Monthly Archives: October 2011

Disneyland in 1992

3 Comments Posted by on October 10, 2011

My in-laws (the actual physical people, not the Mouse-in-Laws) found a Sunset magazine from 1992 with a fabulous article about Disneyland. It has all kinds of helpful tips and such.

Now 1992 is my college era. I graduated from high school in 1991 (so yes, I’m either “that young?” or “that old?” depending on your perspective ;)) and I went to college and grad school in the Midwest, so I lived in the Midwest for 8 years and basically missed the 90’s. However, in 1990 and 1991, I went a lot, so this article was particularly poignant for me.

For realz, people--check out the hair on Canoe Guy!

Now the 90s weren’t as unfortunate for hair as the 80s (so let’s be real, nothing will ever beat 80s hair. I’m positive that the hole in the ozone layer was made significantly bigger by all of the Aqua Net from those mile-high banks) but this guy is definitely stylin’. The article advises being there at rope drop (something I haven’t done yet) and recommends the “Mickey Mouse flap jacks” (also known as PANCAKES ’round these parts).

OMG it's a mullet!!!

No, there isn’t half of a canoe you can paddle–that’s actually where the magazine picture was split. And what’s with the skirt of the woman on the right?

Dude, that's a lot of watermelon

And there’s the guy with the hair and glasses again. According to the article, they visited the park “five times” which clearly makes them experts. And according to this page, their biggest piece of advice is to get there 30-60 minutes before the park opens. Which again, I’ve never done, and seems a bit extreme–but then again, no fast passes back then either.

Don’t miss Disneyland’s newest ride–Splash Mountain! Apparently an hour after opening but not 10:30 is  good time to go. If you’ve scoped out the whole park 5 times, that is.

Kids were not immune to bad taste. Check out that fanny pack.

Also I love the water on the bottom right. That area is now Downtown Disney.

Did you know that dinners at the Blue Bayou Restaurant run from $13-$18.10? Let’s just say that they are no longer $13-$18.10. And speaking of money, it’s gonna cost you $27.50 to get in, so budget wisely!

And at the end of the day, don’t forget to catch the fireworks! There are over 250 of them, and the show lasts approximately 6 minutes. The best vantage point for both the fireworks and Fantasmic!, the newest nighttime show, is on the balcony in from of the Disney Gallery.

Which is no longer the Disney Gallery.

And finally, top off your evening with the world famous Main Street Electrical Parade!

What a joyous day at Disneyland :).

Everything Else

Mickey’s Halloween Parade

7 Comments Posted by on October 7, 2011

One of the fun aspects of Mickey’s Halloween Party is the parade. They really do try to give you extras to make the additional cost worth your money. I absolutely loved the parade. This post is for those of you living vicariously through me.

Vampire Mickey starts us off.

I'm invited!

A Mummy, some striped-stockinged witches, and an oddly dressed woman come next.

What is UP with that hair in the back?

The Costume Shop float comes next. This has cast members pretending to try on costumes by adding various boas and hats and whatever while singing.

No actual costumes are changed here.

Then there’s the little pumpkins. These are adorable and introduce the next group of dancers. First:

Pirate Pumpkin!

Followed by:

Pirates!

Peter Pan and Captain Hook were in that group too.

Next up is the pumpkin with the princess-y hat.

Princess-y hat

At least I’m assuming it’s a Princess-y hat, because right after that were:

Princesses!

The princesses were all twirling and dancing so I had a hard time getting a picture of them.

At least Snow White looks good

I have several of these:

She kind of looks like Thriller-meets-Flashdance here

Round ’em up, it’s time for:

Yeehaw!

There were cowboys and cowgirls spinning around, and also:

Woody! Much less fuzzy in person.

I wasn’t sure what was next when I saw this guy

Hunh?

But it made a lot more sense when various monsters from Monsters, Inc. showed up.

Actually fuzzier in real life

I did manage to catch Sully’s backside.

Also fuzzier in real life

Then there’s a car with some characters from the Nightmare Before Christmas and also some honorary guests. I’ve always wondered how you get chosen to be a guest who rides in a parade car.

I'd love to do that sometime

Naturally, the car is immediately followed by

The Country Bears!

Boy, haven’t seen those faces around this park for a while!

Next are very colorful people on very tall stilts.

Colorful! Tall!

This guy was particularly colorful and tall

Also he stopped right in front of us

And then comes the final float! It’s pretty detailed so I took a couple pictures as it went by.

With a talking Miss Piggy at the end!

 

Everything Else , , , ,

Mickey’s Halloween Party Part 2

1 Comment Posted by on October 6, 2011

What’s with the parts one and two and whatever? Well, I hate to overload the blog with thousands of pictures in each thread, so…

The park was filled with fun special effects for Mickey’s Halloween Party, like these Mickey Mouse Ghosts:

That's actually me and Theo at the bottom there

First off, I haven’t been to Dland at night during Halloweentime, so I don’t know if these decorations were only for the party, but they were pretty cool.

The Rivers of America looked great. None of the boats were running but they had fog drifting across the water and the Columbia was lighted up to be all spooky and stuff.

This was a pirate character meet and greet

Over by Big Thunder Ranch where Mickey and Minnie were, they had some special effects off to the side where the Mules used to be.

A trapped train!

Something weird and scary in that cave

There was also a special fireworks show and OMG you guys, I have to honestly say that this was the second-best show I’ve ever seen in my life (the first best being the one they debuted at the 50th birthday). The effects were amazing. Jack Skellington was your host:

This image moved and talked and everything

They had Zero the ghost dog from Nightmare Before Christmas up on the same wire that Dumbo rides on in the other fireworks show, so it was really fun to see him floating around.

But what really made the show so awesome was the complete and utter precision of timing. Not only did the get the fireworks in the sky, the secondary explosions were PERFECTLY timed with the dialog. They fully used the castle effects, from the fire to the whirling pinwheels to the sparklers, and it was definitely worth getting a castle view for.

Cool

Even though Halloween is not my favorite season, I completely LOVED this fireworks show. It was really remarkable and used all of Disneyland’s excellent firework technology. Highly recommend!

Everything Else ,

Mickey’s Halloween Party

18 Comments Posted by on October 5, 2011

Monday night we had a blast at Mickey’s Halloween Party. What is Mickey’s Halloween Party? Glad you asked! MHP is a separate event from a regular day at Disneyland. It’s in the evening from either 6-11 or 7-midnight and requires a separate admission ticket. It’s kind of a bummer to buy an extra ticket when you’re used to just getting in with your annual pass, but it’s pretty awesome if you don’t have an annual pass because you can enter the park 3 hours early which means that you get 8 hours at the park for the price of the MHP ticket, which is discounted depending on day. The annual pass discounted price for Monday was $44, so given that a regular single park single day ticket is $80, that’s a significant savings. That savings allowed us to share the park with my mom and dad. They’ve been wanting to visit with us, but it’s a hefty investment, especially when Theo is too little to really make it through a whole day.

I realize I haven’t told you what it is though. Gimme a sec. I’ll throw in a picture.

Oh em gee, is that mouse ears and a tux jacket???

Mickey’s Halloween Party is a private, after-hours event at the park. What makes it different? Well for one, everyone including adults can wear costumes. They also have trick or treating with lots of trick or treat trails (treat stations) all over the park.

Bin O'Candy

There were a huge number of those. They had regular candy and some healthy treats like raisins, craisins, carrot sticks, apple slices that turned out to be as addictive to Theo as churros are to me, and stuff like these:

Isn't this cute?

Freeze-dried apple chips.

Tuxedo Mickey Mouse, also known as Theo, wasted no time in insisting on sitting down and enjoying his first treat.

Grandma and Grandpa got him started on M&Ms. Mommy would have gotten him started on raisins.

Fortunately, Theo is very generous when he wants to be.

"Jelly bean, Grandma?" Actually it's an M&M

Oh, and a special moment when we were first walking through the park, Theo’s got his costume on and a cast member walking by said, “Oh! It’s the boss!” Very fun.

I decided that Mickey needed some appropriate chaperones. A friend suggested we go as old-school Mouseketeers, so we did!

This is not a very good picture of us

Anyway, you get the idea. I took black felt and cut out our titles, then ironed-on Kevin’s, which held decently until the end of the night when his Y started falling off and Theo kept repeating “Uh oh! Fix Daddy Y!” I quickly realized I wouldn’t be able to iron on the letters on my uber-stretchy shirt, so I sewed them on. Seriously, making our costumes took three times longer than assembling Theo’s. Because my  mother-in-law made the mouse ears hood.

So they also had characters out wearing their Halloween costumes. We went to visit Pooh and Rabbit.

Hugs for Pooh! Rabbit too!

We waited in line for Mickey and Minnie too, but that took forever. Kevin and I waited in the line while Theo, Grandma and Grandpa went to the trick or treating station at Big Thunder Ranch and when they returned, we’d moved like 2 feet. About 10 minutes into it, we had a good 10 minutes left, and then the cast member said that Mickey and Minnie were taking a quick break and would be back in a minute. They weren’t. 5 minutes later we decided to ditch the whole idea and do something else.

That something else was Theo’s now-favorite ride, Dumbo!

The trouble with Dumbo is that the wait is always so long. Because they load and then ride, the line only moves in chunks, and that’s hard for a little guy who has a hard time waiting. The cool thing about the Halloween Party is that the crowds were reduced, so we only waited about 10-15 minutes for Dumbo.

Theo wanted to ride with Grandma.

He was very concerned about the seat belt

The Mousketeers decided to share an elephant as well.

Hey! Great costumes!

Sometimes it can be so hard to get a kid to smile.

But he's cute anyway

After Dumbo we walked right over and caught the special Halloween parade, which is something exclusive to the Halloween Party and was really awesome. I’ve got a bunch of pictures of that so I’ll make that a second entry.

Following the parade we hit another one of Theo’s favorites, the tea cups. The two out of four adults who don’t get sick on the ride accompanied him. That left me and Dad on the sidelines.

I love this picture

Theo really likes to turn the cup.

A lot of effort for a little guy

We’re not sure what Grandma is doing in this picture

Don't you hate catching those awkward moments? And then someone goes and puts it on their blog? I hate that.

We wanted to go on another one of Theo’s favorites, It’s A Small World, but it was closed for the party (as was Toon Town). Most of the rides were open for the party though (the train was another that was closed). So we headed back to Tomorrowland for yet another one of Theo’s favorites–Autopia! Finally, Theo got to ride with Grandpa. And seriously, Autopia is one of the hardest rides to photograph, especially if your driver is short.

Theo and Grandpa!

There were fireworks after that–another Halloween Party exclusive. I’ll talk a bit about that in the next entry too. Then after the fireworks, mom, dad, and I headed to Star Tours which I promised wouldn’t make them sick and then my dad came out in a cold sweat but claimed to still have a good time. Kevin and Theo went on Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters (wait for it…wait for it…another one of Theo’s favorites) and then the Astro Orbitors. After that the three of us were tapped out so I made my parents PROMISE me they would go on the Haunted Mansion and Kevin and I headed home.

And once we got to the car I realized I’d lost my car keys. Fortunately when I went back the next day, they’s found them (on Star Tours!) and I got them back. What a relief!

Everything Else , , ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →