Tag Archives | pinocchio’s daring journey

While we kept a sane pace, we accomplished quite a bit today.  Like we have in the previous days, there was some crisscrossing of the parks to accommodate the need for Fastpasses.  Couple that with really light crowds, and we were able to do quite a bit.

Before we got to the parks, we stopped at the Fossil store in Downtown Disney.  I needed a new watch band, and twenty five dollars later, my $15 Timex Digital watch was as good as new.

We took the Monorail from Downtown Disney to Tomorrowland where I enjoyed my fourth defeat of the trip on Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters.  More importantly was the 60+ year old man on a scooter that we saw.  That in itself is unremarkable, but the fact that he was wearing a Disturbed t-shirt.  For the uninitiated, Disturbed is a heavy metal band that you typically wouldn’t associate with this type of clientele.

After our brief stop in Tomorrowland we headed over to California Adventure where Soarin’ Over California was out of Fastpasses.  It turns out that one side of the attraction wasn’t working causing them to shut off Fastpass.  Even with the halved capacity, the peak wait time we saw was 65 minutes.  This is a testament to the crowd levels for the day, and the crowd levels at California Adventure in general.

Another point of note, with Soarin’ Over California no longer distributing Fastpass as of 11:45 AM, the only attraction that was distributing Fastpass at California Adventure was California Screamin’.  With that in mind, we saw a midday wait time of 15 minutes for California Adventure, as well as the shortest possible Fastpass return time (40 minutes) as well.  We have found with our touring that most queues hover in the 10-30 minute range.  There is rarely a walk on, but there are rarely ridiculous waits either.  That may change come the weekend as the locals should descend on the park.

Because of the long waits all day, we elected to skip Soarin’ Over California, but we still did several things over at California Adventure.  We stopped by Muppet Vision 3-D, and noticed a few things in a show that I’ve seen dozens of times.

1. The California Adventure version features the scrolling time clock that was once featured in its Florida Counterpart
2. The California Adventure video is a much cleaner copy.  I believe it’s digital but I’m not positive.  I’ve heard positive reports out of Florida about Muppet Vision post refurbishment, so here’s hoping both coasts have digital copies.
3. The glasses that are used in California seem to have a bit more of a glare on them.  Perhaps we’ve been unlucky, or perhaps they’re a different product.
4. I was told that in the scene where Kermit says, “Unfortunately, none of them showed up,” Puppeteer Frank Oz is visible in the bottom left hand corner.  I was looking out for him, but didn’t see him.
5. This came up on the WDWMagic Forums in the discussion over the recent refurbishment.  At the end of the attraction Sweetums appears both on screen and as a walk around character in the theater by the right door.  It seems unnecessary to have Sweetums in the theater at this time, and while I never noticed this until it was pointed out to me, it seems like a stupid mistake that was never corrected.

After visiting several more things in California Adventure we made our way back to Disneyland.  There were still several things we hadn’t done on this trip (mainly Fantasyland) so we hit several rides before grabbing some dinner.

After dinner we headed over to Adventureland where I noticed a cast member cleaning up several blank Indiana Jones Fastpasses.  I politely asked him for some of the blank ones and he obliged with an uncut strip of 12.  While in Adventureland we had a great Jungle Cruise Skipper for the second day in a row.  Today’s Skipper was Jarred, and yesterday’s was Gareth.  Prior to Indiana Jones we also had our first Dole Whips of the trip.

I’m guessing that many of our readers play the “right/left” game when queuing for Disney attractions.  No one wants to be the one to make the wrong decision, and claims of ruining vacations arise just because you dispatch 30 seconds later.

After short waits for Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion, we made our way over to Space Mountain with our Fastpasses from earlier in the day.  The standby wait was listed at 60, and we were informed by the cast member checking Fastpasses that we should expect a 35-40 minute wait for the Fastpass line.  Apparently the ride was down for 3 hours earlier in the day causing the backup (per the cast member).  We decided to wait anyways, but were mystified by what was going on.  It appeared that the Fastpass line was longer than the Standby line, and Standby was getting priority.  It wound up not mattering as we only waited 7 minutes before the Fastpass merge point, and 20 minutes total for the ride.  Having said all that, I would argue that Fastpass should be given the priority, and under no circumstances should Fastpass have a longer line than Standby.

Given everything we did all day, I’m mystified how anyone can complete the Ultimate Touring Plan at the Magic Kingdom.  That’s 40-50 attractions in one day.  I don’t think I’d get the enjoyment out of the attractions while I’m doing them, and all it would be is a faux sense of accomplishment at the end of the day when your feet detach from your legs.

That’s it for today.  Tomorrow will be less time in the parks but maybe I’ll write about some of the other things we have planned.

Attractions Visited
Disneyland
Alice in Wonderland
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters
Disneyland Railroad
Haunted Mansion
Indiana Jones Adventure
Jungle Cruise
Monorail
Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride
Peter Pan’s Flight
Pinocchio’s Daring Journey
Pirates of the Caribbean
Snow White’s Scary Adventures
Space Mountain

California Adventure
Animation Academy: Turtle Talk with Crush
Blue Sky Cellar
California Screamin’
Monster’s Inc Mike and Sulley to the Rescue
Muppet Vision 3-D
Tower of Terror
Toy Story Midway Mania

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