Day 2, Part 4!
When we got outside of Splash and met Mom, we were sad to find it temporarily closed. The cast member said they would honor our fast passes at any time, so we went to find something else fun to. Pooh was nearby and had a short line, so on we went! I think the storyline of the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh at Magic Kingdom is much more cohesive and works better, so I’m going to have to give it to WDW on this one. Plus I’m not sure why the cars at Disneyland feel like they are “floating” the whole time. It works for the flood scene, but I like how in WDW the cars switch between normal movement, floating, tigger bouncing, etc. Regardless, much fun was still had (my mom’s favorite character ever is Eeyore so we liked seeing his presents to Pooh at the end
). I also showed my parents that you can say “hi” to Max, Buff, and Melvin from Country Bear Jamboree at the end of the Heffalump and Woozle scene.
When we got off of Winnie the Pooh, Splash Mountain had already re-opened! It must have just re-opened because the stand-by line was still relatively short, but we went ahead and used our fast passes anyway. Now, a reminder, we usually go to WDW in January. Therefore, our experience with the World’s Splash is that you barely get wet at all. Thankfully, I had gone on a trip to WDW with my friends in August a couple of years ago and had my first experience of riding Splash with the water turned up. I warned my parents that, unlike our usual experience with Splash, we may actually get pretty wet. With this in mind, we hopped on for our first Disneyland Splash Mountain experience.
Splash Mountain is another one that I’m going to have to give to WDW, but I think most people agree with this. WDW’s is just grander (when the animatronic scenes are working of course!), longer, and brighter. It was great to see the differences, though, and despite the ride being shorter, Disneyland’s Splash does have some scenes that WDW’s does not. We were especially interested by the new song bit sung by the mother rabbits (a Wikipedia search tells me the song is called “Burrow’s Lament”), a very somber song that we don’t have at all at WDW. It was also neat to think about how the majority of the animatronic had been pulled from America Sings. Disneyland’s Splash animatronics definitely have a different look to them than WDW’s, and I’m guessing this is why.
Anyway, I really wish we could’ve ridden Splash Mountain again during our trip so that we could take in the scenery some more, but we didn’t because our main focus during our ride was how SOAKED we got! I knew we were going to be in trouble when at the beginning of the ride our log glided by the big drop at the end and we got a direct hit from some of the spray cannons as another log went down. Welcome to Splash Mountain in the summer! The drop that got us the worst was the drop in the dark down into the Laughin’ Place. This drop itself was especially fun since it was in the dark and for a split second we thought we didn’t get too wet. But then – this huge secondary wave must have slopped into the log, getting us all completely drenched, especially our lower halves! The big drop at the end was similar, but we actually got much wetter from the drop in the dark, maybe because we couldn’t see to protect ourselves. Anyway, we had fun, and it was still warm enough out that we weren’t terribly uncomfortable.
As we got our sodden selves back together, we headed into Pooh Corner to look around. Although we didn’t get any, we took a look at some of the amazing looking treats they had in there.
We continued to walk around to try to dry off a little bit and found ourselves back around the Rivers of America, where the Mark Twain was loading. It was its last trip of the day, so we decided to enjoy our first cruise around Disneyland’s Rivers of America. Everyone seemed to rush up to the top deck or to stay on the bottom, so we went to the second deck where it was shady and uncrowded and we could have a good view at the railing.
Despite our huge lunch, we were getting a little hungry at this point. We browsed our map to figure out some counter service options, and decided to go ahead and try Redd Rockett’s Pizza Port over in Tomorrowland. Mom and I got salads (Mom got Starfield of Greens and I tried the Planetary Pizza Salad). Dad got the Chicken Fusilli and a side salad. We also shared an order of breadsticks. Overall, worked for a “lighter” meal that we were looking for and I liked the uniqueness of my salad. However, it was probably my least favorite of the counter service places we tried and not something I would go out of my way to try again.
After dinner we walked through Tomorrowland and saw that Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters had only a 10 or so minute line (so different from WDW!). We really enjoyed Disneyland’s version – the targeting system seems better, I like the light up targets for extra points, and it’s much easier to aim without the gun mounted to the car. I’ve never been a fan of Space Ranger Spin at WDW, but if it was like Astro Blasters I would enjoy it much more. None of us got particularly high scores (I don’t think we were ever able to surpass level 3), but we didn’t care!
It was getting a little bit late, and we knew we wanted to get over to DCA to catch World of Color. However, we were all still pretty wet from Splash Mountain and it was going to be getting chilly soon. We decided to drop by the hotel and change before going back from World of Color. It was sooo nice to be able to do this so quickly and easily.
I snapped a few pictures on the way out of Disneyland. We also enjoyed the Emporium’s window displays. Their displays right now kind of go over the history of them, and it was cool to see the progression.
A quick walk through Downtown Disney got us back to the Grand Californian. We picked up breakfast items from White Water Snacks for the next morning (this time I tried the cinnamon roll – yum!) and got to the room so we could get dried off. After a quick break it was about time to head back into DCA. This time we were able to use the Grand Californian entrance, which was pretty nifty. It drops you in right by the fast pass station for Grizzly River Run.
We were seeing the 10:15 show and it was about time for the first show to start, so we had a little time to kill. We took a moment to look at Cars Land at night before making our way to Paradise Pier.
We were kind of in the mood for some kind of desert at this point, but seeing nothing of interest at the Cozy Cone, we headed to Paradise Pier to start checking out the World of Color situation. We went over to Jumpin’ Jellyfish, which is where the yellow Fast Pass ticket tells you to meet. Since we were there pretty early they hadn’t started forming a line yet, so we just found a seat and relaxed. I went off in search of desert – kind of hard to do in that area with all the lights turned off for the first show. After a fair bit of wandering I found a cart selling ice cream bars and got us some Mickey ice cream sandwiches and premium bars to enjoy.
About 9:30-9:45 or so, a cast member showed up and started putting down tape for the yellow section line for the second show. I went over and asked him if we could get in line, and he was happy to let us do so. Yay, first in line!
Since we were there for a while, we enjoyed chatting with him about the differences between coasts. He also said his teenage son was in DCA on a date, so he was a little on edge keeping an eye out for him.
We also met a nice gentleman who had just flown in from Hong Kong that afternoon to visit Disneyland. He wanted to know our opinion for the best place to stand for the show, so I was able to show him a map I had downloaded onto my phone of the WOC viewing area and the area we were going to try to stand. Technology, for the most part, is nice!
Finally it was time for our line to move to the viewing area. We knew we didn’t want to get really wet, so we went two tiers up from the boardwalk and as far to the very center of the yellow viewing section as we could go. I’m sure the view might be a titch more unobstructed if you’re right up front, but for us this couldn’t have been more perfect.
And so at 10:15 the show got rolling. All I can say is, “wow!” Definitely one of the highlights of the trip – such a beautiful show. We loved our view – a great view of the screens, just a little bit of mist from the water, and right next to one of the little fountains set amongst the audience. Our view from the terrace the night before had been nice, but nothing beat being right there. I didn’t bother trying to take any pictures or videos – as you can see from previous pictures, I don’t really have the best camera and I really just wanted to take it all in. I did catch a picture at the very end, though.
And so, over 17 hours after it started, our first day in the parks ended! We made our way back to the Grand Californian through our entrance near Grizzly River Run (extra nice to have at this point!). Time to rest up, because we were planning on another early day tomorrow!
Whew! Thanks for hanging out with me for this far, guys! It’s really fun to type this up so far!
Coming up: A pretty epic early entry day at Disneyland!
So through the gate we went! As we were walking up, the cast member told us that she didn’t want people to think she had just randomly grabbed some kids, and needed some adults up there too. I didn’t really care how we got up there, but I’ve been to enough rope drops and park openings, that being the family that “helps” to open the park has always been something I wanted to do. My only regret is that I didn’t take a picture while we were standing up there before counting down, but I was too excited and didn’t think about it until it was time to count. Ah, well!
We then counted down from 10 and the park was open! We stood for just a split second to enjoy the moment, but then, we had places to be! Without any further ceremony, we were off through the tunnel and into the park with everyone else!
He’s a really cute part of Fantasy Faire.
