Our Spring Break Disney-cation, Part 3

Last time our family visited Disney's California Adventure, the park felt much like a "work in progress" in many ways. Large sections of the park were closed for renovations, improvements, or expansions. There were certainly nice sections of the park and a lot of fun rides, but it still felt like it was a place in search of an identity.

The "Phineas and Ferb" moving party truck...just one example of California Adventure's randomness.

 This time, our experience at California Adventure was quite different. The park felt bigger, since so many attractions were new or expanded. The crowds were larger, the energy was higher...in all, it felt like more was happening at the park, and that more people were genuinely excited to be there.

Outside the Monsters Inc. ride...another example of how the Pixar movies are helping to gradually overthrow California Adventure's original motif

Nathan pointed out to me that thematically, California Adventure is moving closer and closer to "Disneyland Phase II," and not the more California-centric motif it had originally envisioned. Mickey Mouse's huge face overlooks the whole southern half of the park via the huge Ferris wheel, and Pixar's growing stable of characters is crowding into more and more parts of the park. Even with all this, there were still a lot of nooks and crannies of the park that had an identity all their own, making California Adventure an odd but compelling melange of stuff to do.

But none of this answers the most essential question for this blog: Did our family have a good time? I'd say yes, definitely! California Adventure may not be quite as well organized spatially (or thematically) as Disneyland. It required a lot of walking, and it wasn't terribly shady, which made the warm weather a little more frustrating. But other than that, there were still a lot of things that kept us all occupied, and the girls all had a great time exploring and riding all the new attractions.

Probably the best part of the day for me had nothing to do with the park itself; I was able to meet up with my good friend Melanie Cruz, whom I've known since middle school. She is a beautiful, smart, and talented gal who has traveled the world and tried a little of everything over the years. She's lived in France for a year, worked in Antarctica with research teams, and has been working as an actress and going to school in Los Angeles for the last several years. We were pretty close in high school, but as life has gone on we haven't gotten to see each other as much. In fact, the last time we were together, I was pregnant with Celeste! So it was a great chance to meet up with her and let all the girls get to know her (and love her) a little better.

Here are a few of the day's highlights:

Cars Land. The most major upgrade to California Adventure (and the biggest symbol of that park's increased "Disney-fication") is Cars Land, a full-scale recreation of the movie's town of Radiator Springs. There are several stores, restaurants, and rides throughout Cars Land; you could conceivably spend half a day just in this part of the park.

Look, it's a real-life, full-sized Mater! He was driving all over Cars Land, creeping me out just a little.

Confession: neither I nor my family are big fans of the Cars films; maybe it's because none of us are little boys, or maybe because they're only fair to middling entertainment. But I enjoyed Cars Land nonetheless. From a design perspective, everything looks incredible and it perfectly captures the "dying Route 66 desert town" feeling that the movies were going for. Everything is built to scale, so it felt as if we had been transported directly into the films!

Plus, being a resident of Arizona, I loved seeing all the faux desert skylines throughout Cars Land, as well as the desert vegetation. It made me a little homesick...weird, considering where I was!

Anyway, the cornerstone of Cars Land is the Radiator Springs Racers ride, which is both a "theme ride" (you drive through several recreated scenes from the first Cars movie) and a "thrill ride" (the car you're riding in takes off for a speedy, looping, dipping joyride through the Cadillac Range Mountains). It was a fun ride, but oh...that line. Easily the longest wait of any ride for our entire trip. We briefly thought about getting FastPasses, but the line to get the FastPasses was an hour long itself! Eek. We decided to wait in line with the other "civilians," and we were there for well over an hour. Thankfully, I had the nice "faux-Arizona" scenery to keep me company, and there were several detours into shaded enclosures, all of which were cleverly decorated. And when we got to the front of the line, what happens? Celeste had to go to the bathroom. Curse the tiny Barrett bladders! That made us wait an extra 10-12 minutes on top of the hour we'd already waited. Thankfully that was our first ride of the day, so all the lines after that didn't feel too bad!

We tried out some of the other rides in Cars Land later on. Lorelai, Aurora, and Daddy tried out Mater's Junkyard Jamboree, which was a spinning ride. Instead of teacups, though, the riders sit in ungainly, rotating tractors. The girls enjoyed it. Unfortunately, I never got to try the ride myself, because at the same time, Celeste and I were riding on the Twilight Zone's Tower of Terror, for Celeste's first try at the creepy "falling elevator" ride. I had determined to be brave for my little "adrenaline junkie" middle child, but I spent too much time screaming my head off to be much of an example. I don't do too well with free-fall rides of any kind. I needn't have worried, though...Celeste loved it!

Later in the evening, Lorelai, Melanie and I snuck back into Cars Land one more time, to try out their final ride: Luigi's Flying Tires. It was basically bumper cars with mini-hovercrafts for each group of riders; the inflatable hovercraft "tires" sailed around on a thin carpet of air, and you steered by leaning one way or the other. It took a little while to figure it out, but it was pretty fun!

 

We revisited some favorites from last time, but missed out on others. This time, I was able to convince Nathan to go to Soarin' Over California, a neat flight simulator ride in which the riders are strapped to a harness and are then suspended, feet dangling, in front of a concave IMAX-style screen, which projects various famous California landmarks. I apparently didn't sell Nathan too well on this ride last time, because he really liked it and wished we could do it again.

We were also able to revisit Grizzly River Run (a whitewater rafting adventure in which you get very wet!). While on the ride, we met up with some fellow residents of Sahuarita, Arizona! Small world (no pun intended). I think half of Arizona was in Disneyland that week on Spring Break.

We also made it onto many of the "carnival-style" rides we loved last time around: the Silly Symphony Swings (Lorelai's favorite ride from our last trip; this time, she got to ride by herself!), the Jumping Jellyfish; and the totally fun Toy Story Midway Madness, in which the rider shoots at targets in a variety of virtual carnival games.

Unfortunately, some of our favorite attractions at California Adventure weren't available this time around. The Redwood Creek Challenge Trail (an awesome discovery park, with climbing walls, rope bridges, and zip-lines that were perfectly kid-sized) was closed for renovations. There would be no resting for us adults while the kids got their wiggles out this time around! Even more sad, California Screamin' (the only full-sized roller coaster in the California Disney parks) was closed the entire day we were there. This really bummed Nathan and I out, since we had looked forward to a more "adult-sized" ride (I'm not even a huge roller-coaster fan, and I really enjoyed California Screamin'). All things considered, though, it was probably for the best that it was closed. Celeste badly wanted to ride the roller coaster, but was about an inch below their minimum height requirement. Having the coaster be closed eliminated any possibility of her trying to "fudge" her way onto the ride (and any possibility of being denied, thus provoking bitter tears that would probably have ruined her afternoon). On our next Disneyland trip, our girls will all be that much taller, and this shouldn't be a problem.

Thanks, Wikipedia

We got to see a "whole new world." For whatever reason, Ariel is one of Aurora's favorite princesses. Imagine her delight, then, when she got to ride on Ariel's Undersea Adventures, a theme ride that walked its visitors through the basic plot of The Little Mermaid. She was in Disney princess heaven throughout, waving and shouting "hello!" to all the characters. The line was short, and the ride was cute. It was a wonderful palate-cleanser for Aurora, who we had been subjected to too many of the "big kid" rides for her liking (more on that in another blog post). In retrospect, I regret not going on this ride more than once; it would have made our little girl's trip!

Did I mention there's a Ghirardelli chocolate shop inside the park now? Well, there is...and it was glorious. I don't remember this shop being in the park last time, but if it was, we sadly missed it. We were very tempted by the chocolate ice cream sundaes offered, but we settled on buying a huge (4 lb. or so) bag of chocolate to greedily munch on for weeks to come. They also had the option of completely customizing a bag of chocolate. It was a dangerous place to visit, but a tasty one...we all got free samples!

We got to party with Mel. It was so much fun to catch up with Melanie and talk to her about life in general. We found her just before lunch-time, and she stayed with us through the rest of the day and into the evening. It was really handy at times to have an extra adult set of hands; it helped a lot when all of us but Aurora (for example) wanted to go on a particular ride. Not a problem...Melanie (or myself or Nathan) could stay behind, while the rest of us took off and rode a ride together.

She was such a good sport, she followed us back to the hotel, to partake in our glorious Crock-Pot dinner! Glad she doesn't have a picky palate...

As you might imagine, the girls were smitten with "Aunt Melanie." They held hands with her whenever possible, shared their innermost hopes and dreams, and always wanted her beside them on all the rides. Melanie really wants kids of her own someday; I hope letting her "borrow" mine for an afternoon gave her a nice "kid fix" to tide her over.

Since the little girls were too tired that night, they stayed behind at the hotel as Lorelai, Melanie and myself headed back into the park one more time to catch the World Of Color show. We got seats closer to the waterfront than last time, which means we occasionally got wet from the jets of water that sprayed high into the air in front of us. I was still impressed by the combination of lights, sound, and music; projecting movie images onto a wall of water is naturally a tricky business and it wasn't always completely successful, but it's still a very ambitious show. Some scenes from the movie Brave had been inserted in between our visits; other than that, it was the same show I remembered (maybe a little bit shorter?) A very dramatic way to end the day.

Lorelai was dead on her feet by the time we bade Melanie farewell and climbed back onto the bus. It was hard to say goodbye to my old friend, but it was wonderful that her presence had enriched our Disney Parks experience. Only one more day to go!