Category Archives: Fantasyland

The Pearly Band

10 Comments Posted by on March 21, 2011

So let’s file this one under the “things I never knew existed” category! Theo and I were coming through the castle after the Superman Ad incident, and saw a brightly colored band marching through.

Instruments, bright colors, and the back of some girl's head

They circled and then lined up in formation. I checked my Entertainment Guide and it made no mention of brightly-colored musicians gathering in front of the castle, so of course in the interest of this blog, I stopped to listen.

Also, Theo seemed interested so why not?

I cleverly discerned their name by reading the drum. Because I’m smart like that.

Funny how the drum so often gives away the identity of the performer

If you’ve been following this blog, you’ll know that 3 minutes on Google is my standard at-home research methodology (if you’re new to the blog, my standard at-home research methodology is 3 minutes on Google), and according to my research, the Pearly band follows the traditions of London’s pearly kings and queens. I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean, since I’ve been to London a couple of times and I have NEVER seen any royalty dressed up like this playing instruments. But, you know, it’s Disneyland, so I’ll go with that. Apparently the “pearly” part refers to the mother-of-pearl buttons on their natty outfits.

When Mary Poppins arrived, it made a LOT more sense. Because there’s a pearly band in Mary Poppins, and apparently Disneyland has had their own Pearly Band since the movie released.

That’s one movie I really should see again, by the way.

Anyway, Mary Poppins immediately came over and started shaking hands with all of the waiting children.

Shaking hands with the kid next to us

Sadly I was so unprepared for this turn of events that I failed to get into a good position to see Mary Poppins shaking hands with my own child. Instead, in my panic, I ended up with this:

I AM AN AWESOME PHOTOGRAPHER!!!

Geez.

Anyway, when Bert came out with his portable chimney sweep vehicle, I knew we were in for a treat.

Sweeping the chimneys of Disneyland in style

After wheeling in his chimney sweeping cart, since apparently 47 Disney years later Bert’s still stuck in an archaic manual labor job, Bert joined with Mary for a jolly holiday.

This Bert looked nothing like Dick Van Dyke, but given Dick's current age, that's probably not a bad thing

They joined with the Pearly Band leader to sing a song, which I can’t remember because I’m writing this entry a week after the visit to Disneyland took place. Blogger fail.

La la la, some song from the Mary Poppins movie

There were more musical numbers, and then Bert revealed that his “trash can” was actually a cleverly-disguised banner holder/retractor, reading Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

Super California Surfers, Experts On the Ocean

Mary tried to get everyone to sing along, but she thwarted her own efforts by standing in front of the word we were supposed to be singing. Lucky for her, everyone in the crowd seemed to know it anyway.

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious has its own Wikipedia page. Seriously.

Then the fun went into high gear as Mary and Bert selected a few children from the audience and gave them each a chimney sweeper.

Honorary Chimney Sweeps, we will exploit your child labor and pay you nothing, just like Victorian England!

The kids actually did a fabulous job of keeping up with Bert and Mary.

Raise your knees high and crush the upper class! Let them sweep their own chimneys! Or invent forced-air central heating!

Mary led the children around the Pearly Band as a grand finale.

Let us skip and revel in the joy of central heating!

All in all, it was a wonderfully pleasant surprise to happen upon a performance I never even knew existed at Disneyland. I have to say, that’s one thing I’m loving about writing this blog–there’s just so much I never paid attention to!

 

Fantasyland, Main Street , , , ,

Princess Fantasy Faire

10 Comments Posted by on March 8, 2011

At the back of the park right next to Mickey’s Toontown stands a theater. When I was younger, there were various shows there–I saw Beauty and the Beast one time–but at night it would change into Videopolis.

Videopolis was Disneyland’s version of a night club, where they turned the lights down low and cranked up the pumping bass and surrounded you with “I Want My MTV” videos everywhere. It was seriously the most awesome thing EVAR!

Just kidding. I never went in there. Because really? If I wanted to go clubbing, I’d go to a club. Nobody comes to Disneyland so they can be in a mosh pit or whatever. Despite that, according to the highly reliable Wikipedia, Videopolis survived an entire decade–1985 to 1995.

However, Videopolis did shut down, and now that space has become the Princess Fantasy Faire. The Princess Fantasy Faire is basically a meet-and-greet area for some of the Disney Princesses. You wait in a long line (emphasis on LONG) and then go into a sweet little alcove to meet princesses and take pictures.

Prepare yourself--there's a lot of pink here

You get one-on-one time with them, which is nice for conversation and also very similar to what we found at Epcot. Except with princesses.

Well, in order to check out the Princess Fantasy Faire, I figured I needed to find myself a princess. Fortunately, Princess Katie came to the rescue.

Princess Katie, a dazed Theo, and some other kid wait patiently for the princesses

Before entering the Fantasy Faire, for some reason I thought there would be a number of them. Like maybe all of them. This turned out to be incorrect.

My first clue was when we walked in the front gate and saw Ariel (post-mermaid transformation). Ariel used to sit in this little seashell cove flapping her tail, which was adorable and shaded, but now she walks around like a real person, and it can be difficult to tell that it’s her because she is only shown as the human princess Ariel for like 0.00009 seconds in the movie.

Seriously, the hair is the only giveaway. That and I happened to have Princess Katie and her mom there and they said, “Oh look! It’s Ariel!” As we walked back to Fantasyland, we also came across Cinderella and Snow White.

Disney has a firm policy about characters. It’s the classic Disneyland trivia question: How many Mickeys are there in the park? One. You will never find a character in one part of the park and then stumble across them seconds later in another part. So once we passed Ariel, Cinderella, and Snow White, I truly began to wonder what the Fantasy Faire had in store for us.

The wait was relatively long–about 45 minutes. Bless my friend Kelli and Princess Katie, who waited in line and let Theo and me go knock ourselves out at Toontown only to join them at the last minute. Which was good because he definitely would not have waited that long. But typically the wait is about 60-90 minutes, sometimes more.

Once we were ushered in by a cast member whose costume was best described as “velvet carriage footman chic,” I realized that the whole Princess Fantasy Faire was really just three princesses.

THREE???

Seriously–if I’d waited 90 minutes only to find three princesses, I’d probably throw a fit and ask for Viedopolis to come back.

The upside is that the princesses really do spend some time with the kids chatting with them and being very princess-y. First we saw Sleeping Beauty:

Both Aurora and Katie are doing the hold-the-dress-out thing. Perhaps this is proper princess etiquette I wasn't aware of.

Theo was pretty skeptical. I couldn’t blame him, given all of that pink. At this point we were packing some serious baggage. We had Kelli’s camera, Princess Katie’s autograph book + pen, my camera, Theo’s autograph book + pen, a photo pass card, and probably some other crap I can’t remember. Seizing this perfect opportunity, I completely unloaded everything I was carrying into Kelli’s arms and asked her take a picture of us. The angle is a result of juggling too many items at the same time, not a deliberate artisic choice.

This angle reminds me of those wedding pictures that people take where it's at an angle and is supposed to be all artsy and stuff

After Aurora we moved to Mulan. Mulan happens to be my favorite princess for two reasons: 1) She’s not white, and lord knows we could use a little more diversity in our Disney entertainment, 2) She’s the one princess who, well, actually does sh*t. Mulan is not going to wait for fate to take over her life. Mulan is going to take her fate into her own hands and kick some ass in it.

I can totally get behind that.

Mulan admits Katie into the Royal Order of Ass Kicking Princesses

Once again, despite the princesses going out of their way to be nice and gentle and welcoming, Theo was still not having any of it.

Mom, I got my autograph. Now lemme go.

Finally we got to meet Belle, who is probably my second favorite princess. One of the reasons why I like Belle is because she doesn’t wear pink. Another reason is because she likes reading books. I can relate to that. And when the furniture starts talking to her, she is startled for a moment but then a catchy song happens and she just goes with the flow. I would like to think that if my furniture and dinnerware started a musical kick-line inviting me to be their guest, I’d just go with it myself.

Plus I love French food.

By the time we got to Belle, Theo seemed to understand that the princesses were not, in fact, there to put braids and ribbons in his hair or make him wear the ball gown that inevitably gets duplicated at costume parties because there really is only one way to dress as Sleeping Beauty and that’s it.

For that reason, Theo was more willing to go up and get his book signed.

You're less threatening than the other two. Maybe it's the lack of pink.

And then we got one final group shot. Katie really has the princess thing down.

Theo is a bit confused but Katie is all set to go

Coming out of the Fantasy Faire, there’s the Troubadour Tavern. I was excited up until I realized that they didn’t serve beer. What kind of tavern doesn’t sell beer? They shouldn’t even call it a tavern if they’re not going to sell beer.

Where's the beer???

So, the Princess Fantasy Faire. I think if you have a little girl who is into princesses, this is likely unavoidable unless you can somehow talk them out of wanting to be there. But if we’d waited a really long time, it would have been a massive letdown.

And don’t forget about my GIVEAWAY!!!!! Become my friend on Facebook and enter to win a free pair of mouse ears! I may even buy you pink princess mouse ears if you ask nicely! If you don’t friend me, I shall be forced to use more exclamation points!!!!!! And nobody wants that!!!!!!!!!!!

Characters, Fantasyland , ,

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!!!

Fantasyland , , , ,

It’s A Holiday, Small World

1 Comment Posted by on January 1, 2011

So I’m not sure what the official name of the Small World Holiday ride is, but let’s just go with that.

It’s A Small World is a classic Disneyland ride. I can remember, as a child, loving Small World above all else. Dumbo too, but the Dumbo line is soooooo sloooooow. Anyway, yeah, Small World gets a bad rap because of the annoying song (I bet you’re singing it now–am I right?), but honestly it’s a really great ride.

A couple of years ago they revamped the whole thing, primarily because the average guest weighs more than they did when the ride opened in 1966. I’m not just being bitchy here. It was a real problem. The ride was designed with boats floating in a trough, carried along by nothing but the current of the water. As the guests got heavier, the boats sank further, and the current alone had a harder time moving the boats along. Seriously, your boat would kind of get stuck. And while it was a rather humorous bonding experience to be reaching out with the other guests and pulling yourself along the concrete walls, it was definitely Not A Disney Experience. I mean the only time you should be doing that kind of thing is on the Explorer Canoes.

So they shut the whole thing down, and while they were busy on the trough, they revamped the dolls as well. The New and Improved Small World featured two major changes: 1) more bouyant boats with a track to help them along when necessary, and 2) Disney characters added to the scenes. #1 seems self-explanatory. If you’re familiar with the “Little Tikes” brand of children’s toys, the boats are like riding in a Little Tikes boat. For #2, I was concerned this could go very, very badly, but they actually did a great job. It was things like subtley adding Ariel to the mermaid scene, or Aladdin and Jasmine flying overhead in the Persian scene. Tastefully done.

ANYway, so when it comes to holiday time, Disney completely transforms Small World into the Holiday Small World Extravaganza! (please say this with an Italian accent, and that’s not the actual name) They basically re-do every scene to turn into a holiday related theme. And not just Christmas, because Disney is all about Inclusiveness.  Additionally, if you hate the Small World song, here’s your chance–it’s now a medley of Small World, Jingle Bells, and Deck the Halls (which if you’re a pagan, you cannot possibly get more pagan than Deck the Halls). The outside also looks great.

The clock face is wearing a Santa hat! No, seriously--it's wearing a Santa hat.

Approaching the loading station, you see one of many strings of lights and bulbs. I’m fairly certain these garlands are directly from the 60’s, because the cellophane look is absolutely something I’ve seen in pictures from the era.

The jaunty hat is adorable too

Check it out--Santa is in the Eskimo scene!

Candles! And a Christmas tree with candles! And candles!

Can Can Can you ring in the new year?

I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO TAKES BLURRY PICTURES!!!

A dragon for Chinese New Year

Okay, really. Chinese New Year happens in like February, but I’m not going to fault Disney for being multicultural.

This one's better, but the light on my nose looks weird

It's Saint Lucia!

Peace On Earth--I can TOTALLY get behind that. And also behind the Little Tikes boat in front of us.

Also, Holiday Small World does this thingie on the outside that I call the “Psychedelic Nutcracker.” It’s kind of hard to describe, but every 15 minutes or so they show this film thing with flashing and colored lights and the facade lights up at different coordinated times and basically the kind of thing you don’t want to be looking at if you’re prone to seizures, and it’s to music, where one of the prominent songs is from the Nutcracker. Here is yet another example of my stellar photography skills.

I AM AN AWESOME PHOTOGRAPHER!

So basically that’s it. Holiday Small World. Don’t miss it.

Really.

Fantasyland, Holiday , , ,

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