The North(ish) Side of Frontierland

4 Comments Posted by on March 3, 2011

First, let’s talk about my sense of direction. Or lack thereof. I am not one of those people with a strong internal compass. Fortunately, Disneyland happens to be located with the front and back of the parks pretty much on a straight North-South axis. How convenient for me.

And rather than add a map of the park, I’m just going to point you to the official one. To orient you, the Main Gate is on the South side of the park. Main Street goes due North (more or less) ending in the Plaza ending at the castle. I will tend to give my directions based on the Plaza facing the castle.

Which is all just elaborate set up to say that today I’m going to talk about Frontierland, particularly one side at the entrance to Frontierland. From the Plaza facing the castle, Frontierland is on the left, and I’ll be talking about the right-hand side, so basically the North side.

Oh my god Shelby, can we just GET to the interesting part already???

The entrance to Frontierland is meant to look like a fort.

Welcome to Frontierland! Here there be cowboys.

Frontierland has a nice little touch on the ground–horseshoe and wagon marks in the concrete. Theo found this endlessly fascinating.

A horse has been here, or something

The first thing you come across is an informational sign on the door of the fort.

Translation below

For those lacking in acute visual skills, I’ll provide the text at the end of this post. Suffice to say it’s about the flags of the Revolutionary War, and supposedly all 13 of them fly above the fort. I was honestly only able to find, like, four.

There's a few--upper middle

There’s a different informational plaque on the other door into Frontierland, which I suppose I will talk about when I review the South side.

Once inside the gates, the first thing you come across is a pin store. Pin trading is really big at all of the Disney parks. I’m just going to have to make a whole separate post for pin trading. Let’s just leave it at there’s a pin store. Also, there are barrels outside so guests can do their own trading. Which I will cover later. Sometime.

Past the pin store, there’s the shooting gallery, or the Frontierland Shootin’ Exposition.

Rootin' Tootin' Shootin'

Disneyland really lacks in arcade-style games and there are only a handful. The Shootin’ Exposition is one of them. It only costs 50 cents too, which quite frankly is seriously cheap for Disneyland.

50 cents??? Yee-haw! I'm gonna shoot me some miniature fake tombstones!

And if you’re worried that you’re just throwing away your money on the guns (as opposed to generally throwing away your money in Disneyland), Disney does their best to help you be successful.

Look folks, the guns shoot straight, so if you're not hitting anything, don't blame us

You know, it just occurred to me right this very second (I think as I type) that I have never actually paid the money to shoot these rifles, and I didn’t do it this time either. I’d like to say it was because I didn’t want to leave Theo stranded in his stroller while I went on a shooting spree, but it’s actually just because I didn’t think about it.

Hey, I never claimed to be, like, thorough and organized, okay?

Anyway, if you don’t have a couple of quarters on you, you can use those old-fashioned change machines you never see these days anymore.

Disney aims for authenticity. If there were change machines in the Old West, this is probably what they would have looked like.

Like any shooting gallery, you aim at your standard Wild West scene. This one has large tombstones in the foreground and small houses in the back. I know that’s to visually create a sense of depth, but honestly it just kind of looks like the tombstones are freakishly large in proportion to the rest of this little town.

Apparently it's okay to shoot at people at Disneyland, as long as they are already dead and buried

And the rifles to indeed appear to be straight.

They're attached to the counter so you don't steal them

And then once you leave the shooting gallery, you get to the Rancho del Zocalo restaurant. This is (shockingly) a Mexican restaurant and is Kevin’s favorite restaurant in the park. The entrance is kind of tucked away and there are tables inside and outside. It’s a pretty good place to eat.

The restaurant entrance

Seating area

After that you are on your way to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, which is another post. And that’s pretty much what you see on the North(ish) side of the entrance to Frontierland!

I'm pretty sure this is no longer politically correct

———————————–

The text of the sign on the fort (the capital letters are theirs, not mine):

FLAGS OF THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR

The 13 Flags displayed along the top of the log stockade are like those carried by American troops in the REVOLUTIONARY WAR. These standards represent the home counties, colonies, divisions and regiments of the soldiers.

One of the first flags to be unfurled bore the motto “LIBERTY AND UNION.” The famous rattlesnake flag with the motto “DON’T TREAD ON ME” was carried by the Minutemen in 1775.

For nearly a year after the founding of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, the country was without an official national flag. So on JUNE 14, 1777, Congress approved a flag with thirteen stripes, alternating red and white, and thirteen stars in a blue field, representing a new constellation.

And thus, the STARS AND STRIPES became our official national flag, and has since been a symbol of freedom, courage, hope and unity of America and her people.

 

Frontierland , ,

In the Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Room

4 Comments Posted by on March 2, 2011

Today was Theo’s first visit to the Tiki Room, officially known as the Enchanted Tiki Room–as opposed to, I suppose, the Tiki Room where the birds don’t sing words and the flowers don’t croon. Sounds like a sucky attraction to me. Good thing we have the Enchanted Tiki Room.

The Tiki Room is sponsored by Dole. The upside of this is that there’s this Dole booth and you can get pinapple spears (my favorite–long chunks of pineapple) and the infamous Pinapple Whip. I’m about to be blasphemous when I say that I’m just not bowled over by the Pineapple Whip. It’s like ice cream but it’s not ice cream–actually it’s a bit more like frozen yogurt. But you can get said Whip outside of the Tiki Room.

There is always a long line for the Dole products. Many people confuse the line for the Pineapple Whip as the line for the Tiki Room. Make no mistake–the Tiki Room does not have a line. If you are wanting to go inside the Tiki Room and you find yourself standing in line, you’re in the wrong place. The line is for Dole items.

If you’re in the mood for Pineapple whip and have 15 minutes or so to kill, and don’t want to wait in the regular line, you can get inside the Tiki room waiting area and there’s the other side of the Dole booth there where you can order what you want without waiting.

This is the other side of the Dole booth, in case you have an insatiable craving for Pineapple Whip and happen to be waiting for the Tiki Room

I will admit that due to some stress reasons (read: toddler meltdown) I did not actually get a picture of the outside of the Tiki Room. Oops. I’ll slip one in later, okay?

Upon entry, you actually sit in a courtyard waiting for your turn to go into the theater.

People wait in the Tiki Room courtyard

Theo (blue shirt, middle) is pretty much convinced that his mother has left him. What kind of mother does that???

The cute thing about the Tiki Room waiting area is that there are statues around that animate themselves periodically. They are supposed to represent gods or goddesses of one thing or another, though it’s not always clear what they’re talking about.

Pele, the goddess of fire and volcanoes. Also soccer.

Finally, the doors to the theater open. Apparently Walt envisioned this being a dinner theater show. He must have been on crack or something because seriously, you couldn’t fit more than 10-12 tables in this room.

When the doors open, step inside.

We got seated and Theo became immediately upset. He’s not a fan of the dark, and while the room itself wasn’t terribly dark, compared to the sun outside it was. Also, I dressed him in a long-sleeved shirt and it turned out to be kind of hot, so he wasn’t particularly thrilled with that either.

First of all, there’s a bit centerpiece of flowers and stuff.

Flowers and stuff

Then the birds wake up. There are four main birds, one for each branch of the audience, which is sort of a cross shape. Also, there’s no flash photography, so these pictures are going to be totally awesome.

The birds light up and speak. Photography is limited.

Once the individual birds do their comedy spiel, other birds jump in and they all sing their signature song. I think the Tiki Room song is probably the 3rd most recognizable song at Disneyland. Numbers 1 and 2 being Small World and It’s A Pirate’s Life For Me, respectively.

All the birds sing words...

The centerpiece in the middle (imagine that–a centerpiece in the middle!) turns into a fountain and lights up and white birds descend from the heavens above to sing a song.

Can't you just hear the choir of angels?

Theo was particularly fascinated by this part.

I'm 2 years old and these bird things are kind of tripping me out

"Let's all sing like the birdies sing--tweet, tweet tweet, tweet tweet"

The audience is invited to sing along. Some of us are more enthusiastic than others.

At one point, it starts to “rain” outside and there’s thunder and lightning, and for some reason this naturally leads into the columns in the room bursting out into song.

Their eyes move too. It's a little bit creepy.

Also, at some point, the flowers sing. Or should I say croon? These are kind of like a hyped-up wedding centerpiece on crack. If wedding centerpieces were animatronic or something. These flowers actually remind me of Little Shop of Horrors (bop she-bop), so I always feel a bit uneasy wondering if they are going to eat me.

These guys whistle

The Tiki Room show takes aobut 10-13 minutes and is quite cute. It’s air-conditioned, so if you’re looking for a place to rest your feet and also hear singing flowers at the same time, the Tiki Room is the perfect attraction for you.

Self-portrait!

Adventureland , ,

More About Character Pictures at the Mouse-In-Law

4 Comments Posted by on February 25, 2011

Character pictures are awesome. I have long loved them. They can be tough to get at times, like this time at Disneyland, but the characters are so great. And right off the bat, one big difference we noticed between Disneyland and the Mouse-In-Law is that at WDW, the characters are everywhere and are always out. At Disneyland, probably because it’s smaller, the characters generally appear and disappear on a schedule I am too lazy to figure out. At the Mouse-In-Law, you can’t swing a cat without hitting a character. Which was pretty cool.

Not that you should be swinging at cat at any theme park. Disney does have a kennel for that.

One thing I particularly love about the Disney characters is how good they are with scared children. I mean, I kinda get where the kids are coming from, meeting a mute giant anthropomorphic animal-type thing with an oversized head in an exaggerated expression of joy. When you’re like 2 feet tall, I get it. And there certainly are kids who burst out in tears at the approach of a character, which can be almost as frustrating as getting that ever-elusive Santa picture.

But the characters are great at approaching in a non-threatening way. I’ve got some wonderful pictures of Theo’s first meeting with Mickey last year along those lines. If the kids don’t want a hug or to get close, the character will offer a high-five, or sometimes just hold out their hand for the kid to touch or look at or sniff if the kid happens to be a dog. We had a fantastic experience with Donald Duck along those lines that I will show you in just a second.

First I want to say that pictures at Epcot were perfect because Mickey and friends were in a single room and there was an inside line with tv’s showing cartoons. Awesome. This was where we took our character pictures.

So for Donald, we sent Theo on his own and he was kind of freaked out. Upon approaching Donald, Theo decided that clearly the next logical move would be to give Donald a hug,  give Donald a high five, get near Donald in any way,   sit down on the ground somewhat near Donald. Rather than going over to Theo and looming over him like some kind of freakishly large oddly-attired duck, Donald simply sat down on the ground too.

Have a seat on the ground? Don't mind if I do!

Theo was a fan, and thus willing to entertain the idea of the giant-thing-on-tv-that-just-came-to-life-OMG-is-it-a-zombie? sitting near him.

The ground's pretty comfortable, isn't it?

And then we got a simply darling picture.

Donald is my friend! And he likes to sit on the ground just like me!

We then coaxed Theo into actually making contact with Donald and giving him a high-five. Actually, Theo learned from his swimming teacher that a “high-five” is a two-step procedure with an open-handed slap following by a fist bump accompanied by a “BOOYAH!” He is now very confused when he gives someone a high-five and then sticks out his fist and they don’t pound it. He’s not quite sure why most people aren’t familiar with proper high-five technique.

Theo is trying to give Donald a fist bump. Donald continues with the "slap me five" completely unawares

Following the positive Donald experience, Theo was ready for the Ultimate Cute with Minnie.

MINNIEEEEEEEE!!!!!

Prior to both Minnie and Donald, we attempted to take the family picture thing. The lighting was a little odd with Pluto here.

It's technicolor Pluto

And there’s also the unfortunate timing shots. Despite what it looks like, I can assure you that Kevin is not stoned in this picture.

Say Nope to Dope and Ugh to Drugs!

Once again, we didn’t have an autograph book, so I’ll have to do that here at home.

Characters, Mouse-In-Law , ,

Character Meal at the Mouse-in-Law

4 Comments Posted by on February 23, 2011

Hey, how about the new look? Swanky, hunh? I love it! Thanks Steve!

So character dining has always kind of fascinated me. We never did it as a kid. The closest we came to character dining that I remember was we had breakfast with Santa this one time. I don’t know if it was near Christmas or in the off-season or what, but I do remember eating breakfast and Santa walking around taking pictures. Or something.

Character dining options in Disneyland are a bit limited. You can do the dining inside Disneyland with “Minnie and Friends” (sans Mickey? I don’t know), in  California Adventure with the princesses, or outside of the park at breakfast with Mickey and Friends at the Paradise Pier hotel (the sort of bastard stepchild of the Disneyland resort), Storytellers Breakfast at the Grand Californian, or Goofy’s kitchen at the Disneyland Hotel with…well, whatever characters happen to stop by.

I will admit that the only character meals I knew of before writing this post were the princess one in CA Adventure and Goofy’s Kitchen, but I digress.

At any rate, my BFF came down from northern California with her kindergarten-aged daughter and we went to Goofy’s Kitchen. It was actually quite fun with good food, and we saw Goofy, Pluto, Chip and Dale, and so on. We saw the “minor” princess–Mulan, and an Aladdin strangely missing Jasmine. Because they want you to spend the big bucks to go into CA Adventure and meet the heavy-hitter princesses.

ANYway, so in my Mouse-in-Law planning, I asked around for a character meal, and several people recommended the Crystal Palace in the Magic Kingdom, which starred the Winnie the Pooh characters. Theo sleeps with a Winnie the Pooh and likes those characters, so I signed us up.

Theo loved it. Many of the meals at the Mouse-in-Law are buffets, so Theo got to enjoy a wide variety of food. That was a plus.

Incidentally, the following pictures were taken with my point and shoot. We also have other pictures with the DSLR and a video of meeting Piglet, but these will have to do for now.

We met Pooh first, and Theo leaned in for the hug:

Yes, I will give you a hug now

He was a big fan of drinking out of a cup with a straw, which he really doesn’t get to do at home. He does love his food and was having trouble being patient.

Gimme some more food, lady!

The other characters met us while we were eating. Theo kept trying to give Eeyore and Tigger his food (usually his roll). Both Eeyore and Tigger made exaggerated tummy-rubbing, hand to mouth motions that were clearly supposed to convey that they had already eaten, but they were going to pass on Theo’s roll. Theo would not be deterred. Offering food is his ultimate expression of love, and he loves the Pooh characters.

Take my roll, Eeyore. No, seriously, TAKE THE ROLL!

And then after supper was ended (so they say), Pooh came back around to our table. We expected Theo to be a little more welcoming, but he seemed put out that both Eeyore and Tigger turned down his food generosity, so he was a bit less inclined to be all lovey with Pooh again. That said, Pooh and the other characters had clearly been coached on taking pictures. Here’s Pooh all ready to go. Wish Theo was looking in the right direction and maybe even smiling too.

You can pose for the camera, but I won't

Oh well, what can you do with a two-year-old. Theo sure loves the characters though.

Characters, Mouse-In-Law

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