Category Archives: Main Street

An Ad For Another Theme Park At Disneyland???

6 Comments Posted by on March 15, 2011

Today at the park I witnessed something I have absolutely NEVER seen before. Ever. EVER.

The park was a bit crowded (other people’s spring breaks) so as I was coming around Tomorrowland I couldn’t help but notice pretty much everyone looking at the sky. Being the gullible lemming that I am, I looked at the sky too. There were a bunch of planes doing skywriting.

(Skywriting is, I think, quickly becoming a lost art, but that’s not the point here).

Anyway, it was very difficult to read what they were spelling out. I think their message was too long for one, and also there must have been a bunch of wind up there because the first parts kept smearing before I could get a chance to read them. But here’s what I saw:

This one said RIDE SUPERMAN but the RI got cut off and the DE had already started blowing away

I moved to the Matterhorn to try to get a better picture, but if you’ve been following this blog, you know that my photography skills completely suck, so here’s the view over the Matterhorn:

I honestly can't decipher this at all

The message was repeated a couple of times, so I got a shot of the one over Small World:

Can you read upside-down?

Here, I’ll flip it for you. And it definitely read RIDE SUPERMAN 5D, and that was repeated a couple of times:

Digital photography is so awesome

But here’s the thing–there is no Superman ride at Disneyland. In fact, the only Superman ride I could think of was at Magic Mountain (in Valencia, CA). And while I couldn’t see the rest of the garbled messages, the RIDE SUPERMAN 5D was very, very clear, and repeated 3 times, which can only mean one thing:

Magic Mountain is advertising its ride in the skies above Disneyland.

Now honestly, I have to say that that’s probably the most ballsy thing I’ve ever seen. I mean, it’s not like Disneyland controls the air or something, but they’re not affiliated with Magic Mountain (which is currently owned by Six Flags again) in any way. I mean, I think the only thing that would have demonstrated bigger cojones would be to fly a blimp over and drop hundreds of leaflets onto Disneyland guests.

And then I had to go home and Google Superman 5D, because the Superman ride has been around for a number of years, and what the hell is 5D? It took some digging, but it looks like they revamped Superman, now called Superman: Escape From Krypton, and it’s scheduled to open this weekend, according to the LA Times.

I’m still not sure about what the 5D thing is (because seriously, how many dimensions do we NEED anyway?) and Magic Mountain doesn’t define it on their site for the new and improved Superman. It strikes me as very odd that they’re doing a media blitz over the skies of Disneyland including the 5D but they aren’t really explaining what it is. I suppose I could do some research to figure it out, but I don’t have the time right now.

Anyway, I sincerely have never seen anything like that before–advertising in the sky over Disneyland. Has anyone else?

(And don’t forget to Like me on Facebook and you could win a pair of mouse ears!)

UPDATE! File this one under “well that makes a LOT more sense!” I’ve recently learned that the part after “Superman” was not, in fact, “5D,” but was rather “SDRAWKCAB” or “BACKWARDS” backwards, because the new version of Superman goes both forward and backwards. And actually in the second picture on this post, you can make out “SDRAWKCAB” in the smeary part. Mystery solved!

Main Street ,

Disneyland Railroad

5 Comments Posted by on March 15, 2011

Kevin is a huge, huge, huge train fan, and unsurprisingly the train gene was not lost on Theo. This makes the Disneyland Railroad a constant favorite in our household.

The DLRR is a scaled down version of a real railroad. There’s a lot of history to the DLRR, but I’m just going to cut to the chase by summing it up as such: Walt liked trains. He could often be seen in the engine waving to his many fans. When he was alive, of course.

There will likely be other DLRR posts, but I’m going to start you off for now.

The DLRR has four stations: The Main Street station, which is the iconic station right above Flower Mickey’s head when you walk in, the New Orleans Square station, Mickey’s Toontown station, and the Tomorrowland station.You can get on or off the train at any of these locations, or you can ride the whole loop. Most people start at the Main Street station, but am I most people?

Of course not. Most people don’t blog about their quest to do everything there is to do at Disneyland.

We got on at Toontown station.

You'll never guess where the stroller parking is

This happened to be the same visit where we met the Princesses.

Princess Katie is ready for her ride around Disneyland

Leaving the Toontown station, you immediately come across the back of Small World. Be sure to wave–people always wave back.

Hey, guys closer to the train--the other line is actually slightly shorter!

You do pass through a lot of generic back-side-of-water kind of stuff on the DLRR. You don’t actually get glimpses into the backlot where the Magic Happens, but you do get a lot of this:

Welcome to my corrugated steel quonset hut

And this:

Look, a fence! GET THE CAMERA!!!!!

After moving through the Tomorrowland station, which is very forgettable so I didn’t take any pictures of it, but it’s right by Autopia, you get to go through the Grand Canyon/Dinosaur dioramas.

First, you hit the Grand Canyon as it is today.

The actual Grand Canyon is somewhat larger

And then, according to the highly trustworthy Wikipedia, some of the animals in the Grand Canyon diorama are actually taxidermied real animals (the only ones in the park).

So THAT'S what happened to Bambi's mother!

Once you’re all peaceful and one with nature in the Grand Canyon, you get Dinosaur land. It wasn’t a very friendly place.

"You are what you eat!" "Dude, it doesn't matter what we eat--we're going extinct anyway"

This is supposed to be some pterodactyls or something, but through the power of my superior photography skills, it’s just a really badass picture:

This picture looks like it should be the cover art for some post-apocalyptic fantasy novel about giant bats living in the area formerly known as the Grand Canyon

Disneyland even puts you right in the middle of a prehistoric battle:

Are you Team T-Rex or Team Stegosaur?

Sadly, we’ll never know how that turned out. Well, we do. In the end, everyone lost.

Including Bambi’s mother.

Following the dioramas, you end up at Main Street station. Now this is a really cool station so if you’re going to take the DLRR, it’s a great place to start.

This is not the actual guest capacity of Disneyland

I'm not sure if this is the exact elevation of the DLRR either.

There’s a telegraph office on the south side of the train at Main Street station. Sharp-eyed MYWTMouseketeer Marce correctly identified the location of the telegraph office at New Orleans Square. (I meant to do that. No, I’m just kind of lame sometimes) It’s constantly clicking, which makes you wonder how anyone could sit in a chair and decode Morse code all day. My friend Kelli tells me that the message being clicked out is actually Walt Disney’s speech from Disneyland’s opening day. That’s kind of cool.

Click click click click click click click

After Main Street is the New Orleans Square stop. The only thing I found surprising about this is that New Orleans Square is apparently part of Frontierland, which means that Frontierland must actually sweep around and enclose Adventureland.

Okay, it was interesting to ME anyway.

There is really nothing at all interesting in this picture.

From the New Orleans station, you go through the inside of Splash Mountain. It’s actually quite cool and I would have taken a picture for you, but Splash Mountain is currently closed, so you’re going to have to settle for this very boring picture of the Rivers of America instead.

These deer are fake

Following THAT, you end up back in Toontown, which was where we left our stroller.

The DLRR takes approximately 20 minutes to ride the loop. It’s a great way to see the park, get from one side of the park to another without walking your feet off, and just take a break and let your train-obsessed toddler feel special.

Frontierland, Main Street, Tomorrowland, Toontown ,

The Emporium

7 Comments Posted by on February 3, 2011

The Emporium is the largest store in Disneyland and is strategically located at the entrance of Main Street from Town Square. I say strategic because it’s the first big store when you walk into the park and the last big store walking out of the park. It’s also on a corner. I mean basically if you don’t see the Emporium it’s because you’re blind. And actually, I’m pretty sure blind people run into it as well.

There it is, hidden away where nobody can find it

Incidentally, the Emporium was the scene of my Awkward Social Situation. If you want to see what the Emporium looks like with a big green wall around it, check out this post.

But I digress.

The Emporium is sort of the Wal-Mart of Disneyland–you can find just about everything there.

Clothes

More clothes

Clearly clothes are a biggie. In general, Disneyland clothes fall into three categories:

1) Things You Wear On the Upper Half Of Your Body (roughly 98%)

2) Things You Wear On The Lower Half Of Your Body When You’re Laying Around The House Eating Ice Cream (roughly 0.5%)

3) Things You Sleep In (roughly 1.5%)

Disneyland really shoots for comfort. Also I didn’t include hats because they’re probably going to be their own post. Actually you could probably do an entire blog on Disneyland hats, but that would be even more boring than this post and nobody wants that.

The Emporium also features:

Things To Drink Out Of

and

Things Made Out Of Paper

If you want to go around collecting character autographs, here’s a good place to buy yourself a book.  OMG, I just realized that’s something I’ve never done–now I’m going to have to buy an autograph book and stalk the characters.

At the center of the store, the checkout counter has a jumbo-sized snow globe, sans snow.

Shiny!

And remember my Awkward Social Situation? It was all to get this picture of shot glasses (with extra cast members thrown in for added authenticity):

I'd like a shot of Mickey, straight up, yo

And here’s the most anticlimactic thing in the history of MYWTM (which isn’t very long, but still). Walt wasn’t a fan of alcohol, so rather than labeling these as shot glasses, they rang up as “toothpick holders.”

Yes, I got into a massively Awkward Social Situation just so I could tell you that shot glasses were known as toothpick holders.

I told you it was anticlimactic.

The Emporium also opens facing Main Street.

Oh, hello Main Street! I may look like any old store, but if you turn the corner, I'm a monstrosity

Also, there is a line of stores and such that span part of Main Street that are connected inside. The Emporium is the end of that line. It can be a good thing to keep in mind if you’re trying to navigate around 134,132,542,653 people waiting for the parade. I don’t always recommend cutting through stores, especially with a stroller, but if you’re on your own and you’ve got somewhere to be, well…

The last thing you need to know about the Emporium is that it seems like it would be a great place to pick up that gift on the way out of the store. That way you won’t have to carry it with you all day and risk getting it stolen, right? So you think you’ll just swing by on your way out.

Well, everybody else in the park has the same idea. So if you’re going to shop the Emporium, don’t wait until park closing to do it. And if you want to just do some casual browsing, REALLY don’t wait until park closing to do it.

Main Street , ,

Character Pictures

2 Comments Posted by on January 31, 2011

Character pictures can be tough. I am sure there is some kind of schedule involved in character appearances, but I have never really cared enough to figure it out and as such, I tend to just take a picture when the opportunity presents itself. I don’t know that I would recommend that for the time-pressed tourist.

But I’m not a time-pressed tourist, as we have well established.

Town Square is a great place to get pictures with the Mickey crowd. They also show up in Toon Town but again, I don’t know what the schedule is. This time I was in Town Square and thought I’d grab some pictures with Goofy, Pluto, and either Chip or Dale (whichever one has the black nose–I don’t know why they travel separately). I thought about Mickey, but the line was too long.

This isn't even the whole line to see Mickey

I hate waiting.

However, I did realize that while you usually see the characters on the right-hand side of Town Square (on the right if you’re looking up Main Street) by Mr. Lincoln, they also cross the square sometimes and do some more photo shoots on the other side by Town Hall. Interesting.

Right on the benches below the train station, there was no line for Chip (I checked, it’s Chip and not Dale). Well, there was one person, but that’s not a line. For the first time Theo actually went up to a character on his own for a picture. Big step there, buddy! It also enabled me to get a better picture on my own. That said, you might want to review my post on taking family pictures at Disneyland.

Chip tickled Theo on his tummy. Theo loved it.

This is a picture of Theo loving being tickled by Chip

We then headed over (and by “headed over” I mean took about 5 steps) to Pluto for our shot with him. He was a little more wary of Pluto.

You say he's a doggie but he doesn't look like our doggie at home

At this point Theo had been pretty much done for the day and we were on our way out anyway, but hey! Characters! Let’s take a picture! Sometimes this backfires. We did have to wait a few people to get to Goofy. I’d already nixed the Mickey shot because the line was too long but Goofy only had like 4 people in it. Unfortunately each person had like 36 cameras and wanted a dozen permutations of Goofy and the kids, Goofy and the one kid, Goofy and the other kid, Goofy and the kids and mom and dad, Goofy and the kids and mom, Goofy and the kids and dad, Goofy and just mom and dad, and so on and so forth.

It got old very quickly.

And while we were waiting, someone had parked their stroller right there. They had a sticker on its backing on the seat–one of the stickers they give out if you fill out their survey or listen to their Disney Vacation Club spiel. I turned away for a few seconds and when I looked back, Theo had taken the sticker from the stroller, peeled it off the paper, and stuck it to his tummy. He was extremely proud of himself. Heh. I had to admire his chutzpah, but did remove the sticker (now with t-shirt fuzz!) and attempt to put it back on the paper, which yeah, right. So, I did my best, and when the stroller’s owner came over I put on my “Sticker? What sticker?” face.

Anyway, so by the time we got to Goofy, Theo was done. He was totally being all Clingy McClingster and even though he’s seen Goofy before (and taken a picture with him) he wasn’t a fan this time around. But, I was there and I had waited, so I was determined to get my flippin’ picture. I handed the camera over to the cast member handler and she did her best, but we ended up with 4 or 5 of these:

I will look at you, but I don't trust you

I reject you, Goofy! Begone!

Oh well, better luck next time.

Characters, Main Street , , , ,

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