The TCD Gang Goes to Disneyland!

[Momof6....aka Marty 769]

A three update day!   :doodebug:

 

I have not ridden on the Tomorrowland Speedway, although I want to just so I can say i did.  

 

When my 13yo heard that we can meet Captain America and Thor at DL, he said that he and I should go there.  He was dissappointed his sister doesn't want to pay for it.  He hopes to get a job once he is 14yo, so I still have hopes!

 

Oh, and I never did ride on 20K under the Sea, so I really, really want to ride the Nemo ride there.

[mouseketab.....Carol 1,261]

 

 

While we were waiting in the queue here, we could see the tracks from Disneyland's Peoplemover, which is no longer in operation:

 

 

 

Finally, we've seen a couple of things that are better at WDW than they are at Disneyland-  we have COP and our Peoplemover works.  So our Tomorrowland wins.

 

We could see the monorail cruising by, and I noticed something strange- you can open the windows on the Disneyland monorail:

 

 

 

TCD

DL's PeopleMover went away ages ago. They tried to turn it into something called Rocket Rods and speed things up, but use the original track, well the original track didn't bank, and the Rocket Rods failed miserably, so it was shut down.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Rods

[alexwyattmommy 181]

If they pull out Loki, I am going to California without the family.

[Heidi-meetsTCD@TSM 5]

Agreed! The effect that those wires provide are ALL worth it!!

Yes!! Totally worth it!!

[Heidi-meetsTCD@TSM 5]

Glad that you're here, Heidi.  Eight nights must have been awesome.  But was it too long?

 

I assume that the new stuff was open in California Adventure when you went in 2012.  Did you miss any of the old stuff?

 

TCD

Was eight nights too long?? I can answer that in one word...NO!!!! For us, it was perfect. In fact when we went back in 2012 for 5 nights, we wished we had more time!

One thing that was different for us on our trip, compared to your trip, was it was HOT!! As in Florida hot! We were there in August for both trips and we were unlucky in that on both trips, southern California was in the throes of a heat wave with terrible humidity! In fact on both trips if I had a dollar every time someone told me, "we never have humidity out here, this is so unusual" I could have paid for our trip!

So because of the heat we did our park touring just like we do at WDW. We made rope drop at park opening, left around 1:00 or so in the afternoon, and went back into the parks around 4:00. We used the pool at the Park Vue multiple times every single day. My boys loved it, because the deep end was either 7 or 8 feet deep, which is pretty unusual for a hotel pool. They perfected their high dive, flips and jumps over the hours we spent there!! LOL!!

We had six day park hoppers and we didn't tire of the parks at all. We love to go on our favorites multiple times over a trip and we did. On our two days "off" we found plenty to do right there. One day we visited the three Disney hotels and Downtown Disney. I also called a cab to bring us to a Disney outlet store I had read about.

The second free day we had we spent a couple of hours at the ESPN gaming area. My boys were 13 and 16 that trip, so that was something that they enjoyed at the time. We looked around Downtown Disney again, spent the afternoon at the pool and then walked to an outdoor mall area that had a Cheesecake Factory. We don't have that restaurant around here (now there is one in Mass. but it is a 2 hour drive from our house) so that was a treat, as we LOVE their cheesecake.

Before we arrived at DL on that first trip, we had already spent a week on the road, visiting Yosemite NP, Kings Canyon NP and Sequoia NP, so we enjoyed staying put. Its true there is a ton of stuff to do around DL that we would have enjoyed, but we really wanted to spend a week at DL and just soak it all in! So we did!

Yes, when we went in 2012 Carsland was open. We didn't miss anything, but I don't think much of anything was removed for Carsland. I don't think the space they used had attractions on it previously?? Maybe I am wrong? The only thing that wasn't there in 2012 that we saw in 2009 was a little tour through a tortia "factory".

[Memphis 105]

Here is a video of what they use the wires for, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eASk4VXSRCY

The action starts at 8:15 into the video.  I have to admit it looks pretty cool but is a 45 second bit worth having to see those wires all day.  I don't think so.  I would rather it be rigged somewhere else.  

[Duane 151]

 

 

We could see the monorail cruising by, and I noticed something strange- you can open the windows on the Disneyland monorail:

 

 

 

 

Silly Andrew, those are not windows, those are anti-humidity devices... Clearly they don't need them in California like they do in Florida....

[Beckers 1,136]

For some reason I thought the got rid of the subs because they were not handicap accessible?

[Heidi-meetsTCD@TSM 5]

Don't give me too much credit for skipping the $14 candy canes.  This report isn't over yet.

 

 

Free bottled water?  I didn't know that.  But, we did get some cookies and lemonade when we checked in.  We never made it back in to the Lobby until we checked out.

 

I heard something about a Happy Hour too, but we were never back at the hotel that time of day.

 

It's funny that we stayed in the same hotel.  I plan to stay there again when we go back some day.  (I didn't say "if").

 

 

TCD

I have a feeling you bought some candy canes!!! $14.00 does seem crazy for a candy cane, but when I find myself at DL during candy cane season, I AM getting one!! A few years ago we watched a show on foods/snacks at DL over the Holidays hosted by Guy F (not sure how you spell his last name, but he does the "diners, drive-in and dives" food show. Part of show was about the candy canes and how they are made fresh right on Main St. every morning. They never have enough and sell out everyday. Ever since I saw that show, I have wanted a DL candy cane!!

The free bottled water was a great perk and we took advantage. Because of the heat we were going thru a LOT of water between the four of us!

When we went in 2012 they had ended the happy hour a month prior. I know lots of people were not happy, because the price was the same and there was no happy hour. I wonder if they have returned to the happy hour again. I know we loved the daily breakfast and that was a great perk.

I plan to stay there again too! I also don't say "if"! Its funny because before our first trip, we all thought we would go out there, enjoy ourselves, but not have a need to go back again, like we do at WDW. Boy were we wrong! We have loved both trips and cant wait to go back again.

[Heidi-meetsTCD@TSM 5]

I agree.  But, after hearing how defensive the CM's and locals are about their puny castle, we learned to not mention it.

 

Walt was around when they added the Matterhorn.  It's strange to me that he approved it going where it did.  I wonder if he regretted it?  It's interesting to see how the Magic Kingdom was designed so that the castle would be the dominant feature.

Its strange to me too!

 

 

Glad that you learned something.  I love the details that are included in the Disney parks. 

Me too!

 

 

We never made it there to eat, but the menu looked good, and I loved the seating area.

We did NOT love the seating area!! Ha, ha!! It was in the 90's when we were there and we NEEDED air conditioning!!! I agree though it is a sweet area!

 

 

I'm sure my opinion about the wires might be different if we got to see any of the flying stuff. But, we got the Holiday fireworks, and nobody flew. That's a good excuse for us to go back.

Very good excuse to go back!

 

We almost had a group of two put in the car with us. After waiting about 15 minutes, they announced that to move the line quicker, they would be combining groups of three or less with other riders. That was after we had stood there for 15 minutes watching singles and couples get cars to themselves. Sure enough, when our turn came up, they tried to put a group of two in our car with us. Which meant the three of us would have been very crowded on one side. I told the CM that we had waited longer than the singles and doubles that got their own cars and that we wanted the car to ourselves. The CM didn't like that, but we got the car to ourselves.

I should have done the same thing. We waited well over 30-minutes and it ended up being a bust having to share the car.

 

Shoot, I saw the bookcase, but didn't look at the titles.

There's another example of those details that a lot of guests miss.

Another reason to go back!

 

Hey, we will be going to the Nemo subs soon in this TR. We must have been lucky, as we didn't have a long wait there at all. We saw how big the queue is, and it was strange that it was practically empty.

I could be wrong, but I think when we went in 2009, it was a new or newer attraction, hence the long lines. The waits were easily well over an hour, sometimes closer to two and no fast passes.

 

 

TCD

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

A three update day!   :doodebug:

 

I have not ridden on the Tomorrowland Speedway, although I want to just so I can say i did.  

 

When my 13yo heard that we can meet Captain America and Thor at DL, he said that he and I should go there.  He was dissappointed his sister doesn't want to pay for it.  He hopes to get a job once he is 14yo, so I still have hopes!

 

Oh, and I never did ride on 20K under the Sea, so I really, really want to ride the Nemo ride there.

 

You are not missing anything by not having ridden on the Tomorrowland Speedway, but I understand about wanting to try it for yourself.

 

I hope one of your kids drags you out to Disneyland one day.  You'd love it.

 

DL's PeopleMover went away ages ago. They tried to turn it into something called Rocket Rods and speed things up, but use the original track, well the original track didn't bank, and the Rocket Rods failed miserably, so it was shut down.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Rods

 

 

Thanks for the link.  Wow, what a mess it sounds like that ride was.

 

I found an interesting article relating to the Peoplemover:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PeopleMover

 

And it contains this interesting passage:  The ride track infrastructure which served both the PeopleMover and Rocket Rods still stands unused in Tomorrowland. In September 2010, George Kalogridis stated that while there may be plans to bring back the ride, the park would not be able to return the attraction to its original form due to stricter regulations. His exact words to an audience at a Disney D23 Expo, “But don’t worry. Everyone understands the passion everyone has for it.” Kalogridis also stated, “Hang in there.”

 

If they pull out Loki, I am going to California without the family.

 

I wish I would have known about your thing for Loki.  I would have put a suggestion in the Disneyland Suggestion Box.

 

Was eight nights too long?? I can answer that in one word...NO!!!! For us, it was perfect. In fact when we went back in 2012 for 5 nights, we wished we had more time!

One thing that was different for us on our trip, compared to your trip, was it was HOT!! As in Florida hot! We were there in August for both trips and we were unlucky in that on both trips, southern California was in the throes of a heat wave with terrible humidity! In fact on both trips if I had a dollar every time someone told me, "we never have humidity out here, this is so unusual" I could have paid for our trip!

So because of the heat we did our park touring just like we do at WDW. We made rope drop at park opening, left around 1:00 or so in the afternoon, and went back into the parks around 4:00. We used the pool at the Park Vue multiple times every single day. My boys loved it, because the deep end was either 7 or 8 feet deep, which is pretty unusual for a hotel pool. They perfected their high dive, flips and jumps over the hours we spent there!! LOL!!

We had six day park hoppers and we didn't tire of the parks at all. We love to go on our favorites multiple times over a trip and we did. On our two days "off" we found plenty to do right there. One day we visited the three Disney hotels and Downtown Disney. I also called a cab to bring us to a Disney outlet store I had read about.

The second free day we had we spent a couple of hours at the ESPN gaming area. My boys were 13 and 16 that trip, so that was something that they enjoyed at the time. We looked around Downtown Disney again, spent the afternoon at the pool and then walked to an outdoor mall area that had a Cheesecake Factory. We don't have that restaurant around here (now there is one in Mass. but it is a 2 hour drive from our house) so that was a treat, as we LOVE their cheesecake.

Before we arrived at DL on that first trip, we had already spent a week on the road, visiting Yosemite NP, Kings Canyon NP and Sequoia NP, so we enjoyed staying put. Its true there is a ton of stuff to do around DL that we would have enjoyed, but we really wanted to spend a week at DL and just soak it all in! So we did!

Yes, when we went in 2012 Carsland was open. We didn't miss anything, but I don't think much of anything was removed for Carsland. I don't think the space they used had attractions on it previously?? Maybe I am wrong? The only thing that wasn't there in 2012 that we saw in 2009 was a little tour through a tortia "factory".

 

I can see where an 8 day trip would be fun.

 

I am so glad that we didn't have the heat and humidity you did.  We had really pleasant weather.  Disneyland clearly isn't built to accommodate guests in hot and humid weather.  It would be way more unpleasant to visit during hot/humid weather there than it would Disney World.

 

I heard about that shopping center with the Cheesecake Factory, and thought we might visit there.  But we ended up having no spare time for that.  Which was a good thing.

 

 

Here is a video of what they use the wires for, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eASk4VXSRCY

The action starts at 8:15 into the video.  I have to admit it looks pretty cool but is a 45 second bit worth having to see those wires all day.  I don't think so.  I would rather it be rigged somewhere else.  

 

Thanks, that's a good video.  It makes the Disneyland fireworks seem kind of long and drawn out, though.

 

I saw the flying Dumbo at 8;15, and watched a couple of minutes after that, and didn't see anything else fly by.  This is something that I suppose one needs to see in person to truly appreciate.

 

Silly Andrew, those are not windows, those are anti-humidity devices... Clearly they don't need them in California like they do in Florida....

 

Ah.  I see.  California is such a strange land.

 

For some reason I thought the got rid of the subs because they were not handicap accessible?

 

Do you mean the ones in Florida or in California?  The subs in California didn't seem like they would be able to accommodate a guest confined to a wheelchair.  Maybe they have one with a lift in it?  The Florida ones probably couldn't accommodate a guest in a wheelchair either, but I don't think that's why they got scrapped.  I thought they were scrapped because they leaked, as did the attraction, and it was very costly to maintain.

 

I have a feeling you bought some candy canes!!! $14.00 does seem crazy for a candy cane, but when I find myself at DL during candy cane season, I AM getting one!! A few years ago we watched a show on foods/snacks at DL over the Holidays hosted by Guy F (not sure how you spell his last name, but he does the "diners, drive-in and dives" food show. Part of show was about the candy canes and how they are made fresh right on Main St. every morning. They never have enough and sell out everyday. Ever since I saw that show, I have wanted a DL candy cane!!

The free bottled water was a great perk and we took advantage. Because of the heat we were going thru a LOT of water between the four of us!

When we went in 2012 they had ended the happy hour a month prior. I know lots of people were not happy, because the price was the same and there was no happy hour. I wonder if they have returned to the happy hour again. I know we loved the daily breakfast and that was a great perk.

I plan to stay there again too! I also don't say "if"! Its funny because before our first trip, we all thought we would go out there, enjoy ourselves, but not have a need to go back again, like we do at WDW. Boy were we wrong! We have loved both trips and cant wait to go back again.

 

You'll have to keep reading to see if we got the Candy Canes.  I didn't know of the Guy Fieri Disneyland show.  I'd like to see that.  I'm going to look for it on Youtube.

 

I understand completely what you're saying about wanting to go back to Disneyland.  I also felt like we'd go once, and check that off the list, and not feel like we needed to go back.  But there is something about that place!

 

TCD

[Momof6....aka Marty 769]

If they pull out Loki, I am going to California without the family.

Now I just have to ask.  Will you go to meet a college student dressed up to look like Loki?  Or only to meet the true Loki? 

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Now I just have to ask.  Will you go to meet a college student dressed up to look like Loki?  Or only to meet the true Loki? 

 

What's this crazy talk?

 

Have you not heard of character integrity?

 

If they have Loki there, then he is the one and only Loki.

 

TCD

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Continuing on . . .

 

We left off on the Autopia.  One of the twins snapped a photo of the old man enjoying the inevitable traffic jam at the end:

 

 

From the exit ramp from Autopia, we had a good view of the Submarine Voyage entrance, and, of course, the Matterhorn:

 

 

We still had some time before we needed to use our Space Mountain FP, and I had a plan on how we might be able to score some extra FP's for Star Tours, so we headed to that area of Tomorrowland.  The Astro Orbiter and Disneyland's' Buzz ride are over there, so I figured we could ride those too.

 

It's weird to see Star Tours in the same park as Space Mountain, but here it is:

 

 

So here's the deal with the FP's.  When I tried to get us Space Mountain FP's my pass worked, but the girls' didn't.  Remember how we had an issue coming in this morning?  I don't think the girls tickets got scanned at the front, so the FP machine wouldn't give them a FP.  I showed this to the CM on duty there, and he took my pass, and wrote "plus 2" on it, and initialed it.  Problem solved.  Well, not really, because it would probably happen again at Star Tours. And since the girls' tickets never scanned at Space, I tried them at the machine at Star Tours.  Same thing.  No FP's.  I went to the CM there, and she asked how many FP's we were trying to get, and I told her 3. She took out her keys, pushed the magic button, and we now had 3 Star Tours FP's (even though our Space Mountain ones hadn't been used).  This CM also gave us those special FP cards they used to pass out at WDW in these situations, so we were now good to go for FP's for the rest of the day.

 

After looking at the long Astro Orbiter line, we opted for Buzz:

 

 

There were a lot of citrus plants around Disneyland- you can see that there is fruit on these bushes:

 

 

Disneyland's Astro Orbiter is not elevated like ours-it just sits at ground level, which makes it seem less interesting:

 

 

There are nowhere near the number of families here in matching t-shirts as you might see in WDW, but there are some:

 

 

They have an interactive Etch-A-Sketch here in the Buzz queue:

 

 

We have one of those in our Toy Story Midway Mania queue, but I don't think we have one in Buzz at WDW.

 

The Buzz cars are different in Disneyland, and you can actually pick up and hold your Astro Blaster- it's attached by a cable, not mounted to the ride vehicle like at WDW:

 

 

Disneyland's Buzz ride is better than WDW's.  The targets have a light ring around them, and light up when you hit the target.  Also, Disneyland doesn't have the slow, boring tunnel with no targets in it like we have at WDW.  My score wasn't so good, though- it's harder to hit the targets with the gun not being stabilized by being mounted on the ride vehicle.

 

After Buzz, we had time to hit Innoventions.  We were going to use our Space FP's near the end of our window so we wouldn't have long to ride Star Tours right after.  Here we are at the Innoventions entrance- you enter on the second floor, which means you have to walk up a long ramp to get there:

 

 

All of the Marvel stuff is on the second floor.  This room had some Iron Man suits:

 

 

They also had meet and greets for Captain America and Thor, but the lines were long, so we decided we would try for those another time.  They also had a bunch of interactive technology displays like you would find at Innnoventions in Epcot.

 

And they had this Project Tomorrow display, which looked similar to what you find at the end of Spaceship Earth in Epcot:

 

 

This one looked familiar to us:

 

 

We recognized where we had seen this before right away- in the Spaceship Earth ride vehicles.  They asked the same questions, and take your photo, and then you find out about your future, just like you do on the ride in Epcot:

 

 

 

 

 

So this was interesting to us- we kept on seeing things that Disney World has, but in different places.  Like the scenes from the Living Seas' Nemo ride showing up in the Submarine Voyage, or the interactive Etch-A-Sketch in the Buzz ride, and now this Spaceship Earth element in a stationary display in Innoventions.

 

And that's not all.

 

We headed down to the House of the Future next:

 

 

Guess what the floors in your house are going to be like in the future?

 

They're going to be like the floors in the Fort Wilderness Comfort Stations!  Look:

 

 

We spent some time exploring the house of the future.  It was a lot like the one they have in Innoventions in Epcot, except a bit more dated.

 

Then it was time for Space Mountain.

 

We had one small problem, though- it was down when we went to cash in our FP's:

 

 

The CM's there told us what the CM's at WDW used to tell us back in the days of paper FP's- we could return any time that day to use them. That's a good deal, but we kind of wanted to finish with Tomorrowland and not have to come back.

 

The CM's said they didn't expect that Space would be down for long, and guests seemed to be hanging around.  They must have known something we didn't.

 

The girls wanted to look in the big gift shop they had here.  So we did that.  The meet and greet for Big Hero Six is in part of that gift shop.  The line wasn't too bad, but we didn't want to wait in it:

 

 

We could see the SM entrance from here, and it was still closed, but it looked like something was going to happen soon, so I said let's sit for a minute and have a water break.

 

I broke out some of the water bottles I had purchased the night before:

 

 

It's funny how Nestle seems to have the market cornered on bottled water in America.  This Arrowhead water is bottled in the same exact bottles as the water we drink back home, which is allegedly from the springs in Zephyrhills, Florida.  I'll bet it all comes out of a tap in New Jersey.

 

Just as we found a place to sit and sip our water, we could see that Space Mountain had reopened, so we hurried there and cashed in our FP's.

 

The Disneyland Space Mountain queue is mostly outside- no long tunnel under the train here:

 

 

I like the WDW queue better though, this doesn't look very space-like to me:

 

 

In Disneyland, guests ride Space Mountain side-by-side, in cars that look more like traditional rollercoaster cars.  But the cars have speakers in them, and they play music throughout the ride, and it's very dark in the Disneyland mountain:

 

 

I like Disneyland's Space Mountain.  I like the music, and the ride seems faster and smoother, but I think I still prefer WDW's.

 

Next, we went to Star Tours.

 

This seemed to be identical to Disney Worlds- even the queue.  The main part of the queue with the big ship in it and the large screen showing travel information seems to be the same. The part after that is a little shorter, and has less props and effects, but it does have his humorous robot:

 

 

There were Stormtroopers in the loading area, which I've never seen at WDW (but I have heard of them being there during Star Wars Weekends) :

 

 

The ride itself was indistinguishable from WDW's.  None of us got to be the Rebel Spy.

 

With that, we were done with Tomorrowland.  We hadn't ridden Astro Orbiter, but we were OK with skipping it.  The line was at least 30 minutes, and it looked exactly like WDW's, but on ground level.

 

We next headed to Frontierland.  We hadn't spent much time there yet.  There isn't much to Frontierland in Disneyland:

 

 

We were in search of Big Thunder Mountain FP's.  We passed this Mexican restaurant on the way- it looked pretty good:

 

 

This is the other side of Frontierland- they have the Golden Horseshoe Saloon here, and some nice desert landscaping:

 

 

Next up:  we'll grab those FP's and then be heading to lunch.

 

TCD

[CCIntrigue...aka Gwen 547]

At least in Project Tomorrow you didn't have swiss cheese holes in your picture!

 

Disneyland just looks boring on the outside compared to WDW.

[GaDawgFan.....Kelly 799]

I wish our Space allowed people to sit next to each other. Z would ride it then. He's not too sure about it right now. He does want to ride EE though. 

 

Z has never ridden the Speedway. That might make me a bad parent. 

 

Cracking up about the House of Tomorrow having the same floors as the comfort stations. 

[DaveInTN 3,247]

It is comforting for me to know that stall #2 will still exist in the future. 

[Memphis 105]

I see on this day you were representing for the Fort. Did anyone ask about your shirt.  If they did I hope you told them it's a bad place.  We don't need no long hair hippie type Cali people competing for resi's.

 

The pic of SM ride vehicles we RnR ish from the back.  

[twiceblessed....nacole 433]

Submarine ride... did WDW ever have one of those?

[Momof6....aka Marty 769]

Submarine ride... did WDW ever have one of those?

Yes.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20,000_Leagues_Under_the_Sea:_Submarine_Voyage

[AC in A2......Aaron 693]

Man i miss paper FPs....

Does the DL monorail have stops anywhere besides Tomorrowland?

[mouseketab.....Carol 1,261]

I believe DTD, and you have to have a ticket to board.

[red...Susan 37]

Big thunder! Can't wait to see what you thought.

[alexwyattmommy 181]

Now I just have to ask.  Will you go to meet a college student dressed up to look like Loki?  Or only to meet the true Loki? 

 

It has got to be the Tom Hiddleston version of Loki.

[shoreline99 137]