Disneyland, Anaheim, CA

Today I went to the happiest place on Earth :D

It was the 2nd day we were in LA, and it is still very cold! Got out early, and reached the parking area close to 8:30am I think. Took us nearly 45 minutes to reach Disneyland. Of course, early in the morning I already had a huge breakfast of bagel (sort of a healthier version of doughnut, with sesame seeds, etc) with cream cheese and spinach cream of some sort, rice, Su Jen's salmon soup, eh wait, that was day3's menu. I think I only had blueberry muffin before Disney.

Ticket = $67 also, but I believe every cent is well worth spent in the happiest place on earth!

"Here you leave today and enter the world of yesterday, tomorrow and fantasy." So true. Entering the park, I felt like a little kid again, waiting to explore this curious park.

Obligatory photo with the Disney castle.

Shifa and Jocelyn were so keen on taking pictures with themselves and the background that Su Jen and I had to constantly remind them that we have limited time in the park. It normally takes more than a day to complete touring Disneyland. Su Jen told me that she once spent 5 days in the Disneyland resort and explored the park for the whole period. It's a pretty good plan too hehehhe, you can take a break, nap at any time and come back to the park once you've showered or refreshed.

Cute little girl :D There are loads of little girls dressed up as their favourite Disney characters. Snow white, Cinderella and so on, cute!

One of the main reasons that you normally have to spend more than a day to complete your Disneyland tour is that the line to most rides will take at least 30mins before your turn is up. We were there on a Saturday so there is a huge crowd there and I'd say that the shortest time we had to wait was maybe 10 minutes? Longest wait was slightly over an hour, 65 minutes I think.

There are a total of 74 rides, and they are divided into 8 sections: The Main Street where most shops are situated and is along the entrance, New Orleans Square (consisting mostly of eateries and a few rides), Frontierland (mountainy, plains with a man-made lake ), Critter Country (ranches, country feel to it), Adventureland (Jungly, foresty with smaller man-made river), Mickey's Toontown (where everything's cutesy), Fantasyland (here the view is very fairy-tale like and pretty), and finally Tomorrowland (needless to say, futuristic).

We first started off at the Jungle Cruise. Remember that when we were in Universal Studios, we got on this ride called Jurassic Park and everything there is supposed to be more believable right, that's why they make movies etc. Apparently not! Disneyland presents a much more greater and realistic environment! Everything looks like they are, and always have been that way, not fake. That was one of first impressions on Disneyland. Already, I loved it.

Anyway, the Jungle Cruise is basically a boat ride around the river in Adventureland and you get to see stuff like man-made piranhas, elephants, tigers, lions, native Indians, dolphins, etc. It's a tame ride.

Oh Disney has this really cool function called the Fastpass. What you do is you use your entry ticket and scan into this little kiosks wherever the Fastpass is applicable at certain rides and a Fastpass ticket will slide out telling you what time you have to come back. It's great because you don't have to spend so much time queueing up in the line when you can just go around the park and come back for your ride at the designated time!

Then before moving on to the next ride, Indiana Jones adventure, we went on the Tarzan's Treehouse to kill time hhehehhehe because our Fastpass told us to get back in half an hour's time.

Indiana Jones adventure is pretty fun too! We got around the ride on this jeep in tracks. I clearly recall a moment where a hugr rock is rolling at us and we swooped downwards :D

Next it was to the New Orleans Square. We went on to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Not very thrilling, on a boat and the ride was indoors too! But it was fun anyways. Took a quite bite as we were quite hungry and crap! 

Made of flour and rolled in brown sugar and very tasty too... especially when you're hungry heheheheh.

One of my favourite rides... the Haunted Mansion.

As we stepped into a room, the door closed and we seem to sink deeper and deeper underground while all the portraits around us seem to stretch and you can see weird and funny images going on underneath the initial portraits. It was a really good ride, then you go on and seat yourself on these posh and high chairs for 2 people as the chairs bring you to tombstones, haunted dining areas. They created the ghostly images from 3D or some sort of fancy projection but it looks great!

Then we moved on to Critter Country! We wanted to go on this ride called Splash Mountain, but of course, the line was long so we got ourselves the Fastpass and kill time by going on a canoe ride, Davy Crockett's Explorer Canoes. lol.

Not automatic or engine-powered ok! Have to use paddles and row ourselves hehehehe. I pity the Disney staff for this ride the most... Imagine having to lead groups of people into the canoe and row with them the whole day...

Then in the middle of the river and in the midst of our rowing exercise, the staff asked us, "do any of you feel a slight soreness near the top arm? Well, that's Disney magic working there".

A whole bunch (I forgot how you describe a whole herd of them) oh! a flock of ducks are permanent residents of the river and my, they must be the happiest bunch! No work, no fear of being eaten, no preys...

Jeng Jeng Jeng!

A bit on the thrill side! There were a few falls and almost the whole of my lower body got soaked! The finale was a forty foot drop or something? I think I kinda almost overcome my fear or vertical drop rides after so many of them...

By then, it was close to lunch time and so we got onto a neaby ride.... guess what... The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Lol. It's a cutesy ride, you get to sit on this beehive-shaped tram that brings you around telling you the story of Pooh Bear... Pooh fell asleep at one point and had a dream, had a bit too much honey and his friends were calling him etc, that sort of cutesy stuff lol.

Me and Su Jen shared a turkey leg and something else which I forgot the name again! It's like a deep fried burrito, but the insides are what you can find like in a curry puff.

Damn huge lor!

Only managed to finish half of the turkey leg and I wrapped the remaining ones for later consumption hehehhhe.

Oh by the way, did I mention that the prices set by Disney were exorbitant?? Obviously we were not allowed to bring in any food or water of our own, they check our bags before entering the park. Bottled water costs $3. I bought a total of 4 bottles for the entire day I think?

After lunch, we decided not to get onto any thrilling or stomach-washing-machine rides. So ma find a slow relaxing one lo... Sailing Ship Columbia.

The ship goes around in the same river where we did our canoeing.

Disney magic at work.

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad... it's a bit to the tame side, but still fast paced. Su Jen taught me... well, more like forced me to lift both hands up while on the ride. She said that you kinda get pushed back when there are falls and such so you get a better view. I tried that and I definitely enjoyes it :)

The legendary tea cup ride. And no, we didn't get on it. This is in Fantasyland.

We then queued for the "it's a small world" ride in Fantasyland. Su Jen went off to get Fastpasses for other rides while 3 of us waited in line. It's a small world brings you inside and you see little dolls representating (most) nations in the world. The song played for the entire ride and at the end of it, it kinda got stuck to your mind which is unbelievably annoying.

I got myself a pair of Minnie ears! I absolutely love them! Hunted for them for more than half a day, the others I saw were princessy Minnies (little tiaras) but I so badly wanted a polka dot ribbon one and patience persevered :)

After the ride, met up with Su Jen and she told us that she got the Fastpasses for Nemo and Space Mountain ride. However, the Space Mountain ride says to come back at 10:30pm! At night! It was only 2pm at that time. Well... apparently it's a really famous ride and the queue lines are usually long, that's why the Fastpass is so crazily late. We can get on the ride faster if we queued up instead of waiting for 10:30.

And queued up we did. In Tomorrowland.

Waiting time was 65 minutes. We were almost falling asleep with numb and sore feet by the time we were at the front of the line. And when we went inside, we still had to queue some more!

But you know what, it was well worth it. I loved and enjoyed every second of the ride. It was the greatest experience from the moment I parked my butt on the seat. I don't think I want to spoil the surprise for anyone... See, everytime we were lining up for a ride, I would bombard Su Jen with questions like is it going to be scary, any drops, etc and she wouldn't tell me, not a thing, only, you'll see.

And for this ride, I was glad she did that. It was awesome and totally unexpected. My ultimate favourite, I rate this 20/10.

Trains to bring us to another land. We got on these to go back to the Main Street for a parade through the roads. So we waited, but apparently we'd already watched that earlier during the day (kind of stumbled upon the show that time, at a different location). So I just snapped a couple of pictures and decided to take this chance to go on other rides when everyone else is busy watching the parade re-run.

Got into the line for Finding Nemo (no fastpass available), waiting time was 45 minutes I think, it's another famous ride. So Shifa went off to buy dinner while I munch on the remainings of my dinosaur meat... Hahhahaha, it was better than sitting off somewhere and coming back to a longer queue right?

I don't quite understand why Nemo is such a popular ride. You ride in this submarine and you view everything else underwater. It's not bad but it's not as great as Space Mountain. Oh and tragedy struck... I felt water on my jeans and I thought the submarine was leaking! So I ignored it when I didn't feel it any longer. But as the ride was ending, when I was feeling for my bag, I was surprised to find it soaked. Guess what... a bottle of water that I just bought, the cap wasn't screwed tightly and water was leaking from it the entire ride. Everything in my bag was soaked, even my passport! Darn it... my US visa picture now looked like a ghost with only two dots for the eyes... sigh...

By the time we finished the Nemo ride, it was already 8:15pm or so. There are fireworks display every night at 9:30pm so we killed more time again by going on the Honey, I Shrunk The Audience.

It's a 3D experience and it does look real my gosh! Lasted for about 10 minutes I think, but waiting time was only like 5 minutes?

My love at night...

By then, I have already decided that I want to go on the Space Mountain ride for a second time. Thank goodness we still have the fast pass!

The Star Tours ride... it's a simulation type ride and is a bit boring compared to the Simpson's ride. Su Jen said that this ride has been around for some time, so it's not really that exciting anymore. It's about sitting on this space craft like in a Star Wars movie where you dodged planets, rocks, etc.

Fireworks display! Back to the Main Street again. There were already thousands of people there waiting... so we didn't get a good place to view the fireworks. But I am telling you, it is excellent.... the fireworks display wasn't all just pop, pop and you go back, but there's a story line and so many fantastic designs... I can only describe it as breathtaking. The show lasted for some 20 minutes or so.

I tried my hardest to capture a good shot, but there were too many tall people blocking my view and there doesn't seem to be a good place to snap. At one point I had to stand in between a couple and try to capture the fireworks splendour in between their two heads. In the end, Su Jen just told me to enjoy the fireworks. I realised I made the mistake which I am always avoiding... instead of properly experiencing the display, I was too busy trying to capture a good shot, one after another...

Last skali, this is the best shot I can get...

So, soon after the fireworks display, we dashed for Space Mountain again hehehhehhee. It was a good thing though, the line to the ride was still so damn unbelievably long! I think the waiting time has somewhat increased to much longer than an hour. Hehehhee... all of us were smirking as we walked around them with the Fastpass clutched in our hands.

Second time around, it's still as good as the first experience.

Soon after, we walked around for a bit and stopped by a gift shop. It was already past 11pm. I wrote on a postcard that I bought from there to Mom, and posted it in Disney too :) By the time we decided to leave, it was a quarter to midnight. The park closes at 12.

I love Disneyland so much. Love Space Mountain even more. And there's so many more rides that I did not get the chance to try out. I am determined to return someday...