TR: Disneyland 12-9-08

[rcdude]

On Tuesday, December 9th, I visited Disneyland park. Since the visit was for a performance with my school orchestra as part of the Disneyland Community Arts Showcase, I got to skip school to go. For anyone who doesn't know what this program is, the Community Arts Showcase is a program where various school programs (usually bands and orchestras) can perform on stage at Disneyland. My high school orchestra has been going every year since 1994 and at its current size (over 150 students) it is the largest group that performs at the Plaza Gardens Stage.

 

Since our performance time was 10:30 a.m., everyone had to be at school at 7, which was an hour early for most people. About a half-hour later, the busses showed up and we left school. It was a little after 8:30 when we got to Disneyland. Before entering the backstage area, we had to go through a security inspection where the busses are inspected. By about 9 we were all in the backstage area. We then took a photo of the group (a greenscreen photo where they photoshop the castle into the background) and warmed up for the performance. At 10, we began walking from the backstage area behind Mickey's Toontown to the stage on Main Street U.S.A. The performance started at 10:30 and was a standard half-hour performance. Afterwards, everyone went back to the backstage area and changed clothes. Finally, at about noon, we got into the park.

 

I hung out with my friends all day. We decided to get lunch first thing. While eating lunch, I made up a plan to get on as many rides as we could. We didn't stick to the plan very closely, but still managed to get on 13 rides before the park closed at 6:00 p.m. (a new record in rides per hour at Disneyland for me). I will review each ride in the order we did them.

 

Space Mountain-This is my favorite ride at Disneyland, although Indiana Jones Adventure and Splash Mountain come very close. Since all my friends said this was the best ride in the park as well, we rode it three times. The first time the ride had a 15 minute wait, but the wait had doubled by our third ride. To me, this is the one roller coaster at Disneyland that I consider a (semi-)thrill coaster. If the ride was outside and lacked the soundtrack, it would be nothing but a family ride but the darkness creates a great thrill. Not to be missed if you don't suffer from motion sickness.

Matterhorn Bobsleds-When I went last year, this ride was closed. It is the original tubular steel coaster and is a great family ride. We rode this twice (once per track). I personally prefer the Tomorrowland track over the Fantasyland track, but only slightly. Both tracks are really so similar that there is little difference between the ride experience. However, Tomorrowland seemed to have more drops while Fantasyland had more turns.

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad-This ride only had a ten minute wait, so we decided to ride it even though none of my friends were crazy about it. I think this ride is a great family coaster, and is the least intense of the mountain rides. It is a good ride, just not worth doing more than once if there is a wait.

Pirates Of The Caribbean-This is a classic Disneyland ride. I have heard rumors that the effects added from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies may be removed due to a lack of popularity, but I hope they are false. I do not think that the Jack Sparrow animatronics take away from the ride at all, although they don't really add anything. The Davy Jones effect is also one of the best effects on a Disneyland dark ride. Pirates of the Caribbean is a not to miss ride, even if you are not a fan of the changes.

Haunted Mansion Holiday-I have always liked the holiday version of this dark ride better than the regular one. I don't know why, but it seems more Disney with the holiday overlay. The one thing I don't like about it is the wait to get from the stretch rooms to the loading area. On this visit, that was actually longer than the wait to get into the stretch rooms.

Splash Mountain-The best log flume I have been on. This ride is a great ride, and is one of the few dark rides with a thrill factor. If you sit in the front of the log, you will get soaked (as one of my friends found out) but the rest of the riders remain relatively dry. I got into a debate with one of my friends as to whether this ride qualified as a roller coaster or not due to the one section in the middle of the ride where the logs drop, rise, and drop again. I also had a debate with my brother when I got home as to whether the ride had three or five drops. I said it was a water coaster with five drops, but not everyone else shares this opinion.

Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters-This is a pretty good shooting dark ride. It is a little on the short side but is still fun. I managed to get a score of around 35,000, which is about average for me (I usually get 20,000-50,000). One of my friends beat me (he plays a lot of first-person shooters and scored over 50,000), but the other two got lower scores (10,000-20,000 because they didn't know that you could spin the cars. One of my friends asked me how high of score you could get in one ride and I said that I've heard stories of people getting over 500,000. I've never heard of anyone getting a million, though.

Indiana Jones Adventure-We were going to go on this earlier in the day but it was broken down during the two previous times we went to it. On one of those times it looked like it had just broken down since the wait time was still displayed and the line for the Jungle Cruise was huge. We finally got to go on it on our third try. This is the best dark ride I have been on, although it is not a traditional dark ride. Instead, it is basically a motion simulator on a track. When we got in line, the sign said 35 minutes. We were given something to monitor the wait time that we were supposed to give to the person assigning rows. When we left the ride, the sign had been changed to 20 minutes, so the wait was a bit shorter than we were expecting.

Snow White's Scary Adventures-I was the only one who wanted to go on the Fantasyland dark rides, so I rode this and the next two while my friends had dinner (it was only 4:30 and I wasn't hungry). Since I went during the parade, I was hoping the line would be short. When I got to the ride, there was absolutely no one in line so I thought it was closed. However, the entrance wasn't blocked so I got in line and rode. It turns out I was the only person on the whole entire ride and they actually had to cycle the cars empty so I could get off. Although this is a short ride, it is still decent but is the worst of the Fantasyland dark rides. This is also the only one that may scare small children.

Pinocchio's Daring Journey-When I heard a rumor that this was going to be removed after next summer, I made it a priority to go on it since I probably will not get another chance. I have always liked this ride, and although it isn't the best dark ride in the park it is still decent and usually has the shortest wait. My wait consisted of about 5 people. Something I notice more on this ride than on Snow White is the way the cars drift as they go around corners. I think this is a neat feature and makes the ride a little different for the people in the back.

Mr. Toad's Wild Ride-Although this isn't the greatest ride, I go on it every time I go to Disneyland. It also happens to be the only ride I have ever had to be evacuated from. It may be just me, but this ride feels like it runs a little faster than the other Fantasyland dark rides. It's also a Disneyland exclusive and worth riding if the wait is only ten minutes or so.

It's A Small World Holiday-The one ride that I really wanted to go on but didn't. When we got to the ride to go on it, all we saw was a massive line. It filled up the entire permanent queue, stretched across the pathway, went through a temporary cattle pen, then went back across the pathway and arced along it to the Toontown bridge. The sign said forty-five minutes but it looked like over an hour to me. None of my friends wanted to ride so I decided that I'd just skip it as well. I did manage to look at the new boats and have to say that they are a capacity nightmare. While the old boats could hold at least sixteen riders (I forget the exact number) the new ones have a maximum capacity of twelve. During the holiday version of the ride, which always has over twice as many riders as the normal version, this means that the line will be extremely long. I don't know anyone crazy enough to wait an hour for It's A Small World.

 

Although the park closed at 6 p.m., the school busses weren't supposed to arrive until 7:30. During that time, I got some candy at the candy store and watched a magician in Downtown Disney. I arrived back at the busses with my friends around 7:25. Due to a combination of a late bus and at least 20 later orchestra students, we were unable to leave until after eight. My teacher is so mad at those students that he said they probably won't be going next year. Anyway, by the time we got back to school at 8:45 about half the people on the bus were asleep. After putting my instrument away I went home.

 

Overall, I would say that this was probably one of, if not the best, trips I have done to Disneyland with my orchestra (out of 5). I am always amused by the people who complain about going on a Tuesday, when in reality we haven't ever got to stay much later when we have gone on a Friday and I do not think I would be able to go on as many rides since the crowd level is much higher. This year none of the rides listed on the ride board had over a half hour wait at any point I saw, but last time I went on a Friday I always saw at least two of the major rides (usually Indiana Jones and Splash Mountain) with upwards of a forty five minute wait. Personally, I would rather perform at a different amusement park (the orchestra has done Six Flags Magic Mountain and Knott's Berry Farm in the past, plus they may have done others I don't know about) but Disneyland is still a great park to play at (in both meanings of the word).