Wow, no lines and Hilly too...
I better not hear any complaining out of you for a while, there, mister!
There are perfect days... and then there are perfect days.
Since Hilly and I are BFFs in the blogosphere as well as in real-life, we had made plans to spend today in Disneyland. I didn't have any work appointments, so it was a great idea because I hadn't been to the park in a long while. I used to go all the time, but kind of got burnt out on the whole Disney thing, and stopped visiting around seven years ago.
Anyway...
For a reason unknown to both of us, we decided to become Southerners for our day of Big Disney Fun, and took on the entirely new personas of "Hilly-Sue O'Hara" and "Davy-Joe Butler" all frickin' day...
Davy-Joe and Hilly-Sue ride the Grizzly River Run!
We started off in the California Adventure park, where the first ride we went on was the Grizzly River Run. It was very cool and got us very, very wet. The not-so-cool part was when something went wrong with the ride, and we were stuck at the top of the falls for around 10 minutes. Little did we know that this would not be the last time something like that happened.
Soaking wet, we moved on to the remainder of the park... which is actually kind of lame. Most of the attractions are just off-the-shelf stuff with none of the clever theme-work that Disney is famous for. With the exception of "Tower of Terror" (which is missing some of the cool stuff you get to see in the Orlando version) everything is just so ordinary. In my humble opinion, California Adventure is kind of an embarrassment for Disney and should have never been made. They should have worked harder to come up with better, more interesting, and certainly more unique, attractions.
Borrrrrrrrrring!
Though I DID get to meet one of my favorite cartoon characters ever... Sully from Monsters Inc.!!
I love you Sully!!
As we went back across the plaza to Disneyland, we started noticing some very cool things. First of all the weather, which we had heard would be filled with rain, actually ended up being a positively stunning day. All the clouds were gone within an hour leaving us with nothing but blue skies and cool breezes for the rest of the day...
The second cool thing was that both parks were entirely decked-out for Halloween...
But the BEST cool thing about our visit?? NO LINES!!!
Except for the brand-new Finding Nemo version of the old Submarine Ride in Tomorrowland (which is excellent, by the way)... we didn't stand in line for more than a few minutes on anything! The queues were wide-open, meaning that we could just walk up to all the rides and walk-on. Sweet!!
And walk-on we did... to all but two rides we were wanting to visit. The Haunted Mansion was closed so they could re-theme it for "A Nightmare Before Christmas." And The Matterhorn broke down right as we were next in line to board a bobsled. But everything else... from Splash Mountain to Pirates of the Caribbean to Space Mountain was a piece of cake.
Between the perfect weather, HalloweenTime fun, Hilly's company, and NO LINES, this is the single best trip to Disneyland I've ever had.
The only bummer was when we were reminded that Dustin wasn't there joining us every time we saw a churro cart...
And when we finally had to leave as the park was closing at 8:00...
All-in-all, the entire day was some kind of Disney magic!
And now I'm exhausted from walking entirely too much, eating entirely too much, and talking entirely too much... time to drop into a coma.
Where I'll be dreaming of Mickey Mouse and my perfect day at Disneyland.
That's awesome. Sully is a top favorite of mine too, but only because he can do 200 upside-down-situps without breaking a sweat. I can't wait for them to do a Monsters, Inc II where "Boo" is in her 30's and Sully is in his 60's and they end up having a love affair.
What.
That settles it. The first trip to Disney World here is going to consist of taking the kids out of school on a week day and heading off to the Magical World Of NO LINES!!!
Posted by Miss Britt on September 21, 2007 | Reply
YAY!!! I thought of you two when it started clearing off, and thought you must have been VERY GOOD KIDS for the Weather Gods to smile on your D-Day. I'm so glad all went well.
Now let's hope the weather's not too horrible when Bret and I make the drive to LA tomorrow.
OMG, DAVE!!! Tomorrow night we FINALLY meet!
How cute are the two of you!!
You are making me want to visit Disneyland for the first time very berry much so!
Posted by diane on September 21, 2007 | Reply
No lines? On a nice sunny day? At a Disney park? What weird parallel universe vortex did you fall into???
Posted by Robert on September 21, 2007 | Reply
Wow. I've never been. I'm having a little moment here.
And on top of it all, Sully! I am so jealous!
Posted by blanetalk on September 21, 2007 | Reply
How fun!!!! Thanks for the great pics.
No lines, that is a "big wow."
Did Sully ask about Bad Monkey?
Posted by bogup on September 21, 2007 | Reply
Why Davy-Joe, I do believe you know how to make a girl blush what with all that fancy talk and stuff.
It really was an absolutely perfect day and you were the biggest part of that perfection....hrm, or was it the lines? ;)
Thank you again for you-know-what and sorry again for you-know-what. ;)
How cool! I'm glad you had a good time at the big D, but it sounds like you missed the one and only reason to visit Disney's California Adventure: SOARIN' OVER CALIFORNIA... I want that ride in my living room! I'm so happy the weather is cooperating. That picture of you with Sully is priceless.
Posted by Atomic Bombshell on September 21, 2007 | Reply
I went to that Disneyland when i was about 6 years old. My brother and I lost our minds on the "Schmatterhorn", we thought that was he most exciting ride EVER. And the Haunted House scared me so bad i had nightmares. "There's NO WAY OOOUUTT!"
AND it was around the time of Chinese New Year and we were watching the dragon parade and the dragon shot fire out of its nose and snapped its mouth open and closed very close to me and i freaked the fuck out and my parents had to carry me away screaming because I thought it was trying to EAT me.
And I think I punched Mickey Mouse. I didn't like him, I wanted Donald Duck, dammit!
RW... Uhhh... this is ME we're talking about. Complaining is what my blog is made for!
Avitable... And I can't wait to see it. :-)
Delmer... Me too. And all those reruns of the Mickey Mouse Club! All that was missing was Tinkerbell. :-)
Lewis... My first visit was in the 70's, and things sure have changed! Mostly for the better... but sometimes not. Still, it's tough not love Disneyland? :-)
Bre... Well, I think that they're just as fun as you want to make them out to be. But Disney World sure has a LOT more to do than Disneyland.
Wayne... Uhhh...
Kilax... That's because I love Sully! I even have a Sully plush toy at home on my desk!
Amanda... You should be! Sully is awesome!! :-)
Mia... Some of them have Halloween accents on their costumes, and some of the characters do too... but I didn't see a lot of that. This may change as it gets closer to Halloween though.
Sue... Hanging out with Hilly is definitely the hi-light of the day... as anybody who has met her can attest.
Miss Britt... I've been to both Disney parks dozens of times and have never seen anything like this before... even during a weekday. It was mondo-bizarre.
SJ... Indeed! The weather is supposed to be all rainy in the morning, but is supposed to clear off in the afternoon. Drive safe you two!
Diane... I think everybody should go to Disney at least once in their lives. Or several times. :-)
Robert... Both Hilly and I were wondering the same thing!
Blanetalk... Yes, meeting Sully was almost too good to be true.
Bogup... Sully was so in awe of meeting me that he didn't speak at all!
Hilly... It was probably the no-lines. :-)
Whit... I certainly hope so. Originally, I was going to just buy a pass for California Adventure, thinking that I could just spend the entire day there. Now I know that had I done that, I would have been very disappointed! With a few exceptions, it didn't seem much like a Disney park at all. :-(
Sizzle... I guess it could have been a bummer if Sully mauled both of us and we had to go to the hospital!
Sandra... Well, it did add another level of excitement to the day... albeit a totally bizarre one. I still have no idea how it happened. We just started being rednecks and didn't stop!
Bombshell... I've been on Soarin' in both California and Orlando and do like it a lot. We thought the lines were going to be long, so we went to Grizzly first... then didn't want to go to Soarin' all wet, so we decided to skip it. :-(
Karla... Hilly had to take me away screaming after I thought that Cinderella was going to eat me, so I can totally relate.
No lines at Disney is unheard of. I have been to DW in FL on some very lightly attended days. It's great to have the park to yourself.
California Soaring is the best ride in the California park. We went to Disneyland a few years ago and only rode rides they didn't have in Florida.
Patty... I tell you, it will be VERY hard to go back to standing in line now that I've experienced the life of no-lines!
Yellojkt... They have Soarin' on both coasts now. It's the same ride, but in Florida they tell you that you are flying TO California instead of being IN California.
Foo...Oh I'm afraid it's not Dottie anymore... it's Dottie-Mae!
:-)
Man, I miss that place. I grew up 1.5 miles from there and have almost always had a great time.
No lines... the best is being able to ride the same ride over and over... hopping the gate and jumping right back on the ride. Indiana Jones and Pirates are easy to do that on.
Glad you had fun there.
Posted by ChillyWilly on September 21, 2007 | Reply
gosh that brings back memories :)
I went (for the second time) in 2000, in late November, had a perfect sunny day, and NO LINES! Well almost none - the longest wait was for one of the kids rides (Dumbo I think) for ten minutes. I went on Space Mountain three times! (has that been reopened?)
We had to leave early (4pm) to go catch a plane, but in the six hours I was there I went on nearly every single ride, except the Indiana Jones ride, which I skipped so I could go on Pirates of the Caribbean, which we didn't get to do in 1983, and I'd wanted to since Jurassic Park came out.
They were nearing completion on the California Adventure, so didn't get to go there, maybe next time :)
I hate to tell you just how old I am, but I lived in Santa Ana, Calif.( during my Military Days) in the early 60's and could heard the Disneyland Fireworks every night. On the weekends , a couple could get in for $5 and they had dance bands. Actually got to meet Annette from the Mickey Mouse Club....
Posted by Harold on September 21, 2007 | Reply
I am a lurker - love both you and Hilly. I watched Disneyland being built (shows my age) and I was there opening day.
Posted by Diana on September 24, 2007 | Reply
OMG, you totally ate Churros and thought of me. That's the like the nicest food anyone has ever associated me with (previously the record holder was an avocado...I will not expand further on that point).
Did you jointly raise your Churros in salute to me?
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