Main Street Musings

9 Comments Posted by on January 27, 2011

I went to the park to take the missing pictures of the Emporium and was a bit alarmed to find this:

The Emporium is the building behind the green walls

Which reminds me to say that the disadvantage of visiting Disneyland in the off-season is that it’s also park improvement time. Like those states that get a ton of snow and their four seasons are Winter, Winter, Winter, and Construction. It’s like that.

However, even though it’s not the most scenic thing in the world, it’s still worth it to come in the off-season if you can to avoid the crowds.

Anyway, so the giant green walls were a bit disconcerting. There were also two giant green walled boxes next to the two snack stands in Town Square (which is what this entry was originally going to be about–the snack stands).

A bit alarmed and confused, I sought out the nearest cast member to ask what was going on. I spoke with Jackie, who in addition to being super-sweet and helpful, is also quite adorable.

Meet Jackie, and admire my advanced photography skills

Regarding the construction, they are re-paving the street in front of the Emporium and Jackie said that they should be finished with that around the 5th (of February). Additionally, the two green boxes will soon become sinks for hand washing for the two snack carts.

Which brings to me to the carts.

There are two carts in the Town Square: a popcorn cart and a churro cart. Jackie is at the churro cart. You may have noticed the “churros” on the side of her cart–a dead giveaway.

So what is a churro? Well, this snack is described as a “Mexican donut” which I have always found kind of odd given that it’s very little like a donut in my opinion. It’s basically dough that is extruded to be long and thin, which is then deep-fried and rolled in cinnamon sugar. I should have taken a picture but I didn’t buy one on that visit. They’re pretty much all kinds of awesome. The best churros can be found on Olvera Street in downtown Los Angeles, but the Disneyland ones are nothing to scoff at. In fact, I often buy them. The next time I buy one, I shall photograph it for you all.

The other snack cart is a popcorn cart. I have an odd weakness for Disneyland popcorn. I don’t know what they cook it in or whatever, but there’s just the right proportion of saltiness and artificial butter flavor to make it very yummy. You can pretty much buy an entire 6-pack box of microwave popcorn for the price of a small Dland popcorn, but that wouldn’t be any fun, would it?

The popcorn cart, and by popcorn cart I mean light pole

So those are your two immediate snack options when you enter the park. I do recommend both.

I have no idea why I took this picture of Town Square:

What is this a picture of? Why did I take it?

It seemed like a good idea at the time *shrug*.

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Shelby’s Guide To…When Is The Best Time To Visit Disneyland?

5 Comments Posted by on January 24, 2011

It’s Shelby’s Quick and Dirty Guide to When Is the Best Time to Visit Disneyland! How’s that for an atrocious sentence? Please don’t tell my esteemed writing colleagues.

Anyway, so last night I got an email from a friend in the Midwest who is thinking about coming to our happy place and wanted to know when the best time was to come. I actually get this question a lot and have devised a quick and dirty way to answer it, so I thought I’d blog it.

Also I’ve been gone for a while and I probably only have like 3 readers left. Hi Dad!

Before I get to the answer I need to explain a little bit about annual passes. Disneyland offers 4 annual passes. The two cheapest are for Southern California residents only, and in exchange for being cheap, you get fewer amenities. The handy little chart on the website demonstrates using colored dots all the fun things you’re missing out on by being a cheapskate.

Oh! A discount on guided tours!

There are, of course, only two things that matter: the number at the bottom, which is the price, and the number at the top, which are the blockout days.

Unless you really want that discount on guided tours.

At any rate, the secret to determining the best time to visit Disneyland is the calendar under the “Southern California” pass (the purple one). Disneyland has scientifically determined which days they anticipate being the most crowded through the coming year, and they’ve blocked out those days on the less expensive passes, particularly the locals. The Southern California Select pass doesn’t include any weekends so I think the only people who buy those are the unemployed and the elderly, but the Southern California pass, which is what I have, includes Sundays. Not Saturdays, since I think that’s a stick-it-to-you to try to get you to buy the most expensive pass, but it’s got a pretty good overview of when the park is likely to be more crowded. The calendar can be found here.

This is just a screen shot. Don't break your eyes trying to read it.

Those last two weeks in April are Spring Break. I know what you non-Californians are saying–“Spring Break happens much earlier!” Not in California. And since a huge number of Disneyland guests are Californians, that’s when we’re blocked out. Lucky for you out-of-towners with earlier Spring Breaks! Come on down!

There are probably much better and more accurate ways to determine the best time to come to Disneyland, but if you’re looking for a quick and dirty guide, use the calendar.

Happy travels, and remember–if you’re in town and want to be an honorary MYWTMouseketeer, shoot me an email and we’ll see if we can hook up!

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My Awkward Social Situation

13 Comments Posted by on January 12, 2011

Okay, so I’m new to this whole MYWTM blog and I haven’t actually worked out the best strategy for approaching social situations at the park. Do I tell people about the blog? Will they think I’m weird? Do I just try to act inconspicuous? What’s the proper way to handle direct questions when I’m doing something strange?

Well, I discovered the improper way of dealing with this the other day, in what I now call My Awkward Social Situation.

So here’s the setup. I went into the Emporium, the biggest shop on Main Street, to blog about (wait for it, wait for it) the Emporium. The plan was to take several pictures in the store and then a couple outside. All went well until I decided to get a little fancy-schmancy and take a picture of the shot glasses.

Yes, that’s right, taking a picture of shot glasses got me into an Awkward Social Situation, and not because I was talking about alcohol or anything. You will find out the reason why the picture of the shot glasses was important later on my actual post about the Emporium. Suffice to say that I had already walked in and taken several pictures around the store before approaching the shot glasses.

The shot glasses are at the registers, so when I went to get a direct shot there were 3 cast members standing there who had seen me wandering around taking the other pictures.

When I got near the shot glasses, one of the cast members said, “Oh, this must be your first visit!”

Of course it wasn’t, but I couldn’t think of anything to say in the moment, and by the next sentence out of the cast member’s mouth, it was too late to disabuse him of the notion.

“Here’s a First Visit button!”

My split second hesitation at the first statement locked me into what would only devolve into a series of increasingly uncomfortable exchanges. Because at that point, he had already given the button to Theo in his stroller. What was I going to say? “No, actually I’ve been here quite often, so I don’t need the button. I was just taking pictures of the inside of this store because, having been here a hundred times, I feel the deep need to permanently memorialize a store full of t-shirts and things to drink out of.”

Of course not. But I couldn’t think of a reasonable-sounding explanation for why I was taking these pictures and in my brain freeze, it just didn’t occur to me to tell the truth. I said, “Oh yeah! Yeah!”

Yes, that’s right, I lied to a Disneyland cast member. And I know what you’re saying because I’m saying the same thing:

WHY ON EARTH DID YOU LIE TO A DISNEYLAND CAST MEMBER???

I don’t know. I truly don’t. But that was my first instinct. All you armchair psychologists–go to town with that one.

Anyway, so now I’m there feeling terrible, AND I still needed the picture of the shot glasses.

I sort of panicked a little. It felt like it was too late to tell the truth because I would be totally embarrassed, but I didn’t want to leave without my picture, yet I didn’t want the charade to continue any longer. What to do? What to do?

I couldn’t think of a way to say, “hey, could you step aside because I really want to get a picture of these shot glasses for no reason that I can think of to tell you right now” so instead I said, “Thank you! Hey, I’d like to get a picture of all of you!” so I could have the shot glasses in the background.

Thanks! Bye!

That worked and I was proud of myself for another split second, until the awkward situation turned into a VERY awkward situation. The cast member handed me a Happy Anniversary  button, saying “Here, have a Happy Anniversary button.” Which…what? I was clearly there BY MYSELF with my child in a stroller taking pictures of the inside of a store. Does that look like someone who is celebrating an anniversary???

No. No it does not.

The situation continued to spiral out of control when the cast members, who had nothing else to do in the mostly empty store but talk to me, started asking questions. And since I had already lied about it being my first visit, there was nothing I could do to prevent what happened next…

Cast Member: How are you liking the park so far?

Me: Uh, it’s great!

Cast Member: Where are you from?

Me: Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, Northern California? [note, I lived in Northern California from 1999-2004. Not that that makes it better.]

Cast Member: That’s great! How long are you here for?

Me: Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, just the day?

The questions continued, as did my vague and increasingly dishonest answers, not to mention my sense of bewilderment (why am I lying???) and guilt. I knew I had to extricate myself from the situation ASAP, so I exaggeratedly looked at my watch and did the totally transparent, “Oh look at the time! I gotta go!” (and do what? Take more pictures of the insides of stores? Actually, yes.). Still, I walked out with a First Visit button (and another Happy Anniversary button). And I’m totally afraid of ever running into those cast members again and having them be like, “Oh, you’re vacationing here AGAIN? Just for the day?”

Yikes.

Theo summed it up perfectly:

Oh, there's something on my stroller?

Hmmmm, this doesn't look right

Lemme take a closer look

Mom, why does this say First Visit when this is TOTALLY not my first visit???

Good question, kid.

The worst part was that in my panic I was thrown off my game and missed taking a couple of pictures I wanted to take for my post, so y’all are just going to have to wait on that one. Sorry.

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King Arthur Carrousel

17 Comments Posted by on January 5, 2011

You know, Facebook has made class reunions totally irrelevant, since you can now find all of the people you hated in jr. high and high school and then feel smug and superior at their sad lives all year, every year, instead of once every 10 years. Oh, and also, you can catch up with people you actually LIKED and see how they’re doing a couple decades later. Such is the case with my childhood friend Mari, who I last saw our freshman year in high school (she moved) and met up with again today at Disneyland!

My Year With The Mouse–bringing old friends together since 2011!

Anyway, it was a blast to meet up with new assistant MYWTMouseketeers: Mari, Mark, Emiko (age 6), Aiko (age 3), and Kaito (almost 1).

Doesn't this look like a fun group of MYWTMouseketeers? They are!

Today we decided to ride Theo’s favorite attraction: King Arthur Carrousel.

The first thing you should know about King Arthur Carrousel is that there are two R’s in the spelling. According to my vast internet research (about 3 minutes on Google), carrousel is an acceptable spelling variant of the more common carousel (as is carousal, carousell, and apparently some others–it’s an old word so you can probably make up your own spelling and it will still count). Now why did Walt pick the double R spelling? Hard to say. Disneyland.com doesn’t give an explanation. Some guy on the themeparkreview.com message board says that he thinks Walt called it a carrousel to distinguish it from the ones at carnivals he didn’t want Disneyland patterned after.

You can’t believe everything you read on the internet, but that sounds about as good an explanation as any, I suppose. I didn’t click to page 2 of the Google results so there may be a better one further in the list. If you have a definitive answer with a reputable source, I’d love to hear it!

Theo is a little dubious about that double-R explanation

The second thing you should know about King Arthur Carrousel is that it was built in 1922 (coincidentally, the same year our house was built!) and contains 68 white horses. Okay, that’s two things. Apparently the original carrousel (purchased from a park in Toronto) had other animals, but Walt wanted everyone to ride a white horse like King Arthur, so they rounded up (heh) some more white horses and ditched the rest of the animals. Perhaps that was when Walt also changed the spelling from carousel to carrousel. This whole paragraph is true fact (except that last sentence) straight from the Disneyland.com site, so you can believe that. The site also says that “many” of the extraneous non-equine  carousel carrousel animals were relocated to the Casey Jr. Circus Train. It doesn’t say what happened to the rest of them, but I like to think that they were all retired to a carousel wildlife refuge in Montana or something.

Or maybe you can just find them on eBay.

Anyway, the King Arthur Carrousel (you’re not supposed to use “the” with it, but it looks weird otherwise) is really a gorgeous ride. All of the horses are “jumpers” which mean that they all go up and down, because there’s nothing worse than getting all excited about getting on a carousel and then the ride starts and then you realize that your stupid horse is one of the ones that doesn’t go up and down. Well in King Arthur’s world, they all do.

Aiko was a little concerned that the horse would turn into a real horse once the ride started. She was relieved to find out otherwise.

Another cool thing about the King Arthur’s Carrousel is that it’s computerized to start and stop in the same spot each time. That’s very handy, and also ensures that every guest gets the same exact ride length, which is very egalitarian and très Disney.

We found Emiko right where we left her--in front of Pinocchio!

Even the tots can ride! Also, it’s extremely important for an adult standing on the ride to stand in between two horses. I learned this because apparently someone on our ride wasn’t doing this and the ride operator said THREE times to stand in between horses. Sometimes I wish they would just come out with, “Hey–you! Lady with the garish yellow shirt and bad 80’s hair! Get between the horses!” instead of just hinting at it several times.

Mark and Kaito demonstrate the two acceptable and safe riding positions: on a horse and in between two horses. Pay attention!!!

The nice thing about the Carrousel is that the line is usually pretty short. I don’t think we’ve ever waited more than one or two iterations for our turn. The stroller parking is also pretty straightforward. Just park and go.

Stroller parking is...pretty much anywhere.

So what’s the difference between a carrousel and a merry-go-round? Well again, Google gave me several opinions, the primary of which seemed to be that carousels have horses and merry-go-rounds have multiple animals or that carousels turn counter-clockwise and merry-go-rounds turn clockwise, but there’s also a significant amount of dissent on that front. The International Museum of Carousel Art, which seems quite trustworthy despite their unfortunate use of Comic Sans, states that the terms are completely interchangeable and there is no distinction. I’ll go with that.

MYWTMouseketeers queued up and ready to go!

Another nice thing about the carrousel is that it’s a great photo opportunity. It stands right across from the castle drawbridge so when you enter Fantasyland you go all “oooh” and “ahhh” at it. Makes for a great group picture.

Okay, everyone look directly into the sun!

The King Arthur Carrousel is not one of the special just-at-Disneyland rides at the park but it’s a solid good time for the younger set, and almost always a quick wait. Theo gives it two thumbs up.

I AM AN AWESOME PHOTOGRAPHER!!!

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