Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Halloween at Disneyland Part 1: Grim Grinning Ghosts

Two weeks ago marked the second time for me to visit Disneyland in a year. Two weeks ago marked the fourth time I went to Disneyland after three years living in LA, and yet I'm still not an annual passholder. But anyway, it doesn't matter. What matters is about a Disneyland visit is, it'll be a blast as long as you have the perfect partner.

I went on a Friday morning before Halloween with Jess, who came all the way here from San Jose almost exclusively for a Disneyland visit. As someone who barely has anyone to go there with, I couldn't say no. Jess and I woke up at 6.15 am. We planned on spending the whole day there and Disney's California Adventure. When I said the whole day, I really meant from the moment the parks opened until they closed. I have never been so determined to wake up this early before. Waking up at 6 for any other purposes has always been a pain. But Jess and I decided to sleep early last night so this could happen.


After an hour of choosing our dresses and putting on some make up, we took off from my Pasadena apartment at 7.30 am. The traffic wasn't that bad, especially I turned to the carpool lane in most of the trip. However, the regular Disneyland parking lot was closed.We had to take a detour to Anaheim Garden Walk to park there, which required us an extra fifteen minutes of walking from the shopping mall to the park.

The first park we headed to was Disneyland Park! It was 9 by the time we got in, an hour after the park opened (we lost an hour of detour, parking, and walking to the park). We retrieved our Birthday and First Visit badges and bought autograph books from a small shop next to the City Hall (because there was a long line to the City Hall).


My birthday was exactly Friday the week before and that day was Jess' first visit to Disneyland. We were going to get the badges in the City Hall but a tourist in the line pointed out the small shop in our sight, saying they might have the badges there. We were going to check the shop first but the guy offered to save us our spot in the line just in case the shop had none. But it ended up having some for free (of course).

Just as we got the autograph book in our hands and badges pinned to our outfit, we started hunting for characters. The first one we spotted was Pluto. There were a couple more wandering the Main Street but Pluto had the shortest line.




After that, we started heading towards the rides in Fantasyland. Peter Pan was packed as usual. I'd been on that ride a few times so I wouldn't mind skipping it. Snow White's Scary Adventures had the shortest line so we went straight in. However, Jess was scared as heck during the ride. She closed her eyes the entire time and clung to me. That ride might be for kids but the visual, I must say, was a little too intense and scary for kids. Some dark scenes involving the kids were said to traumatize kids, Jess included. So if the ride scared the heck out of you, it made a total sense.

Next up, Jess and I headed to Haunted Mansion Holiday in New Orleans Square. It was crazy how the line had reached thirty minutes and it was just 10 am on a Friday. I guess people packed the park due to Halloween. Interesting enough, the ride displayed a Nightmare Before Christmas-themed attraction, instead of a regular Haunted Mansion one.





The Imagineers behind the magic of Disney Park technology added some Christmas décor to some parts of the ride, with characters from the Tim Burton-directed movie. You can see Jack Skellington everywhere dressing up as Santa. Overall, the ride was lighter than the usual Haunted Mansion, although I prefer the original Haunted Mansion ride.

From the Haunted Mansion, we went to Big Thunder Mountain. On our way there, Jess and I bought a churro for light brunch where Jess was surprised by Captain Hook, who appeared right behind her as she was about to take a selfie of her eating the churro. I saw Hook came from behind her as she was unaware but I decided not to tell her because I wanted to see her reaction. After going to Disneyland so many times, this marked my first time actually riding it. I went on a similar ride before in Magic Kingdom called the Seven Dwarfs' Mine Train, but the ridethrough was shorter than Big Thunder Mountain. As a non general fan of coasters, Big Thunder Mountain is one of the roller coasters that I can tolerate on going after Space Mountain and Revenge of the Mummy in Universal Studios.

Now that we had at least caught three rides simultaneously, Jess and I went over to Disney's California Adventure. We greeted Officer Blue at Buena Vista Street and had a warm chat with him. He wished to see us again later that day and told us he'd be interested to learn what we'd end up doing in California Adventure. He got a bit ecstatic when I mentioned I couldn't wait to get on Radiator Springs Racers. Anyway, we stopped by to get a Mickey Mouse-shaped ice cream sandwich near Grizzly River Run waterfall. Then I encouraged Jess that we got on to Radiator Spring Racers, the signature attraction of Cars Land. At first we were going to get the fastpass since the fastpasses for this particular ride would run out in a short period of time. The regular line was always long so that was out of the question. But when we realized they had a single rider line, we went straight in. The wait didn't take longer than ten minutes. Jess and I sat in the same car but I sat in the front while she sat in the back.





The ride was so far the most fantastic ride ever existed in the parks! I waited two years for this and finally getting on it was quite surreal. The ridethrough resembled Test Track in Epcot, which I had ridden twice in my two Orlando visits. Overall, it was a fun ride. A combination of thrill and fun. Another acceptable mild thrill ride in the parks!




After Radiator Springs Racers, Jess and I went to the Paradise Pier. We dropped by at Boudin Bakery Tour and got a fresh loaf of bread. Then we ended up getting lunch at Garden Grill with a glass of fresh Strawberry margarita from Rita Margarita in a sunny day. Our lunch couldn't be more perfect, and so was the weather. Jess ended up finishing the margarita.



- To be continued

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