Vexorg
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2006
- Messages
- 620
When we last left our hero, he had survived his first day of Disney adventure, only to fall into the clutches of the Anabella Hotel. Narrowly avoiding a collapsing bed and braving the Shower of Doom, he knew that his greatest challenges lie further ahead. Join Vexorg as he faces his greatest Disneyland challenge yet...
The Soggiest Place on Earth!
(Not coming anytime soon to a theater anywhere near you.)
(If you haven't read it yet, my Day 1 report can be found here.)
Day 2: Saturday, January 14th 2006
Having made it through the night mostly unscathed, I had planned to be up for an early start in the morning, but by the time I woke up it was already almost 9AM (apparently I had set the alarm on my PocketPC to 7:30PM instead of AM. As is customary with such msitakes, I blame the equipment.) I quickly packed up what few items I had taken out the night before, dropped off my key at the desk (fighting the temptation to tell them that they need to put their place together with something a little bit better than duct tape and bailing wire) and walked over with my luggage (just one rolling carry-on bag) to Paradise Pier, where I left it at the bellstand to claim later when the others arrived and checked into their room. From there, I headed toward DTD, but failed to recognize that there was no way to get there from Disneyland Drive without going back toward the hotels, and had to backtrack a bit and go through the Grand Californian lobby (it only took me three tries to find the DTD exit this time around, a definite improvement.) and headed for DCA first. I had a couple of hours on my own before the others were due to arrive.
I first went to the Monsters Inc. ride, which was about a 15-20 minute wait at that point in time (it's a good thing I rode it then, because the lines turned out to be significantly longer later on.) While in line, I met a local couple who were in fact going to be moving up to right near where my parents live (cue the It's a Small World music here...) The Monsters Inc. ride is pretty much a standard dark ride, probably most similar to the Winnie the Pooh ride over in DL, although the semi-interactive Roz figure at the end was a nice touch. By the time I got off this ride, it had started to sprinkle. For at least a week I had known that rain was in the forecast for this day, but I hadn't figured that it was going to be a significant amount (after all, I'm from Seattle, these SoCal people probably don't even know what rain is) and figured I could probably handle it. Having survived several months of a particularly rainy Northwest winter (it doesn't snow much in the Seattle area during the Winter, but it sure does rain a lot) I was looking for any excuse I could find to use my vast wardrobe of warm weather clothes. It was for this reason I was dressed in shorts and sandals while a few of the locals were clothed for a trip up Everest. I tend to be able to tolerate cool weather a little better than average though, so the temperature wasn't a problem for me until after the sun went down. On the other hand, the rain was, so I first headed over to the animation building to check it out (I'm a bit of an animation junkie, although my collection skews much more toward the WB/MGM side of things than Disney.) I stayed for a little while to see the exhibits, then went over and rode Soarin' again (a walk-on.) By this time, I got a call that the others were on the ground at SNA, and heading for the hotel, so I crossed over to Disneyland, where I would eventually meet them at the monorail station.
When I got there, I caught the Omnibus to save myself just a bit of walking, and headed for the Matterhorn in the Tomorrowland line. At this point, the rain was starting to increase some, and by the time I reached the covered portion of the line it was starting to get pretty wet. The Matterhorn was closed during my previous Disneyland visit, so I haven't ridden it before. The ride seems to be rather rough these days, and I wouldn't be surprised to see this one ending up on the major rehab schedule at some point in the near future. When I got off, I got another cell phone call saying that they were waiting for the monorail at the DTD station, so I headed over to wait by the monorail exit for them. It took about 15 minutes before they actually made it into the park, but when they did they brought ponchos (they made a stop at a sporting goods store on the way over to get them.) We first headed to Astro Blasters, which was about a 10-minute wait. I hadn't quite figured out the whole aiming thing, and was a bit confused the first time around. I figured I'd get a chance to ride again later, and we next headed over to get Space Mountain FPs, which were several hours away.
After this, we headed for Adventureland and first rode PotC (walk-on) and the Rainforest-er, I mean Jungle Cruise. I know it tends to get just a tad monotonous when you've gone through the whole guide routine about half a billion times or so, but the CM running the boat seemed just a bit less than enthusiastic about the whole thing. Maybe they should have the elephant actually squirt them every once in a while if they start slouching... Anyway, we next got in line for Indiana Jones, and after about 15 minutes in line, we were informed that the ride had broken down, with no ETA for a fix. It was about this time that I realized that I hadn't eaten anything yet that day, and grabbed a churro from the cart in front of the Haunted Mansion (breakfast!) After this, we went and rode the Haunted Mansion (about a 10-minute wait) and next headed for Splash Mountain. I didn't particularly feel like riding this for some reason, and ended up waiting for the others. In the meantime, I went and rode the Winnie the Pooh ride, then found a semi-dry spot to wait for the others. The rain has actually begun to let up some by this time, but all the benches were still rather wet. When they got off the ride, they wanted to ride WtP again, but shortly after entering the ride, it stopped, and we were informed that this one had broken down too. a CM had to come in and rescue us, and we got a bit of an unplanned behind-the-scenes tour. We were told we could take pictures, but I didn't have a camera with me. Upon emerging from the ride I informed the people still waiting in line that the wood inside was only 83 acres. Apparently this isn't the first time my aunt had been on this ride when it broke down... We next headed for BTMRR, and waited about 15 minutes or so to ride this.
At this time, people were starting to head toward Main Street to stake out spots for the 2:00 parade. We managed to grab a bench near the Coke Corner, and my Mom went to go get some ice cream while we waited (Breakfast, part 2!) Shortly after this, we were informed over the PA system that due to inclement weather, the regular parade would be replaced by "Mickey's Rainy Day Cavalcade." Shortly after, the honorary grand marshals drive by... but for some reason, they didn't bother bringing a parade along with them. It wasn't until about 20 minutes later that the Rainy Day Cavalcade showed up in ir's full glory... Well, actually it was just the Omnibus and the Horseless Carriage full of mascots (but I'm sure that Dr. Seuss would have been able to do the whole Mulberry Street thing with it, but in reality, I think Sherman and Peabody got a better parade than that.) Thoroughly underwhelmed by the whole thing, we went over to Autopia and waited for a half hour in line (which didn't really make it any more interesting than the first time I rode it,) after which it was time for our Space Mountain fastpasses. We rode that, then got a call that my Grandma's friend was on the way over to the park (they had driven up from the Tucson area to meet us.) We met her at the monorail station, then went over to ride Astro Blasters again (much better score this time, now that I had some idea what I was doing and could apply the skills of a youth misspent on video games to the whole thing,) followed by Star Tours. They really need to do something about the droid pilot turnover rate over there. I mean, how hard can it possibly be to program one of the things to actually make it to Endor every once in a while?
At this point, the others wanted to go ride the Matterhorn, but since I had ridden it earlier in the day, I decided that this would be a good time to claim my luggage, then head to the room to change to warmer clothes for the evening. Since it was about 4pm at this point and I had not yet eaten anything that could be considered real food that day, I grabbed a turkey leg on the way out of the park. When I got back to the room, I decided to rest for a few minutes, then met my Grandma and her friend, who had headed back to the hotel shortly after I did. We all went down to the PCH Grill for some dinner, and got a waiter who seemed to want to tell stories about his parking tickets for some reason (not a whole lot of people there at the time...) I had the pizza, which was pretty good, but nothing I'd ever go out of my way for. All in all, the PCH Grill is decent, but nothing special. After this, I went back to my room, got my camera and jacket, and headed back for the park... then realized I had forgotten my cell phone and had to return to the room to get it.
When I got back to the park, I went to the 50th Anniversary exhibit to take some pictures, then called the others to find them. They were in line for Peter Pan, so I went over to Fantasyland and rode Pinnochio while I waited for them (about a 5-10 minute wait in line there, but I had about another 10-15 minutes of waiting for the others after that.) When we got back together we headed over to the Rivers of America to stake out a spot for Fantasmic. While my aunts wanted to chill out for a while, me and my Mom headed over to ride Indiana Jones, which was back up and running at this time, and a relatively short wait. I asked a CM where the Eeyore parking lot sign was, but he didn't have a flashlight to point it out with. When we returned to our spot, it was about 10 minutes before the show started. They managed to get about 5 minutes into it when the rain started again. They abruptly stopped the performance, and 5 minutes later made the announcement that it could not be continued. Shortly after this, an announcement came that the fireworks had been cancelled as well. The others decided to head back to the room at this point, but I stayed in the park, which was open until Midnight. I headed for PotC to get out of the rain, but found the line to be fairly long, so I went up to check out the Disney Gallery for a few minutes instead. By the time I was done with this the rain had stopped (for good this time) and I went to the Tiki Room, mostly for a dry place to sit down (but grabbed another Dole Whip in the process, bringing today's empty calorie total to some ridiculous amount I'd prefer not to disclose.) After this, I went back to Astro Blasters to improve my score (and failed miserably at doing so), then went back to Fantasyland for some of the rides there, including the Circus Train (not much to see there in the dark,) Dumbo, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride and the Carrousel (not sure why though.) The teacups and Snow White were down, and it was getting late by now, so I headed back to the hotel by Monorail, making one last stop at Astro Blasters on the way there.
Next: Day 3 (Things to Do in Disneyland When You're Dead)
The Soggiest Place on Earth!
(Not coming anytime soon to a theater anywhere near you.)
(If you haven't read it yet, my Day 1 report can be found here.)
Day 2: Saturday, January 14th 2006
Having made it through the night mostly unscathed, I had planned to be up for an early start in the morning, but by the time I woke up it was already almost 9AM (apparently I had set the alarm on my PocketPC to 7:30PM instead of AM. As is customary with such msitakes, I blame the equipment.) I quickly packed up what few items I had taken out the night before, dropped off my key at the desk (fighting the temptation to tell them that they need to put their place together with something a little bit better than duct tape and bailing wire) and walked over with my luggage (just one rolling carry-on bag) to Paradise Pier, where I left it at the bellstand to claim later when the others arrived and checked into their room. From there, I headed toward DTD, but failed to recognize that there was no way to get there from Disneyland Drive without going back toward the hotels, and had to backtrack a bit and go through the Grand Californian lobby (it only took me three tries to find the DTD exit this time around, a definite improvement.) and headed for DCA first. I had a couple of hours on my own before the others were due to arrive.
I first went to the Monsters Inc. ride, which was about a 15-20 minute wait at that point in time (it's a good thing I rode it then, because the lines turned out to be significantly longer later on.) While in line, I met a local couple who were in fact going to be moving up to right near where my parents live (cue the It's a Small World music here...) The Monsters Inc. ride is pretty much a standard dark ride, probably most similar to the Winnie the Pooh ride over in DL, although the semi-interactive Roz figure at the end was a nice touch. By the time I got off this ride, it had started to sprinkle. For at least a week I had known that rain was in the forecast for this day, but I hadn't figured that it was going to be a significant amount (after all, I'm from Seattle, these SoCal people probably don't even know what rain is) and figured I could probably handle it. Having survived several months of a particularly rainy Northwest winter (it doesn't snow much in the Seattle area during the Winter, but it sure does rain a lot) I was looking for any excuse I could find to use my vast wardrobe of warm weather clothes. It was for this reason I was dressed in shorts and sandals while a few of the locals were clothed for a trip up Everest. I tend to be able to tolerate cool weather a little better than average though, so the temperature wasn't a problem for me until after the sun went down. On the other hand, the rain was, so I first headed over to the animation building to check it out (I'm a bit of an animation junkie, although my collection skews much more toward the WB/MGM side of things than Disney.) I stayed for a little while to see the exhibits, then went over and rode Soarin' again (a walk-on.) By this time, I got a call that the others were on the ground at SNA, and heading for the hotel, so I crossed over to Disneyland, where I would eventually meet them at the monorail station.
When I got there, I caught the Omnibus to save myself just a bit of walking, and headed for the Matterhorn in the Tomorrowland line. At this point, the rain was starting to increase some, and by the time I reached the covered portion of the line it was starting to get pretty wet. The Matterhorn was closed during my previous Disneyland visit, so I haven't ridden it before. The ride seems to be rather rough these days, and I wouldn't be surprised to see this one ending up on the major rehab schedule at some point in the near future. When I got off, I got another cell phone call saying that they were waiting for the monorail at the DTD station, so I headed over to wait by the monorail exit for them. It took about 15 minutes before they actually made it into the park, but when they did they brought ponchos (they made a stop at a sporting goods store on the way over to get them.) We first headed to Astro Blasters, which was about a 10-minute wait. I hadn't quite figured out the whole aiming thing, and was a bit confused the first time around. I figured I'd get a chance to ride again later, and we next headed over to get Space Mountain FPs, which were several hours away.
After this, we headed for Adventureland and first rode PotC (walk-on) and the Rainforest-er, I mean Jungle Cruise. I know it tends to get just a tad monotonous when you've gone through the whole guide routine about half a billion times or so, but the CM running the boat seemed just a bit less than enthusiastic about the whole thing. Maybe they should have the elephant actually squirt them every once in a while if they start slouching... Anyway, we next got in line for Indiana Jones, and after about 15 minutes in line, we were informed that the ride had broken down, with no ETA for a fix. It was about this time that I realized that I hadn't eaten anything yet that day, and grabbed a churro from the cart in front of the Haunted Mansion (breakfast!) After this, we went and rode the Haunted Mansion (about a 10-minute wait) and next headed for Splash Mountain. I didn't particularly feel like riding this for some reason, and ended up waiting for the others. In the meantime, I went and rode the Winnie the Pooh ride, then found a semi-dry spot to wait for the others. The rain has actually begun to let up some by this time, but all the benches were still rather wet. When they got off the ride, they wanted to ride WtP again, but shortly after entering the ride, it stopped, and we were informed that this one had broken down too. a CM had to come in and rescue us, and we got a bit of an unplanned behind-the-scenes tour. We were told we could take pictures, but I didn't have a camera with me. Upon emerging from the ride I informed the people still waiting in line that the wood inside was only 83 acres. Apparently this isn't the first time my aunt had been on this ride when it broke down... We next headed for BTMRR, and waited about 15 minutes or so to ride this.
At this time, people were starting to head toward Main Street to stake out spots for the 2:00 parade. We managed to grab a bench near the Coke Corner, and my Mom went to go get some ice cream while we waited (Breakfast, part 2!) Shortly after this, we were informed over the PA system that due to inclement weather, the regular parade would be replaced by "Mickey's Rainy Day Cavalcade." Shortly after, the honorary grand marshals drive by... but for some reason, they didn't bother bringing a parade along with them. It wasn't until about 20 minutes later that the Rainy Day Cavalcade showed up in ir's full glory... Well, actually it was just the Omnibus and the Horseless Carriage full of mascots (but I'm sure that Dr. Seuss would have been able to do the whole Mulberry Street thing with it, but in reality, I think Sherman and Peabody got a better parade than that.) Thoroughly underwhelmed by the whole thing, we went over to Autopia and waited for a half hour in line (which didn't really make it any more interesting than the first time I rode it,) after which it was time for our Space Mountain fastpasses. We rode that, then got a call that my Grandma's friend was on the way over to the park (they had driven up from the Tucson area to meet us.) We met her at the monorail station, then went over to ride Astro Blasters again (much better score this time, now that I had some idea what I was doing and could apply the skills of a youth misspent on video games to the whole thing,) followed by Star Tours. They really need to do something about the droid pilot turnover rate over there. I mean, how hard can it possibly be to program one of the things to actually make it to Endor every once in a while?
At this point, the others wanted to go ride the Matterhorn, but since I had ridden it earlier in the day, I decided that this would be a good time to claim my luggage, then head to the room to change to warmer clothes for the evening. Since it was about 4pm at this point and I had not yet eaten anything that could be considered real food that day, I grabbed a turkey leg on the way out of the park. When I got back to the room, I decided to rest for a few minutes, then met my Grandma and her friend, who had headed back to the hotel shortly after I did. We all went down to the PCH Grill for some dinner, and got a waiter who seemed to want to tell stories about his parking tickets for some reason (not a whole lot of people there at the time...) I had the pizza, which was pretty good, but nothing I'd ever go out of my way for. All in all, the PCH Grill is decent, but nothing special. After this, I went back to my room, got my camera and jacket, and headed back for the park... then realized I had forgotten my cell phone and had to return to the room to get it.
When I got back to the park, I went to the 50th Anniversary exhibit to take some pictures, then called the others to find them. They were in line for Peter Pan, so I went over to Fantasyland and rode Pinnochio while I waited for them (about a 5-10 minute wait in line there, but I had about another 10-15 minutes of waiting for the others after that.) When we got back together we headed over to the Rivers of America to stake out a spot for Fantasmic. While my aunts wanted to chill out for a while, me and my Mom headed over to ride Indiana Jones, which was back up and running at this time, and a relatively short wait. I asked a CM where the Eeyore parking lot sign was, but he didn't have a flashlight to point it out with. When we returned to our spot, it was about 10 minutes before the show started. They managed to get about 5 minutes into it when the rain started again. They abruptly stopped the performance, and 5 minutes later made the announcement that it could not be continued. Shortly after this, an announcement came that the fireworks had been cancelled as well. The others decided to head back to the room at this point, but I stayed in the park, which was open until Midnight. I headed for PotC to get out of the rain, but found the line to be fairly long, so I went up to check out the Disney Gallery for a few minutes instead. By the time I was done with this the rain had stopped (for good this time) and I went to the Tiki Room, mostly for a dry place to sit down (but grabbed another Dole Whip in the process, bringing today's empty calorie total to some ridiculous amount I'd prefer not to disclose.) After this, I went back to Astro Blasters to improve my score (and failed miserably at doing so), then went back to Fantasyland for some of the rides there, including the Circus Train (not much to see there in the dark,) Dumbo, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride and the Carrousel (not sure why though.) The teacups and Snow White were down, and it was getting late by now, so I headed back to the hotel by Monorail, making one last stop at Astro Blasters on the way there.
Next: Day 3 (Things to Do in Disneyland When You're Dead)
you are just way tooooooooo funny...I love it...
