Disneyland! After All these Years!

EDIT!

Jess shared her pictures with me! (You can do that?) So I'm updating this post with more and better pictures!

This was going to be a post on our big first day at Disneyland, but now it isn't. You see, we spent about 15 hours in the park that day, so this is a post about HALF of our big first day at Disneyland! I just couldn't fit it all into one post! 

We got up bright and early and were at the gate by 7:30. The park officially opened at 8:00, but we are experienced "Park Commandos" with multiple Walt Disney World trips under our belts, so we hit it early and hard! No wimps allowed!

This is Jess feeling a little excited before first rope drop. As you probably know, they open the park in stages, letting you into Main Street U.S.A. first, and then letting you into the lands. 

We're in! I took a moment to capture the sign above the left tunnel. By the way, our plan for the day was, "When in doubt, go left." Therefore, we started in Adventureland and worked clockwise. 

And here we are waiting to get into Adventureland! One reason that I took this picture was to show a view that you can never get at Walt Disney World; the Adventureland and Frontierland signs in the same frame. Disneyland is certainly more compact. Still, it really saves on walking and makes traveling around even more exciting! A new adventure really is right around the corner!

Ah, our first attraction- The Jungle Cruise! We had a five minute wait...maybe. it was pretty much a complete walk on. Our skipper was good, but she talked a bit quickly for the first thing in the morning! The biggest difference between this original version and the Walt Disney World version is the lack of a treasure cave (which was borrowed from LeSalle's Riverboats at Six Flags Over Texas). The Disneyland cruise doesn't suffer because of the omission, though, as it felt complete without it!

Next, we were off to the Pirates of the Caribbean! Note the wait time on the sign...

The classic entrance to piratey thrills!

Yep, another walk on! The Disneyland version of Pirates doesn't lack anything that the Walt Disney World ride has. In fact, it's much longer with more caves and a double drop instead of a single one. This is the ride that I remember from when I was a kid! 

The Wicked Wench!

We then had some beignets at Royal Street location that were wonderful (and a rare fairly good deal)! Strolling around New Orleans Square, we passed the old enterance to this place. I hear it's nice...

Alas, my favorate ride was closed due to Tiana and her salt mine ride next door. Not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, but I'd have just as soon kept singing Zip-A-Dee Doo Da and therefore been able to see some ghosts...

Oh wait! Here are some! The fence had a QR code you could scan to make your face look a little more...spooooooky!

I've always loved this bit of myth!

We decided to go on Pooh because it was another walk on and it was there. I was happily surprised to find that I liked it a bit better than it's WDW counterpart. The story seemed a little stronger. Or maybe it was the two year old little girl in from of our car that was in awe of everything and immediately asked her father to go on it again when we stopped. Disney through the eyes of a child is always special.

Happy Birthday, Pooh!!!

Next, we wandered over to The Rivers of America. The Mark Twain was being refurbished, but I didn't mind having ridden the WDW counterpart many times. What I don't remember riding is the Columbia sailing ship! We were in luck, as it was running!

The open decks of the Columbia make for great views of the river!

The rather cramped crew courters showed life on the seas was far from glamerous.

Taking a shot at those pesky pirates! I missed the smoke from the cannon. Oh well.

A little taste of life on the river!

We cut back through the hub and went up into Toontown!

We then scooted over to Tune Town to check out Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway. Jess had ridden this at WDW, but I never had ridden it. It was cute and I really enjoyed it. The cars are trackless and just do their own thing!

Mucho Toony fun!

Then we went back to Main Street. Our Walt's Main Street tour was about to start! Jess thought of everything for this trip!

One thing that I really liked more about Disneyland than WDW is that at Disneyland the characters still just walk around. Even the Big Cheese himself! At Disney World people wait hours for an interaction with Mickey. Why? I really don't know...

"Our tour begins here...." 

Ok, I just had a brief Haunted Mansion moment. But it really did begin here...

There were just five of us on the tour, which made getting up and down Main Street pretty easy.

 

The first part of the tour just pointed out Walt related items on Main Street. They also pointed out the famous two color light bulb at Coke Corner. Here it is, in case you want to see it!

Ah, here is the real reason for the tour! Jess and I standing in Walt's firehouse apartment. I actually was selected to open the door and let everyone in, so that was pretty nice. Not much is actually from the family, but it doesn't matter. Just being where he lived from time to time while building and working in the park was worth it!

Our Tour Treats! A large Main Street Story lemon cookie, Coke and a Walt post card. I regret to say that the cookie has been consumed.

And a nod to our tour guide, Josh. He did a good job, and I tried not to blurt out facts. Really. I was good. 

And so ends Part One of our 32 part series.

Ok, not really 32 part  but it probably could have been. At this point it wasn't even noon! So come back next week for more Disneyland Fun!

Disneyland Impressions!

Well, I can no longer say my last trip to Disneyland was over 50 years ago! In fact my last trip wasn't even 50 hours ago! Last week my daughter treated me to a four day trip (Tuesday through Friday) for my retirement gift! Yes, she IS the best daughter ever!

Now, I could write volumes on this trip, and I probably will write more, but I thought I'd do some "hot take" posts. That's what all the cool kid bloggers do! Actually, I'm going to break this down into four posts, as such as momentous occasion deserves more than one wimpy post. So we begin with....

Day 1- Arrival and Downtown Disney.

We arrived a little before noon. 

The red carpet was rolled out at our hotel! Ok, so it was a blue carpet, but it was still exciting. I've wanted to stay in the Disneyland Hotel for a long time. We were in the Adventure Tower.

We were greeted by our TV when we got to our room on the 7th floor, overlooking Downtown Disney.

In fact, this was our view!

We settled in and made our way down to find FOOD! We were hungry after our trip. It was a beautiful, sun shine filled day and people were enjoying the pool!

I had a Hawaiian Burger at the Tangaroa Terrace. I usually don't care for pineapple, but the roasted slice on this burger was wonderful!

A view of our lunch stop!

We then went into Downtown Disney. The thing that really stunned me is how close everything is together! I knew it was, of course, but until you actually see it, it's hard to imagine. Especially having been a Walt Disney World guy for so long. It's very easy to walk from Downtown to Disneyland to California Adventure. Very. Very. Easy.

See?

A bit of Disney leaf magic.

In case you forgot where you were. Actually, it would be pretty impossible to forget that you were in Disney Ground Zero, since even the molecules in the place are Mickey shaped.

After we walked around a bit (and, yes, shopped) we took a very nice warm soak in the pool's hot tub. It's amazing how that will restore your energy!

Jess (my daughter) wanted to check out the Pixar Place Hotel since it was it's first day to be open, so we walked over. Again, it was very nice to be able to walk from place to place!

Here we are!!!

The first thing you see in the lobby...

These stained glass mobiles hang over the lobby as well. They were pretty neat. They were all Pixar, of course!

Then we went back to the hotel and checked out this huge model of Big Thunder that one of our buddies from Gorillas Don't Blog did tons of work on! Mike C. does great work!

And then we back to our room and sacked out for 12 hours. For real. You see, tomorrow we head for Disneyland!!!

So stay tuned for next week! It'll be a big one!!!