Monthly Archives: August 2011

Tropical Imports

4 Comments Posted by on August 15, 2011

I’ve talked about the Adventureland bottleneck in a couple of different places. It can be frustrating, and that’s really a bummer because there’s SO much to see in just that little stretch of the park. I’ve already covered the geographically confusing South Seas Traders, getting your fortune told (when working) at the Adventureland Bazaar, how to buy a hat at the Indiana Jones Adventure Outpost, the ride I would kill to work on (Jungle Cruise) (and I wouldn’t kill, I’d just shoot cap guns in the vicinity of wagging hippo ears),  and the best kebabs in the park at the Bengal BBQ. But there’s still one more detail-filled shop I need to cover–Tropical Imports.

(yes, I hear you purists saying that I haven’t covered Tarzan’s Treehouse or Indiana Jones Adventure, but those are attractions and I’m talking stores and food. So just ignore that niggling voice in the back of your mind and be patient 😉 )

Tropical Imports is an open-air store located as a part of the queue for the Jungle Cruise.

The architecture is a little funky, but it works.

I love the hilarity of the Jungle Cruise. I never realized that there’s  painted warning on the exit that says “Escaping Passengers Exit Only”

Man, I really need to be more careful about other people in my pictures.

There’s sort of a patio thing above Tropical Imports. I can remember in the past that sometimes you’d see a Calypso band up there, but I haven’t seen that for a while. Any insight, Sharp-Eyed Readers?

Insert Calypso band here!

Tropical Imports has a great sign. I’m not really sure why, but I totally love this sign.

Go figure.

The thing that always immediately catches my eye is the display of fruit. It’s just like the fruit cart on Main Street for your standard apples, oranges, and bananas. They also sell things like craisins.

Craisins? Seriously people, you're at Disneyland. Splurge on a churro and enjoy yourself.

But the main thing that catches me eye is this:

A big steel tub? Wow!

Yes, it sells bottled water (which you won’t need to buy because you took my advice and brought along a refillable water bottle, and have been getting free ice water at quick service restaurant windows to refill it) and juice, but the best part is in those little plastic containers: fruit. Not boring fruit like apples and bananas, but interesting fruit like mangoes and pineapples and strawberries. And if that isn’t good enough, the fruit, which looks juicy and irresistibly tasty, is sitting in a bathtub full of ice. So you’d like a sweet but mostly healthy treat and it’s really hot out, it’s not just fruit, it’s COLD fruit.

Man, it makes me want to buy some now. I’ve always been a sucker for mangoes.

They do close off Tropical Imports at night using these high-tech security curtains:

Curtains?

And like the rest of the stores in the Adventureland bottleneck, the decorations on the ceiling are fabulous.

Disney really does an excellent job with the details, even if you can't always figure out what the things are.

You can buy stuffed animals to go with your fruit. The monkeys you can mostly see hanging by their arms in the bottle left of the picture. That always looked a little uncomfortable to me, but then again, I’m not a monkey.

So there you have it–the Tropical Imports store.

Now I made you crave cold fruit, didn’t I? Heh.

 

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Disney’s Best Kept Secret

12 Comments Posted by on August 12, 2011

“Disney’s Best Kept Secret” is sort of the theme for the Disney Vacation Club, but is kind of hard to believe because at the Mouse-in-Law, everywhere you go you’re tripping over a DVC booth. Here, there’s one in Downtown Disney conveniently located near the tram in case you wanted to do a quick detour before you hit the park. If you decide not to, there are other opportunities inside. I was previously under the impression that there was only one DVC stand in Disneyland, at the Single Most Wasted Space In The Entire Park, but my sharp-eyed readers informed me that I’m just not all that perceptive, since there are additional booths in Tomorrowland and Toontown.

Have I mentioned how much I love my readers? I love my readers.

Did you ever wish Disney had an outlet store for Disney merchandise? Well guess what! Disney has an outlet store for Disney merchandise!!!

In my opinion, Disney’s Best Kept Secret is actually a store in Fullerton called Disney’s Character Warehouse.

 

I know, right???

Okay, okay, settle down. Before you get TOO excited, it’s good to moderate your expectations. The Disney’s Character Warehouse is run by a liquidation company and can, at times, look a lot like the Island of Misfit Toys. You really don’t know what you’re going to see going in there. The phrase “hit and miss” is practically designed by the DCW.

You can get all kinds of stuff in there–everything from contemporary souvenirs to really outdated park remnants. Looking for a mini-football emblazoned with “2009” on it? Disney’s Character Warehouse! Dying for a Christmas ornament from 2007? Disney’s Character Warehouse! My personal favorite are things like gold mouse ears from Disneyland’s 50th anniversary. You know, the one that happened in 2005. They’re also big on selling multiples, like you can currently get Chip and Dale popcorn buckets, buy one get four free.

I mean, who DOESN’T need five Chip and Dale popcorn buckets???

By the way, they wouldn’t let me take a picture inside the store. Go figure.

And since DCW is really run by a liquidation company, you get some random non-Disney items as well. Some souvenirs are from the Mouse-in-Law, and some have nothing to do with Disney at all and have a Wal-Mart price tag (these are almost always clothes). But don’t be discouraged! You can actually find some cool stuff there, and it’s usually a LOT cheaper than buying it at the park.

The DCW is located on Orangethorpe in Fullerton, but is super-easy to get to from Disneyland. You just go straight up Harbor, cross over the 91 freeway, then right on Orangethorpe and the DCW is in that strip mall on the end right by Bally’s Total Fitness and just before Lemon St. Or for the more visually inclined:

Not that far

It’s only a few miles away. So if you have a car and some spare time on your hands, head over to Disney’s Character Warehouse and see if they have souvenirs you really want before you spend big bucks in the park!

And as an added bonus, here’s a link with a 10% off coupon!

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Market House

12 Comments Posted by on August 10, 2011

I don’t like coffee. For one, caffeine upsets my stomach, but more importantly, I just don’t like the taste. Or the smell.

I did not let that stop me from going into the Market House on Main Street, which you will find right next to the fruit cart. What does coffee and Market House have to do with each other? Well, the Market House sells coffee.

Here's a weird angle

It also claims to serve candy (yes) and preserves (no). Like the rest of the stores on Main Street, there are some fun details if you look up.

Except that I can't read any of the windows. Sorry.

The Market House is actually on a little corner leading to the lockers, dentist office, and surprise ice cream window.

On the corner

I didn't see any canned fruits and vegetables inside either.

There definitely is coffee though. Over in a corner there’s an apparatus I can only assume was an old coffee mill.

Hunh?

On a side note, every time I hear about an old coffee grinder, I think of the Little House On the Prairie book The Long Winter when there’s like 25 blizzards in a row  and they’re all starving to death and twisting straw into log-things for the fire, and then Pa finds a secret stash of wheat and they grind it up in their little coffee grinder. And then they sat around snowed in and starving for 7 months (true fact! actually happened!) reading a couple of magazines. Such fortitude!

Also, that has nothing to do with Disneyland. Clearly.

There is a coffee bar where you can get coffee and other hot beverages

"Yes, I'd like a cup of coffee and one of those squirt bottles with a fan to go, please"

The coffee bar doesn’t get a lot of love in the summer, so they add a few things to make it more appealing, like sunscreen and the aforementioned squirt bottle.

Can’t decide what to drink your coffee at home out of? Fear not! The Market House has a wide selection of coffee-appropriate drinking vessels.

There are a lot more of these too

There’s a quaint potbelly-ish stove in the middle, and to top off the oldey timey effects, you can sit and play a round of checkers.

Or you can save yourself a hundred bucks and play checkers at home

All that’s missing is the cracker barrel. Which they could actually fill with Mickey-shaped Saltines and probably make some money that way.

Other oldey timey effects include cute little things atop the merchandise fixtures.

Just like Ma and Pa Ingalls had!

There are also fake bins that make it looks like they sell different, um, different things you find in bins.

No Mickey crackers though

Those fixtures also hold most of the candy for sale, as you can see in the above pic. There’s some generic Disney candy around with a few specialty items, including this alarming display.

OMG

Yes, over on the right that’s Tinkerbell with satanic red eyes just dying to shoot you some laser beams, or maybe those red light pointers you use to drive cats crazy, but that pales in comparison to what’s on the left.

“Who needs a conscience when you’ve got chocolate covered peanuts and a loooooooong wooden…nose?”

Oh my word.

**fans self with the squirt bottle I bought at the coffee counter in the beginning of this post**

 

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More Answers

4 Comments Posted by on August 9, 2011

I’ve been offline for a couple of days at the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrator’s national conference, which was conveniently located in Los Angeles. It was a power-packed weekend, but the absolute pinnacle of the experience (which was an excellent experience even without this) was meeting the person who inspired me to become a writer and whose excellent books carried me through good times and bad: Judy Blume.

Why didn't I bring a REAL camera instead of just my phone???

Meeting my idol was a transformative experience. And also, she’s 73 years old. SEVENTY-THREE!!! I hope to look that great at 43! Anyway, I left the conference with a whole new perspective on writing and life. It’s been a great summer.

But back to my Mousing…

From Caroline:

What is the tackiest/goofiest/Goofy-est Disney accessory or piece of clothing you’ve ever bought or worn? Bonus points for photographic evidence!

Girlfriend, you know if I had pictures I would be loud and proud to post them here. However, I don’t really think that I do. I’m trying to think of what the tackiest accessory/clothing I’ve purchased or worn, and I’m coming up blank. Which is really incredible, because when it comes to fashion I’m hopelessly inept and it’s just a matter of time before someone reports me to that reality show where they throw away all your clothes and buy you new ones that all match or whatever. I don’t count walking around in Mouse Ears to be tacky or goofy/Goofy, by the way. I think the ugliest item I’ve ever owned was a pink sailor hat. Prior to 1993, Disneyland had the Motor Boat Cruise in Fantasyland. In celebration of the ride, you could buy a sailor hat and get your name embroidered on it. When I was growing up, Shelby was not a very popular name, so I never got any of those personalized stickers or license plates or everything else that they sold with people’s names on them, so I think out of pure lack of access, I became a little obsessed with finding things with my name on them (which still persists to this day, actually). Even if they had to custom-embroider it, like a Disneyland hat, for example. So this little hat had a couple strikes against it. One, it was a sailor hat, so it was the round kind with the brim folded up, which was very campy. Two, it was pink. And not just a little pink either. I mean, it was A LOT pink. Think late 70s/early 80s pink. And three, back then you could only get embroidery in yellow thread. Now there’s nothing wrong with that per se, but yellow thread on the very, VERY pink hat looked odd, and slightly nauseating. I loved the hat, but in retrospect it probably wasn’t my fashion high points. And I don’t know whatever happened to the hat either. Sad.

And a Mouse-in-Law question: If you could stay in any Disney World hotel and cost was not an issue, which would you choose?

I honestly can’t answer this one because the only hotels I’ve spent any time in was the Dolphin for the conference (which isn’t even owned by Disney) and the Ft. Wilderness Lodge, DVC suites, where we were this past trip. The Lodge was fabulous and the boat to Magic Kingdom was pretty handy, but all in all, I have very little to compare it to. I would like to stay at the Animal Kingdom lodge or whatever it’s called with the room that looks out over the watering hole so you can see real lions eating real elephants right outside your door, but that’s basically because I’ve heard it was cool and it sounds cool. So the short answer is, I don’t really know.

mmax13 asked several questions, so I’ll break them down:

Would you go to Disneyland with me sometime? Hahahaha, you don’t HAVE to, ha ha.

Sure, m’dear! Send me an email at MyYearWithTheMouse@gmail.com when you’re coming and if our schedules match up, I’ll try to make it over to the park for a meet and greet ;).

And What’s your favorite disney movie? Why?

Out of the animated movies, my favorite is The Lion King. I love it because it’s a great movie, but also because I have a lot of really awesome memories attached to it, and it came out at a particular point in my life where things were going very well for me, so I associate it with all kinds of happiness and pleasantness. It was also the first movie I actually went to see by myself, and that was because even though it was the discount theater near my college, my friends just eventually refused to go with me repeatedly. To be fair, I think I saw it in the theater at least 10 times. Oh, and funny story–I loved the soundtrack too, and of course it starts with the “MMMMMAAAAAAAAMAWENMAAMAMAAMEEMAMAAA” (you know what I’m talking about). So my stereo at time would use a CD as an alarm, and I thought it would be a fabulous idea to stick that CD in and have the song play so I could feel refreshed and inspired at the beginning of the day. What ended up happening instead was that song started playing and both me and my roommate were so startled that we both screamed and pretty much leaped out of bed. After that we used a regular alarm.

And could you do a blog about the animation studio in California Adventure- the one with the ever-infamous Loop of Disney Movies? Its my favorite place in California Adventure.

Ah, a Mouse-Next-Door request! I don’t want to commit. I have a lot left to do at Disneyland before I hit the MND, but I’ll see what I can do.

And is there a limit with questions?

Nah, ask away!

Wendy (who just left my house a few minutes ago) asked:

Where are your favorite photo spots at Disneyland?

You just can’t beat the castle. Even though it’s always crowded and difficult to get a picture there, my heart always quickens a little when I walk into Town Square, look down Main Street, and see the castle. So that’s probably my favorite photo spot. And actually, I like to take castle pictures from the side, near Snow White’s Wishing Well. You still get a view of the castle but don’t have the crowds. This was from last Christmas:

This picture also showed up in one of my earliest blog entries

My other favorite photo spots are looking down the length of Main Street with the castle in the background and the facade of Small World

What is your favorite line and least favorite line?

I already mentioned that I don’t like Indiana Jones, but I actually do think it has the most interesting line. It’s got secret code on the walls and when the ride first opened, they were handing out little decoder cards. When the line was nice and long, it was fun to decode everything. My least favorite line is any bathroom. And Peter Pan. That line zig zags for.ev.er.

What is (in your humble, yet so respected) opinion, the most underrated attraction at Disneyland?

I’m going to have to go with Captain EO. And not because Theo has been referring to himself as “EO” since he can’t quite pronounce the “th” part. Captain EO was pretty remarkable when it first came out. Plus it had Michael Jackson on whom I had a massive crush. It opened in 1986 when MJ was at his peak, then closed in 1997, and re-opened as the “Captain EO Tribute” in 2010. And yes, the effects are hopelessly outdated and all of that, but you know, it’s nostalgia at its finest and it makes me happy to see Michael Jackson that way rather than his sad decline. If you are only at Disneyland for the day before you go back to Scotland or Canada or Albuquerque, then I wouldn’t call it a must-see, but if you’ve got some time on your hands and want to appreciate all the 80s had to offer, give Captain EO another try.

Shira asked:

What was your favorite thing at The Mouse in Law that they don’t have at Disney Land?

EPCOT. The entire park. Minus Circlevision. Also the Rockin’ Roller Coaster from Disney Hollywood Studios. And I’d like to swap out our Winnie the Pooh for the MIL’s Pooh, and while I’m there I’ll grab the Peoplemover and Country Bear Jamboree and bring them back too.

Shira also asked what my beef is with Roger Rabbit, but I’ll cover that when I do its blog entry :).

In less than 2 weeks I’ll be back in the parks! Woo hoo!

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