California girl for a week! Part 1: the beginning

There is nothing like touching down at LAX, seeing the trademark arched restaurant, the palm trees, the smog and the shuttle buses to Disneyland.  I’ve done this like fifteen times before, but it never fails to make me happy, and last week, that is exactly what I needed.  A little California love.

It was a torrential downpour when we left Vancouver, which only made 25 degrees and sunny all the more fantastic upon touchdown.  The Avis lady successfully upsold us to a silver Mustang convertible (oh my God, that was a hard decision!  The whole conversation went something like this: “Want to drive a convertible?  The upgrade is chea-”  *Interrupted* “We’ll take it”) and soon we were cruising down I-5, top down, Beach Boys blaring at an obnoxious, of-course-we’re-tourists-and-loving-it level.  There’s something about a convertible ‘Stang (we named her Sally, natch) that just makes you feel free, and I found myself looking at the other convertibles we passed as if we were bonded, we had admission into the special club of convertible people.  These strangers were our new peeps.

Soon we checked into our nicely renovated room at the Red Lion Anaheim, applied the sunscreen we should have put on our pasty Canadian skin before renting a convertible (oops), and headed to the Block at Orange for a little first day of vacation retail therapy, dinner and a movie.  I just have to go on record thanking AMC cinemas for having arm rests in their theatres that lift up, so if there’s no one next to you you can pop up all the arm rests and actually get comfortable.  Such a small touch, but it rocks. So much so that I enjoyed that more than the movie

The next day it was onto Disneyland.  If you’ve read my blog before (and if you haven’t shame on you! Lol) you know I’m kinda sorta really obsessed with Disneyland worldwide.  It’s my crack, the addiction I just can’t shake, and if I’m ever within 200 miles of one, you know I’m there.  I’ve been to this park something like 20 times, but the second I enter that central plaza and can hear the Disney classics being piped in over the sound system, a stupid grin affixes itself onto my face and I’m Disnified all over again.  My friend had never been here before, so I kept lapsing into tour guide mode, spouting useless facts and planning a route for optimal rideage, before snapping out of it and just letting him enjoy the experience.  I had never been here for the Holiday versions of the Haunted Mansion and Space Mountain before and I was really surprised at how large a change they are.  I had always assumed they just left the ride the same and threw in some Nightmare Before Christmas/ghostly decor and called it re-themed, but it’s actually a totally new ride experience.  The Haunted Mansion specifically.  The new decor was all-encompassing, the storyline was totally different, the colours were brighter and the overall effect was actually much less creepy than the usual ride.  It was really noticeable near the beginning, when you’re in the stretching room, and normally lightning flashes and you see the hanging corpse above you.  But the holiday version had the same lightning, only accompanied by the not creepy at all smiling face of Jack Skellington.  The Space Mountain:Ghost Galaxy retheme was a little more on the spooky side, with giant projections of space ghosts where the planets normally are, and because the planets are not illuminated, the entire ride experience is darker.  This makes it feel much faster, though the ride itself has not changed at all.

The following day was all Disney, too.  Giddy fun in the warm California sun.  It was hot this day, and mid afternoon we hit up the shops to buy all the breakables (4 mugs between the 2 of us, but they were so cute, we couldn’t resist) and stuff we hadn’t wanted to carry on the rides (a stuffed Yoda will now provide me guidance from the top of my bookshelf) before going back to the hotel.  While my friend slept off the heat, I took my hyper self shopping at the nearby Anaheim Gardenwalk mall.  I know it was 230pm on a Monday, but this area is full of people on vacation, so there was no reason for the mall to be a ghost town.  There were like ten shoppers in the whole place, and most of the people in the halls were employees walking off their boredom.  I couldn’t believe it.  Granted, there really aren’t any flagship stores, unless you like the over-perfumed yuppie clothes of Hollister, and it was too early for the good selection of restaurants to be busy, but still.  It was almost uncomfortable being there.  So I went to Sephora in downtown Disney.  I always got to Sephora in Downtown Disney.  At this point they should just see me coming and greet me at the door with a little basket and my favorite flavour of iced tea.  A girl can dream… But I spent my money like a good shopper, then went back to the hotel, picked up my friend and we headed back to Disney to hit the California Adventure Park.

I always describe this park to clients as a good way to spend an afternoon if the lines at Disneyland get too long.  There just simply isn’t too much there, and consequently the lines are usually short.  Now it’s also massively under construction, as Disney has realized this and they’re in the process of building a big-ticket Little Mermaid Ride, a park, and a whole new Cars Land, complete with giant prefab mountains that were just beginning to take shape.  When this park matures, it’ll be great, but for now all you have to do is make sure you ride Soaring over California and spend some time lost in Disney wonderment at the Animation Studio and you can leave fulfilled.  They have just launched a new World of Colour show that’s supposed to be spectacular, combining projections, lasers and thousands of dancing fountains, but the fastpasses were sold out by the time we got there, and neither of us were willing to start lining up three hours early in order to get a good seat.  That’s precious Disney time wasted.  So maybe next time…  I’ve never seen the Fantasmic show in Disneyland, either, for the exact same reason.

Day three brought a last-minute road trip down to San Diego.  The plan was to enjoy the two hour dive each way with the top down, wind in our hair, but the weather had other plans.  Overcast with a high of 19 degrees meant that it was top up, hoodie on, but the ride was till enjoyable.  We spent the day at the world-famous San Diego Zoo, and I can’t recommend this place enough.  It’s got more species in one place than pretty much any zoo on the planet, it’s nicely landscaped, so you feel like you’re exploring the pathways instead of just walking down pre-fab roads, and it has great gift shops.  What’s not to love?  We saw everything and took the majority of our vacation pics that day…

Tags: Anaheim, California, convertible, Disneyland, fun, Los Angeles, San Diego, shopping, sunshine, zoo

Disneyland smackdown – California v. Paris v. Hong Kong

           Yep, I’m a dork.  Let’s just get that out of the way right off the bat.  I unabashedly love Disneyland, have been more times than I care to admit - and counting.  It’s pure fun.  Hell, just hearing the Disney music playing as I wait to enter brings a huge grin to my face.  Through my travels I have been lucky enough to visit parks on 3 continents (Disney World in Florida and Tokyo Disneyland are still on my hit list, but I’m sure it won’t be too long before I have them chalked off, too.  I’ll keep you posted) and am qualified to compare them head to head in this, my first Disneyland Smackdown.  

           For the purposes of this smackdown, I’m going to stick with just the “Disneyland” and not include the California Adventure or MGM Studios Paris, as they are  each so unique, and would put Hong Kong, a place with only one park, at a disadvantage right off the bat.  Also, I’m going to focus more on the differences between them than the similarities.  This is because, to have the “Disneyland” title, there has to be a huge amount of similarities to keep the Mousketeers happy.  If the formula ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?  Every park has a Main Street, Tomorrowland,  Fantasyland, etc. and honestly, if you need a bathroom on Main Street, they’re in the same place in all three countries.  And so it begins…

          The first major difference any guest would notice is the Castle.  It’s smack in front of you and will undoubtedly require a photo stop at least once in every visit.  In California, the castle was intentionally built smallish and done in pastels as to be friendly and unintimidating to visitors.  In Paris, where the guests are going to be accustomed to insanely large and ornate realcastles in their home countries, the castle is much larger, more gothic in it’s architecture, and bright pink.  Oh, and it has a giant animatronic dragon beneath it.  Hong Kong tried to recreate the cuter California castle, and they did a good job, but it’s small-scale is highlighted by the mountains surrounding the park, making it seem, well, dinky.

           The coolest things to compare are the coasters.  Big Thunder Mountain in California is big and classic with the focus more on the animatronic goat chewing dynamite and bat-filled mines than the speed or the drops.  You just enjoy this ride, it’s not particularly thrilling.  Paris once again took this idea and cranked it up to the extreme.  Their Big Thunder is hands-down my favorite Disneyland ride in any park, as it takes up the entirety of the island in the middle of the Rivers of the Far West, and the start and end involves a dark, fast tunnel right underneath the water before you pop up on the other side. The “danger” factor is upped, too, as if you speed off the rails, you end up in the water.  They have the goat, too.    Hong Kong, unfortunately,  doesn’t have a Big Thunder yet, but I’m sure one’s in the plans somewhere.

                All three parks do have Space Mountains, though.  And all three are thrilling, fast and whip you around crazy turns in the dark.  For years the California one made me dizzy, as so many of the twists were in the same direction, but about five years ago they overhauled it, introducing new ride cars, a better soundtrack and new track configuration.  It made a huge difference in my books, as the dizziness is gone and it’s just a crapload of fun.  This is a great ride people who like the coaster experience without giant drops to contend with.  Hong Kong’s Space Mountain is a close counterpart here too, and the screamometer level is about equal to California, although this one, most likely due to the fact that it’s technology is only a few years old, feels faster and darker.  And then there’s Paris.  I went on this ride expecting it to be as simplistic (for lack of a better word) as the other two.  In hindsight, the over-the-head locking seatbelt should have tipped me off, but it didn’t.  This ride really goes up the screamometer right from the start, where they actually shoot you out of a cannon on the roof, going from zero to feaking fast in seconds.  Inside there’s also a full 360 loop and a corkscrew.  The intensity caught me so off guard that I bruised both knees bracing them on the back of the seat in front of me!  Once I knew what this ride was like, it’s great (still no big drops.  I don’t do big drops), but if you’re unprepared, look out :) 

           It’s a Small World (come on, you knew it was coming) is so synonamous with Disneyland that all three parks feature one.  You either love it or hate it, but everyone rides it.  Hong Kong was the first to deviate from the Small World mold, mixing animatronic characters from Disney movies (Aladdin riding his carpet in the middle east, Lilo and Stitch surfing in Hawaii, etc) with the ubiquitous singing dolls.  As someone raised on IASM(my mobile played the music when I was an  infant, no joke) I was worried this would detract from the simple joy of this ride, but it surprised me by being very seamlessly integrated into the classic format.  Now it’s kind of a “spot the movie characters” game as you go.  Especially great for the little ones.  As recently as June 09, California took a page from Hong Kong’s book and debuted their own new IASM, complete with the ”hidden” characters.  Paris, as of writing this, was still using the classic format.

           Naturally, the language is going to be different from country to country, but the Disney people do a great job of putting signage in multiple languages, and what isn’t translated is accompanied by pictograms to remove any confusion.  There is something that makes me giggle uncontrollably at hearing the PeeWee Herman voice of the robot in Star Tours entirely in French, though.  The Jungle Cruise in Hong Kong found a simple solution to the language issue by just running boats in Mandarin, Cantonese and English simultaneously.  All you have to do is make sure you get into the right line and you’re golden.

           Food is an essential part of any theme park experience, and, coming at it with a very westernized palette, I found this aspect a ton of fun overseas.  Sure, all three parks have the standards: hot dogs, burgers, fries, Mickey-shaped ice cream bars, etc. but the regional specialties make this interesting.  Hong Kong, for example, sells fish balls and Korean squid on a stick at the street carts right along with the hot dogs.  The Plaza Inn here sells wonderful Dim Sum meant to be shared in a lantern-lit restaurant.  Paris has frog’s legs and sells alcohol pretty much everywhere, so you can wander around with your wine and frog’s legs to your heart’s content. 

              In conclusion, the castle is bigger and the rides are more intense in Paris;  Hong Kong is smaller and newer with more of a focus on regional food and the smaller family-friendly rides;  And California is the original, so nothing can compete with that.  Plus, due to their age, they have the most rides per square foot.  But despite all their differences, Disneyland is still Disneyland, regardless of what country you’re in.  If you have kids or just like feeling like one, it will always be worth the price of admission.

Tags: BlogSherpa, California, China, Disney Specialist, disneyland and anaheim, France, Hong Kong, memories, Paris, roller coasters, theme park, USA