My Year With The Mouse

Over at the Mouse-Next-Door, Mickey’s Fun Wheel is the giant ferris wheel that looks over Paradise Pier. It’s awesome.

This picture was actually taken from the Zephyr, but I'm including it here because I didn't take a full-on picture for the Fun Wheel post. Oops.

As you can see, it’s pretty much all kinds of awesome colors at night.

Mickey’s Fun Wheel has two options for your riding pleasure: Brave and Wimp Swinging and Non-Swinging gondolas. The non-swinging gondolas are attached to the wheel like a normal ferris wheel seat would be (and spellcheck keeps wanting me to type Ferris. As in Save Ferris? I mean the movie, but isn’t the band originally from Orange County?) (UPDATE: A sharp-eyed reader confirmed that the ferris wheel is named after its inventor, George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr., therefore is indeed properly written Ferris wheel) .  The swinging gondolas swing. It’s hard to tell from these pictures because I didn’t really get any good close-ups of the swinging, but they are on an oval-shaped rail (also attached to the wheel) and the car can then swing back and forth as the wheel turns.

It’s pretty darned terrifying.

And the gondolas have barf bags in them, so seriously, not for the faint of heart or the faint of stomach.

Do I need to say that we chose the non-swinging ones? Fortunately you get to pick before you get in line.

Brave or wimp?

The Fun Wheel slowly goes up, up, up

Kind of looks like a roller coaster from this shot

Oh, also, the gondolas are completely enclosed, so nobody throws anything out of them.

Theo loves this ride

The Fun Wheel gives you the best views of the park.

Like this fuzzy picture of Cars Land

Paradise Pier has some of the best lighting I’ve ever seen.

Shiny!

You really go very, very high. Like you know when you’re even or above the giant roller coaster, that’s high.

California Screamin'

You can even see our house from up there.

Kind of.

It's in this direction

And that’s the crowd for World of Color at the bottom.

Go on the Fun Wheel. It may seem like meh, it’s a (save) ferris wheel, but once you get up there, the views are breathtaking.