The Great and Powerful Wizard of Disneyland

Other than the occasional 'log jam' while waiting to disembark, I can't recall ever having been stuck on a broken down amusement park ride. No elevators or revolving doors. Really just traffic and the occasional airplane while it sits on the tarmac and pumps fresh jet fuel-laden air into the cabin.

That's what I would have told you 10 days ago. Now, however, I can recall quite a number of occasions, all within the very recent past, in which my presence was the common denominator in the malfunction of several attractions. 

Indiana Jones

This is one of the newer attractions at Disneyland, and it is very original, I think. It's like a hybrid roller coaster/standard ride. You ride in a giant Jeep with third-row seating (must be a Commander), seated four across. The Jeep rolls along a track at varying speeds to coincide with the events taking place in the attraction. The part I think is clever is that the Jeep itself moves up, down, forward, backward, and side-to-side, as in the 'road' is a smooth path, but hydraulics in the Jeep make for a very bumpy ride.

The premise is that Indiana Jones has made a new discovery that includes some kind of idol which grants wishes. But if anyone looks directly into the idols' eyes, they meet their end. Consequently, people have been flocking to the dig site (AKA the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland). Indiana, however, entered the temple several days prior and has yet to emerge. Uh oh!

We had gotten FastPasses, as the lines are typically quite long. The FastPass allowed us to go through a special entrance and walk right past 40 minutes worth of waiting patrons. Standing in line isn't so bad. The lines are staged in corridors of the archaeological dig. There are torches on the wall, wooden trunks, scaffolding, chains, and a slew of other artifacts strewn about that make for an entertaining wait. The last stage of the line collects people into a large room within the temple (50 people or so). They show a black and white old-time news reel film about the dig, the idol, Indiana, the wishes that have been granted. They also show a safety video for the ride in the same style. I'd say it's about a 3 minute loop so that everyone sees it as they pass through that area.

That is where the trouble began. Our FastPasses let us skip directly to that room. Sara, Djeryd and I were going to ride while Sean and My were watching the little kids, then switch (Sean and My had FastPasses, too). When we were approximately 15 people away from getting out of that room and into the Jeep-loading lines, everything stopped. The special effects stopped. The ride stopped. The background music stopped. Everything stopped - except for that newsreel film! First we were told that the ride had gone down twice before on that day, and that both times it took about five minutes to recover. We waited the five minutes. Then we waited five more. And another five. Some people started asking about accommodations should they exit the line. The rule was, as laid out by our guide, if you leave the line on your accord, you've given up your place in line and must start at the beginning upon return. If you are asked to leave by the ride operators, you will be given a FastPass good anytime for the remainder of the day. FastPasses generally specify a one hour window of validity. A couple of people left. They'd waited in the 40 minutes line and then an additional 15 minutes in the room with that newsreel playing over and over again. I can't really blame them. After about 20 minutes the guide announced that everything was coming back up and it would take a couple of minutes to cycle through the 'log jam'. We didn't make it that far. You know that moment during a power outage when you hear the refrigerator power up again, maybe the furnace and some lights? And then a split second later everything cuts out again? That's what happened. A few more people exited the line, including a couple ahead of us which made us feel like we were getting closer.

FINALLY, after 25-30 minutes of our 'FastPass' wait, and 25-30 minutes of that maddening film, the ride really did get fixed and we rode it, and it was great, and Djeryd only liked some parts. Not the cockroaches and not the bumps and not the "waiting in that one room" so much, just the parts with Indiana Jones in them.

When we finally made it out of the cursed temple alive, the FastPass line was actually longer than the regular line. Sean and My decided to save their adventure for another day.

Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters - Twice

Astro Blasters is also fairly new, though it was already there two years ago. It is also a unique/hybrid-type ride. You sit in what I presume is a Buzz Lightyear spaceship, two per. There is a laser blaster for each person and a spin control knob. The spaceships are all mounted on a moving sidewalk - think baggage claim with the U-shaped segments that can turn corners. The best part about this design is the waiting line is constantly moving as people load onto the constantly moving spaceships. There is something like a freeway merge where the people standing in line step onto a moving sidewalk that runs parallel to the conveyor toting the spaceships. Then just grab your blaster, buckle up and go. 

Here's the hybrid part. Not only are you riding in the spaceship through Buzz Lightyear-themed sets, but you're also playing a gigantic one-sided game of laser tag - nobody is shooting at you. There are targets located everywhere throughout, and you collect points for hitting the targets. Some of them move, some are stationary, and some only appear for a split-second. In other words, this is a great ride to be on when it breaks down. When the conveyor stops, you can keep shooting and racking up the points - not that you win anything as a result; it's just fun. UNLESS, you happen to get stuck where My was when I broke the ride. She was in a pitch-black tunnel with no targets. Bummer.

Pirates of the Caribbean

There are hundreds of great places one could run aground on Pirates. In the middle of the splashing cannonballs, perhaps? The treasure room? The wench market or, Brookie's favorite, the dog with the keys in his mouth? Any of those would have been fascinating.

Our boat stopped in the middle of the long, 30 degree climb back to sea-level at the end of the ride.

Splash Mountain

Different ride, same story. Except on Spash Mountain the long climb is immediately before the long fall. Kinda took the buzz out of the ride. Normally, you're cruising along through the middle of some rocky river basin, no decorations, just your log and the people in it. Then you float past some singing bears, foxes and birds on a steamboat. These are the tolls one must pay if one wants to take the 52 foot plunge down the front of the mountain, which of course one does, or one would not have waited in the long line.

So Sara, Madison, Erik and I made it through the line and all of the silly stuff and the anticipation was building for our big splash. Then we stopped near the top of the lift and waited for a few minutes, wondering if we might soon be using the emergency exit stairs adjacent to our log. It was not to be. We soon started moving again and went over the top and down to the bottom. Sara was hoping they would immediately let us run through it again as we had heard was the case on Indiana Jones that fateful day. That was not to be, either.

Monsters, Inc.

This was the strangest of them all and finally put an end to speculation that Sara might somehow have been the source of the curse. Up until Monsters, Sara and I had been together for all of the mishaps.

Monsters is located in California Adventure. It is a fun little ride where you ride inside taxi cabs all through the city of Monstropolis. All of our favorite characters are represented - Sully, Mike, Randall, the CDA guys, Mike's girlfriend, that pimple-faced skinny monster that is starstruck by Sully, and of course, Boo. On our last day we were close by, and the line was short so I suggested to Sean and My that we should all ride it (it is little kid and infant-safe). Our adventure was cut short maybe 100 feet in. And I do mean cut short. The ride was out of commission. Everything turned off. Lights, music, animation, everything. They brought up the house lights and we could essentially see behind the scenes - stuff you can't see when the ride is running and everything is dark. 

They ask you not to take flash pictures while on the ride. It is nearly impossible to take non-flash pictures in near darkness. But when the ride stops and the regular lights are turned on, it becomes much easier to dial in that perfect scene.

This video clip didn't happen at Disneyland, but it captures many of the thoughts and feelings we experienced each time I broke one of our rides.

All Good Things

My apologies for the one-day lag getting this out. I'll say this about vacations - they are not relaxing. They don't reinvigorate me or make me feel ready or anxious to jump back into work and everyday life. They wear me out. It is stressful business trying to ensure that everything flows smoothly and everyone returns home safely. Hence the delay; I was merely dormant while my body repaired itself.

We needed to check out of the hotel by 11:00 AM, but we wanted to be in the park by 9:00 AM (Thursday was another "Magic Morning" early entry day for certain ticket holders) to squeeze every possible minute out of our last day. Factoring in time for breakfast, we woke up at 7:00 AM to shower, pack up and load the car. We were allowed to park at the hotel until midnight. In one final troop surge designed to fill the last remaining pages of Brooklyn's autograph book, we hit the Storyteller's Cafe in our hotel. This is another character restaurant/buffet similar to Goofy's Kitchen, but with relatively innocuous characters and therefore not nearly as expensive. Chip 'n Dale are the headliners. Others include Rosie O'Donnell's monkey from Tarzan and a bunch of bears that looked somewhat familiar; the old Country Bears maybe?

Problem was, we already had both Chip and Dale's autographs, and most of the others declined due to excessively large stuffed paws where hands would normally be. We called it quits on the signatures. When Dale stopped by he tried to help Karsten entertain himself by dumping out the little basket of jellies and syrups out onto the table in front of him. Several minutes later Brooklyn got out of her chair and started to walk away "to go spank Dale because he made a big mess." Corporal punishment works.

I'm not sure what the point is of Disneyland saying only certain types of ticket holders can enter the parks early for the Magic Morning. When we got to the main entrances at 9:15 AM, 45 minutes before the gates open to the public, there were absolutely no lines. No normal lines for 10:00 AM entry. No special lines for the Magic Morning. Everyone was already inside. Both parks were jam packed with people all day - on Thursday. Those were by far the longest lines we'd seen the entire week. The Matterhorn line wrapped all the way around the mountain just like the old days when it was one of the best rides available. At any rate, we 'hauled hawkins'* over to Splash Mountain to begin our farewell tour. We asked the girls how they wanted to spend their final day. Madison chose Splash Mountain, Brooklyn chose the 'unicorns' (AKA King Arthur Carousel). We stopped by Indiana Jones to grab FastPasses for 10:30 for My and Sean (see forthcoming entry about the power I seem to possess over rides). We noted that Pirates was only a 5 minute wait at that point. So after Sara and Madison rode Splash Mountain and Brooklyn let a very nice elderly Japanese tourist gentleman tie her shoe (the intent of which was entirely communicated through hand gestures), we switched and I went with Madison again. Disneyland gives out a family switch pass for people with small children (that can't go on the ride). The parent who waits plus one additional person can basically go straight to the front of the line.

My and Sean weren't quite into the park yet to give them their FastPasses and take their kids, so we ducked into Pirates one last time. Pirates is located nearly halfway between Splash Mountain and Indiana Jones. They really did an excellent job of integrating the brand enhancements brought about by the movies while preserving the feel of the original attraction. The timing was perfect and we met up with My and Sean. Djeryd didn't want to do Indiana Jones again, so they snuck Erik onto it despite the two inches in height he was lacking. He loved it. We had five kids to manage for a while, so we ducked into Pirates one last time, again, because the line was still so short. Brookie was heard singing "a pirate's life for me" repeatedly throughout the remainder of the day.

After that we split up because Djeryd and Erik wanted to go to Tom Sawyer's Island (now called "Pirates Lair on Tom Sawyer Island") and we had promised Brookie she could ride the unicorns again. We still wanted to get over to California Adventure before we were through. We coincidentally reunited with My and Sean on Main Street as we were both heading out.

In California Adventure we went straight for Turtle Talk with Crush because My and Sean had missed it the day before. The show was completely different from the one I described in an earlier entry when Madison was chosen from the audience. My thinks the voice-guy wears a bunch of sensors on his face in order to capture the facial expressions and mouth movement. I really have no idea - it could be. I totally like, do not know the answer, dude, but I'll be anxious to see the featurette someday. Sean, Sara and Djeryd rode the big roller coaster "California Screamin'". We tried to do the Monsters, Inc. ride (see forthcoming entry about the now certain power I possess over rides), then wrapped up in A Bug's Land. I sat in a nice, big shady spot with a sleeping Anna and Karsten to wait for everyone to finish up.

To get to our cars we made the 10 minute walk through Downtown Disney, the retail, dining and entertainment district between the entrances to the two parks and the old Disneyland Hotel. This fit perfectly into Djeryd's grand scheme to dip into the Lego store for one final indulgence. He picked out a Star Wars set while Erik selected an Indiana Jones-themed set. It is unknown at this point whether Lego still makes/sells rectangular and square-shaped pieces anymore.

The additional time we allowed ourselves to combat rush hour was unneeded - traffic was great. However, those minutes came in particularly useful for Sean when he discovered his wallet was missing. Evidently they don't much like for unidentifiable persons to fly on airplanes. We checked with the car rental company, the Lego store, the Rainforest Cafe where we'd eaten the night prior - no hits. The kids were terrorizing the airport while Sara tried to keep any of them from escaping (there were automatic doors on two fronts). They allowed Sean to fly, albeit with 'extra' security screening. Our plane was a bit late. They changed our gate after we'd settled in. Sean called everyone he could think of to suspend his accounts. The flight crew gave the kids wing badges and chocolate. Brooklyn drove us crazy from asking, literally every 20 seconds, if we were off the ground yet. As soon as we were finally off the ground for real, she said "time for snacks" and her motives all became clear as she lowered her little tray. 

Karsten slept almost the entire flight. Brookie slept after her snacks. Djeryd made a little place for Madison to sleep in the row ahead of us using his Davy Crockett/Daniel Boone hat. When Madison wakes up quickly she talks a lot like Wesley from Princess Bride after he swallows Miracle Max's chocolate coated pill. After we had landed and the plane was unloading, Madison woke up and told the whole plane how she "was sleeping on the airplane and Djeryd was very nice and made a bed for [her] and made a pillow for [her] head with his 'skunk hat'".

We got home at 11:30 PM. Straight to bed for everyone.

We had such a great trip with My and Sean and their family. It is so much more fun (and convenient) to go to Disneyland with another family. The benefit of the extra adults far outweighs the challenge of the extra kids. It was very cool to stay on the premises and be so close to everything. Sean found his wallet this morning inside one of their checked bags.

I will post a few Disney-related follow-up posts over the next several days to cover some miscellaneous subjects, before deciding what to do with this blog in the long-term. Thanks for reading.

* The term 'haul hawkins' was coined on 10/09/08 during our return trip. I thought Sean had used those words and asked him to confirm, because I thought it was clever. Sean said that was not what he had said, but he liked it. We held a vote and the phrase was adopted immediately thereafter by a margin of 2-0.

You Can't Please Everybody

Brooklyn was the first one to wake up this morning. "Wake up, Dad. It's time-a-go Disneyland again," was the first thing to come out of her mouth while the rest of us were still mostly asleep. Indeed it was. This morning was a day when they allow certain ticket-holders to enter two lands in Disneyland 1 hour early. We'd been trying to go on the new Finding Nemo ride that was still under construction two years ago during our last trip, but its lines have been crazy long. It is in the same place as the old submarine ride in Tomorrow Land. In fact, it IS the old submarine ride. The only thing different is that at about the halfway point, we started seeing characters from and hearing sound bites (made possible by the leading-edge sonar fish translating device; really, that's what they said) from the movie. They're employing some sort of digital projection to create the images. I felt let down. I was expecting so much more.

So we did the early entry hoping to catch Finding Nemo before the long wait. That was what everyone else was doing as well. We saw Mary Poppins and Bert in front of City Hall but consciously ignored them in order to get to Nemo quickly. We didn't get on until 7:30 at night, during the parade, and still had to wait 30 minutes in line. Thinking about missing out on Mary Poppins' photo and signature only adds salt to the wound.

Still, Brookie's quest for autographs is progressing very nicely. Today saw the addition of Aladdin and Jasmine, Woody and Jesse, Pooh and Tigger. Not counting the two pages Brookie scribbled on when we weren't paying attention, she only needs a few more characters to fill her book.

We got on some big rides today, including: Indiana Jones, Splash Mountain, the Haunted Mansion (which has been entirely reinvented with a Nightmare Before Christmas theme, which incidentally none of us had actually seen and likely did not appreciate many of the attraction's finer points), Big Thunder Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, and technically Finding Nemo, although there will be virtually zero demand from our group to revisit that one. Djeryd said Indiana Jones was too scary - well, some parts he liked. Two parts anyway. Erik said Splash Mountain was scary, except for the scary part when you think you're falling to your death. That part he liked. Madison thought the Haunted Mansion was going to be scary, but it wasn't. And Brookie thinks everything and everybody is scary.

The most amazing thing about the day was that we stayed out the entire time. Didn't come back to the hotel for anything. Didn't hop over to California Adventure. All day, all Disneyland. The kids were incredible and really, all things considered, have been extremely well mannered and mostly obedient. They don't mind standing in lines. They don't mind standing by strollers waiting for others to ride attractions (when they're too little). They don't mind walking all over the place. They don't mind sharing the three available stroller seats (poor Djeryd never gets to ride).

The kids were so tired that we modified our dinner plans on the fly. Sean and I ran out to grab some Carl's Jr. just to fill tummies. Without going into detail pending possible legal proceedings, that experience left a sour note on the entire day. I am officially boycotting Carl's Jr. and will be writing a letter to their consumer affairs department to make my dissatisfaction known. I also will no longer appear at promotional events for my old soccer team, the Happy Stars, unless Carl's Jr. withdraws their title sponsorship.