Category Archives: Fantasyland

“it’s a small world”

25 Comments Posted by on June 20, 2011

I write “it’s a small world” in quotes and lower case letters because the Disneyland site does. I think maybe the lower case letters are supposed to convey the smallness of the world, or at least the world inside the quotes. I don’t know. Anyway, I really think Small World (I’m bucking convention here) gets a bad rap. Yes, the song is repetitive, but inside the ride they sing it in several different languages. And when they did the refurb they really spruced up all of the dolls. I think the ride is fantastic, and if you have little kids, it’s awesome with them.

I already wrote about the holiday Small World so I’ll just sum up briefly here. Small World opened at Disneyland in 1966, a time when the average Disneyland guest weighed  lot less than they do today. Yes, that’s significant. Because as the guests got heavier, the boats sunk lower in the water, and the “river” was powered only by water current. Your boat would frequently get stuck. They closed the ride for a complete refurb and while it was closed they added some Disney and Pixar characters to the scenes. At first I thought this was going to be a total nightmare, but I actually think they did it well.

The clock face outside of Small World is totally famous.

Totally famous.

Every 15 minutes, it turns into the world’s largest cuckoo clock (not a fact, I’m just speaking off the cuff. I’m sure there’s a larger cuckoo clock somewhere in Germany) and little dolls from different countries come out and circle by.

Cute

Now there are two lines for Small World boats. One is physically shorter than the other, and I used to think that one was faster, but in fact that one is the handicap-accessible line so the boats often slow down to help people who need extra time boarding. So the one closest to the clock face is the fastest one usually.

Small World also features a number of topiary animals. I find topiary animals just a little bit creepy since reading The Shining by Stephen King, but mostly they’re awesome.

The Loch Ness Monster exists! At Disneyland!

Here’s a pretty good picture of the boats and loading area.

Good pictures can be a bit few and far between on this blog

You’ll notice in the trough there’s a groove down the middle. The boats are no longer carried entirely by water current anymore. They can get a helping hand every once in a while.

Now I want to make it clear that Theo really likes this ride. He has been on it a number of times and completely enjoyed it. So it was really baffling when we got to the boat loading dock and he completely lost it. We were going to put him and Anderson and Annika together in the row ahead of us, but when I tried to get him in, he started kicking and screaming and going limp and saying “No! No! No!”

It was so unexpected, really. I tried to get him to sit in the row in front but he was throwing such a fit I thought he might pitch himself out of the boat entirely, so I unceremoniously dumped him in our row and then followed him in and pinned him down.

Unsurprisingly, this little incident caught the attention of, well, everyone. I kept saying, “Theo, you love this ride!” and people were looking at me like “Lady, he clearly does not love this ride.” And the people in line were giving me looks like “Are we going to have to stop the whole ride so this crazy lady can get her child off?” I could just feel the Mommy of the Year Award slipping through my very fingers. And Kristin, helpful as always, was saying “Give me your camera–I want to get a picture of this tantrum!”

Then just as quickly as it began, it stopped, so by the time Kristin got ahold of the camera, this is what turned out.

No visible evidence of the trauma sustained mere seconds prior.

Whatever.

Anyway, you float away from the loading dock and enter into the Tunnel of Doom.

Or the Tunnel of Happiness or whatever

One thing I love about Small World is that throughout all of the years and renovations, they have not changed the artwork, so it still maintains its mid-60’s flair. I mean, you’d have to pretty much re-do then ENTIRE RIDE if you wanted to change the artwork, but back in the 80’s everyone thought that kind of thing was a Great Idea so I can say that I’m pleased Disneyland didn’t mess with it.

I think this introductory part is really to help your eyes adjust

Also adding to the retro feel is the fact that Small World is sponsored by Sylvania. I do remember as a child watching Sylvania light bulb commercials, but I very much associate Sylvania with a time when people needed to be sold on a brand-name light bulb. And honestly, when I saw the sponsor, my first reaction was “Does Sylvania even exist anymore?” It does, and apparently it’s gone all LED to compete and stuff. I don’t know how much money they give to Disneyland for Small World, but that’s money they certainly didn’t put into their website, which looks like something I designed in a tech writing class in 1996.

Anyway.

Then you start moving through the various rooms. Sometimes it’s hard to know what country or continent or little chunk o’ the globe you’re supposed to be traveling through, but usually there are clues to orient you somewhere.

That's First Nations artwork over the door, and a Mountie--CANADA!

Some are very straightforward.

Engerland!

In the British Isles room you encounter your first Disney character. Like I said, I was really nervous about how they were going to pull this off, but I think they did a great job fitting it in.

When we were in Oxford in 2009, we visited the Sweet Shop where Alice Liddell used to buy her candy.

Since I’m a huge Alice fan, I like that scene.

And how often do you see Cinderella WITHOUT the blue dress?

This is so charming

It’s refreshing, I tell you. If it weren’t for the mice, you wouldn’t even know it was Cinderella.

This German display goes out to Melinda and her family in Bavaria.

I AM AN AWESOME PHOTOGRAPHER!!!

Sorry about the photo quality there, Melinda. It’s the thought that counts.

It’s actually pretty easy to miss Aladdin and Jasmine in the Middle East section.

Hint: a whole new wooooooorrrrrlllllllldddddd

And interestingly, Standard Research Methodology, Aladdin was not originally part of the Arabic versions of the One Thousand and One Nights. Hunh.

Over in China we find my favorite ass-kicking princess, Mulan.

And seriously, who DOESN'T want a talking pet dragon named after my favorite Chinese dish?

Some of the scenes are more fanciful than others, like Africa Dipped In Pink.

It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you...

And some I just couldn’t figure out at all.

Where the hell IS this?

UPDATE: Reader correction–This is the Andes! Which also answers my other question, “where is South America represented?”

And let’s not forget the joyous world under the sea. There was already a mermaid scene, so it was kind of a no-brainer to throw Ariel in there. However, they kept the existing other mermaid dolls, so those don’t quite match with Ariel’s sisters in the movie.

Maybe they're distant cousins or something

Over in the Tahitian-ish room you have one of my favorite scenes from when I was little–the hula dancers. For some reason, those grass skirts shaking all at the same time was utterly fascinating to me.

shake shake shake shake shake shake

Then new after the refurb was the good old U. S. of A. Or maybe it’s not new and I never noticed it before, but I’m pretty sure it’s new.

We're all farmers

I think they needed the room to stick in Woody and Jessie. However, out of all of the additions to Small World, I really hate these. I don’t know why they couldn’t just make them dolls like everyone else. I think they look horrible.

wtf?

However, if you are avid Woody and Jessie aficionados like Anderson and Annika, you keep looking at them even when your boat has passed them.

Still looking

After America you get to the Grande Finale room, which is where all of the other rooms send representative delegations to hammer out world peace by wearing traditional clothes, dancing their native dances, and singing in English.

I'd like to teach the world to sing...

A giant sun bids you a friendly farewell as your journey comes to an end.

This doorway is actually cooler in the holiday version

Then you can send oversized postcards to your friends reminding them that you’re at Disneyland and they are not.

Weather is here, wish you were beautiful

Then you drift back out into the outside world. Kevin likes this part because it’s the only attraction in the park where the “stay seated please” is repeated in German.

And I have to say, of all of the rides repeated at Walt Disney World, the Small World there left me shocked and speechless, it was so bad. The rooms were jumbled and crowded, nobody was singing in their languages (or singing at all, I think they had the music turned way down), it was impossible to tell where in the world you were at any given time. As far as Small World goes, the original is DEFINITELY the best.

So give Small World a chance. There’s so much to see in there and I think you’ll really like it.

Fantasyland , , ,

Castle Secret Passages Part 2: Tomorrowland

23 Comments Posted by on May 10, 2011

Yesterday I introduced you to Castle Secret Passages Part 1: Frontierland, with two bonus princesses (Belle and the pink one) thrown in. Today, I’m going to talk about the other secret passage.

This one is on the right as you walk through the drawbridge, and goes to Tomorrowland.

Portrait of a smart woman taking a shortcut

Compared to the secret passage to Frontierland, the passage itself is a little more interesting and also more of a straight shot to Tomorrowland. By interesting I mean a little more windy.

Doesn't this look like it's going somewhere interesting?

The nice thing is that you pass the very charming Snow White’s grotto and wishing well.

Oh look! There it is!

The first thing you’ll notice about Snow White’s wishing well is her dulcet tones ringing through the air. Unless the first thing you notice is the fact that there’s a wishing well at all. This is one of the most hidden charms in the park.

One of two wishing wells in the park. Anyone know where the other is? I do.

Apparently they clean out all of the coins and send them to some charity or something. The sign was non-specific.

Also in the grotto are all seven dwarves.

Dwarves in their natural environment--water.

It has been at least 20 years, maybe a good 30, since I saw Snow White. As the original Disney animated feature, I’m a little nervous to see it again. Oh, and am I the only one who remembers this–way back in the day before VCRs, Disney used to release the classics in the actual movie theaters periodically? So if you wanted to see Cinderella, you just waited a certain number of years and then you could go see it in the theater. In some ways I long for that simplicity. Then I turn on my DVR and watch 6 episodes of the same show commercial-free.

In a rather sickeningly sweet touch, the bridge leading to the grotto is festooned with hearts.

The word "treacly" comes to mind

And although I did not catch any this visit, I have also seen princesses hiding on this side too. Here’s your obligatory map. Circle denotes princess area.

You're welcome.

Fantasyland , , ,

Castle Secret Passages (Plus Bonus Hidden Princess) Part 1: Frontierland

14 Comments Posted by on May 8, 2011

I seem to be making a habit of very long post titles as of late. I’d file this one under “Things I knew existed but never actually looked closely at,” but my Categories over there —–> are getting a little crowded.

Anyway. The castle holds some secrets within its walls, or just outside of its walls as the case may be, two of which are secret passages to other parts of the park. In this post I’m going to talk about Frontierland. You probably knew that if you read all the way to the end of my very long post title. Also the post title gives away the surprise. Maybe I should be more vague.

So when you’re heading North through the hub and cross the drawbridge, right as you come through the castle, look to your left and see the secret passage to Frontierland.

It's a passageway I never ONCE walked through before I took these pictures. Why? No clue. I'm too cool for secret passageways, I guess.

If you’re thirsty and/or want to see a lovely little statue of Princess Aurora and the Prince who woke her up, there’s a water fountain right there. According to my Standard Research Methodology (3 minutes on Google), the Prince does not have a name. As such, he will henceforth be known as Prince Biff.

Princess Aurora and Prince Biff enjoy a lovely waltz or equally romantic dance

Oh crap, I just utilized my SRM again, and Prince Biff does have an actual name. It’s Prince Philip. What a shame–Prince Biff was so catchy.

Anyway, the passage itself is rather unassuming.

There's a light at the end of the (very short) tunnel!

But the exciting thing is what’s directly on the other side.

It's Princess Aurora sans Prince Biff/Philip

Not only that, there was also

Belle sans Beast or, according to my SRM, Prince Adam

This is very significant.

Why is this significant?

Glad you asked!

Princesses are pretty much the Holy Grail of character meet-and-greet. In fact, back at the Princess Fantasy Faire, people wait in line for well over an hour at times to meet a mere 3 princesses. However, when I stumbled across Aurora and Belle, there were exactly 8 other people there, not counting this guy:

The exact words he was saying into his phone were "Honey, come quickly! It's Belle and...the pink one!" I'm totally not joking here.

Belle and the pink one indeed! Two princesses with virtually no wait for pictures and autographs. SCORE! I believe the various  princesses frequent these secret passageways quite often, so it’s always a good idea to take a look. In the following picture, the yellow line is the secret passage and the circle is where I saw the princesses (I always feel like that should be princessii).

Aren't you impressed by my skillful use of Microsoft Paint?

Tune in tomorrow for Part 2. I’ll give you 3 guesses where the other secret passage leads. If you said “Tomorrowland,” you’re right.

Sorry to spoil the surprise there. I’ve never been very good at suspense.

Fantasyland , , ,

Pinocchio’s Daring Journey

23 Comments Posted by on April 18, 2011

Did you know that Pinocchio was Disney’s second animated film (after Snow White, of course)? Well this is actually one of those things that I DID know before starting this blog, and now you know it too. You’re welcome.

Pinocchio’s Daring Journey is one of the Fantasyland “dark rides” (those ones where you sit in a vehicle and ride around in the dark–if you’ve been to Disneyland you know what I’m talking about. If not, that’s all the explanation you’re going to get. Sorry.). I haven’t been on it in recent memory, recent memory being the last 30 years, so when it seemed like the line was short, I decided to go for it.

Are you man enough for this ride? I mean wooden doll enough? Or honest/short-nosed enough? Or whatever.

Pinocchio is located right by King Arthur’s Carrousel, which is Theo’s favorite ride. I’m interrupting this narrative to tell you that because right after I took this picture, Theo started saying, “Horse! Horse!” so we went for a spin on the carrousel first.

Satisfied with his horse-riding, a happy Theo and I walked back over to go on Pinocchio. I was a little nervous because it looked like there was a very short line, but sometimes what you see from the outside of the ride disguises the fact that there’s 56 miles of zig-zagging behind the scenes. So I was a tiny bit nervous, but it’s Pinocchio so I thought I’d take my chances.

Is there more to the line than this? Actually, no. This is pretty much all there is.

The dark rides aren’t called “dark” for nothing. They’re dark. Now I know that Snow White’s Scary Adventure is, in fact, scary (you can tell by the number of traumatized children coming off of it) so I’ve been avoiding that one when I have Theo with me. He’s not a huge fan of the dark and has, in the past, started getting very nervous/crying in extended dark and scary scenes.

Okay, so there’s no “scary” in “Pinocchio’s Daring Journey,” but I should have realized that “Daring” doesn’t mean “sunny! bright! cheerful!” And really, it’s not much of a sunny, bright, cheerful story either, is it? I mean, my basic recollection of the story is this:

Gepetto wants a kid so he makes one out of wood. The Blue Fairy comes and animates him or something. Umbrella-wielding Jiminy Cricket shows up on the scene because Pincchio is either in the habit of, or will soon be in the habit of making what adults call “Bad Decisions” using “Poor Judgment.” Also Pinocchio’s nose grows longer and longer each time he tells a lie, rendering a polygraph machine completely superfluous if he should ever commit a real crime. Something happens and Pinocchio goes out into the world and is in a puppet show with a bad guy. Then something else happens and Pinocchio uses his Poor Judgment to make some Bad Decisions and gets sucked into Pleasure Island, which I keep wanting to call Treasure Island and which also seems to be all awesome and fun but turns out to be like a time-share presentation from Hell. He also gets turned into a donkey. Then he is sad. Then something else happens and he goes home and for some reason, the Blue Fairy thinks he should become a real boy and turns him into one. The end!

I’m seriously wondering if I should brush up on some of my Disney classics before I go on these rides, because that was literally all I remembered going into the ride.

Anyway, back to the ride. So you and your unwitting, trusting, not-a-fan-of-the-dark toddler hop onboard your ride vehicle emblazened with a friendly-looking Jiminy Cricket leading the way. What could possibly go wrong?

The Disneyland website calls this a “4-person woodcarvers cart.” Just so you know.

Then you jump immediately to the Bad Guy’s puppet show.

Stromboli? Isn’t that a food? Yes, I’d love a stromboli with pepperoni and mushrooms!

Immediately I am faced with the biggest challenge of blogging this ride. It’s extremely difficult to take pictures inside.

It’s the Puppet Theater thing. Is that a can-can dancer or an early version of Lilo from Lilo and Stitch? No clue.

I have a number of other pictures that look like this:

I AM AN AWESME PHOTOGRAPHER!!!

Did I mention this ride was dark? Actually, Theo was doing really, REALLY well. He was snuggled in close but was still looking around and was quiet and not crying. He was really being quite brave.

Part of the problem with photographing this ride is that your  vehicle  woodcarvers cart actually gets moved around from side to side quite frequently, so you’re never really looking at any given scene for a long time. Like enough to take a picture with a point and shoot. I did start anticipating pictures, but the aim was a bit off.

It’s Pleasure Island and some lady’s hair!

Theo continued to do well until we started to get to the really scary part of the ride, heralded by this dude.

I have always hated jack-in-the-boxes. What’s fun about some terrifying clown or jester thing popping out of a box when you don’t expect it to?

At this point, our intrepid little toddler cuddled in even closer, but rather than crying, he simply started saying, “All done? All done? All done?” No sweetheart, just a little bit longer. WHAT KIND OF MOTHER BRINGS HER 2-YEAR-OLD ON A TERRIFYING RIDE???

Next, Pinocchio and his little friend who also uses Poor Judgment to make Bad Decisions get turned into donkeys.

It’s donkeys shooting pool. Of course!

And then we got to the really scary part–Monstro the whale. Now you may remember when Pinocchio gets swallowed by Monstro, but I had forgotten all about it. And incidentally, as a very young child, I always got the story of Pinocchio and Monstro confused with Jonah and the whale and continually thought “Pinocchio is in the BIBLE???”

Anyway, I had forgotten about Monstro until he came after us, growing increasingly larger as I got this shot.

I think the phrase that best describes this is “OMFG!!!!!”

And to his IMMENSE credit, Theo did not flip out at this point, which was very good because I almost did. What a trooper!

So somewhere along the line, Monstro disgorges you and you end up back in the toy shop (this is the part that’s all fuzzy in my mind) and the Blue Fairy, who is some kind of projected image that was impossible to photograph, turns Pinocchio into a real boy.

Look, Dad! I don’t know how I got here, but I’m real!

That picture kind of looks like it’s in 3D except it’s really just the lighting and the fact that I’m still moving. You can also see more of Gepetto’s toy shop.

None of these will become real

And then the ride is over. Theo survived, sanity intact, despite asking if we were “all done? all done?” for the entire second half of the ride. All in all, it’s not a terrible ride, but it’s very dark and not for the fearful.

Incidentally, because you care, my other experience with Pinocchio is that when I was very young, I was in a community theater’s musical version of Pinocchio that was not the Disney version. I remember that because our Jiminy Cricket was called “Geronimo” or something. My big role, I am not kidding here, was as a Leaf. Now, how on earth does a leaf figure into this story? Well, the Leaf was a very important role, because we (actually I was one of three Leaves) had two things to do. One was that every time Pinocchio told a lie, we held portions of the ever-growing nose and marched out on stage and attached them to Pinocchio’s existing nose. Obviously that’s the role of a Leaf, and completely inconspicuous too. Our other important role was that we had these stuffed fish, and during the Monstro scene, we stood at the side of the stage and threw fish at Pinocchio to emphasize that he was being swallowed (along with several stuffed fish) by a whale. It was serious high-tech theater.

I wish I was kidding people, but that’s the late 70’s/early 80’s for you.

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