Navigation

Tag Archives | electronica

Tim’s Trip Report – 08/22/2011 – Disneyland/Disney California Adventure

By on August 23, 2011 in Trip Reports 0

After a fourteen hour day, Marie and I are definitely feeling it (she cheated though and took an hour plus break midday).  The day started off on a good note with us overhearing a father refer to his son as Anakin, this was followed up later in the day with another child named Lando.  In other news, I’ll be naming my first born Keyser Soze.

I’ll keep this as a brief recap of stuff I already posted on twitter.  Comedian Doug Benson was at Disneyland today, so I immediately assumed he had left a bag of weed on the teacups when we saw some security personnel and a police dog searching the attraction at around 11 PM.  It looks like it was a false alarm and someone just forgot their backpack.

Our first stop was at the Jungle Cruise, and Skipper Kevin was excellent.

Over at Cafe Orleans I had my favorite Disneyland meal – The Monte Cristo sandwich.  We also split an order of Pommes Frites (Parmesan and Garlic French Fries), and as such I couldn’t finish the sandwich.  To those unfamiliar with the Disneyland layout, Cafe Orleans is in New Orleans square, next to The Haunted Mansion.  I found it ironic that the hostess mispronounced my name as Gracey considering the proprietor of The Haunted Mansion.

Many people know of the differences between Disneyland and Disney World’s Splash Mountain (more figures in Disneyland, larger capacity in Disney World), but one thing we noticed today was how fast the flume is in Disneyland.  We were moving very quickly through the ride.

I’m trying to figure out how the Fastpasses are connected in Disney California Adventure.  I know that in the past Grizzly River Run had been on a separate Fastpass system as all or parts of that park.  I figured this would still be the case since the machines are now used for World of Color in addition to Grizzly River Run.  This is what I’ve found out so far:

  • You can have a Grizzly River Run Fastpass and a Soarin’ Over California Fastpass at the same time
  • You can have a Grizzly River Run Fastpass and a California Screamin’ Fastpass at the same time
  • You can not have a Grizzly River Run Fastpass and Tower of Tower Fastpass at the same time

The next check would be to see if you can have a Tower of Terror and Soarin’ Over California or California Screamin’ Fastpass at the same time.

We were able to hit up all of the nighttime offerings at Disneyland one after another: Fantasmic, Magical, and The Magic, Memories and You.  While we were waiting for The Magic, Memories and You we had a conversation with a member of the custodial staff discussing the differences between the show in Florida that’s projected onto Cinderella’s Castle versus the show in California that’s projected under the facade of “it’s a small world”.  I made the point that the photos themselves are inconsequential and it’s really the other effects that make it worth watching.  He then regaled us with a story where he overheard a couple get into a shouting match as the guy saw the girl kissing someone else in one of the photos.  Disneyland… breaking up relationships since 2011.

After the nighttime shows we wound up hitting up four Fantasyland dark rides in under an hour.  Al Lutz of MiceAge recently reported that the outdoor section of Alice in Wonderland would have a permanent fix to replace the temporary rig that’s currently set up – it definitely doesn’t look good in it’s current state but it’s a pretty solid dark ride.  Disneyland has a series of Fantasyland dark rides that you would struggle to classify as C tickets because the moveable parts aren’t actually animatronics but two dimensional cut outs.  Alice in Wonderland is an exception to this as I’d say it’s a step above The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.

Attractions Visited Today

Disneyland
Alice in Wonderland
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters
Disneyland Railroad
Fantasmic
Indiana Jones Adventure
Jungle Cruise
Magical
Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride
Pinocchio’s Daring Journey
Pirates of the Caribbean
Snow White’s Scary Adventures
Space Mountain
Splash Mountain
The Haunted Mansion
The Magic, The Memories and You!
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

Disney California Adventure
Aladdin A Musical Spectacular
California Screamin’
ElecTRONica: Power Surge
Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue!
Tower of Terror
Turtle Talk with Crush


FanBoy Loyalty Program For every $1000+ in combined purchases you spend per calendar year through our Amazon link, we will give you a t-shirt of your choice. Our new shop is up and running, and we have t-shirts available with our current and classic, regular and uncensored logos. All you need to do is send us a list of the items that you purchased, we’ll verify it against our records and then we’ll send you the t-shirt of your choice.

Project Fan Boy Contest Win a chance to appear on our show in a short segment where you can talk about a topic of your choosing with us. Winners will also receive WDW Fan Boys swag, and Brett will record a custom outgoing voice mail message for you. To enter the contest send us an e-mail, video, or audio file explaining why you should be on the show. The funnier the better. All entries should be submitted to questions@wdwfanboys.com.

Continue Reading

Tim’s Trip Report – 08/21/2011 – D23 Expo (Part 5)

By on August 22, 2011 in Trip Reports 0

We didn’t spend as much time over at the Expo today – we only planned on one presentation but we gave ourselves plenty of time to ensure that we’d see it.  Before heading over to the Expo though we stopped in both Disneyland and Disney California Adventure to get Fastpasses for Star Tours, World of Color and Soarin’ Over California.

I didn’t learn until later in the day on Saturday that the Mickey’s of Glendale shop that was attached to the Carousel of Projects exhibit was actually an Imagineering exclusive merchandise location.  It was the first time these products were available to the public.  Had I known this, we would have gone in on Friday.  Unfortunately, they ran out of my size in several shirts: most notably the Horizons, Imagination, and Living with the Land t-shirts with the classic Epcot pavilion logos.  It didn’t stop me from spending $120+, but it likely would have been more had I been in earlier.  I’ve already reached out to the few contacts I have that may be able to get me the missing Epcot shirts (of course I bought what they had available: Spaceship Earth, World of Motion, Living Seas and Communicore).  These shirts were only $14 each as all of the items already had the cast member discount built into the price.

After my merchandise acquisitions I joined Marie in the line for the Imagineering Carsland presentation.  We chose to wait two and a half hours for this presentation as we didn’t want to miss it. It was certainly worth the wait – I took photos of almost every piece of concept art and/or construction update and will assemble all of these photos along with the full audio into a slide show later in the week.

IMG_6087.jpg

After the presentation we went to purchase some overpriced food when I recognized Jim Hill having a conversation with someone near one of the food courts.  We had never met in person so I caught his eye and waved.  When he finished his conversation he joined Marie and myself for a discussion about all things D23 Expo based for well over an hour.  For those of you that don’t know, Jim recently got hired to do some work for the Huffington Post, and as such he was going backstage at a lot of these events, and was even moderating the panel for the Pixar Shorts presentation.

Over at DCA today we rode The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Undersea Adventure – I enjoyed it as a thorough, well done dark ride.  i liken the animatronic quality for most of the AA’s to those in Splash Mountain, while the Mermaid, Sebastian, Scuttle and Ursula AA’s far exceed this.  It will be a welcome addition to Fantasyland and is a very solid D-Ticket.

We also experience World of Color for the first time, it’s a very impressive show and I look forward to seeing it again from a different angle tomorrow.  A point of note – for the most part, I didn’t find the projections on the water any better than those in Fantasmic, but the entire spectacle is still very well done.  I appreciated the usage of the sunburst on California Screamin’ for additional effects.  I also spent the time waiting for the show to begin by watching the light patterns on Mickey’s Fun Wheel – it’s mesmerizing.

After the World of Color show we headed over to the Hollywood Backlot to see what ElecTRONica is all about.  It’s a high energy dance party that was very well done.  The most impressive part was a twice nightly showing of Laser Man, a guy that bends and manipulates lasers for several minutes.  I’m always impressed when Disney puts something together that I can’t quite figure out.

Over at Disneyland, Marie and I each had the first corn dogs of each of our lives – we were both pleasantly surprised. After we both went on Space Mountain, I went on my second trip on Star Tours.  What was odd was the lack of a human rebel spy.  We didn’t have any empty seats, but they just showed a generic looking alien type thing during the rebel spy sequence – If anyone has any explanation as to why that would happen I’d love to hear it.  As for the rest of the ride, our first destination was Hoth.  It seems that they chill the cabin for Hoth, and heat it up for Tattooine.

Attractions Visited Today

Disneyland
Space Mountain
Star Tours

Disney California Adventure
Soarin’ Over California
The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Undersea Adventure
Toy Story Midway Mania
World of Color
ElecTRONica/Laser Man


FanBoy Loyalty Program For every $1000+ in combined purchases you spend per calendar year through our Amazon link, we will give you a t-shirt of your choice. Our new shop is up and running, and we have t-shirts available with our current and classic, regular and uncensored logos. All you need to do is send us a list of the items that you purchased, we’ll verify it against our records and then we’ll send you the t-shirt of your choice.

Project Fan Boy Contest Win a chance to appear on our show in a short segment where you can talk about a topic of your choosing with us. Winners will also receive WDW Fan Boys swag, and Brett will record a custom outgoing voice mail message for you. To enter the contest send us an e-mail, video, or audio file explaining why you should be on the show. The funnier the better. All entries should be submitted to questions@wdwfanboys.com.

Continue Reading