Disneyland 2012

[ajp]

WOW!

[KeithS]

WOW!

I said something similar when I first walked in there too!

I'll get some Buena Vista Street photos up soon too.

[KeithS]

Buena Vista Street


Oswald's Garage


Streetmosphere performers


Red Car Trolley


Elias and Company Department Store


Elias and Company Department Store


Elias and Company Department Store


Carthay Circle Theatre


Carthay Circle Fountain


Carthay Circle Marquee


Della in Buena Vista Street


Fiddler, Fifer and Practical Cafe (Starbucks)


Mickey!


View down Buena Vista Street towards park entry


Imagineer Tony Baxter on Buena Vista Street


Opening day shopping (we went to the opening day merchandise event!)


Red Car Trolleys at night

Next up - The Mad T Party

(Remember, these are big photos, so if you don't think you are seeing all the image, adjust your browser's zoom.

[KeithS]

The Mad T Party (I loved this and wish I had spent more time here!)


The Flamingos



Another view of the House of Cards


Alice and the Mad Hatter!


Alice


Mad Hatter


The Band


The White Rabbit DJ


Tweedledee and Tweedledum Bouncers!


We called this guy the Slinky-man - he was cool!

[Mel]

Wow. That's all I can say. It looks like a different park altogether. I got tears in my eyes looking at the Carsland pics - I just love it when Disney does something THIS good.

What did you do at the Mad T Party? Sorry, I know there is another thread somewhere about it, but I can't remember what it's all about.

[mushu mama]

OMG..... I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE THIS IN PERSON.... -/ -/ -/

great shots Keith

[churros]

Speechless!

[KeithS]

Here are the last few days of entries from our journal.

Day 12 – Thursday, 14 June 2012
Today was a planned Disneyland day as DCA was shut for media and invited guests only. We got up fairly early and headed over to the Esplanade to see what was happening. The DCA gates were shut as expected, however all the construction walls had come down and you could see right up Buena Vista Street for the first time. It was very exciting to see! We also found Nicole’s brick which was still in good condition, and then headed through the gates and into Disneyland. We weren’t sure how busy today was going to be because of the DCA closure, but it turned out to be not too bad.

We made a bee-line for Tomorrowland and jumped straight onto Buzz Lightyear as the queue was very short. Della beat me again – grrrr… After that, we headed to Space Mountain to get a fast pass, and followed this up with Autopia and then Finding Nemo which were both short waits. We hopped onto Space Mountain then, and exited Tomorrowland via the fast pass machine for Star Tours.

We walked over to Pirates which had a short line, so we hopped aboard and had a good boat with no noisy people for once - yay! We headed over to Big Thunder but it was down, so we went up into Fantasyland for lunch at the Village Haus. There I ran into Rapunzel (and that pesky Flynn Rider) and managed to snap off a photo of her (and him). We then headed back down Big Thunder Trail and Big Thunder Mountain was working, so we grabbed a fast pass then walked over to Star Tours to go on our voyage into space.

We then headed over to the Teacups and Small World to tick off a few Fantasyland rides. We headed back towards Big Thunder, and while walking down the trail, we encountered a Mary Poppins penguin and Della got photos with it. We then jumped on Big Thunder for our ride.

We then headed to Adventureland and picked up a Dole Whip and sat down in Main Street to eat it while waiting for the Soundsational parade. While sitting there, the girl beside me started to talk to us and she was visiting from Melbourne and had never been to Disneyland before but was really enjoying it. We chatted for about half an hour until the parade began.

After the parade, we headed up through the castle and did the Sleeping Beauty Castle Walkthrough. We then hopped onto the Carousel for a ride before walking into Critter Country to ride on Pooh. We then started to head to the front of the park, but first we visited the Disney Gallery in Town Square to see their railway exhibition. We then left the park, visiting Nicole and our brick before going back to the hotel to pick up our warmer clothes for the evening.

Heading back into the park, we grabbed dinner at the Plaza Inn, before heading over to Star Traders to pick up a pendant for Barry and Narelle. We then headed over to Fantasyland where we went on Snow White and Pinocchio, before buying a churro and a hot chocolate. We went up to It’s a Small World to watch the “Let the Memories Begin” projection show on the Small World façade.

When that finished, we headed down into the hub to watch the fireworks to finish the day. On the way out of the park, we did a Disneyland survey before exiting the gates and going back to the hotel.

[KeithS]

Day 13 – Friday, 15 June 2012
We set the alarm to wake us up early as we knew it was going to be a big day. The TV news was coming live from The Esplanade and the crowd was already very big. We grabbed breakfast and then headed across the road. After getting through security, we saw the entrance lines were actually snaked side to side across the Esplanade and then down into Downtown Disney! We had to find the end of the line – and it was near the Build-a-Bear shop I Downtown! It was insane! But we hopped on the line and it moved fairly quickly. By 9:30, we were in the park!! It was great to be able to walk straight down Buena Vista Street and see the Red Car Trolley working and lots of Streetmosphere performers strutting their stuff. We went down to the new Storytellers Statue of Walt and Mickey and we were able to get our photos taken straight away without a wait. There were TV cameras and radio station broadcast booths everywhere – it was quite a scene.

We headed over to the Animation Academy building as it was the merchandise location for all the limited edition stuff. The entrance was on the side of the building and the queue was small…that is until it was pointed out to us that the main queue was on the other side of the road in the Aladdin queuing area! We hopped in the line and it took about an hour to get in the shop – and then we went crazy! It was really well organised and we first went into the Animation Academy auditorium and sat down with a number printed on a coloured card and an order form that you could select what you wanted. You entered the main shop area (the animation display room in DCA – with the lights full on for once!) and handed over your order form, and a cast member would get everything that you selected. We walked out with three giant bags of shopping, which I had to take back to the hotel.

When I got back to DCA, we walked down to Cars Land for a look around and it was totally packed. Radiator Springs Racers was up to 240 minutes! Of course, we hit the shops again and bought Cars Land ears and a soundtrack. We had to leave Cars Land via the front entrance as the RSR queue was blocking the entrance to Pacific Wharf – in fact, the queue went into Pacific Wharf up to the parade corridor and back into Cars Land! We walked up past Duffy and got another photo with him, then picked up a Fast Pass for Screamin’. We then headed to the newer restaurants at the far end of Paradise Pier and had our lunch.

After lunch we headed up to Buena Vista Street for more shopping and stuffed it in a locker before heading back to Screamin’ for our fast pass run. We then headed up to see the Aladdin show at the Hyperion Theatre – a show that never fails to impress. We then wandered through the Mad T Party area and into the Dancing with Disney Dance party area where you get to dance with Disney characters – this was a real hoot!! Afterwards we grabbed a frozen strawberry lemonade and sat down to watch the Pixar Play Parade. We then emptied our locker and headed back to the hotel for a change into our nighttime warmer clothes.

After the short break, we headed back to the park for dinner in the Pacific Wharf area. We followed this up with lining up for the World of Color. Although we stood for a long time, we had some great cast members around us giving us trivia and making us pledge allegiance to Disneyland! We had a great spot for WOC and really enjoyed it – it was a new version tonight with a section from Brave in it.

After WOC – we headed to the Mad T Party and it was truly mad and a lot of fun! The white rabbit DJ was great, and the Mad Hatter and Alice band was amazing too. We got special ears that sync to the show (and WOC) and we danced away for over an hour there until the park closed. We then came back to the hotel via the Starbucks at the Fiddler, Fifer and Practical café.

Disneyland tomorrow!

[KeithS]

Day 14 – Saturday, 16 June 2012
After all the media attention and special events of the last few days, it was back to business as usual at the Disneyland Resort – as the parks returned to their normal (although new) operating schedules. We planned only on going to Disneyland today, so after breakfast, we crossed Harbor Blvd and entered the park. We thought it was going to be a mega-busy day, and so did Disney as they were hand stamping everyone coming through the gate in the morning. This was to ensure you could still park-hop after the gates were closed if the parks hit capacity. Main Street looked pretty busy as we walked in, but the time boards didn’t reflect that, and down at the hub, it looked pretty quiet.

We walked up past the Matterhorn Bobsleds but the queue there was big as it had just returned to service, so we went to the Storybook Land Canal Boats and went for a trip on the water with them. We then caught Monorail Blue (Mandy Monorail!) for a trip all the way around the park. Each monorail now has its own personality and is tied into the Cars Land experience.

After the monorail, we got a Star Tours fast pass then went for ride on Buzz Lightyear – I beat Della this time! We then went and had lunch on the Tomorrowland Terrace where we both had bacon and cheese burgers. After lunch, I stalked Ariel on the pathway between her meet and greet and the Cast Member area, before we used our Star Tours fast pass. We had a completely different ride through of the attraction, so that was cool too.

We then went for a walk through Frontierland to the Haunted Mansion and took a ride through that. Haunted Mansion was then followed by a trip on the Jungle Cruise but the skipper wasn’t as good as the guy earlier in the week.

We then headed for a walk over to the wishing well and while we were there, Cinderella and her fairy godmother came along and kicked us out of our seat, so we headed on up to Casey Junior for a ride in the monkey cage. We then headed down to Adventureland for our afternoon Dole Whip before settling on a place for the parade.

After the parade concluded, we headed out of the park and to the hotel to begin packing. But first we went into DCA to get a refund on a mis-priced merchandise from the day before – which they fixed up for us. Back at the hotel, we unloaded all our bags and began filling them systematically – and amazingly, it looks like it will all fit!

We picked up Shelly-May and Duffy and took them to Disneyland after packing. We went to our brick first for a photo with them, and then in Disneyland where we grabbed dinner at the Jolly Holiday bakery before heading up to the Matterhorn, but it was still busy. We went into Toontown next for some photos and grabbed hot chocolates as the sun went down. We grabbed some good spots to watch the fireworks from, then afterward, made our slow exit of the park and back to the hotel.

[KeithS]

Day 15 – Sunday, 17 June 2012
It is our final day at the resort today and we wanted to make the most of it. After breakfast, we headed straight over to DCA for our final walk around the park. After entering, we had a quick walk through the shops on the right hand side of Buena Vista Street before heading into Condor Flats. We stopped by the Fly ‘n’ Buy shop to see about shipping to Australia and they advised they could do it, but very expensive and that it was cheaper in Downtown Disney. We continued our walk through Grizzly Peak National Park area and picked up the Wilderness Trail Map from the guide.

We turned right at Little Mermaid and headed on down to Mickey’s Fun Wheel – what struck us was how quiet the park seemed (we found out later where everyone was!) We hopped aboard a non-swinging cage on the fun wheel and got a good look around the resort area from up there. We were hoping to get on Toy Story Mania but there were just too many people in the queue this morning – we never saw a short queue for this attraction during our entire stay.

We walked past Screamin’ and then got a photograph with Donald in his working-sailor outfit (red stripes). We then walked down to Pacific Wharf to try out the Ghirardelli Soda Fountain. There we had a “Nob Hill Chill” which was awesome! I didn’t think we’d both finish them, but it was easy as they were so nice. We also saw the queue for Radiator Springs Racers poking out of the Cars Land entrance in Pacific Wharf – so we figured then where all the crowd was.

We walked through the side entrance near Ghirardelli into Cars Land which comes through between Fillmore’s and Sergeant’s places. Route 66 was packed full of people but we headed on down the road to see what the wait times were like. 120 minutes for Luigi’s Flying Tires, and 270(!!!) minutes for Radiator Springs Racers. Yep – this was where the people were.

After leaving the shop, we headed back up Route 66 and took the side exit from Luigi’s towards Bugs Land and stumbled upon Red the fire truck! He was so cool and was spraying the crowd with his water hose – very funny. From there, we cut through Bugs Land into the Hollywoodland area of the park beside Tower of Terror.

We walked from there up to the Carthay Circle area of the park and saw the Red Car News Boys show which introduces Mickey Mouse to California – it is a fun show with great singing and sense of fun.

We walked through the Elias and Company store for one last time before sitting a while in the new DCA town square and then leaving the park for the last time. We headed across the Esplanade and into Disneyland to do our final walkthrough of the park. We caught the fire engine in Town Square (all by ourselves, it was great) which took us down to Sleeping Beauty Castle. I spotted Ariel on the move heading to her secret footpath, and Della yelled for me to run ahead to get her picture. I entered the footpath from the other end and ran into her. I said “Hi Ariel!” and she blew me a kiss. Ahhhhhh…!!! After I cooled down…we walked through Tomorrowland and up past the Matterhorn into Fantasyland. The Matterhorn was another huge queue that never died down while we were there.

We went from Fantasyland via the Big Thunder Trail, where we walked past Clara Cluck and Eeyore – Eeyore kissed Della on the hand… Ahhhhhh…!!! We then continued to the Mark Twain dock and caught the Mark Twain around the Rivers of America. Disneyland wasn’t very busy and the Mark Twain wasn’t too full – we had a great time up on deck watching the park sail by.

From there, we walked down to Critter Country and then all the way back through Adventureland and into the Hub. We walked down Main Street through the shops on both sides of the street before going to the Plaza Inn for our traditional last-day lunch of Cobb Salad and House Salad. After lunch, we wandered down Main Street to the railway for our final Grand Circle Trip around the park. We then made our way out of Disneyland, visited our brick in the Esplanade before returning to the hotel to get ready for the bus trip to LAX and our flight home.

[Mel]

The lines for RSR sound crazy! I've never been in the parks for an opening, let alone an E ride opening so I can only imagine what it's like. I hope the queues subside over the next year.

Keith, one day that Princess stalking of yours is going to get you into trouble!

[KeithS]

Keith, one day that Princess stalking of yours is going to get you into trouble!

LOL! Although in this case, Della made me do it

Here she is:

[churros]

Why is there always a queue for Matterhorn?

[KeithS]

Why is there always a queue for Matterhorn?

In this case, it had been shut for a six month refurbishment and it reopened the same day as Carsland. Hence the big crowd wanting to see what changes there were.