Day 2 - We have to meet Oswald!
We woke up and the plan was to head to California Adventure and get on Radiator Springs Racers, before we were meeting some other people. We grabbed a couple fastpasses for RSR for mid-afternoon, and then we went and got on the ride via the single riders line, there was already a 60 minute wait for standby, we walked right on through the single riders line.
Racers, this is an impressive ride, the animatronics are awesome, the ride is fun, and it looks great. That being said I prefer Test Track, I do not know what the consensus opinion of these two similar ride is but TT is my choice. I like the theming of TT better, I like building my own car, and I like that TT is faster. It probably doesn't help that I am not really a fan of the "Cars" movies. Anyway after this we headed over to Toy Story Midway Mania. The lines for this during our trip were always way shorter than the ones at Hollywood Studios, I am sure this is because there is more to do overall at DCA than DHS. This is always a fun ride, I do need tips on how to increase my score though. I seem stuck in the 150,000-160,000 range. There was a long delay on TSMM this time, so we got some practice in with no points, a lot. After Toy Story we were going to meet the rest of our party. We were meeting up with Kim, a college friend of Cara's and one of her bridesmaids at our wedding, Kim's brother Richard, his boyfriend (who's name I forgot), their friend CJ (who works for Disney), her fiancee (forgot name, it may have been Matthew, he also worked for Disney, their friends Sean, his wife (name forgot), and their two young daughters (guess what? forgot their name's too). So we were quite a large group, if by any random chance any of this group reads this I apologize for forgetting names, I am awful with names. They had all picked up Fastpasses for RSR on the way to meet us, but their's were for 4 hours after ours. We decided to head to California Screamin since the line is nonexistent for that ride.
After California Screamin we wandered over to Tower of Terror. We had a chatty CM as we were boarding ToT he told us he was excited for the Star Wars stuff, but he admitted he is sick of Frozen everything, and is ready for it to go away, interesting, but not surprising. We got stuck on ToT right before the dropping starts, a CM came over a loud speaker and talked to us, and told jokes while we waited for the maintenance guy to see what was wrong. So, there was a napkin that had gotten picked up by the ride sensor which caused the stoppage, he picked up the napkin and sent us back down. They gave us the option to stay on the ride and it would go again, or we could get off and get FPs for whatever we chose to stay, but there was a family who wanted to get off. So ToT in DL seems a lot shorter, maybe it's just me, but the journey to the part where you fall was a lot less impressive. So I will give WDWs ToT the win here.
Only 3 people in the car were not in our group
We decided to head out of DCA and go over to DL, on the way out we finally saw Oswald the Lucky Rabbit! Cara, is a huge fan of the Epic Mikey video games, and loves Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, I knew this was the one thing she needed to do while we were here.
We were headed to Hungry Bear to get some lunch, CJ's fiancee went to get us some fastpasses for Space Mountain at this time, he couldn't get those for a time that would work so when he returned he had Big Thunder FPs instead.
I had a cheeseburger with sweet potato fries, and Cara had a fried green tomato sandwich. They were pretty good.
We hopped on Big Thunder, which was fun, there was something different about this version of the ride, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it, Cara, and CJ's fiancee both said they liked WDW version better, I don't know if I could say one is better than the other. Next up was another journey through Pirates, I could ride this ride forever I think, I just love it. After that we hopped in line for Indy, which may be my favorite DL ride overall.
After Indy we had to head back to DCA for the groups FPs for RSR, I don't know how exactly but we did get separated briefly at this time, and said we would meet after RSR, we had an early dinner reservation at Ariel's Grotto, and I think were going to meet there. Anyway Cara and I got in the the single rider line for racers, which was much longer, we probably waited 40 minutes this time, standby was at 160 minutes I believe. After we got off, we headed over to Ariel's Grotto, where 2 members of our group were waiting, CJ and Matthew, everyone else was still waiting in the FP line for RSR. They seated just the 4 of us, and a few minutes later the rest of the party arrived. The FP line for racers was apparently very long and took forever. Anyway Ariel's grotto was a prix fixe menu, so we got an appetizer, entree, and desert.
I had the surf and turf, Cara had the shrimp pasta, several people had the corn cakes. I think the appetizer was just soup or salad.
We had somewhere along the line gotten FPs for Space Mountain during this time, so after dinner we went back to DL and rode SM. While getting in line there was some confusion with people jumping out of the standby line and trying to get in the FP line, and giving the CMs confused, we don't speak english looks, when he was telling them they needed to get in the standby line. After they left we got right on SM. it so different, Matthew, kept saying this is his favorite ride in all the Disney parks, and thinks it is much better than WDW version, now while it is good, I prefer the WDW one, can't say why exactly I just do. I didn't laugh as much while on this SM. After space we had to go back to DCA because as part of the the dinner reservation we had reserved us spots for World of Color.
World of color was an interesting show, the Neil Patrick Harris and Mickey Mouse narration was a bit corny, I liked the actual water show and thought that was impressive. We were told the old version was better, where there wasn't a narrator, it was just the water and lights to classic disney songs. I rolled my eyes at the end when they tacked on a Star War Episode VII commercial, and I love Star Wars. I did like seeing Thor and Captain America for a second in there though, I know it is a pipe dream, but I keep hoping WDW and Universal agree to some deal so the Marvel characters can come to WDW. I know Star Lord and Gamorra had a brief dance party at a special event at DHS once, but I want more dang nabbit. After World of Color Kim, Cara, and I went to check out Downtown Disney, Sean and his family were going home, and the rest of the party went to ride Star Tours. DT disney was packed, since everyone leaving after WoC and fireworks were headed straight there. I did get a rad Mr. Toad's Wild Ride shirt though. This is where we screwed up, we should have gone to Trader Sam's and waited for everybody there, but we didn't, and they got trapped by the parade. By the time they got to us, we were exhausted and just wanted to get back to the hotel and pack.
We had a fun, short weekend trip to Disneyland, I would like to visit again, maybe during a less crowded time, but I would also like to see more of the whole Los Angeles area if I get a chance to return to Southern California. I also want to stay at one of the Disneyland Resorts some time, see how they compare to WDW resorts. The biggest difference between the 2 parks, is the lack of a bubble in DL, once you leave you are in a city, with traffic and shops and Disney has no control over how it all looks. Disney World you really feel like you are not in the real world at all. I often see people say they think DL is better maintained, I did not see any evidence of this, I would have to say they seem exactly the same to me. The crowd is different at DL, less tour groups, a lot more locals it seemed. It was a very good way to make the wait for a trip to WDW in 13 days now, go by easier! Thank you for reading, I will probably be back sometime in October for our much much longer WDW trip!! So stay tuned!
Following along!!
