm moment and we watched it all. I was pondering jumping in but the CM handled herself extremely well.
The real surprise came 2 days later after riding the Matterhorn and exiting the ride at the same exact time as the fireworks started. There was no crowds, the views were great, and I didn't even realize they had a projection show going on at IASM at the same time! Then when the "snow" followed after the show, everyone came closer together and just had a blast. This was magical and for that 5 or 10 minutes, every face lit up with amusement.
Space Mountain
Space Mountain looked great. I didn't really get a chance to go through the new queue but this was the first time I noticed the weird barriers at the old fastpass merge. Next time we go i'm gonna have to wait in the standby on purpose, just to see what they've done. It was nice to see the blue tunnel working again (after the first lift), as well as the exterior lighting! I'm still wondering why the trains are so loud and squeal during the course of the ride.
Matterhorn
As previously mentioned, we were there the day this re-opened. It looks great and the queue now starts at the front of the ride, if i'm not mistaken (it was a mess). I wasn't able to see the Tomorrowland side of the mountain after they took the walls down. The ride feels and looks the same, except I feel that Harold definitely got a refurb. His movements look great!
It's a Small World Holiday
This was our first time on IASW Holiday. Not much to say here except it was fun!
Pirates of the Caribbean
The last note I wish to make will be about POTC. There is a mixture of good and bad with the changes that they had made. I'll start with the positives: I think the tunnel scene before the ship battle is great. I'll miss the broken fog effect but there is no doubt in my mind that the old audio and the new octopus scene is great. I barely noticed on our last ride that the guy's face goes from skull to skin after you pass a certain area. Truly an amazing effect! I love how they kept the pirate ship battle scene the same with "The Medallion Calls" playing in the background as Barbossa and the fort exchange a few words.
Now onto the not-so-good. The little crab is missing at the beach (I liked it
) and the "Here kitty kitty kitty" animatronic, as well as the feisty kitty cats, are gone. @SuddenStorm mentioned it will most likely come back after a refurbishment, so I hope the same remains for the crab.
The auction scene: I wouldn't mind this change so much if they had done it right. But they butchered bits and pieces that overshadow the good. Redd and the auctioneers lines are both obnoxious, as are their voices, and I don't think it really makes all that much sense in general. Redd as an animatronic looks good, as do the others, but that's overshadowed by "Ya want the rum doncha boys" "ahyyhyahayhayblkjab" "Go ahead deary, show them your flock". Change the lines and voice actors, and I think we might have a competent scene. But for the time being, it's cringe-y.
Miscellaneous
I guess this is a thing now.. lol
Cast Members and Help
I truly understand what it's like to work with guests and needy people, and with the vast majority of CM's being good at their jobs and extremely pleasurable to work with, there's bound to be a few select who are the exact opposite. We ran into two of these people. While I could tell you the story of how one of them outright screwed us out of one of our "Multiple Experiences", I'm instead going to focus on our good encounters.
It was heartwarming to be helped by that CM in M:BO when we asked about the easter eggs, another CM who gave us a ride down Mainstreet joked with us the whole way down, and the Doctor Facilier CM somehow caught my girlfriend and I looking at him from the train at New Orleans station; where he proceeded to stare us down and give us a look hahaha. Another CM at Haunted Mansion saved us from using another "multiple experiences" pass by telling us it'd be better to use standby at that time (and he was right). CM's are generally very helpful and fun to interact with.
On the road
It was also nice to see that the highways in California are looking pretty good. We travel from Arizona and I think they repaved a lot of the freeway and they were still doing so, in one specific section, when we were on our way to Anaheim. There was still piles of trash on some sides of the freeways in the LA area, but ultimately this was the cleanest I've seen the place - and evidently, they're still working on it as there was a group of people in reflective vests working hard at one section.
Conclusion
With our trip to WDW coming up in Jan-Feb, I'm really excited to see what sort of magic we will be able to experience in Florida. To tell you the truth, I'm never gonna get used to making a trip to a Disney park.
I didn't take many pictures this trip, but I made sure to upload some of the good ones I had!
Disney's California Adventure
We spent our first real day here, and it was alright for the most part. I do feel like DCA is a one-day park if you ride everything, but outside of our first day I was completely fine with not revisiting. Unfortunately the same feeling didn't stand with my party.
And yes, the sign was broken
Radiator Springs and RSR
Still my favorite section of the park, I was pleasantly surprised to see that RSR had a 60+ minute standby wait, but the single rider line took no longer than 5. Luigi's Rollickin' Roadsters was playing Christmas music. The whole area was in holiday decor. Not much to say except this is hands down my favorite place to visit in DCA.
Pixar Pier
This was my first time seeing Pixar Pier in all it's glory. It's not as awful as the concept art makes it out to be, but the argument of "lipstick on a pig" still stands. I have ZERO idea what they're thinking with some of the stalls. And the Pier generally feels almost exactly the same. All I got out of it, was a few song / color changes. Some were good, some not so much.
I also tried Jack-Jack's cookie thing. It was okay. Warm, gooey, $5+. I get more pleasure from the Toll House cookie dough you can buy at any grocery store.
Incredicoaster
This comes as another pleasant surprise; I found Incredicoaster to be very cute, and a bit of an improvement over California Screamin'. I'll miss the soundtrack from Gary Hoey but the tubes lit up nicely, the characters were wacky in a good way and the soundtrack is alright. I could live with less emphasis on Jack-Jack but it is what it is. From the outside, I noticed that at night, when a train enters the lift section, the outside of the tubes will pulse as the train exits and drops. It's the little things lol. Ultimately I did enjoy Incredicoaster but it was nothing special.
Guardian's of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout
I'm hating this ride less and less every time I ride it. In a move that would most likely make @Disney Irish Bruh proud, I rode this attraction 2 or 3 times with my party. It was their choice but still
For the first time, we were taken to the right side "library" on two of the trips. On the first walk through, the CM was being unhelpful and wouldn't tell me where the easter eggs were. Most likely because he himself didn't know. But the second time, a woman was more than kind in letting us stay in the briefing room for a little bit after the video and showed us where everything was. I saw the HTH bookmark, the hidden Mickey figure, and the HTH CM hat. If you ever get the chance, I strongly recommend looking around for these little gems!I started to notice a trend in the ride profile(s). They may vary slightly, but I feel there is the same amount of ascend-then-immediately-descent moments in every ride profile, and more than there was with ToT. At first this was causing me to have some nausea but after a little bit they all began to feel like the same thing.
The dance party is obnoxious and I don't think the TV screens are really 4k; at a closer look, you can see the pixels are pretty darn big. I just think they wow the audience with a high refresh rate and a colorful display. I really don't like the fact that they mainly use screens instead of effects but it is what it is. They most likely dumped all their funding into ruining the exterior and making a fun little museum at the entrance. And the raccoon animatronic, of course.
Trolley Car show
I wish they didn't do this as often as they do. We kept trying to catch a ride at the worst times and it was seemingly always when they were doing their Hollywood show thing.
Holiday festivities
We bought the 8 meal pass thing and used all the tickets on random stalls. Some of them were really good, others were above average. Overall I was impressed with some of the offerings they had and it was nice to try new things.
Disneyland
Now on to Walt's original!
Haunted Mansion Holiday
For those of you who have seen my posts, this won't be a surprise. I love Haunted Mansion Holiday, to the point where it's now my favorite thing to do at the Disneyland resort. I don't know what it is.. perhaps the chillingly excellent soundtrack from Danny Elfman, the way the Mansion lights up, the quality of the holiday layover.. It almost feels like an entirely new attraction yet they set it up in 3 weeks. The gingerbread house this year was top notch, the best I've ever seen it. On one of our ride-throughs, we got stopped on the descent before the graveyard scene, right under the vampire chewing on the chords. It's giggles were freaking my lady out and she was starting to get anxious hahaha. I can't stop singing HMH's praises.
As a disclaimer, I was a fan of the ride before I even knew what NBC really was. I recently re-watched it and realized it really is a great film.
Fireworks
Finally we were able to catch the fireworks (on our last 2 visits, they cancelled every night due to high winds). We watched in a terrible spot at the Jolly Holiday restaurant. I blame this on a member of my party who wanted to stay because "Main Street was a mess". it was still fun, especially watching a CM or two tell the SAME OLDER GUY AND WOMAN OVER AND OVER to keep moving in the walkway but they wouldn't. Then finally he snapped and said something about the trash cans being there so why couldn't he. This was a serious facepalm moment and we watched it all. I was pondering jumping in but the CM handled herself extremely well.
The real surprise came 2 days later after riding the Matterhorn and exiting the ride at the same exact time as the fireworks started. There was no crowds, the views were great, and I didn't even realize they had a projection show going on at IASM at the same time! Then when the "snow" followed after the show, everyone came closer together and just had a blast. This was magical and for that 5 or 10 minutes, every face lit up with amusement.
Space Mountain
Space Mountain looked great. I didn't really get a chance to go through the new queue but this was the first time I noticed the weird barriers at the old fastpass merge. Next time we go i'm gonna have to wait in the standby on purpose, just to see what they've done. It was nice to see the blue tunnel working again (after the first lift), as well as the exterior lighting! I'm still wondering why the trains are so loud and squeal during the course of the ride.
Matterhorn
As previously mentioned, we were there the day this re-opened. It looks great and the queue now starts at the front of the ride, if i'm not mistaken (it was a mess). I wasn't able to see the Tomorrowland side of the mountain after they took the walls down. The ride feels and looks the same, except I feel that Harold definitely got a refurb. His movements look great!
It's a Small World Holiday
This was our first time on IASW Holiday. Not much to say here except it was fun!
Pirates of the Caribbean
The last note I wish to make will be about POTC. There is a mixture of good and bad with the changes that they had made. I'll start with the positives: I think the tunnel scene before the ship battle is great. I'll miss the broken fog effect but there is no doubt in my mind that the old audio and the new octopus scene is great. I barely noticed on our last ride that the guy's face goes from skull to skin after you pass a certain area. Truly an amazing effect! I love how they kept the pirate ship battle scene the same with "The Medallion Calls" playing in the background as Barbossa and the fort exchange a few words.
Now onto the not-so-good. The little crab is missing at the beach (I liked it
) and the "Here kitty kitty kitty" animatronic, as well as the feisty kitty cats, are gone. @SuddenStorm mentioned it will most likely come back after a refurbishment, so I hope the same remains for the crab.The auction scene: I wouldn't mind this change so much if they had done it right. But they butchered bits and pieces that overshadow the good. Redd and the auctioneers lines are both obnoxious, as are their voices, and I don't think it really makes all that much sense in general. Redd as an animatronic looks good, as do the others, but that's overshadowed by "Ya want the rum doncha boys" "ahyyhyahayhayblkjab" "Go ahead deary, show them your flock". Change the lines and voice actors, and I think we might have a competent scene. But for the time being, it's cringe-y.
Miscellaneous
I guess this is a thing now.. lol
Cast Members and Help
I truly understand what it's like to work with guests and needy people, and with the vast majority of CM's being good at their jobs and extremely pleasurable to work with, there's bound to be a few select who are the exact opposite. We ran into two of these people. While I could tell you the story of how one of them outright screwed us out of one of our "Multiple Experiences", I'm instead going to focus on our good encounters.
It was heartwarming to be helped by that CM in M:BO when we asked about the easter eggs, another CM who gave us a ride down Mainstreet joked with us the whole way down, and the Doctor Facilier CM somehow caught my girlfriend and I looking at him from the train at New Orleans station; where he proceeded to stare us down and give us a look hahaha. Another CM at Haunted Mansion saved us from using another "multiple experiences" pass by telling us it'd be better to use standby at that time (and he was right). CM's are generally very helpful and fun to interact with.
On the road
It was also nice to see that the highways in California are looking pretty good. We travel from Arizona and I think they repaved a lot of the freeway and they were still doing so, in one specific section, when we were on our way to Anaheim. There was still piles of trash on some sides of the freeways in the LA area, but ultimately this was the cleanest I've seen the place - and evidently, they're still working on it as there was a group of people in reflective vests working hard at one section.
Conclusion
With our trip to WDW coming up in Jan-Feb, I'm really excited to see what sort of magic we will be able to experience in Florida. To tell you the truth, I'm never gonna get used to making a trip to a Disney park.
