This post is going to be huge, like an epic novel, because I plan on writing about ALL of Disneyland. All of it, you guys. Including boring driving parts and parts where we ride the same ride over and over again. So there will be tons of text, pictures (a mixture of both mine and Raphael's), and comics. I did separate it into two posts, however, so that each will be about paperback novel status vs. the Bible.
The first day was uneventful, as it was the day of driving. I wanted to leave early in the morning, as I have been trained to by my own family in order to get the boring, driving part out of the way, but Raphael convinced me that we should leave later since we didn't need to get there early for any reason. I spent the night at her parents' house in order to make things simpler, where we watched Children of the Damned (amazing) and half of The Others (which was incredibly boring to us and we were surprised we'd made it halfway through, as NOTHING HAD HAPPENED) before nestling into an uneasy sleep. After stocking up on Einstein's bagels the next morning, we were ON OUR WAY. I was set with my five pound bag of sour watermelons (I had searched for a small, single serving package, but the only one available was the huge, monster sized package built for a scourge of sugar-starved second graders OR one 21 year old girl who needs to help drive across three states and who noms sour watermelons like nobody's business) and we headed out on ye open road.
The most exciting thing that I remember about driving was the amazing town of BAKER. Baker is the town that proudly houses the world's LARGEST THERMOMETER. I got an amazing picture of it from spring break earlier this year when we passed through on the way to THE OCEAN.
We'd stopped in a parking lot and were waiting for Raphael's sister to get a sandwich. We were babbling about something or another when I stopped talking and slowly pointed to the car next to us. Raphael glanced over and we both saw a bulldog staring at us.
Raphael took this picture on her Iphone to document how adorable the bulldog was. She just sat in her copilot seat, panting happily and staring at us while we stared right back. Not only was the bulldog our Baker Buddy, but also a pigeon decided to hang out on the curb right in front of our car. It was bizarre, considering he just sat down on the curb and started to preen. We hung out with our animal friends and discussed the secret lives of birds in Baker, such as King Crow who was obviously the pimp of the parking lot in front us and his loyal subjects, the mourning doves, blackbirds, house sparrows, grackles, and other pigeons. We had to tear ourselves away from the soap opera unveiling itself in front of us in the lives of the birds and our friend the bulldog in order to escape Baker and make our way toward DISNEYLANDDDD!!! At about 8:30 PM we finally rolled into Anaheim and found our hotel, checked in, and found out our room was a) right by the freeway and b) muggy as Florida in the summer. Both could be fixed by blasting the air conditioner all night long, though it caused Raphael to freeze.
DAY 1 :: does space seem a bit more haunted to you?
We slept in a little, since we'd gone to bed a bit late the night before, and headed over to the park at about 9:30. I proudly wore my Indiana Jones hat and cobra punching bracelet, darting in and out of people and squealing in excitement as we approached the WORLD OF COLOR bag check. Once we were in, I screamed with happiness and kept chanting, "WE'RE HERE YOU GUYS, WE'RE ACTUALLY HERE!" and with a burst of energy I sprinted from the entrance to the middle of Town Square, where there was now a huge jack-o-lantern to mark Halloween. Other changes had been made as well, like the Mickey garden at the very front entrance was now wearing a mask and the tops of the gates were decorated with Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, and Pluto BUT MADE OUT OF PUMPKINS!!! I frantically looked around to see if Jack and Sally were at the head of any of the character lines, but no such luck. We strolled down Main Street and decided to hit up Space Mountain first, as it's common knowledge that one goes to Space Mountain the earliest in order to escape the three hour lines that accumulate in the afternoon. When we reached Space Mountain, we saw that there had been a revamp for Halloween. It was now GHOST GALAXY and there were signs littering the hallway leading up to the line saying, "This ride may be frightening for small children!" Just in case you missed the first three, there were still five more so that you can STILL CHANGE YOUR MIND BECAUSE GODDAMNIT THIS RIDE IS NOW TERRIFYING. I started having second thoughts and admitted to Raphael that I was scared, which she ignored. Good call. Later on we would discuss the scariness factor of the new Ghost Galaxy ride with a small girl, who would solemnly tell us that it was haunted now and that there was an orange thing. This orange thing, to be precise.
Getting into the roller coaster in the spacey cockpit made my eyes water with joy. I was home again.
I still had a little apprehension when we entered the area where usually the countdown begins and instead the orange thing (as I'll call it from now on) growled at us and directed lightning in our direction. In fact, Ghost Galaxy was still REALLY FUN, though I was sad that the usual soundtrack was absent. They instead opted for a spookier soundtrack with lots of unnerving, loud noises and a more frantic feel to it. Like a limping antelope trying to escape that one, persistent hyena. I didn't have too much time to notice the soundtrack, however, as I was too busy screaming, "IT'S HAUNTED! OH MAN, SPACE IS SO SPOOKY" as we hurtled around the track. As we exited the ride, I looked over at Raphael.
She agreed that yes, yes it did. Thus began our exciting careers as SPACE CADETS.
After Space Mountain, I was so PUMPED! I was ready for ANYTHING! I was going to go conquer the Temple of the Forbidden Eye and punch King Cobra in the FACE yet again! It was at this point in time that Raphael's siblings stated that they wanted to go to Innoventions and my heart dropped. I had forgotten what it was like going to Disneyland with people who didn't want to do EXACTLY WHAT YOU DO (since the last time I'd gone we were all pretty much in sync). I dragged my feet behind the others, sadly glancing back at the Jedi Training Academy show that was occurring right outside of Innoventions. Once we were inside, I realized that it was all SCIENCE and I had been tricked into stepping into somewhere EDUCATIONAL outside of school! I did find ways to entertain myself though. While Raphael's siblings learned about science and appliances of the FUTURE (aka stuff that is readily available today), Raphael and I were draw to the glowy lights (a theme of this trip).
Raphael beckoning people into her fabulous, futuristic home
Me trying to be coy and seductive in the rose garden outside her house aka awkward
After we had pretended to play house for a few minutes, I realized something. Basically, I was surrounded by science and I was mostly concerned with one thing.
I COULD NOT FIGURE IT OUT. At one point, I looked behind Raphael and asked, "Wasn't there something there like two minutes ago?", which is when we found out that BOTH floors were spinning slightly, one mile per hour according to the cast members who watched us and were amused by our antics. It blew my mind. Apparently the cast members who work there feel like their entire world is spinning for half an hour after leaving the park.
I finally convinced Raphael to pull the puppy dog eyes to get us out of Innoventions and back to THE RIDESSS! We headed over to my favorite land, ADVENTURELAND, and fastpassed Indiana Jones (or JONESY as we called it) so we didn't have to wait in line for an hour. After this I turned to Raphael and, eyes wide and shiny, asked if we could go to the Haunted Mansion. We made our way over and saw that the line was fairly long, but I freaked out and pleaded and kicked and cried and finally everybody threw up their hands and said FINE and I delightedly skipped into line. IT WAS NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS HEAVEN.
I kept saying things like, "SEE?! HIS COFFIN/GARBAGE CAN SLEIGH IS UP THERE! EOGEIHBWPRBNWPR (more unintelligible garble)"
"AND THE WREATHS THAT EAT PEOPLE!"
"AND HIS FORMULA FOR CHRISTMASSSSS!!!" *froths at the mouth*
"THE COUNTDOWN TO CHRISTMAS YOU GUYS! THE COUNTDOWN TO CHRISTMAS!"
This was me whenever we were in New Orleans Square, since all restaurants played the soundtrack to Nightmare Before Christmas, everything was decorated with Nightmare Before Christmas, and, like I said before, IT WAS NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS HEAVEN.
We finally got into the ride and I FLIPPED. MY. SHIT. I screeched with happiness and kept exclaiming how COOL IT WAS and how it was MY NEW FAVORITE RIDE EVER! We got into the doom buggies and a huge grin was plastered on my face.
I tried to take some pictures of inside the ride and videos, but that was the next morning so I'LL WAIT TILL THEN TO UNVEIL THEM. I LOVED the Haunted Mansion when it was Nightmare Before Christmas themed. As I think you might realize by now. When we got off I was over the moon about the ride and hinted that I wouldn't say no if anybody wanted to go on it again...but not at that present moment in time as the line was growing steadily longer. Instead we headed over to Frontierland to ride THE TRAIN (which is what we call Thunder Mt. Railroad) aka THE WILDEST RIDE IN THE WILDERNESS! We rode the train, howling with the coyotes and noticing the biggest, juiciest, red spider I'd ever seen that had spun its web at the entrance to the tunnel where the rockslide occurs. After the Train we headed over INDIANA JONESSSSS!!!
I was elated to ride again, though we got front instead of our usual back. I took a swipe at King Cobra again, launching myself out of my seat and screaming a war cry with all my pent up excitement, joy, and rage. It was AMAZING. After this, we went to lunch. I had only allotted myself money to eat dinners in the park (good thing too, because I was in negative numbers when I got home), so I ate a sad pbj while Raphael enjoyed her burrito at our usual haunt, the burrito place by the Train. It was beautifully decorated for El Dia de los Muertos, which made it that much more amazing.
We decided to ride HAUNTED SPACE again, since the line was shorter, and this time realized that when coaster carts exited the ride with people missing, IT MEANT THE ORANGE THING HAD GOTTEN THEM! Raphael and I learned an important lesson that day.
As I learned in Space Cadet Academy, "one does not go into Haunted Space by one's self".
We rode Astro Blasters after this, which was...interesting. As we went through the line and reached the giant, life-sized Buzz giving us instructions on how to destroy Zurg's army, Raphael's sunglasses fell off her head and clattered to Buzz's feat. We waited there for fifteen minutes, waving people in front of us and listening to Buzz's speech over and over and over and over and over again as we waited for someone to come help us. I dedicated this time to memorizing Buzz's speech, which I had halfway memorized by the time we discovered that no one could retrieve the sunglasses due to sensors that would be tripped if someone ventured into Buzz's pit. So if you see a pair of sunglasses by Buzz's feet, they are Raphael's. Astro Blasters was fun, and broke down THREE TIMES while we were on it so I technically should have gotten a higher score than usual due to my being stationary and being able to shoot the same diamond shaped target over and over again. Nope, I got my usual level three blaster score. Oh well.
After this, I suggested we fastpass Indy again and Raphael's brother said he didn't really want to ride it again. My brain fizzled out and I mumbled incoherently about how Indy needed our help and King Cobra needed to be punched all the way to Fantasyland, to which Raphael laughed nervously. Once we were in Fantasyland we looked around and Raphael bought herself new sunglasses. Once we'd looked around, Raphael's sibs decided they wanted to go on the Finding Nemo Submarine, which was pretty cute. They did a good job with the CGI projections, but I have a special place in my heart for animatronics because it (weirdly) makes me feel like it's more real than CGI. I like animatronics more than CGI in movies too. I was also ride underneath the hatch, meaning I got leaked on a little bit. Which is okay, since I am a child of the water. AFter Nemo and declared that I was going to go on Indy, with them or not. So they agreed to come with, which is a good thing because that's when both of Raphael's siblings realized that it is indeed THE BEST RIDE ON EARTH. We asked for backseat this time, and the backseat is the best. Especially when you're on the very right side (prime cobra-punching territory), and have no feet touching the floor and no hands clutching the bar. AKA riding it like you might fall out and die is the most fun. You get jerked around like a mofo and my mom complains that it gives her whiplash, but I LOVE IT!!!
After the ride, Raphael and I decided that we should purchase replacement cobra bracelets, just in case a tragedy befalls us like the one I encountered last year where I lost my cobra bracelet and fell to pieces. But when we got to the store, we saw a new, beautiful LEVEL UP version of our bracelets. So we bought those and wore them on our right wrists. We had reached Level Two or Cobra Punchdom.
I also bought a slew of other things too, against better judgement. Oh well. We decided to wander around Toon Town for awhile, but along the way we rode the Tea Cups since the line was like three minutes long and I had never ridden them. So we spun in those vigorously and then stood in line for SEVEN HOURS to get on Roger Rabbit, where we spun some more. It was cool to ride that ride and know what everything references now, since I've actually seen the movie. It made me want to see it again. After Toon Town we went to the Tiki Room to rest our feet (which were already starting to get tired). Raphael spent the time we waited to get in taking ghost pictures with long exposure.
Some of them turned out REALLY COOL. After the Tiki Room we settled down to have dinner at the French Market. A cool thing about this trip is I ate at places I'd never eaten at before, which was a new experience. It was delicious, and Raphael got a mint julep that we both agreed would be delicious if spiked. Good thing I brought my mini bottles I bought on my 21st birthday with me...
After dinner, we decided to go on THE TRAIN while the fireworks from Fantasmic were going on, since this is a magical experience. As we were getting in line, some guy came over and gave us fastpasses to Haunted Space. GOLDMINES! Earlier that day we'd gotten fast passes to Splash Mountain, and a small part of me wondered if it was the same guy, because it was always three passes.
Threepass!
Raphael took some long exposure pictures of Frontierland while we were in line for the Train.
This one was the best, it's so pretty!
Level up.
Such a lovely face, such a lovely place.
Unfortunately, I had to pee like a beast while we were in line, which was the only thing I could really focus on. We talked to some guys in front of us about what the rides would be named if ALL of them were Halloween themed, such as Murder Mountain for the train, and Slash Mountain for Splash Mountain. One of the guys was obsessed with Raphael and at one point asked if he could take Raphael's picture, which had half of my face in it (since she pulled me in at the last second), which he said he was going to delete with a nervous laugh and then didn't. Okaaay. We went on the train IN THE BACK (which was AWESOME, back is where it's at) and Raphael took some more long exposure pictures before we left that made it look like the roller coaster was in Hell. After the ride we decided we were going to BOOK IT to Space Mountain to make use of the fastpasses and then book it back over to Tom Sawyer Island to see Fantasmic with her sibs. We fast walked across the park with sad, screaming feet (it was at this point that I vaguely wondered if something was wrong, but didn't bother to super look into it yet) and the strong need to pee within six minutes and fastpassed our way inside. At night, we realized that the outer dome of Space Mountain randomly flashed lightning, as if space ghost was projecting it to the outside, and sometimes became a mottled purple, like it had cancer. Huh. We went on Haunted Space, which was SO FUN and then hustled back to Fantasmic just as the show was about to start. One small thing that happened was Raphael's sister texted her that it as SRO at Fantasmic, which took us forever to figure out. So right on? Seven rows over? Spiked, rocking octopus? Nope, standing room only. We watched Fantasmic and cheered excitedly, reacting with the same enthusiasm of the five year olds surrounding us, and giggled when the little girl on her dad's shoulders asked, "WHERE'S MICKEY?" when he finally disappeared at the end of the show. We were exhausted at that point and trudged back to the hotel. Raphael and I had giggle fits thinking about Sean Connery opening a gentleman's club called Peaches where the people had to dress up and stand around to eat peaches. We were that tired. Finally, we fell asleep.
p.s. look how ecstatic Sebastian is.
DAY 2 :: duffy the disney bear
SOMEONE (not naming names...) said that there was going to be a Magic Morning, which I desperately wanted to go to because I wanted to be able to ride rides WHEN THE LINES WERE ONE MINUTE LONG and no one else was there. Unfortunately, there was no Magic Morning so everyone was a little cranky and I was the only one who had eaten breakfast and we had to wait in line until the park actually opened. At this point I separated from Raphael and her siblings, who went to breakfast, and I headed out on my own. It was a little liberating, being able to do whatever I wanted in Disneyland in the fresh, morning air. It was also a little lonely, but I had fun. First I went to Star Tours, because I wanted to see the new revamp (when I told my parents that it had changed my dad FREAKED OUT because IT IS HIS FAVORITE RIDE and my mom was like...but...Endor...). It was cool! I made a new friend, another guy who was on his own that morning, and we both grinned like idiots while we helped the rebel spy to her destination. I love Star Tours because the ride is so interactive and the ride itself is just Star Warsy and awesome. I'm glad I got to go on it, since the morning was really the only time you could go without waiting in line for 65 minutes.
Aww, little Chewie! This was actually taken the day before when we were looking around the SPACE gift store aka the best gift store besides the ADVENTURE gift store.
After Star Tours I decided to forego going on Haunted Space by myself (since one does not venture into Haunted Space by one's self) and instead opted for Haunted Mansion! I went on the ride twice by myself to get my fill.
Fuzzyyy ghooostly pumpking mountaaaain...
Jack and Zero. He asks you what your name is and if you've been good this year, which I say YES I HAVE SANDY CLAWS JACK. People probably hated me.
Oogie Boogie! In a Santa beard!
I texted Raphael at this point to see if they were done with breakfast because I wanted to go on Indy, so we decided to meet up there. On the way to Aventureland, I saw that the lake where Fantasmic is held was not only inhabited by Mallards, but also by COOTS!
I was ridiculously excited about this. I got to Indy and we saw that the line wait was five minutes, which thrilled us. We weaved through the line, trying to trip the ceiling booby trap again (which, for some reason, would never trip for us but would trip for others). For some reason we always wanted to trip the ceiling trap, but avoided the diamond stones. You don't mess with the diamond stones. We're strangely selective about the booby traps we decide to set off. While on the ride (back, right side again), I thrust my hat into the air on the lava bridge, despite what a bad idea it probably was. I just have a dream of actually being Indy and this is the only way I can live it, plus I really like the idea of throwing my hat into the air (while still holding onto it, of course) with a flourish of Indiana Jones theme to make it seem much cooler. Anyways, total nerd moment. I punched King Cobra some more (he has gone too long with peace in his life) and in my punching ecstasy my belt broke in half. Also at that point Raphael's sister decided to peace out. The rest of us decided to head over to California Adventure. On our way, we stopped by a magic store and found PUPPETS!!!
So mean to meeee.
The store owner asked Raphael's sister if she knew us, since we were giggling like idiots, and she said no way and left. We had a grand time playing with those puppets, it was hilarious. After this we went over to California Adventure to discover that a great deal of it was under construction for Car Land. We weaved our way through blue boards covered in posters describing how GREAT new California Adventure would be when it was done just one measly year from now to get to our other favorite ride, TERR TERR (aka Tower of Terror to normal people). I LOVE TERR TERR!
To quote Raphael from last time, "It's purple cause it's haunted!"
Raphael took some more long exposure shots inside Terr Terr, and a lot of them turned out really awesome. Especially since it was ghooostly Terr Terrrr...
This one is cool because it's like I'm surrounded by ghosts! OoooooooOOOoooOo
We went on it TWICE! And it was so great. I unfortunately have no pictures of us on the ride, since those are on Raphael's Iphone, but we took this one great one where we just look grumpy and upset. I love Terr Terr. I LOVE Terr Terr! We had to cry and beg for Raphael's bro to even let us go on it a second time, so a third was out of the question. Instead we wandered through A Bug's Land (which I personally think is a little lame) and then went to Paradise Pier to find out that CALIFORNIA SCREAMIN' WAS DOWN! NOOOOOOOO!!! :( :( The Little Mermaid Ride was finally open (it had been under construction last time) so we waited in line for that. It was at this time I realized my feet were REALLY, REALLY in pain and I was wondering why they were so sad. Turns out, it's because my flip flops were so worn down I was basically walking around the park barefoot.
We got onto the ride, which was a blessed relief of sitting down, and watched the animatronics sing to us. Our ride broke down twice, so we got to hear Ursula sing Poor Unfortunate Souls to us on a loop and then got stuck near the Kiss the Girl song, so NATURALLY we had to sing along to it and NATURALLY we had to sing along like Scuttle does aka loud and high pitched and awful. Everyone stared at us. What made the ride TOTALLY WORTH IT was this.
Little upset Ursula in the background of the marriage scene. This is their toned down version of what actually happened, I guess. No huge battle took place and instead they got married and actually kissed and nothing truly bad happened. My idea of what should have happened was that everyone should be in tiny boats and should get spears and they have to take down a huge, blow up Ursula to continue on with the ride.
I tricked you guys and actually won't be talking about Duffy the Disney Bear until THE NEXT EPISODE OF DISNEYVENTURES! I unfortunately need to go to work now (on a Saturday, UGH) but will write more when I get back. LUCKY YOU!
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