Anaheim, Day #5, 6/29/06 - Make with the F***ing Happy, Dammit!

The entire day was spent at Disneyland. The entire day. 9 AM to 10:30 PM. Our feet hurt.

Getting to & from the amusement park was no difficulty at all, thanks to a local resort shuttle service running from the Marriott. tdjohnsn's feet still hadn't recovered from dancing earlier in the week so he was in a great deal of pain towards the latter half of the day. He's now going to be referred to as Gimpy Johnson, GJ for short.

Crowds were already large when we arrived at Disneyland, and grew considerably over the next several hours. Our own little crowd grew too: local (hot) friend & Disney employee Steve Carrasco joined us after lunch, as well as Bay area resident Bruce Little. We encountered other small groups of square dancers as well, including the Grand Rapids/Cleveland gang and the Vancouver trio, among others. The LA bear group was also prowling the grounds and while our groups intersected periodically, we didn't amass into a single group as we all had different agendas for rides.

We started with Tomorrow Land, a demonstration of widgets and electronic toys meant to impress the untechnological masses. Alas, our little group is pretty sophisticated toy-wise so that portion wasn't overly interesting. Some of the interactive displays also held our attention briefly but on the whole, it was mostly a bust. It was a good leisurely start though.

rlegters, tdjohnsn & I went on the Indiana Jones ride together. It was probably the longest waiting period for anything we attempted (40 minutes); Kent doesn't do roller coasters so he preferred to sit this one out. Still, it seems there was nothing much for him to worry about as this ride was simple a large "jeep" rolling over rough roads with only a couple of sudden drops and a handful of sharp but level turns. I've done worse with my Civic, although I have to admit his fingerprints are still embedded in the Jesus handles.

From that point onwards, GJ was both recommending rides and attempting to weird me out at the same time. We went on "Peter Pan's Magical Ride," a very tame ride which does a reasonable job of simulating a flight over Victorian London and Never Land, although I was still wretching from the ride operator's "...with just a touch of pixie dust, you'll be on your way!" Bleh.

We also did the It's a Small, Small World ride. The world may be small, but the ride never seemed to end: after rounding each corner, there was a new set of countries to explore and that damn song was haunting me the rest of the day. We met up with dr_scott & excessor immediately following the ride for a few minutes before they wisely called it a day & headed home, no doubt also humming that irresistable earworm.

The Haunted House tour was also kinda fun... lots of neat optical geez-how-did-they-do-that effects. Again, amusing for the more sophisticated crowd, fascinating to the younger set.

We did get on one true roller coaster towards the end of the day after most of the lines had vanished: an Old West mining car ride. Kent refused to join but he had to wait only 10 minutes for us to cycle through thanks to the lack of lines. Whee!

All things considered, it was a good time. Food and incidentals were reasonably priced, to my great surprise: so many other theme parks crank up the prices to outrageous levels once you're incarcerated in their walls.

Disney has perfected a number of arts which I greatly admire. For example, the art of garbage receptacle placement --and altering their appearance slightly to match the surroundings appropriately. There was always a bin within a few steps, making the park cleaner than our kitchen. Many rides were double-loading for faster throughput: queues were split midway so that either parallel tracks could be loaded at once or people could be stretched out over a longer path for loading. Several rides also had moving walkways alongside the non-stop rolling of cars so that the only time the ride actually stops is to load mobility-impaired patrons. While every detail has been covered in the waiting areas for rides, I do wish for more shade --thank god for my straw hat-- and sometimes it wasn't clear *where* to begin queuing for lack of signs or markers.

And Disney has perfected the musical segue. They have a vast library of musical numbers from their catalogues of films, all playing in appropriate areas of the park over loudspeakers or as part of presentations. No piece seemed to be played more than 45 seconds before it morphed seemlessly into the next like musical ADD. Disney's contribution to the fine arts.

After dinner at a cajun restaurant just outside of the park, Steve said good-bye and the rest of us boarded the monorail to head back into Disneyland. We did a little more window shopping before finally heading to the shuttle waiting area, catching the 11 PM bus back to our hotel. We each had a quick shower, then crashed.

Anaheim, Day #5, 6/29/06 - Make with the F***ing Happy, Dammit!

The entire day was spent at Disneyland. The entire day. 9 AM to 10:30 PM. Our feet hurt.

Getting to & from the amusement park was no difficulty at all, thanks to a local resort shuttle service running from the Marriott. tdjohnsn's feet still hadn't recovered from dancing earlier in the week so he was in a great deal of pain towards the latter half of the day. He's now going to be referred to as Gimpy Johnson, GJ for short.

Crowds were already large when we arrived at Disneyland, and grew considerably over the next several hours. Our own little crowd grew too: local (hot) friend & Disney employee Steve Carrasco joined us after lunch, as well as Bay area resident Bruce Little. We encountered other small groups of square dancers as well, including the Grand Rapids/Cleveland gang and the Vancouver trio, among others. The LA bear group was also prowling the grounds and while our groups intersected periodically, we didn't amass into a single group as we all had different agendas for rides.

We started with Tomorrow Land, a demonstration of widgets and electronic toys meant to impress the untechnological masses. Alas, our little group is pretty sophisticated toy-wise so that portion wasn't overly interesting. Some of the interactive displays also held our attention briefly but on the whole, it was mostly a bust. It was a good leisurely start though.

rlegters, tdjohnsn & I went on the Indiana Jones ride together. It was probably the longest waiting period for anything we attempted (40 minutes); Kent doesn't do roller coasters so he preferred to sit this one out. Still, it seems there was nothing much for him to worry about as this ride was simple a large "jeep" rolling over rough roads with only a couple of sudden drops and a handful of sharp but level turns. I've done worse with my Civic, although I have to admit his fingerprints are still embedded in the Jesus handles.

From that point onwards, GJ was both recommending rides and attempting to weird me out at the same time. We went on "Peter Pan's Magical Ride," a very tame ride which does a reasonable job of simulating a flight over Victorian London and Never Land, although I was still wretching from the ride operator's "...with just a touch of pixie dust, you'll be on your way!" Bleh.

We also did the It's a Small, Small World ride. The world may be small, but the ride never seemed to end: after rounding each corner, there was a new set of countries to explore and that damn song was haunting me the rest of the day. We met up with dr_scott & excessor immediately following the ride for a few minutes before they wisely called it a day & headed home, no doubt also humming that irresistable earworm.

The Haunted House tour was also kinda fun... lots of neat optical geez-how-did-they-do-that effects. Again, amusing for the more sophisticated crowd, fascinating to the younger set.

We did get on one true roller coaster towards the end of the day after most of the lines had vanished: an Old West mining car ride. Kent refused to join but he had to wait only 10 minutes for us to cycle through thanks to the lack of lines. Whee!

All things considered, it was a good time. Food and incidentals were reasonably priced, to my great surprise: so many other theme parks crank up the prices to outrageous levels once you're incarcerated in their walls.

Disney has perfected a number of arts which I greatly admire. For example, the art of garbage receptacle placement --and altering their appearance slightly to match the surroundings appropriately. There was always a bin within a few steps, making the park cleaner than our kitchen. Many rides were double-loading for faster throughput: queues were split midway so that either parallel tracks could be loaded at once or people could be stretched out over a longer path for loading. Several rides also had moving walkways alongside the non-stop rolling of cars so that the only time the ride actually stops is to load mobility-impaired patrons. While every detail has been covered in the waiting areas for rides, I do wish for more shade --thank god for my straw hat-- and sometimes it wasn't clear *where* to begin queuing for lack of signs or markers.

And Disney has perfected the musical segue. They have a vast library of musical numbers from their catalogues of films, all playing in appropriate areas of the park over loudspeakers or as part of presentations. No piece seemed to be played more than 45 seconds before it morphed seemlessly into the next like musical ADD. Disney's contribution to the fine arts.

After dinner at a cajun restaurant just outside of the park, Steve said good-bye and the rest of us boarded the monorail to head back into Disneyland. We did a little more window shopping before finally heading to the shuttle waiting area, catching the 11 PM bus back to our hotel. We each had a quick shower, then crashed.