Photo TR: Disneyland Resort (2/24/2007)

Corkscrewed · February 26, 2007

A couple of weeks ago, my friend, Brent, invited me to Disneyland and said I could bring a guest. After asking seemingly everyone I knew, I finally found two who weren't busy. Anyway, hit the resort a little bit after 8:00 AM and find Brent and Allison behind us after we get through bag check.

Summary of the day: magical. Sounds cliche, but we had an amazing time, doing pretty much everything (we hit every E-ticket that was open, sans Toon Town, and did a bunch of Fantasyland rides as well). Major thanks to Brent for his CM perks.

Interestingly, though, the theme of the day seemed to be Day of a Million Breakdowns. I guess that fits this year's marketing theme. Breakdowns we encountered:

- Space Mountain: stopped on the lift 1. Turns out it was a cast member stop, not a major ride malfunction. I think a dad freaked out that the ride ops didn't actually physically check the lap bar (Disneyland ops don't have to actually tug on the restraints).

- Peter Pan: Wanted to ride it early. Saw there was no line. Turns out it was broken down.

- Maliboomer: Got on the tower. Tower broke down. Moved to another tower. Got the same view of... nothing (to the southwest).

- Haunted Mansion: For whatever reason, the ride was getting stopped every 15 seconds. We got off the elevator and saw the line backed up basically to the first portrait. Half of the elevator made it out. Then, two minutes later, the other elevator come down, and no one gets out of that one. Talk about major log jam! Anyway, the ride ended up lasting twice as long as it should have because of all the stops. *shrug*

Rockin' Space Mountain was not as bad as I thought. It's lit, and I know a lot of people don't like that (my two friends who accompanied me didn't like it, and they're definitely in the GP category), but I found the lighting to be pretty neat. I think it was more because I've always been curious about the layout and stuff, so it was (pun intended) enlightening. Once the novelty wears down, I guess it won't be anything special. Rockin' California Screamin', however, sucks with the RHCP soundtrack. It doesn't fit. It sucks. It doesn't fit. It sucks. Also, the ride seems less wild, I guess due to the trims they increased sometime last year or something like that? I hadn't been to DCA in a year and a half, so I didn't know/notice this until now. Anyway, I'm glad the Rockin' promotion ends April 26.

I should mention that the Parade of Dreams is awesome. I had seen it two years ago when it first debuted, but hadn't seen it since then. Well, we got some good seats for the 7:00 PM showing Saturday, and I fell in love with the parade all over again. Arguably the best Disneyland parade ever produced. Just super high quality all around, and totally redeems that piece of crap Parade of the Stars that came before it. They really need to release the soundtrack for this parade, because it's a ridiculously catchy tune. The stop scene that crescendos with Walt Disney's "To all who come to this happy place... welcome!" never fails to give me goosebumps.

Also caught the fireworks show, which was awesome as usual. It's the exact same show as the 50th anniversary version, except that the projections on the castle are gone, the Indy sequence has two flamethrowers on each side instead of three, and I feel as though, when Tinkerbell makes her first flyover, less and less fireworks get shot out each time I see the show.

Here's the view on lift 1 of Space Mountain when they stop the ride and the lights turn on.

My friend goes to sleep while we wait for the ride to restart. I'm too hyped up because I'm a rockin' rocket rocker, and I'm ready to rock!!!

On-ride photo from Space.

Nifty "Partners" photo taken in the morning.

We went on Tower of Terror, which is still really fun. Can't wait for new ride programs to kick in though.

Closeup of our on-ride photo. Brent's expression is priceless. I'm just being goofy as usual.

Really neat Grizzly River Run "action shot" I took.

Unintentionally scurry photo of me that I took of myself. I come off as some emo rock guy or something like that.

California Screamin' on-ride.

Stylish diagonal photo of Maliboomer, which was reduced to one-tower operation by the time we were done. The third tower is still under rehab.

Brent got shot while he wasn't looking.

Handrails at Soarin' over California definitely need some repainting.

Back at Disneyland, in line for Big Thunder Mountain.... HOLY HORRIFIC HAIR, Batman!!!

And here's some photos of the Parade of Dreams. The ones that came out decently, at least.

The fairies start out the parade and prance around. Tim Hardaway tries to come out of the crowd to attack them, but is subdued by pixie dust and taken away so that George Takei can have sex with him.

Beauty and the Beast float.

Then Ariel comes out riding a gigantic penis.

Then a multi-tentacled monster follows her, turning this into some sort of hentai fantasy or something. That could fit with Brent's "Adult Fantasyland" idea (ask Brent about the story).

Then a stoned out bug beckons you to get high.

Simba comes out and dances.

I thought this photo was cool.

Back on the serious side, the floats are amazing.

We got the Lion King stop show, and the acrobats on the ropes are amazing. They do some crazy rope scaling tricks without a net, then get spun around like shown above.

Finally, the princesses and toons close the parade out.

Night shot of Space Mountain.

My friend challenged me to get a photo of all the space Mickeys lit up, assuming it would be hard because I wouldn't be able to get them all in a longer exposure because they're only all lit up for a brief instant. She lost.

Thought this photo of the Storybook Canal station was nifty. The big version is very crisp.

I rode the Carrousel for the first time since I was like... eight. Quite nostalgic.

See? I'm kiddishly ecstatic!

We'll end with a closing shot of the castle.

And as a special present, here's a desktop wallpaper of a panorama of Paradise Pier. Photo taken Saturday.

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