Disneyland in full
Alright, after over 13 hours at Disneyland yesterday and a reasonable amount of sleep last night, I'm in a much better state to write about Disneyland.
When we decided that we were off to Disneyland, we looked up a bunch of guides and resources on the internet, and they all said about the same thing. "PLAN YOUR VISIT". So we looked up the rides and attractions beforehand, checked parade times, figured out ticketing etc etc and by the time we reached the park just after the gates opened at 8AM Wednesday morning, I felt that we were pretty prepared. Well, the best laid plans and all that, we ended up doing things in all sorts of orders at all sorts of times. But, when we left at quarter to 10 that night, it turns out we did and saw pretty much everything we wanted to (with one exception, but I'll go into that later).
So, park overview time. basically, Disneyland is split up into 8 sections, as you can see on this (slightly out of date) map, though these sometimes blend and bleed into each-other.
Main Street, USA is the centre of the park. While there are no rides in Main Street, it acts as a hub for all of the other Lands, as well as housing most of the shops in the park (of which there are a great many).
Passing through Main Street USA, we found some lockers to put our backpack in (we had packed some lunch on account of the ridiculously expensive food prices at the park, which are only exacerbated by the Australian-US dollar exchange rate. $2.50 (US) for a Dill Pickle? No Thankyou.). At this point, at around 8:15 in the morning, the park was quite quiet, so we decided to do on a couple of the rides which we knew would be busy later on in the day. Our first stop occured in Adventureland, an island-themed land and, as you can see, Hayley and Pippa's natural habitat. The Indiana Jones ride took us in a jeep through volcanoes and the jungle before we were chased down a narrow passae by a giant rolling boulder. Next, we went to one of the park's oldest attractions, the jungle cruise. In Adventureland, this involves a cruise through a jungle full of animatronic creatures, as well as the various wisecracks and corny jokes of the tour guide (I think I found a job for Alex). Next, we took a look at Frontierland, a Wild-west themed section with a shooting gallery (I'm not very good), an old tyme saloon, a train-ride rollercoaster called thunder mountain and more gift shops. After getting thoroughly wet at Splash mountain, we proceeded on to New Orleans Square, where we went on the Pirates of the Carribean animatronic boat ride (complete with evil-ghost-skeleton-pirates), as well as the Haunted house, which has been appropriated by a 'Nightmare before Christmas' themed dark ride ('dark ride is the term used to describe the rides where you get in a little carriage and proceed through a series of animatronic scenes in the dark). Next, we went to Tom Sawyer island, and explored the forts and caves there, as well as having a lovely picnic lunch. When we returned to the fantasy castle, we saw a bunch of people gathered around. Looking closer, we found that we had stumbled upon some kind of teen beauty contest, with girls wearing sashes and tiaras posing for photos. Fantasyland was our next stop, and the world famous teacups ride.
After dizzying ourselves on the teacups, we took on the Matterhorn Bobsled ride, which travels through one of the parks landmarks features, a 1/64th scale model of the Matterhorn mountain in the Swiss Alps. We hung around the park for a little longer, taking on the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blast ride (not too special) and the Space Mountain rollercoaster (amazing). Once that was all over, we watched the final fireworks, a 20 minute long spectacular which ends with a beautiful snowfall.
Overall, Disneyland was amazing. It was -busy- during the afternoon and evening (when we got there at 8, there was almost no-one around), but most of the rides we wanted to go on had a special ticket system, so we didn't spend much time waiting around in lines. We didn't end up seeing the "A Small World" dark ride, one of the iconic Disneyland attractions, just because of the huge lines, but everything else was just great.
Note that entries from now on might be shorter than these last 2, as I am very limited in my computer time with the whole family needing to check email, update blogs etc etc.
When we decided that we were off to Disneyland, we looked up a bunch of guides and resources on the internet, and they all said about the same thing. "PLAN YOUR VISIT". So we looked up the rides and attractions beforehand, checked parade times, figured out ticketing etc etc and by the time we reached the park just after the gates opened at 8AM Wednesday morning, I felt that we were pretty prepared. Well, the best laid plans and all that, we ended up doing things in all sorts of orders at all sorts of times. But, when we left at quarter to 10 that night, it turns out we did and saw pretty much everything we wanted to (with one exception, but I'll go into that later).
So, park overview time. basically, Disneyland is split up into 8 sections, as you can see on this (slightly out of date) map, though these sometimes blend and bleed into each-other.
Main Street, USA is the centre of the park. While there are no rides in Main Street, it acts as a hub for all of the other Lands, as well as housing most of the shops in the park (of which there are a great many).
Passing through Main Street USA, we found some lockers to put our backpack in (we had packed some lunch on account of the ridiculously expensive food prices at the park, which are only exacerbated by the Australian-US dollar exchange rate. $2.50 (US) for a Dill Pickle? No Thankyou.). At this point, at around 8:15 in the morning, the park was quite quiet, so we decided to do on a couple of the rides which we knew would be busy later on in the day. Our first stop occured in Adventureland, an island-themed land and, as you can see, Hayley and Pippa's natural habitat. The Indiana Jones ride took us in a jeep through volcanoes and the jungle before we were chased down a narrow passae by a giant rolling boulder. Next, we went to one of the park's oldest attractions, the jungle cruise. In Adventureland, this involves a cruise through a jungle full of animatronic creatures, as well as the various wisecracks and corny jokes of the tour guide (I think I found a job for Alex). Next, we took a look at Frontierland, a Wild-west themed section with a shooting gallery (I'm not very good), an old tyme saloon, a train-ride rollercoaster called thunder mountain and more gift shops. After getting thoroughly wet at Splash mountain, we proceeded on to New Orleans Square, where we went on the Pirates of the Carribean animatronic boat ride (complete with evil-ghost-skeleton-pirates), as well as the Haunted house, which has been appropriated by a 'Nightmare before Christmas' themed dark ride ('dark ride is the term used to describe the rides where you get in a little carriage and proceed through a series of animatronic scenes in the dark). Next, we went to Tom Sawyer island, and explored the forts and caves there, as well as having a lovely picnic lunch. When we returned to the fantasy castle, we saw a bunch of people gathered around. Looking closer, we found that we had stumbled upon some kind of teen beauty contest, with girls wearing sashes and tiaras posing for photos. Fantasyland was our next stop, and the world famous teacups ride.
After dizzying ourselves on the teacups, we took on the Matterhorn Bobsled ride, which travels through one of the parks landmarks features, a 1/64th scale model of the Matterhorn mountain in the Swiss Alps. We hung around the park for a little longer, taking on the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blast ride (not too special) and the Space Mountain rollercoaster (amazing). Once that was all over, we watched the final fireworks, a 20 minute long spectacular which ends with a beautiful snowfall.
Overall, Disneyland was amazing. It was -busy- during the afternoon and evening (when we got there at 8, there was almost no-one around), but most of the rides we wanted to go on had a special ticket system, so we didn't spend much time waiting around in lines. We didn't end up seeing the "A Small World" dark ride, one of the iconic Disneyland attractions, just because of the huge lines, but everything else was just great.
Note that entries from now on might be shorter than these last 2, as I am very limited in my computer time with the whole family needing to check email, update blogs etc etc.
posted by Jono Russell at 5:23 am
2 Comments:
Hey, I remember all that stuff now too. Did your tour guide say the Nile joke on the river boat cruise? That joke still cracks me up. Anyway I hope your having a great time and I look forward to the next few entries. Have fun.
alright! enough already! talk about making a person feel lef tout :P
i will just have to talk about the paris disneyland... all by myself! ha!
lol! no, it sounds great! i am so going there.. one day... i will find time!
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