Re: Cali & Coasters PTR- Day 4 up (Universal)
Day 5- California Adventure
After eating McDonalds equipped with FANCY ketchup, we took the Amtrak to Anaheim which wasn't as much effort as I thought it was going to be, although we had an EXTREMELY annoying woman behind us on the phone who said "you know" every three words. I got to learn all about her troubles planning a meeting for her agency and about her boyfriend problems as well.
We got to our hotel room around ten thirty, which was actually pretty decent. We quickly tossed our bags down and headed out to Disney!
We walked the wrong way down the street that Disney is on thanks to my directionally challenged self, and we ended up at one of the parking lots, so we just decided to take the shuttle to save us from walking back. It had kind of a long line but the shuttles run constantly so it took like five minutes.
AHH my first glimpse of Disneyland!
We decided to go to California Adventure for the first day, which was kind of stupid considering Wednesday was probably the least busy day out of the three days we were there, but we didn't want to go to the better park and then be disappointed by Cali Adventure!
I remember when Cali Adventure had really bad reviews, but they've really like, turned it around because I think it's a fab park.
I love the name of this food place...
The first thing we did was Monsters Inc which was exciting because I love Monsters Inc!
Overall thoughts: Monsters Inc- It was probably my favourite "sit in a car and go through scenes from the movie" ride at all of Disney, and there are a LOT of those! I thought it was really well done and the way Randall changed colours and stuff was really cool!
After that relaxing ride through Monstropolis, we headed to Tower of Terror, which Ethan told me he wasn't going to ride but decided at the last minute that he was gonna give it a try, which I give him a lot of credit for to be fair. We waited about twenty minutes before we boarded the service elevator of doom!
Overall thoughts: Tower of Terror- Well, I personally thought it was really fab! I liked actually knowing it wasn't just all a simulator (unlike when I was in Florida and my dad lied to me when I was 8 and told me it was just all special effects, then I nearly shat myself when the windows opened which kind of ruined it for me), and the special effects were pretty awesome. I love how the queues, like pretty much everything else at Disney, are extensively themed as well. Obviously Ethan really hated it, and it was his least favourite thing at Disney, not to mention he tore the pocket of his pants when he tried getting up from his seat.
After Tower of Terror we went to It's Tough to be a Bug. Poor show had like nobody in line for it, so there were like five people watching it.
Overall thoughts: It's Tough to be a Bug- The 3D kind of bothered my eyes. It really is a hit or miss for me when it comes to 3D, because either I love it or it hurts me to watch it. I really hated the part where all the spiders come down from the ceiling, and I thought the big Flik in the ceiling was creepy as well, but the way the seats moved up and down was pretty neat.
We didn't do anything else in Bugs Life land, but I thought the whole area was rather cute.
Cars Land was next, which was obviously the busiest part of the park!
The theme was brilliant obviously, and despite not being a fan of the movie Cars, I enjoyed myself.
Since Tow Mater is like the only saving grace in the movie, I took a picture of him!
One thing I learned about Disney is that they are great at hiding queues, so thinking that the queue for Radiator Springs Racers was fairly short, we got in line instead of using Fastpass. Little did I know I was very wrong. Oh well, I used the time in line to take some pictures.
I couldn't get over how amazingly themed the ride was! There was always something to look at. Sadly, when we were about fifteen minutes away from riding, it broke down. Ethan wanted to get out of line to which I was like HELL NO, so we waited it out and about twenty minutes later it re-opened.
Overall thoughts: Radiator Springs Racers- Even though we waited an hour and a half for it, I thought it was worth it. Hell, I don't even like Cars and I thought the ride was good! I wasn't really sure what happened inside the building since I tried to keep everything a surprise at Disney, but I was super impressed. The race part wasn't super exciting but the ride as a whole was really good.
We got hungry so we went to Pacific Wharf to get some Mexican food.
There wasn't really anything there apart from the food, which was decent food as far as Disney is concerned. I've heard bad things about their food, but this wasn't too bad! We headed to the Paradise Pier area after eating.
I got in line for California Screamin by myself as Ethan went to grab jackets from the hotel room because it was getting chilly out.
Overall thoughts: California Screamin- Once again, it was the whole thing of not knowing what the ride does apart from a launch and a loop that increased my enjoyment. I only waited like fifteen minutes, and although it wasn't a great ride nor as intricately themed as many other things in the park, but the ride was fun.
After going on that I had to wait around for Ethan to get back with the jackets, which he soon did so we went to King Triton's Carousel. I'm obviously not going to review this because it's just a carousel but the theming was fab. Ethan's camera started to break which was like, really annoying but I assured him that we still had mine so all was well (or so I thought, DUN DUN DUNNN so suspenseful).
Even though the line for Toy Story looked like it was really long, I didn't want to miss it so we sucked it up.
In line, Ethan's camera started to work again and mine stopped working. This seemed to be a trend throughout the entire trip. I got it to work eventually but the pictures from the rest of the night turned out really poor.
Overall thoughts: Toy Story Midway Mania- Even though I was a poor sport when I lost, I loved it obviously! The shooting mechanism thing worked really well and I thought it was really good fun. The 3D was good too and it didn't hurt my eyes, so that was a bonus. Not sure how I feel about pretty much the entire thing just being screens, but whatever, it was fun.
It was getting fairly late by this point and so we asked what time World of Colour started, to which the worker replied that it was at 8PM. We had time to take some pictures and do a few more things, so we did the Little Mermaid ride. We knew we would have time to go back and get the rides we missed on our third day so it wasn't a big deal that we had a laid back day and didn't get everything done.
Overall thoughts: Little Mermaid- I HATE the Little Mermaid, she is a stupid greedy bitch, but the ride was really well done and it was one of the better "drive through scenes from the movie" rides at Disney. It was so jolly and the music was so cute, I think I just smiled through the entire thing.
We went to the bridge to sit for World of Colour, where I sat freezing my butt off for about half an hour. Soon, it was 8PM and nothing was happening. Then, a lady said it actually started at 9PM and since I didn't want to freeze I decided to just give up and not watch it. I had plans to go back on the third day to watch it but it ended up that I didn't get to see it at all </3
On the way to Soarin', we found some adventure playhouse which had the NETS OF DEATH. I hated it because my foot kept falling through the nets, but it was all in good fun since we had hysterics. I have a few videos of me being an epic fail, but I'll post them when they're uploaded.
We also got to TRY A CHURRO, which was amazing and FRESH.
Then we went to Soarin', which had a long queue and stuff so we asked how to get a Fastpass, then we ended up having a little chit chat with the worker who gave us skip the line passes! We ended up getting to sit in the front row and got to skip like a forty minute wait.
Overall thoughts: Soarin- OMG I loved it! It was only good in the front seat as I later found out, but yeah it was really brilliant! I like how they combine a few scents in there as well, like with the orange garden thing. It really felt like you were flying around, which was a really cool sensation. Definitely the best motion simulator I've been on.
We decided to call it quits since we were going to have to be up for Magic Mornings the next day, which required me getting up at like 4:45am. We did get a chance to see some of the park at night though.
We stopped by the Mad Tea Party thing, which was okay but I felt like it was kind of dumb and maybe something that belonged in Downtown Disney instead. Don't get me wrong, it was cool, but not for little kids.
Then I bought Minnie ears and Subway.
That concludes day 5!
. There was enough to do to keep us entertained from about 10:30-4:30 and that was with no queues so it was fine. Half the day was probably taken up by going up and down the escalators between the Upper and Lower lots haha! But ya like, Studio Tour took an hour to get through, I did Mummy twice, Transformers twice (I think just walking through the maze of queues took like a million years), Jurassic Park once, sat and ate for a bit, Simpsons had a 20 minute queue, then the House of Horrors, Shrek, Terminator, and Special Effects stage, then went into a few of the shops, so there was definitely enough. We didn't go to Citywalk or anything either which could have taken up some more time as well.
