Gotta See! Disneyland & California Adventure Park

Another weekend, another theme park. This time it was back to our usual stomping grounds of Disneyland and California Adventure Park in my former residence of Anaheim. It's been real frigging hot in Los Angeles lately and Friday night was not shaping up to be any less sticky and sweaty even though temperatures were allegedly on their way down. We already secured a room for Saturday night after Long Beach Con and to hit the park and see visiting friends Sunday. Doing a quick search, a room would be even cheaper for Friday so we decided to chug some SURGE and hit the road. The Red Lion is usually our home base for Disney or shows as it's close to the park and Convention Center, is reasonably priced plus you get a fridge and microwave in the room. Disneyland was open until midnight so after a quick Seagram's and Ginger Beers, we hoofed over to the park just in time to see the nightly fireworks. The joint was pretty packed around Main Street and apparently there was a near stampede/trampling episode by The Haunted Mansion. Come on people, it's the same ride that's been there for decades with some Halloween decorations. Is that really worth bodily injury? What is this, Wal-Mart?! Do better. We managed to do Single Rider line for Indiana Jones where you waited completely in beautiful air conditioned cave and The Matterhorn before taking in the crazy electric parade and then hitting up Star Tours and Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters. The parade was pretty intense with lots of lights and dancing from the casts of Frozen, The Little Mermaid, Toy Story and more. Can't wait to see some Marvel peeps included at some point.

 
On Sunday we headed back and it was hot hot hot! But when everybody else is also sweating buckets, you don't feel so self conscious about being a hot man, like Sean Connery. Hitting California Adventure Park first, we grabbed a Fast Pass for Soaring Over California because the queue would be inside in the cold. It's always good to get on some kind of small ride right away to keep yourself mentally sane rather than waiting in some huge line and getting demoralized. So it was off to The Little Mermaid ride, those flying Zepplin things, Silly Symphony Swings and Goofy's Flying School all in a couple of hours. It was recently announced that the Aladdin Stage Show Musical Spectacular is going to be replaced by a Frozen themed dealy so we checked it out one last time. I hadn't seen the show since the mid-2000's but it holds up great with terrific production value, flying carpet and the scene stealing Genie. Back in 2005 it was very Queer Eye for the Straight Guy as that was popular on TV while in 2015 you got Arnold Schwarzenegger, Deflate-gate, Ben Affleck, Batman and other current topics as the butt of jokes. We hadn't eaten all day and figured on getting some All-You-Can-Eat BBQ at Big Thunder Ranch before it goes bye-bye to make room for Star Wars Land but it was a little too stuffy out for such a heavy meal. Instead we sat in some more AC over at The Plaza Inn for some fried chicken and Cobb Salad goodness. Taking a break at the Golden Horseshoe for ice cream, we randomly got to view their fun old west style theater act with singing cowboys, piano player and audience participation. Makes you wonder how a 50 something year old man who can sing, dance and act ends up working at Disneyland. Is there a casting agency for that?

See you in October for the Halloween Tour! Oh and did you know that Oswald is a rabbit? I didn't.