Just having returned from a wonderful trip to Disneyland I thought I'd share a review of the experience and also touch on some annoying things that you run into while at the park. Disneyland is rightfully named "The Happiest Place on Earth". (Unless you're Ross Gellar, then of course there's another name for it! Luckily, we didn't have any tacos before entering the park! :-P) The atmosphere is absolutely amazing, the cast members are always kind and helpful (for those of you who might read this and haven't been there yet, "Cast Members" are what Disney calls their employees) and the ride experiences are unparalled.
For those of you here in the state of Utah, I will be comparing things to Lagoon. (For those who find this and don't know "Lagoon" it is an amusement park in Farmington, Utah, about 25 minutes north of Salt Lake City) Though in all honesty, a comparison isn't really fair to Lagoon. For starters, Lagoon is only about 1/8th of the size of Disneyland. (Not including California Adventures) Plus, Disneyland is worth every penny you spend at the park, while Lagoon is inflating their prices which makes their park decrease in value every year. Lagoon has emulated Disney in several ways. They have a log flume but it's very basic, nothing real added to it. Splash Mountain trumps the experience by a long shot. I was very sad that Splash Mountain was closed for refurbishment while we were there. They installed a water rapids ride called "Rattlesnake Rapids" which is like "Grizzly River Run" but without the drops, which gives Grizzly the win in comparison. They have the "Rocket" which is similar to the "Maliboomer" that California Adventures had before it made way for "Toy Story Mania". Now it can only compare to "Tower of Terror" and Tower of Terror wins that comparison easily for the darkness, spookiness and the fact it goes up and down. The Rocket makes you choose, go up fast or come down fast, you can't do both.
But that reminds me of another thing I love about Disneyland, they get so into character that it gives a great ambience to the experience that you just don't get anywhere else. On the Tower of Terror, cast members will treat you as "guests" who are staying at the hotel, they don't mention "ride" at all when they're giving the introductions.
Lagoon does have a few roller coaster rides, but California Screamin' can top them all easily. That first blast-off and first dip gives me such a dark feeling in my stomach, it makes me scream in delight everytime! Even Space Mountain can beat all of them, there's nothing like riding a coaster in the dark, not knowing what's coming next!
Another thing I love about Disneyland is that they're not content with leaving everything the same. Five years ago when we were there and we went on Indiana Jones you see Indy after the first turn you make. At that time Indy was pinned inside the door as it was half closed. His sayings are always different. When we went this year he was now on the outside of the door pushing on it like he was trying to shut it. Also noticeable was how Madame Leota inside of the "Haunted Mansion" is sometimes floating in the air, but other times she'll be merely on a pedestal.
Entertainment is also another way Disney goes above and beyond. Lagoon mostly has "Rock U 2 the Top" which is a quite cheesy cover performance of whatever songs are popular at the time. Disneyland has "Fantasmic", "The World of Color" and "Remember...Dreams Come True" fireworks show that are all great and worth the time spent watching them. Even while waiting in lines in Tomorrowland we noticed "Instant Replay" where bands will convene and play cover songs and possibly original songs as well. We didn't find the time to sit and watch it but it was an enjoyable addition to the experience of just being in the park.
Dining is exquisite as well. "Goofy's Kitchen" is a character dining experience. It's a buffet dining experience. The food is quite good for a buffet, normally I've found buffet style food to be quite bland. Overall we decided it was cool to see the characters, but this would be kind of a one-time thing. However, "The Blue Bayou" was a totally awesome experience that we will be making a tradition to go there every time we vacation there. The food was great and the ambience was nice, being inside "Pirates of the Caribbean". We were not treated to unruly shouts as had been reported by other people. We ended up getting seats right next to the water. Seems we did make it into some people's photos as we saw flashes go off in our direction a few times.
I honestly think that Disneyland is like the "Mecca" of America. Everyone owes it to themselves, married, single, kids, no kids, etc. to make a pilgrimage there at least once in their lifetime. We found for us that 3 days is a good amount of time to be at the park. Both parks are massive and you can't hit everything in one day and often 2 will be hard to get everything in as well. It can be considered "pricey" but it's worth every single cent spent on the trip. If you even remotely LIKE Lagoon you owe it to yourself to make it to Disneyland. The next part of this blog I'm going to talk about the 6 most annoying things we noticed about our experience at Disneyland. Normally I do "Top Tens" but I only found six things bothersome about our experience. None of them really took away from the trip, it was still 99% awesome, but I'm still going to touch on these 1% annoyances.
#6---Underdressed Women
I understand that it's southern California and it is quite warm. (On Thursday it got close to, if not above 90 degrees) But you don't have to bare it ALL! I think a classic rule of thumb is: "If you can't bend over without fear of flashing or mooning anybody, then it's probably a good idea NOT to wear it!" (I even saw some who were in danger of flashing/mooning me without even bending over!) Also, I think women who dress like that lose the right to complain about that 46 year-old unshaven man who hasn't blinked while looking in their direction for the past five minutes. You chose to flaunt it, it's attracting attention and you should accept it. Don't like it? Cover yourself up more!
#5---Loud Talking without Thinking
This was kind of annoying on a few fronts. First case was while we were in line to get into the park on Thursday we were ahead of a couple of women. One of them was a teenager and suddenly we hear her state out loud, "I hate men who shave their heads." I didn't turn around but really? I'm sorry, but I have really dark black hair and highly active sweat glands. When I'm in spring-summer weather long hair can absolutely kill me. So obviously I'm going to shave my head so my hair isn't a huge problem to me when I'm in warmer weather. I just had issue with the fact that she probably knew I'd hear it and she'd probably been staring at my head for the past 10 minutes so it's not like she suddenly said it and noticed me.
The next two actually happened in the same experience. We had fastpasses (for people who haven't been to Disneyland, fastpasses can be picked up for certain popular rides to enable you to come back at a later time and go through a shortened line. It's limited to one ride per park at a time so you can't go around collecting them) for Indiana Jones and we were heading there about the same time that Fantasmic had let out so it was a real mad house getting through the crowd. People were heading to the stand-by (aka normal) line and we were on our way to the fastpass line, when about 10 feet away from the cast member checking the fastpasses I hear this guy behind me say loudly, "It sure is nice for people to butt in line!" There was absolutely no real "line" anywhere near us but I'm so non-confrontational that I just stopped and let his party pass us by and go first. We ended up getting some satisfaction that halfway through the line a kid in his party chickened out so they ended up leaving. Then we also ended up having two guys and a girl behind us.
This really wasn't annoying TOWARDS us, but just having to listen to this drabble...... :-P The girl was obviously going with this one guy. He started going off on how "an engagement is a contract and if you break it off you can get your wages garnished because you can get sued for breach of contract." Other things mentioned were that you can get sued for not returning a ring after a broken engagement. She eventually mentioned for him "not to give her a ring." Really? Sounds like you're on the right track to win this girl over dude!!! He also started going on a rant that the "Grizzly Man" was killed because he got high and went out to fight a bear. I can't refute that cause I don't know the exact facts but it just sounded funny.
#4---Quoting Along With The Narration
This only really happened on "The Haunted Mansion" but it still was annoying. Yes, I've ridden it enough and listened to the narration plenty of times on CD and "Visions Fantastic". But that doesn't mean I'm going to quote along with the narrator as he starts his "You'll find that this chamber has no windows and no doors...." segment. If it were my first time ever riding I think it would have taken away from the experience. I really didn't think these teenage kids were that much COOLER for showing off that they had it memorized.
#3---Inattentive Parents
This is high because it's also a pet peeve of mine outside the park as well. The biggest example of this happened in line for "Toy Story Mania". Shortly after entering the line the mother pulled out her iPhone and began pouring over the pictures that had been taken on it, posting to Facebook and text messaging. Her daughter at one point tried to get her attention to which she just got a hurried, "Yes, dear" before the mom returned to her phone. Halfway through the line the father followed suit and got on to his iPhone. Then he got perturbed when his son wanted interaction and whacked him with his foam sword. He took it away and went back to his phone...... I'm sorry, but these types of things are half the problem nowadays. I admit, even I can get carried away by technology, I work with it.
I don't necessarily have children but when I'm with my nieces and nephews I can create experiences and interact with them without the distraction of a cell phone or other technological distractions. I know if we'd been there even with our nieces and nephews we could have just had conversations and joked around with the children in line. It's what my wife and I did in every ride. Not to mention how dangerous being in public with children can be, parenting can be like playing football, it's called "head on a swivel". Whenever I'm in public with my nieces and nephews I keep very close eyes on them and their movements. If I notice they're even in danger of leaving my sight I move to position myself where I can still track them. I think that there could have been times with these parents that their children could have left the line/been yanked out of line and they wouldn't have noticed until it was too late.
Also, am I the only one thinking it's amazing that on EVERY ride and attraction at the park you're reminded to "Please supervise your children." We honestly are constantly reminded of something people should just innately know? Something you accept responsibility to do as soon as that child enters the world? I also have to rant that I find it sad that people find it the right thing to do to allow their children to do whatever they want and then try to claim someone else is responsible if their children get hurt/lost. One example I've heard of is a story that came from the "Alice in Wonderland" ride, where a child squirted out of his seat and jumped out of the ride. The parent held Disneyland responsible and so they put up an extra barrier after the accompanying lawsuit. It was obviously NOT the parent's fault for not watching their own child and allowing them to get out of the ride. (Note the heavy sarcasm)
#2---Inconsiderate People
This is also high on the list because of hating these people in everyday life. I hate that feeling knowing I've intruded or possibly hurt anybody with my actions. But this happens more often than you'd think at Disneyland. Fortunately, we avoided any experiences with the strollers as our fellow Mouse Waiters have mentioned. (Mouse Wait is an app we use on our phone that has a lounge for people to communicate with each other) Apparently people there have been smacked by strollers and treated as the offenders. We never got "hit" but we did have one lady brush past us pushing a stroller at such a high speed. The park can be crowded and it's inevitable that you'll hit people in your comings and goings. Everytime I felt a bump, whether it was my fault or not I made sure I turned and excused myself or apologized. But I was amazed when sometimes if I was standing still and got hit and I'd turn and get the most rotten look. I wasn't the one who initiated the contact, I was just standing there!
Also one time we were in line to ride "Pirates of the Caribbean" and when we got up to wait to board the people before us were boarding. It was obvious that there was a group together, but they weren't going to fit in one row, so one woman was placed on the row ahead of her group. There were only two people in that row, a woman and a man. The woman scooted down and sat down, the guy sat next to her and then put their bags ON THE SEAT next to him, preventing this woman from taking a seat to be on the same ride as her group. She scooted back behind the gates and stammered to her friends who were helpless watching this. The guy knew what he'd done and just looked up at this woman with such a look of indifference. I just could not believe that I saw that.
#1---Line Jumping!!!!
I can't say enough about this one, probably because it happens SO often. I know this isn't just a Disneyland problem, it's a problem in probably every park you go to. This happens in many ways. One time on California Screamin' we got behind some teenage kids who after getting in line wanted to get fastpasses. One of their friends jumped out of line, got all the fastpasses, then used the outside foliage to skip ahead to meet back up with his friends. You can't go get them and THEN get in line? Or then what happened almost everytime on "Toy Story Mania" is that people would just wait near the building and then when they saw their friends they'd jump the chain and join in. Then there are still the "classic" line jumpers who will simply push past you, giving everybody the "excuse me" treatment. One tactic I've heard of happening is the children will meander through the line, crying "Mama? Mama?" making everybody think they're looking for their mother, then they'll abruptly stop. Five or so minutes later their mother will actually appear asking to be allowed up with her children. The two people who reported on this said this happened several times when they were at the park. They said finally when it happened on "Splash Mountain" when the mother came back through they (being of pretty big stature) stood firm and wouldn't let her through. When she became fussy they flatly explained that she was just line jumping. She finally accepted it and called her kids back and they actually left the line.
We even nearly got line jumped in a fastpass line! This teenage kid started bolting ahead of everybody in line at Space Mountain until his buddies called him back.
My main thoughts on line jumpers is: What makes YOU that much more important than anyone else in the park? We all paid good money to be here and most of us are being honest and standing in line. Just because you hate the line means you have to try to get ahead of everybody else? It's just a very selfish thing to do. It's also an inconsiderate thing to do, you're not thinking of anybody else but yourself. It can also combine other things that are found on this list.
It's also mega frustrating when it happens in line for a character. I understand that it can be a rush cause the characters don't stay in place forever. When we saw Donald I was so scared that we might not make it to him in time. Luckily we did but I was not thinking of trying to jump in line just to make sure I got a picture with him. But when we saw Stitch in California Adventures we noticed this happen. He didn't have a cast member with him, which always makes things much harder. When we were about 2 people behind in line there was a family passing by. They all took pictures of him from where we stood but then two of the kids ran back and jumped in line behind us. Now the line to see him wasn't even THAT long, there were probably only about 7 people in line. The mother did not even utter a peep about this to her children although she saw what her kids had done. So not only are they cutting in line, they are being taught this is normal behavior they can get away with.
This is not saying all parents are like I've described. We did see parents who were quick to teach their kids about behaviors. One kid at Goofy's Kitchen placed himself in a picture with Pluto that another parent was trying to get with their child. The parent came up and took him away and apologized and while going away we did hear her telling her son that he couldn't do stuff like that. So please don't think I'm saying everyone I saw at Disneyland was a HORRIBLE parent, there were just some that we had to shake our heads at.......
I think this has possibly been my longest post! If you've been to Disneyland (or any park) and have had similar experiences or anything to add feel free to comment! Also if you have your own experiences from the park itself to share, let us all know!
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