I just got back from California!
I was able to go to Disneyland on Tuesday January 15th. It was not the experience I thought it would be, largely because I ended up having to go by myself since my husband had gotten sick and couldn't join me for the day. I had the choice to make of either missing out on Disneyland or on going to the park by myself...which I had never done in a Disney park before. I chose to go by myself while my husband rested and napped back in our hotel. Going to Disneyland alone was odd for me, but not in a bad way. It was just an unusual experience because I normally only go to Disney parks with my family.
I am going to do a full Trip Report as soon as I get settled in. I took lots of pictures I am going to try to upload too when I figure out how to do that. But here are some quick impressions of Disneyland from someone who normally goes to WDW and has only been to Disneyland a handful of times in my life.
1. I am upset that every time I go to Disneyland it seems like I am not allowed to experience Haunted Mansion. This angers me, because I can't control when I go to Disneyland. My family takes an annual trip to WDW every May but trips out to California are an oddity for us. This trip here in January 2013 was a surprise trip because my husband wanted to attend a conference in Las Vegas and then go on to another trade show thing in California...and so we went at the last minute. I did not choose to come to California in January just because I wanted, but decided to make Disneyland a part of my husband's conference trip. What upsets me is that Haunted Mansion was closed to remove all the "Nightmare Before Christmas" junk that Disneyland forces into the Mansion every year. So I could not even ride the HM at all this trip. The last time I was in California was back in 2011 when I went out there for another of my husband's conferences...and it was in late November so the Nightmare decorations were up then. I thus didn't get to experience Haunted Mansion that trip either, because it was the "holiday overlay" of the ride. I really hate this.
I am a HUGE fan of the Haunted Mansion and feel cheated that the last two times I have gone to Disneyland the Nightmare overlay has prevented me from experiencing the HM the way I want to experience it (and this last time, it kept me from seeing it at all). I know that Disney does this for the annual pass holders who like the holiday overlay and can experience the original version of the attraction at other times...but for people like me who only get to go to California once in a great while and can't control when we go, it's just so heart breaking that every single year they inconvenience us HM fans with the holiday overlay.
I really wish Disney would only do the Nightmare overlay every other year instead of every year.
2. I finally got to eat at the Blue Bayou, which I had always wanted to experience. My husband never wanted to wait for a table there but I was able to get one in just 15 minutes by myself. I absolutely loved it. I asked the host to put me as close to the Pirates ride as possible and my table looked right out into the part where the Pirates boats floated by. It was so enchanting. I really felt like I was eating outside. I had the short ribs and the gumbo and drank mint juleps (non-alcoholic) and had a marvelous time in there. I absolutely loved it.
3. For lunch earlier in the day I ate at Flo's V8 Cafe in Carsland...and it was spectacular! I had the pork loin with the cherry cola BBQ sauce and I loved it. That restaurant is so cute and everyone working there was so very nice! When I was waiting for my turn to order a nice lady named Mia was talking to me and asking me what I was going to ride next and I told her I wanted to go on the Radiator Springs Racers but was discouraged because of the 50 minute wait at the time ( I think it was about 11am). I am very intimidated by the Fast Pass thing and when I walked by that area to get a Fast Pass it said that the return time was 700pm and I knew I would be over in Disneyland at that time so I thought I would miss the Racers. But Mia told me about the Single Rider line which I had never thought to use before. After lunch I went and did like Mia said and I got on the Racers in 5 minutes! The ride was very exciting and I still can't believe how realistic the animatronic cars were. I loved it!
4. I experienced Toon Town for the first time ever because my husband never wants to go in that area...and I loved it. That place is really charming and well-themed. I rode the Roger Rabbit ride and felt like I was inside a very zany cartoon. One of the things about Disney fan sites that I don't like is how negative a lot of the supposed "Disney fans" actually are about everything. I see a lot of nasty things said about Toon Town and how it should be demolished, but I really think Toon Town is one of the best things in any park I've ever been to. It's gorgeous, really, if you go with the "you are inside a cartoon" theme. I really felt like I was in a whole other world in there. It is similar to the feeling of Radiator Springs in Carsland. I really wish they had something like this when my kids were little because they would have loved it.
5. I never realized how jarring Disneyland's Tomorrowland really is...it's like it just smacks you in the face. I took that little path out of Fantasyland that goes around past the Snow White grotto. I was surprised to find Ariel just standing there with no line of people to take her picture so I chatted with her for a minute. And then all of a sudden Snow White and Aurora walked by and I got to chat with them too. The "friend" of Snow White that day was stunning...she looked just like the Snow White from the movies. They were all so nice, of course. But then I kept walking and encountered the abrasive rock crags and the big spinning Tomorrowland stuff. And just a few steps away was all the Main Street Victorian architecture. I wish they had a more gentle and subtle transition between Main Street and Tomorrowland and between Tomorrowland and Fantasyland. What's interesting to me is all the complaining on fan sites about the Fantasy Faire area that Disney is building where the Carnation Gardens stage used to be. To me, having a Fantasyland area there is no different than having Tomorrowland jutting out the way it does with these rocks and the giant spinning thing thing with the rockets that was right there off Main Street.
The rest of Tomorrowland looks very junky to me. I can't ride the Star Tours because it makes me feel queazy. I did ride the Buzz Lightyear ride and the whole time I kept thinking "Does this fit in Tomorrowland?". I have to say that it does, and I actually really liked the ride. I scored about 15,000 points while riding and I was using my zapper to shoot all the bad guys. I didn't know if I would like doing this because I am not a video game fan but I really had a good time and I left the ride feeling accomplished since I had a nice score. I could see the people in front of me and they only had 6,000 or 7,000 points so I had double their points.
I don't like seeing Michael Jackson and Captain EO in the park. I want it to go away. Jackson is dead and I will never speak ill of the dead but his image makes me uncomfortable because of his odd relationships with children. I think it's time to put his connections to Disney into the archives and use that Captain EO space for something that has no connection at all to any scandals. Honestly, I was in such a nice mood after walking off the Buzz Lightyear ride and then I saw Michael Jackson's face and the EO poster and it just changed the atmosphere for me. Space Mountain was closed because the ride broke down but that was okay since I really can't ride coasters. My son and daughter would have been very upset if they were with me on this trip because Space Mountain is their favorite ride. I just thought to myself, "On this trip I didn't get to ride Haunted Mansion and my kids would have not been able to ride Space Mountain" and that angered me enough to complain about it to City Hall as I was leaving later in the night. They took my complaint with a smile but didn't seem to care all that much. I didn't expect them to, but I wish others would complain about not getting to experience HM because of the annual Nightmare overlay and all that it takes to put that into the HM.
6. I didn't notice this until I got back to the hotel, but I don't like that the bags all say Disney Parks instead of Disneyland. I also don't like that the castle on the bags is Cinderella's Castle. I tend to keep the bags from places I've been and I use them here or there for things. It's just kind of neat to have a Disneyland bag...and not as magical to me to have a "Disney Parks" bag. So I side with the people who are upset with this change and think Disney is foolish for not having Disneyland bags. I don't care what it saves them to go the "One Disney" route...I really feel bad that I didn't get to bring special Disneyland bags back with me.
I also was really disappointed to not find ANY Haunted Mansion merchandise for sale ANYWHERE. They had plenty of Jack Skellington and Nightmare stuff though. It was everywhere. I was looking for a Haunted Mansion fridge key chain because I collect those but they did not have one. There were plenty of pins so I bet there was an HM pin...but I am not a pin person. I would lose the pin. How stupid is it that Disney does not sell Haunted Mansion merchandise in Disneyland? I would have probably spent up to $100 on this stuff if they had it for sale...but instead I bought nothing but a few little things for people back home that said Disneyland on it (a tee shirt for my niece, a toy for my nephew, and a Disneyland magnet for the woman who fed my cats while we were away...and that magnet was hard to find!).
They had some neat stuff for sale in California Adventure, but most of it was Cars-themed. If you are not a Cars person, there really was not much to buy that was fun and interesting. Disney is losing a lot of money on souvenir sales by not having nice things to buy in the stores. I think every attraction should have a few things to buy: a nice magnet, a keychain, a shirt, and maybe a few little trinkets.
7. Buena Vista Street is just charming and lovely. I loved it. They had old time music playing and I got to meet the woman in the blue dress with the dog puppet. I also got to meet Mickey and Goofy in 20s clothes. I LOVE the statue of Walt and Mickey in DCA...it is so cute. They did such a great job building all the stores and the buildings in BVS...but then in the stores all they sold was the same junk that I saw over and over again. How sad that the merchandise is not as nice as the buildings it's sold in!
I also think that the whole Hollywood Land area of DCA is junky. It's very pretty, don't get me wrong, but I struggled to find something to do over there. I ended up going onto that Monsters Inc ride they had over there and thought it was stupid. I saw that movie when it first came out but I have not revisited it since. I had no idea what the ride was about, only that a child was loose in the building and the monsters were freaked out. I can't imagine what people who don't understand English would think about the ride. Very little of it made sense and just seemed hobbled together. I know that it used to be the Superstar Limo ride and they just put a new theme on it, but I thought they could have tried harder.
The rest of Hollywood Land was just wasted space in my opinion. I think it would all be better if they rethemed it all to Monstropolis and had it be a whole Monsters area as detailed as the Cars area. Why not? All the little shows and things could still work in that area, but they would just be inside Monster theaters and whatever. I just think it would all be so much more interesting if it was a Monster city you were in instead of being Hollywood Land.
8. I enjoyed the Little Mermaid ride. It was the first time I had ever gone on it. I thought it was cute. I did not like the whole Paradise Pier area though. I thought it was junky and that it looked cheap. It looked like a generic amusement park that was there from long ago and then they built the rest of DCA around it. I hardly spent any time there after I got off Mermaid. I wanted to get out of that cheap area as fast as possible.
9. There was not really anything for me to do in the Grizzly Rapids area so I just walked quickly through it. I then went to Condor Flats and thought that whole part looked very junky too. I did go on Soarin' and it was amazing. I actually got to ride it twice because there were no lines. The first time I was in the front row and the second time I was in the second row. Maybe if I had gone on again I would have been in the third row! That ride is worth every cent they spent on it. Truly incredible and amazing.
10. I did not ride Luigi's Tires or the Tow-Mater ride because the Tires looked very dull to me and the Tow-Mater spun around too much for me to handle. The Tow-Mater ride was very cute and my kids would have loved it though. I think the Tires should be demolished and they should put in a version of the Speedway over there so that little kids could "drive" Cars there if they are too small to ride the Racers. Then maybe Autopia could be taken out of Disneyland since they'd have a Cars version right there. I hope they do this in the future because the Tires ride is not up to par.
I'm going to think more on all this and get my pictures together, but this was just my initial thoughts on my trip. I had a very nice time and I stayed until 8pm when the park closed. I had budgeted to spend $200 that day on souvenirs but ended up only spending about $40 because I just couldn't find anything nice to buy in either DCA or Disneyland. I told City Hall this on the way out too...and specifically told them that I would have spent the full $200 if they had Haunted Mansion merchandise to buy in particular. Never in my life would I have ever thought I'd walk out of Disneyland NOT spending what I budgeted, but they just didn't have nice things for me to bring home and I really struggled to find any gifts to get people. Whoever is in charge of merchandise is really falling down on his or her job!
