There’s nothing quite like a Disney day. The world seems happier and the air fresher.
Just as well, as Karen set the alarm for 5.45am. At 6.50am we left the apartment for the short drive, at that time of day, to the Toy Story parking lot. It seems I bought a piece of land in Southern California for $40 because surely they couldn’t have charged that much for just a parking space for the day?
There was a bus waiting to take us to the Disneyland park entrance and, although the park didn’t officially open until 8am, we were allowed straight in to line up for “rope drop”.
Our tickets included Lightning Lane passes as we were only here for one day. Neil had worked out a strategy of where and when to use them. That strategy included riding attractions first that didn’t use Lightning Lane. It worked brilliantly. All day I wasn’t in a queue for more than 15 minutes and most rides were virtually walk-ons. His plan also minimised the amount of walking Karen and I needed to do.
By 9am we were walking onto our sixth ride of the day, a number most people would struggle to achieve before lunchtime.
I should say, though, that those first six rides were not without incident. On Mr Toad’s Wild Ride I had people trying to push past me, saying they wanted to rejoin their family because they had needed the toilet. I simply said, “No,” and blocked their way. The woman kept saying, “My family… my family.” I replied, “That’s not how this works. If you want to stay together, they should have waited for you—or they can now wait for you.” Eventually they did. I’m not sure how many people she had already managed to blag her way past.
Then it happened again on Indiana Jones. One teenage boy tried to get past me saying he wanted to catch up with his mum because he had stopped to buy a T-shirt. Again I politely but firmly said that wasn’t my problem or how queuing works, and refused to let him through. I had no idea whether his mum was even in the queue. I wasn’t angry, just standing up for the principle.
Mark another one up for the Brits who invented queuing.
Of those first rides I probably enjoyed Mr Toad most, as it’s so different from anything at Disney World.
We carried on. The park certainly looked busy because it is much more compact than Florida, with narrower pathways, yet none of the queues ever became ridiculous.
I must mention Buzz Lightyear, where I trounced Neil with my score, the Pirates ride, which is so much better than the Florida version, and Space Mountain, which is too.
Around 11am Karen was ready for a break. We found a lovely shaded table at the Tiki Hideaway where she sat whilst I fetched hot drinks from Starbucks on Main Street. Neil nipped off to ride Bayou Adventure. We also ate some of the rolls Karen had packed and that I’d been carrying around all morning.
We then saw Great Moments with Mr Lincoln, another attraction unique to California, before riding Big Thunder Mountain and Haunted Mansion.
Time for another sit-down in the Tiki Hideaway. I fetched myself some clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl, which was delicious. Karen then bought us both some Dole Whip. I had peach whilst she chose strawberry. Neil found himself some meat skewers for lunch.
Next we headed into Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge and rode Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run. There were only three of us in the cockpit. Neil and I were the pilots whilst Karen was the gunner. We thought we did rather well considering.
I then found a seat in the shade whilst Karen and Neil went off to ride Rise of the Resistance. The queue was showing 35 minutes, which was over my personal 20-minute limit, but they were back after about 35 minutes, including the ride itself, which lasts around 20 minutes.
After a while we decided it was time for a beignet stop in New Orleans Square. Neil fetched us some beignets. To Karen’s annoyance I somehow managed to cover myself with white icing sugar.
We both fancied a cup of tea, so I went to order one, requesting cold milk on the side. When I collected the tea (hot water and a tea bag—when will these Americans ever learn?) I asked about the milk and was told it was “on the side” around the corner. All they had were little tubs of coffee creamer.
I went back to the counter and again asked for actual cold milk. The server wasn’t impressed and suggested I’d have to pay extra. Again, very calmly and politely, I pointed out that tea is served with milk and nowhere else charges separately for it. I stood my ground.
Eventually, and very grudgingly, instead of simply pouring some milk into a cup as everywhere else does, she opened the fridge and thrust a small carton at me.
Have they learnt nothing since the Boston Tea Party? I reckon that was really probably all about them trying to force us to use coffee creamer in our tea.
Mark another one up to me.
More rides followed, including It’s a Small World (which I thought could have tied itself in with the World Cup by only illuminating the countries still in the tournament), before we finally used our Lightning Lane on the Matterhorn, the original Disney roller coaster. I’m not entirely sure how it still passes health and safety inspections. It is the roughest, ricketiest ride imaginable and somehow blurs the line between a thrill ride and actual bodily harm.
I think I rather enjoyed it nevertheless.
I declared I was finished with rides for the day. We’d been on the go for twelve hours. After some discussion we walked over to the Jolly Holiday Bakery where I enjoyed my third grilled cheese sandwich of the holiday. Karen had a sandwich with tomato soup, whilst Neil treated himself to something much posher, served on an actual plate with vegetables and everything.
Our intention had been to leave at that point, but we accidentally found ourselves with excellent seats for the Electrical Parade, which was about to start and would have blocked our exit anyway. So we stayed and watched it go by.
By then there were only twelve minutes until the fireworks, so we wandered to the end of Main Street, found an excellent viewing spot complete with a rail to lean on, and watched the show.
It was all rather lovely.
With that we made our way out of the park, onto the waiting shuttle bus and back to the car park, where I relinquished my temporary ownership of a small piece of prime Californian real estate before driving back to the apartment.
Once back we discovered Karen had walked over 24,000 steps—more than seven miles. I’d been on 19 rides, Karen 20 and Neil 22. None of them twice.
As we sat having a drink, watching some baseball followed by the news, we all agreed it had been a really good day.
