Thoughts on Disneyland

Eric Harty
Nov 2 · 7 min read

Two weeks ago I went to Disneyland with my family for the first time. I have been to Disney World before, but it has been about a decade since even going there…

The entrance to Disneyland
The entrance to Disneyland

Differences between Florida and California

Despite never having been to Disneyland before, things were immediately familiar. Main Street to the castle, adventureland/frontierland to the left, tomorrowland to the right, and dark rides and kiddie rides behind the castle.

Some rides such as Pinocchio, Big Thunder Mountain, Soarin’, the tea cups, and Star Tours were all pretty much the same as their Florida counterparts. While others such as Small World, and Pirates of the Caribbean were completely different. Pirates felt like a completely different ride. Small World had the same basic idea, but a cool looking outdoor entrance, and an interior that made no attempt to hide that you were slowly boating through a warehouse.

Also, the castle is smaller.

Favorite Rides

My favorite rides were the Cars ride, and Indiana Jones. The fact that these were close to the first and last rides we went on (and that neither are in Florida) is probably just a coincidence. The great thing about these rides is they combine the large sets of a dark ride with a faster and more exciting ride vehicle.

The cars ride in particular had some very large animatronics, and given that it was already night time it actually took a minute to realize that the set wasn’t outdoors. (Then of course the ride finishes with a race that may well have been quicker than the roller coasters).

Also the Frozen show in California Adventure was fantastic. We almost didn’t go to see this, but happened to be right outside just before showtime and didn’t have any fastpasses until later so we ducked into the theater at the last minute. While it is just an hour long musical theater performance of the movie, the effects were mind bogglingly amazing. It was easily the best live performance I have ever seen.

Least Favorite Rides

It is a little tricky to separate out what was a disappointing ride, from what was too long of a wait in line. The Monsters Inc ride wasn’t that great, but I am not sure if the ride was actually all that worse than something like Pinocchio or if we had just waited in a line that was far too long. That said, even the queue was boring. The line for the Millennium Falcon ride was probably twice as long, but seemed to move faster and had far more to watch while waiting.

Also there were a large number of rides that mostly spun in circles that we skipped because it was clear that they were not going to worth the wait. This includes Dumbo, Astro Orbitor, the carousel, Mater’s Junkyard, and the Golden Zephyr. All looked fun, but clearly not worth a 30+ minute wait.

The parade was a joke. Nothing but a ten piece marching band and three princesses in a car. It has been a while, but the parades I recall from Disney World were much better.

The other disappointment was the Jungle Cruise. I know this ride is a classic, but it is time for it to be replaced. The line was slow, the jokes weren’t funny, and the animatronic animals were not too life-like. At least the California version doesn’t have Animal Kingdom next door to drive the point home.

Disney’s California Adventure at night
Disney’s California Adventure at night

Nightly shows

While on the topic of Disneyland’s disappointments we should mention Fantasmic. With the lack of a proper seating area viewing this show was not great. The shorter members of my family couldn’t see anything at all. From what little I could see the show looked decent, but what is the point? World of Color in the other park was only marginally better, while the staff was aggressively unhelpful at both.

The two days before going to the park we could see fireworks from our hotel, but then when we went to the park there were no fireworks. I have no idea why.

Pacific Wharf

To put things back onto a positive note, California Adventure has an area known as Pacific Wharf that is nothing but restaurants. This area is centrally located and a great idea. With a variety of foods, fast service, and the only attraction being a walk though on how to make sourdough bread, having a dedicated area to eat was great and something I have not seen at any other theme parks.

My family stands in front of the Millenium Falcon
My family stands in front of the Millenium Falcon

Star Wars Land

The big new exciting area at Disneyland is for Star Wars and the area looks really cool. While not designed to look like any specific movie, walking through the area everything has a ‘Star Wars’ type feel to it. And yeah, the Millennium Falcon is parked out front.

The downside, is that this giant beautiful area only has a single ride. A second ride is planned to open next year, but I don’t believe that anything is planned beyond that.

The one ride they do have is good, but I am not sure if I would necessarily say that it is better than Star Tours. Like the fact hat it is clearly the Falcon is cool, but the attempts to make the ride interactive fall flat. Early on I decided that I was more interested in watching the ride than in worrying about the buttons, but the narration constantly referencing the buttons takes you out of the experience. Also I have seen what the gunner controls on the Millennium Falcon look like, and it wasn’t three flashing buttons on a side panel.

Roller Coasters

Usually I am not a fan of roller coasters, but for some reason I like the ones in Disney parks. California unfortunately does not have a copy of the Rock ’n’ Roller Coaster, but all the rides I did go on I enjoyed. The main reason I dislike most coasters is the big drops, and Disney doesn’t do much of that. Instead they get you up to speed either through magnetic acceleration or repeated smaller lift hills. This keeps the speed and the turns which are fun, while doing away with the drops which are not. The Incredicoaster is the most traditional roller coaster in the parks, and was probably my least favorite for that reason. (Disclaimer: late day fastpasses combined with mechanical issues meant that I never got to ride the Matterhorn or Goofy’s Sky School coasters.)

Disney has added new theming onto their coasters turning Space Mountain into Hyperspace Mountain, and California Screaming into the Incredicoaster. Space mountain has always been a ride through the dark with lasers, so it wasn’t really all that different, but adding a John Williams score makes anything better. The Incredibles story line on the other coaster was a bit week, but the alternative was probably no story line at all, so that works out well.

Maxpass

Disney offers a service called maxpass that allows you to get fastpasses from anywhere on your phone. It is an extra $15 per person per day, which is a lot of money, but definitively worth it as it allowed us to get onto more rides then we otherwise would have.

The app went down for a few hours on one of the two days we were there, but when it was working it really helped us to plan out our day. Being able to see the wait times for a ride on the other side of the park allows you to make an informed decision about where to go next, and helped us to prevent any unnecessary waits.

Too big for one day

Even with maxpass and the app the parks are too big to see everything in one day. While we prioritized the rides we wanted to see, there was a lot that we didn’t get to. We didn’t see any of Toontown, Tom Sawyer’s Island, or Critter Country. We missed Alice in Wonderland, Mr. Toad, the Storyland boats, and the Matterhorn. Never got to Toy Story Midway Mania, Goofy’s flight school, or Grizzly Run in the second park. Despite this it still felt like we got a full day’s worth or rides.

The skyline of Disneyland
The skyline of Disneyland

A few random thoughts

Unlike most other dark rides The Little Mermaid made a large use of music from the movie. Not sure why that wasn’t thought of before, but it is a great (if obvious) idea.

I really dislike rides with big drops, so I really disliked Tower of Terror. Not really a criticism of the ride, but a reminder to myself to skip it next time.

We went to the animation academy where we were given a quick half hour lesson on how to draw Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas. I had never been to something like this before, and it was pretty fun.

Soarin’ is a great ride (it was one of only two rides we went on twice), but if they are going to film with a fisheye lens then they probably shouldn’t show a tall and straight structure like the Eiffel Tower.

The Finding Nemo Submarines were far larger ride vehicles than I expected, and for a far longer ride than I expected. As cool as the ride was, I do however wish that they had put a few real fish into the water.

Final thoughts

This trip was a lot of fun, and a reminder that Disney is significantly better than an other amusement parks. I should probably not wait so long before going back, although next time I am likely to return to Florida (or maybe adventure out to Japan).

Eric Harty

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Mobile Game and App Development - Fixing things that are not broken

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