PTR: Dainan's California Adventure, 6/25/12 - 7/3/12

[CycloneMan]

Day 7, 7/1/12

Disney California Adventure

 

Our final new park of the trip. Disney California Adventure.

 

We arrived at DCA a little later in the morning. We were dead tired from Magic Mountain the day before we decided to sleep in.

 

Our trip to DLR was only two weeks after the re dedication of DCA.

 

You think our trip is crazy? This is my friend Patrick whom I work with in Orlando. He came to California for the weekend and did all of Disneyland Resort in one day. We ran into each other as he was leaving DCA.

 

We didn't do Soarin' this day, being we have the same ride in Florida, we didn't care to do it.

 

We got Fast Passes early enough for the first showing of World of Color.

 

Our first ride of the day was The Little Mermaid.

 

A sneak peak at things to come for us Floridians

 

The ride was nice. But I'm a little nervous as to how the Florida crowd will re act to it. It is a good ride. But it's not the greatest. In Florida, Disney is hyping this attraction up like there's no tomorrow. And the Floridians are getting really pumped up for this new "E-Ticket" ride at Magic Kingdom. Supposedly Florida's version of the ride will be updated and longer. We shall see. But after doing it in DCA, I don't feel compelled to wait longer than 20 minutes for the Magic Kingdom version.

 

Our next ride screams at us from across the water.

 

California Screamin' ended up being one of our favorite rides on the trip.

 

California Screamin' is an Intamin LSM Launching coaster. Oddly enough, it's the 8th longest coaster in the world.

 

The wait really wasn't that long either.

 

Jackie and Patrick ready for the first ride on Screamin' in the front row.

 

Jackie gave it a thumbs up. This ended up being her favorite ride at the Disneyland Resort.

 

Myself and my friend Jeff on my first ride on Screamin. Jeff is a friend of mine for a while now. And when he found out I was coming to California he requested that he took us around DCA.

 

Jeff and I after my first ride.

 

We got fast passes immediately after we got off, so we could do other things in Paradise Pier and then come back to Screamin.

 

Next up, we did Mickey's Fun Wheel.

 

Patrick and Jackie enjoying the not so impressive swinging cars. Meh, I guess growing up in Coney Island makes me snooty about these things

 

Toy Story Mania looks great in this location. But yea...we didn't do it. We have one here, and we don't do it here either.

 

This is the only photo we got of Goofy's Fly School. It's a wild mouse. We got the credit. We didn't do it again.

 

It was time to go back to Screamin next. This our on ride photo. ...yup.

 

Jeff did not steer us wrong with his lunch suggestion. I got the cheddar and broccoli sourdough bread bowl from the Pacific Wharf Cafe. It was pretty much amazing.

 

Patrick got Star Bucks on our lunch break. See, Patrick has an addiction to coffee. And when Disney announced that Star Bucks will be coming to the parks, you would have thought he won the lottery. So of course a stop needed to be made. This goes along with the theme of "California has it first, Florida will get it soon." So Patrick was ridiculously excited.

 

Next we head over into Cars Land.

 

We came in through the side, and immediately you're taken into the atmosphere.

 

There goes Radiator Springs Racers.

 

Here they go again...on Jackie's camera.

 

The details in Radiator Springs is amazing. Some people have compared it to Tokyo DisneySea. Having been there, I'd have to agree. Disney really out did themselves on this one.

 

150 minutes with an hour single rider line!?!? Yea...we'll come back.

 

Okay, so we really weren't surprised at all by the wait times for this. The highest we saw it during our trip was 180 minutes.

 

We zipped through Cars Land and passed Luigi's for our next must-do attraction.

 

um...what? Jeff insisted that we did this, and it had no wait. So we did.

 

Basically you go around on the track through eaten food. It's...um...well...it's... ....so terrible you must do it.

 

Jeff was laughing to himself the entire time.

 

Tower of Terror had a long wait, so we got fast passes for it.

 

Yup...no where near as good as Florida or Tokyo's. In fact, it's the same exact one as Paris's Tower of Terror. Yes, I've been on all of them now

 

Another ride Jeff said we must do for it's awfulness.

 

Hey, at least it's not some stupid ride about stalking celebrities or something like that.

 

You get in a cab, and drive through Monstropolis. It wasn't really that bad of a ride. It wasn't really that good of a ride either.

 

Next door was Dancing With Disney

 

It was mad poppin, yo!

 

Yea....we quickly left and went to watch the Pixar Play Parade.

 

The parade was very similar to Pixar and Pal's Count Down to Fun at Disney's Hollywood Studios. But of course this one was better. ...as was almost everything at Disneyland.

 

If Disney's Hollywood Stuido's former Block Party Bash and Pixar and Pal's Count Down to Fun had a love child. This show would be it.

 

They basically shot water at you every chance they got.

 

Alright, see ya.

 

Next we went into the Animation Building.

 

We were obligated to sea the show because Jackie used to work at the Living Seas pavilion at EPCOT and this was one of her attractions.

 

In fact, on this trip. We did the California version of all the attractions Jackie, Patrick and I work at in Florida (if they're here).

 

We heard a lot of hype about the Aladdin show, so we were pretty excited to see it.

 

This is the only photo we have from inside the theater. With out giving much away, the show is amazing. If you ever get to DCA, make sure you see this show!

 

The park is pretty small. This is Grizzly Peak, you can see it from everywhere.

 

Well, we have time to kill before our Tower of Terror fast passes, let's see how Cars Land is looking.

 

Did I mention that during our trip, Cars Land had only been open for two weeks?

 

We decided to bite the bullet and do the single riders line for Radiator Springs Racers. Originally our plan was to get to DCA for opening and go here first, but because we slept in, we decided to do that the next day. But it was only a 40 minute wait for single rider at this point, so we decided to do it.

 

I'll be honest, I've never seen the Cars movies, so I don't entirely understand the story telling in the queue. But it did look really impressive.

 

Every where you look there's queue.

 

After only 30 minutes, we made into the station.

 

Jackie and Patrick ended up on the car in front of me (which means we will race). And Jeff was in the car behind me.

 

We're next.

 

I was pretty pumped to ride it.

 

And just like every new ride, it has it's glitches. We got to the point in the ride where you split and go through separate show scenes and you get ready to race. Well, we ended up in a good old fashioned Disney ride backup, and got to sit here for a good 5 to 10 minutes or so. As you can see, Patrick and Jackie are across the way.

 

Patrick waiting for the ride to continue.

 

Jackie took this shot of me waiting for the ride to continue as well.

 

We did end up finishing the ride. The theming inside the ride was incredible, and the outside portion was really good. It doesn't go nearly as fast as Test Track does, but it does a lot more. We took more photos the next day, so don't worry. Those will be in the next update (If you really cared )

 

We got off Radiator Springs Racers just in time for our Tower of Terror Fast Passes.

 

Not as impressive as Florida's.

 

The boiler room was pretty cool.

 

Jeff, myself, Jackie and Patrick on Tower of Terror. It is a good ride, but no where as good as Florida's. This version of Tower of Terror doesn't have the dark ride portion in it.

 

We headed back over to Paradise Pier after Tower of Terror.

 

We did Jumping Jelly Fish...not sure why. But we did.

 

I really enjoyed the location of Silly Symphony Swings. It was directly on the water, adjacent to Screamin'

 

"Is that supposed to be like that?"

 

The next batch of photos will be nothing but California Screamin' and Paradise Pier. Why? Because we fell in love!

 

Me and Screamin'

 

Patrick and Jackie with Screamin'

 

My new favorite picture

 

We tried to come up with an scheme to dismantle it and bring it back with us to Orlando.

 

Seriously? Why does California get the long, smooth, fun Intamin ride. And we get the short, rough, mediocre Vekoma coaster!?

 

We spent a good chunk of the evening re riding.

 

Unfortunately, California Screamin' closes early for World of Color, and doesn't re open for the rest of the day.

 

We ended up getting really good spots for World of Color.

 

It's so pretty.

 

After World of Color we headed over to Cars Land again to find Radiator Springs Racers down.

 

The neon lights in Radiator Springs looked awesome at night.

 

Mad T Party is the night life of Disneyland.

 

It's a giant rave.

 

Randomly thrown in is Muppet's. Add that to the list of things we didn't do because we have it in Florida.

 

Yea... Mad T Party was just weird.

 

Patrick was in need for a coffee fix. So we went over to Fiddler, Fifer and Practical Cafe on Buena Vista Street to get him Star Bucks where we found these cool Hollywood Tower Hotel posters.

 

The Tip Top Club you say?

 

We left California Adventure and went to Downtown Disney to get on the Monorail.

 

Patrick and I in the super cool Mark VII monorail.

 

To promote Cars Land the monorails have been given a Cars look. We finished our night at Disneyland, where we rode Space Mountain again. As well as all the Fantasyland dark rides.

 

Next up, our last day full day in California

 

-Dainan "I'm still California Dreamin" Rafferty

[GAcoaster]

I was struck by the similarities between CA Screamin' and Revolution at MM. Very similar long, fun coasters.

[29yrswithaGApass]

Dainan, did you happen to catch the giant Zoetrope in the Animation Building? It was really impressive - this video does not do it justice.

 

[CycloneMan]

I was struck by the similarities between CA Screamin' and Revolution at MM. Very similar long, fun coasters.

 

I remembered you telling me that before the trip. And I was thinking that the entire time.

 

Dainan, did you happen to catch the giant Zoetrope in the Animation Building? It was really impressive - this video does not do it justice.

 

 

We did see the Zoetrope. It was one of the coolest things I've ever seen.

[The Master]

I rode the old Superstar Limo ride ten years ago and it was pretty bad, Monsters Inc is a huge improvement over it. I thought Superstar Limo was going to be a non Aerosmith version Of Rockin Roller coaster, boy was I wrong LOL. While Silly Symphony Swings are okay, I thought it was much better before as the Orange Stinger. Last year I saw the world of color show on a windy and stormy night, only ten other people where there watching it so it was worth it to brave the poor weather to avoid the lines.

[CycloneMan]

Day 8, 7/2/12

Our last full day of the trip - Disneyland Resort

 

We got to Disney California Adventure just as the park opened at 8 so we can get some stuff in Cars Land done.

 

Luckily for us, we were meeting up with our friend Robbie again this day, and he got to the park before us and got in line to get Fast Passes for Radiator Springs Racers. So we found him in line and handed him our park tickets in order to get Fast Passes. Our Fast Passes were distributed 8 minutes after the park opened, and they're not good until 2 hours and 10 minutes after the park opened! Fast Pass Return doesn't open till about a half hour after the park opens, so the first time distributed for was 8:40. Needless to say, they were out of Fast Passes fairly quickly.

 

We also got a nifty surprise Fast Pass for California Screamin'. Disney puts surprise Fast Passes in their machines for attractions that need the attention. Like here in Florida, our Surprise Fast Passes in Magic Kingdom are for Mickey's Phillhar Magic and Carousel of Progress. With that being said, you can tell how the rest of the park is suffering with the news Cars Land. In fact, we never saw California Screamin' over a 15 minute wait the entire time we were there.

 

Our first ride of the day was Luigi's Flying Tires.

 

I've never seen Cars. But the story telling isn't hard to fallow.

 

One of Jackie's, "Hey Dainan, smile!"

 

It's hard to tell, but I think Robbie might like Disney.

 

Patrick, Jackie and Robbie. Something tells me one of them is not completely awake. Probably the lack of coffee.

 

If you look closely, you can see Carl from Up in line for Luigi's Flying Tires.

 

Luigi's Flying Tires uses hover craft technology to move the vehicles.

 

You move the vehicles with your body movement.

 

They gave us a "pizza" to tell the Cast Member who's loading us that we are in the same party.

 

Basically it's bumper cars with giant beach balls that you throw at each other.

 

Really weird, and really fun.

 

Patrick and I are ready to go.

 

Jackie and Robbie are ready to go as well.

 

After Luigi's, we ate breakfast at Flo's and then headed over to Paradise Pier.

 

I wish a vendor would hand me a coke in such a fashion.

 

Patrick and I ready for yet another fantastic ride on California Screamin'.

 

Our fabulous on ride photo.

 

Nerd shot of their unload console.

 

Robbie and I after another ride on California Screamin'.

 

Afterwards, we made our way down Paradise Pier to get on the Golden Zephyr.

 

On the way we stopped because Robbie wanted to play some games.

 

Go get em Robbie!

 

Robbie won a plush Goofy.

 

Golden Zephyr was closed when we got over to it the day before because of high winds.

 

Fun little relaxing ride.

 

Because we are all 12, we played in the Redwood Creek Challenge Trail.

 

Robbie and I making our way up the nets.

 

Shaky bridge....

 

We started the Wilderness Explorer activity map. But we really just did it to get the stickers.

 

Next up we did Grizzly River Rapids

 

The theming was really nice.

 

It was a fun rapids ride.

 

It ended with a nice splash

 

Goofy disapproves of Patrick's statement.

 

It was time for our Fast Passes so we went back over to Radiator Springs Racers.

 

The queue was massive.

 

Robbie, Jackie, Patrick and I excited to ride Radiator Springs Racers again.

 

It was funny to us. It was like seeing an alternate reality Test Track.

 

Patrick's ready to do this.

 

Alright, here we go.

 

You exit the ride into the middle of the race.

 

Our on ride photo.

 

I stopped at Cozy Cone on the way out of Cars Land and tried the Fillmore’s Fuelin’ Groovy Ades. Mine was pomegranate limeade with lemon-lime foam.

 

We park hopped over to Disneyland for lunch. We hopped on the train to New Orleans Square.

 

Oh hey Cody! What time are you off? 6? Alright, see ya then

 

We did the Haunted Mansion again. Why not? Who doesn't love the Haunted Mansion?

 

Oh hey there Splash Mountain. Maybe we'll actually ride you in the day time today.

 

But we'll get a Fast Pass.

 

The nice thing about park hopping at Disneyland is that the parks are ridiculously close together. On the way out of DCA, we got Fast Passes for Soarin' and then we got Splash Mountain fast passes. The significance of this is, you can't hold more than one Fast Pass at a time in the same park. In Florida it's nearly impossible to park hop around Fast Pass times, but in California it's like walking from one section of the park to the other. Yea...we're nerds.

 

We ate lunch at the Hungry Bear.

 

A Country Bear Jamboree themed restaurant! Yes please!

 

We sat right on the Rivers of America, so we made some new friends. Here's Patrick and his new friend. As you can tell, he looks really happy to see him

 

I may have been more excited about this than I should have been. But hey, if you've ever spent as much time around the Country Bear Jamboree as I have, you'd be excited too!

 

Here's something guests can't do in Florida anymore. The Davy Crockett Explorer Canoes. We still have them in Florida, but they're for Cast Members only

 

Ah, the Columbia. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to ride it on this trip. I guess this just means I need to go back to Disneyland

 

Rafts to Tom Sawyer Island.

 

Alright, I'm excited for alternate reality Tom Sawyer Island.

 

The raft trip over to Tom Sawyer Island is much shorter here than in Florida.

 

The rafts are also designed differently. But I guess the "average" guest wouldn't really notice that.

 

'

This was neat. Tom Sawyer Island has a tree house on it.

 

Point goes to Florida. I wasn't a big fan of Tom Sawyer Island Pirates Layer. A lot of things on the Island were closed of permanently (ie, the Fort). Spending a lot of time on Tom Sawyer Island in Florida, I can understand why Disneyland's Tom Sawyer Island is the way it is now. But it just felt incomplete.

 

After Tom Sawyer Island, we went back to Disney California Adventure to see the Phineas and Ferb Rockin' Rollin' Dance Party.

 

It was cute. We are immature Phineas and Ferb fans, so we were excited to see it.

 

I wish we had this show instead of Disney Channel Rocks at Disney's Hollywood Studios.

 

It was time for our Soarin' Fast Passes. To be completely honest, none of us really care for Soarin', but we did it anyway to compare it to the one at EPCOT. The queue and over all atmosphere in California's was different. DCA's Soarin' basically takes place in a Hanger and has a vintage Aviator theme going on. While EPCOT's Soarin' makes you feel like you're at a modern airport.

 

To our amusement, the film was in worse shape than Florida's.

 

We left DCA through the Grand Californian and took the monorail from Downtown Disney to Tomorrowland.

 

Abandoned Peoplemover track next to the Monorail.

 

Jackie is the only one out of the group who had been to Disneyland before the trip. Her favorite ride as a kid was not the Peoplemover, but Rocket Rods. Rocket Rods was basically Test Track on the Peoplemover track. The track wasn't designed to have high speed vehicles on it, and after many technical issues and structural damage, Rocket Rods closed forever.

 

There have been many rumors about future plans to bring back the Peoplemover in some form, but as of now. Nothing has happened. We will see what happens in the next few years.

 

While we are on the subject of abandoned Disneyland rides, we went into Innoventions which was originally Carousel of Progress.

 

"Temperature increased to 975. Overload-- overload..."

 

Jackie and I are big Carousel of Progress fans. So we really excited when we found the split in the floor for the rotation.

 

Yes, we really took this many photos of and with it. Patrick and Robbie were totally judging us the entire time.

 

Okay, this is the last one.

 

We had to get to Toontown quick because it closes early for the fireworks.

 

Our last coaster of the trip was Gadget's Go Coaster.

 

This was the first of three Vekoma Roller Skaters Disney purchased for it's parks. The problem with the Roller Skaters is that they're designed to run only one train, which Disney parks can't handle. After this, Tokyo Disneyland's and Magic Kingdom's Roller Skaters were redesigned to be able to run two trains at once to increase capacity.

 

Another ride on the Matterhorn, why not?

 

Believe it or not, this was Robbie's first time on the Matterhorn.

 

The rest of the evening we spent running around doing our favorite rides, so we don't have that many photos. But we did snap this one at the Jungle Cruise. Kissimmee Kate. The relevance of this is that we live in Kissimmee, Florida. Well, on the boarder, but Patrick actually lives there.

 

At this point we met back up with Cody and his friend Katie. They basically grabbed dips on their seats on Splash Mountain so I got stuck in the front. Now, from this picture, you'd think I was scared. Incorrect. I was angry because I was drenched from head to toe from Drop 2! So I was not looking forward to the splash at the bottom of the drop. Yea....you get nowhere near as wet on Splash Mountain at Walt Disney World than you do in Disneyland.

 

We spent a good chunk of the night re riding Disneyland's awesome Space Mountain!

 

I ran into my friend Kris working at Space Mountain.

 

Jackie and Patrick in line for Space Mountain.

 

Cody in line for Space Mountain.

 

Robbie and I in line for Space Mountain.

 

At Star Traders in Tomorrowland, Jackie spotted this bag. Hmmmm

 

We ended our night at Big Thunder Mountain. During the trip, we all got photos with our west coast version of our rides. Big Thunder Mountain is the only attraction the three of us all worked together in Walt Disney World. Jackie and I have been friends since we were teenagers, but working together is how we met Patrick. So it was the perfect way to end our trip.

 

Day 9, 7/3/12

Last day - lame attempt at both Disneyland and Walt Disney World in the same day

 

Our flight back east was around noon, so we took a quick trip to Downtown Disney for some last minute shopping.

 

Lego Store shot in the day light.

 

We ended our Disneyland adventure in World of Disney....where we ended up not buying anything.

 

Good bye California.

 

Only 6 hours till we are back in Orlando.

 

Lay over in Texas, almost home.

 

We made it back to Orlando, and we stopped by Downtown Disney in Walt Disney World before going home (We live just outside of Property, so it wasn't really out of our way). We did this just so we can say we did both Walt Disney World and Disneyland in the same day. Though it was both Downtown Disney, it still counts.

 

Thanks for reading

 

-Dainan "Planning my next trip already" Rafferty