Psychic spies from China try to steal your mind’s elation And little girls from Sweden dream of silver screen quotation
Our final park day and indeed our final full day on this trip started with another 5.45am unexpected phone call from a GP at Hellesdon Medical Practice to sort out his approval for my MRI scan. He asked how the trip was going obviously oblivious to the time difference.
I then had an email telling me I could now select my consultant and book an appointment. Annoyingly the earliest date I could get was early August which I took but will try to bring forward once we are home.
We were in the car for 7am and drove the short distance correctly this time to the Toy Story Car Park. Off the bus we queued at the Disney California Adventure gate before being in the park at 7.45am waiting for the rides to open.
Along with many others we headed to the Avengers Campus and went to the new Spiderman Webslingers ride. This is an updated version of a Buzz Lightyear type of ride but instead of using phasors as such you flick your arms as if casting a web Spiderman style. I was hopeless. Karen even with her broken arm (not in a sling at all today for the first time) wasn’t. She got more than 10x my score and more than double Neil’s. She might have mentioned that a few times afterwards. I have no idea what I was doing wrong and she had no idea what she was doing right.
Then we walked and joined the single rider queue in Cars Land for Radiator Springs Racers. We waited just over 5 minutes before we were all in Cars. I love this ride, in my opinion one of the best Disney rides ever. It is like being in a car on a Scalextric track racing another through a National Park. Just fabulous.
It was then time for what I still call Barry’s nemesis, Luigi’s Dancing Cars. His frustration at being made to ride it on a previous visit still amuses me. There was about a 15-minute wait and we were pleased we were given the ‘Hey Mambo’ soundtrack for our cars to dance to. We would have been on slightly earlier except some rich people on a VIP tour were allowed to cut in front of us much to Karen’s chagrin. I was just delighted to be so close as to be almost able to touch such rich people.
By now it was break time for Karen & I. So, Neil went off to ride the rollercoaster whilst I agreed to hobble back to Starbucks for drinks. The queue was quite long. It wasn’t helped by the person in front of me ordering nearly $70 of drinks, including one that had to be made with Goats milk providing the Goat was a Gemini or failing that with Yaks milk from Tibet as long it had grazed on South facing slopes.
Then when our drinks arrived they had added Vanilla to Karen’s latte so I had to get them to make it again. After all this Karen just moaned how long I had taken to get them as if it was my fault.
Now it was time for the Guardians of the Galaxy ride. This is the old Tower of Terror ride but with a makeover. The drops were so dramatic that the bag I had on the floor twice floated to be level with my head twice. It was a good thing I had gentle hold of it by the straps and it made me laugh.
It was now getting hot hot hot. We decided to ride the Ferris Wheel (non swinging carriage at Karen’s absolute insistence which does take much of the fun element out). It was a long walk and they were both going much too fast for me. I tried to keep up but in doing so created a lot of pain and discomfort in my knee and rest of my leg. I was concerned that it might it for me for the rest of the day. Once sitting on the ride and going around with a slight cooling breeze though I started to recover. The view from the top was really good and I wanted to stay on but in Disney that is not an option.
Soarin’ was then our next ride booked with Genie Plus. It was as good as ever and again I would liked to have just stayed on. For such a simple concept it is so well executed although I would now like to have seen the places that you fly over updated. I would have thought it would be much easier to do so with the use and quality of drones nowadays.
As we walked to Neil’s choice of venue for his lunch we stopped and watched the short Spiderman show of which the highlight is the animatronic being catapulted very high into the air. It is very well done.
Neil wanted food from the place where sizes are changed. So, for instance you can get a Caesar Salad that comes with just one enormous croton. Typically, he went for a Blue Sandwich accompanied by a small shot of Banana Smoothie.
We moved to Pacific Wharf where Karen using the mobile app ordered us our lunch. I had my final Clam Chowder of the trip whilst she went for a Shrimp Roll. There were both acceptable. Neil went off and rode the River Rapids. It broke just before the end of the ride so he was given a pass to ride it again without a queue. We continued to shelter under a brolly in the shade for a while. In fact, it was too hot and in my opinion, we should have left the park for a couple of hours. I was alone in that opinion and so I respected the majority and we stayed.
When Neil returned, we had an ice cream from Ghirardelli’s which was very good, although as Karen went to get them, she did moan about the cost.
Eventually we moved and went to ride Monsters Inc. Neil went to ride the rapids again whilst Karen & I did a bit of shopping for Ellie and then met him outside of Turtle Talk with Crush which was amusing as ever.
Karen & I wandered over to The Little Mermaid whilst Neil went back to the rollercoaster. We met back at a table at the Sonoma bar which despite being well over 2 hours away I decided would be perfect for me to sit at and watch World of Colour show from.
Neil and I ordered all of our food from a restaurant back near Soarin’ and went to fetch it whilst leaving Karen guarding our table. It was a much longer walk than I thought and quite tricky carrying the food all the way back. Karen was not happy with how Neil & I sorted the food out once back despite all the effort I had put in fetching it which pleased me enormously.
The burgers and chips were not great and in fact I thought by far the worse meal we have had this trip. I hate all this theme park food. Overpriced and poor quality. Even Neil almost criticised it by saying it was just OK. It wasn’t.
About 1 hour before the World of Colour show started Karen & Neil relocated to try and secure a better standing viewing position. I was perfectly happy just sitting and indeed would have struggled to stand in just one position for that length of time.
As the show started, I did in fact move forward slightly from my table to get a slightly better view which was more than adequate for me. Effort and reward again.
On the way out from the park we went back to Cars Land which is beautifully lit at night to take some photos.
The bus back to the car was very efficient and I sat in front of a Disney costumier who was talking to her colleague about the challenges she has at the moment with the Dr Strange costumes she is making, which was interesting.
After a quick cuppa we all headed to bed. It had been another long, tiring but enjoyable days. California Adventure rates highly on my list of Disney Parks.
