Laura's Disney Lines

Hello everyone! I'm happy to be here with the rest of the AllEars.net "Blogging Brigade".

A brief introduction, since I'm sure most of you don't know me...Hi, I'm Laura, and I live in San Diego, CA. I'm AllEars.net's Disneyland Correspondent. With that address and title, as you might expect I get to Disneyland a little more often than to Walt Disney World. So for the most part I will be sharing with you my thoughts about my visits to Disneyland, and hopefully be bringing a little different perspective than you might otherwise be reading.

So here we goooooooooooo!

Last weekend my husband Lee and I were at Disneyland to cover the first of this year's Food and Wine Weekends at Disney's California Adventure. And we did something we've never done before...we went to Early Entry at Disneyland!

It's something we've just never had the opportunity to do before since there are only two ways to do it: 1) have a multi-day ticket that has a one-day Early Entry feature (nope, we've got annual passes!) or 2) stay at one of Disneyland's three resort hotels (we usually drive up just for the day). The Early Entry feature for resort guests is not something Disneyland advertises on its web site, though we were told about it at check-in. Resort guests may participate in Early Entry any morning it is offered during their stay - currently it's Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.

Most of the attractions in Fantasyland and Tomorrowland and some of the shops on Main Street open an hour before regular park opening. (There's no Early Entry at Disney's California Adventure.)

I can't say Lee was very enthused about getting up in time to be at Disneyland at 7:00 a.m. - especially since we'd been awakened at 4:00 a.m. when the fire alarm went off at the Grand Californian. Fortunately it was a false alarm but we didn't know that until after we'd gotten dressed and hustled outside!

But once inside the park...we had a blast. There weren't very many people around, and we walked onto Space Mountain (which thankfully is back to being "regular" Space Mountain instead of Rockin' Space Mountain), Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters (twice) and then Snow White's Scary Adventures and Pinocchio's Daring Journey in Fantasyland. Casey Jr. Circus Train wasn't open during Early Entry, but we were on the first train when it opened at 8:00. I hadn't ridden that since I was a small child. I enjoy Storybook Land, with all of its miniature scenes and topiaries, and this gave us a little different perspective than you get from the Storybook Land Canal Boats.

So six rides in an hour - not bad! Especially since that's more than we usually do in an entire day.

We had a wonderful time, and I'm really glad we got up early to do it...especially since given the requirements it's not something we'll get to repeat any time soon.

So that's it for my first blog entry - if you have any comments, or things you'd like to hear about, please let me know!

Read my Food and Wine Report and check out the Photo Gallery!

And have a Disney Day. :-)

Laura

When it comes to purchasing an Annual Passport (AP) at Disneyland, Disneyland AP
holders have something that most WDW passholders don't - choices.
Disneyland offers four different types of annual passes at different
prices, the major difference between the passes being the number of days
the passholder gets admission to the parks.

There's the Premium and Deluxe APs, which anyone can purchase, and
also the Southern California and Southern California Select APs, which
are only available to residents of southern California.

Got all that? There will be a test later.

All of the passes provide admission to both Disneyland and Disney's
California Adventure, but as I mentioned earlier there are
limitations with some passes. With the exception of the Premium
AP all of the other passes have some number of "blockout days" -
days which the AP is not valid for park admission. Not surprisingly,
as the price of the pass decreases the number of blockout days
increases. Blockout days are scattered throughout the year, and
as you might imagine, the times when Disneyland is busier are the
days that are most likely to be designated as blockout days. These
generally include weekends, holidays, the two weeks around
Christmas/New Year, and spring break. (We view blockout days as an
indicator of the days we really don't want to visit, because the parks
are just too busy!)

Here's a list of the currently available APs:

Premium: $359.00, no blockout days
Deluxe: $239.00, 45 blockout days
Southern CA: $154.00, 149 blockout days
Southern CA Select: $124.00, 195 blockout days

Now, as you can see, the So Cal Select is a pretty good deal at $124 -
less than the price of two single day tickets! But with all those
blockout days, which include all Saturdays and Sundays, most of June and
August and all of July, unless you can go during the week in the
off-season it's not very useful.

AP holders *do* have the option of going to the parks on a blockout
day, but must purchase a blockout day ticket at the main entrance
ticket booths to do so. This costs $30/day, and must be purchased
on the day that it is going to be used. For park admission, you
must show your AP *and* the blockout day ticket.

Another choice for Annual Passholders is parking. It's included in the
Premium AP, but it's an option on the others. For $59/year you can
add parking to your AP, which allows you to park as many times as you
want in the Mickey and Friends parking structure. Since it currently
costs $11/day to park, if you plan to visit more than 5 times it's worth
doing. Only one person in the car needs to have the parking
feature on their pass.

Something Disney has recently added as an option to APs is stroller
rental - for $49/year you can present your pass at the Stroller Rental
location and get one stroller per day.

For those familiar with the Walt Disney World AP, one thing that's nice
about the Disneyland AP is that it's plastic, like a credit card. (Yes,
I know the WDW APs aren't made of paper, but they sure feel flimsy!) And
it is personalized with your picture on it. Though unlike a WDW AP you
can't purchase/activate it at any ticket booth - after purchasing the
ticket part you MUST go to the Annual Passholder processing center inside
Disneyland. They'll take your picture and create your real AP on the
spot. After that you can renew by mail or on Disneyland's AP web
site, and they'll mail the new AP to you. (I recently renewed on
a Saturday and my new passes arrived in the mail on Tuesday!)

APs provide passholders with a number of discounts around the Disneyland
resort - dining, stays at resort hotels, and even merchandise and
services. It's always a good idea to ask if there's an AP discount
anytime you make a purchase at the Disneyland Resort!

My husband and I are a mixed passport family - I have the Premium AP and
he has the Deluxe. It makes sense for one of us to have the parking
option (which is included on the Premium AP), and there are times when I
visit on Deluxe pass blockout days. This year we knew that he
would be going twice on blockout days to attend events at this
year's Food and Wine Weekends, and we thought about spending the
additional $120 to upgrade him to a Premium, but in the end we
decided that even with $60 in blockout day tickets we were still
$60 ahead in staying with the Deluxe.

But here's a little ditty I composed when we were thinking about it...

To Premium Pass or not to Premium Pass...that is the question.
Whether 'tis nobler to stand in line
And suffer the stings and purchase price of a blockout day ticket
Or to sigh and lay out the additional $120,
And by purchasing a Premium, avoid them.

And now for the test (what, you didn't believe me???):
If Laura has a So Cal Select AP, and Lee has a Deluxe AP, on how many
blockout days can she accompany him to the park before she would have been
better off getting a Deluxe AP to begin with?

Until next time...when I will probably talk about "Taste", the AP event
at Disney's Food and Wine Weekends this Saturday...

Laura

On Saturday night, Lee and I attended the "Taste" event, which is a new addition to Disney's California Food and Wine Weekends this year. It's very similar to Epcot's Party for the Senses - except that Taste was better.

If you're not familiar with Party for the Senses or Taste - both are food and wine tasting events. Guests pay one price for admission ($100 in this case), and then can partake as much as they wish from a series of food and wine tasting "stations". At Taste, each of the fourteen food stations featured a different dish and chef from one of the Disney parks, resorts, or Downtown Disney restaurants. (You can find the menu HERE.) The portions were sample-sized, but very nicely plated and presented. For example, my favorite was Cafe Orleans' Cajun Spiced Shrimp, served on a corn cake with ratatouille and a drizzle of Mornay sauce. As you can see from the photo, it looked really good, and tasted even better. The wine tasting stations featured one of nine different wineries, each pouring at least three different wines. There was also beer from the Karl Strauss Brewing Company available.

And as if that weren't enough...there were several cheese and fruit stations, which later in the evening were turned into the dessert stations, featuring an assortment of delectable desserts. (My one complaint is that there wasn't enough chocolate. But then there's never enough chocolate...)

So why did I like Taste so much more than Party for the Senses? It was Party for the Senses (PftS) on a smaller scale, that's why. PftS is in a huge building (the former Millenium Village at Epcot) which accommodates a large number of people. I found it quite crowded and overwhelming - there were too many people and too many food and wine choices. At Taste you could realistically try one of everything without completely stuffing yourself, and you could move around the room without feeling like a salmon swimming upstream. In addition to "standing tables" inside, Taste had quite a few tables *and* chairs set up outside, which gave people the option both to sit and to get away from the noise a little bit.

And I must also admit that I was somewhat predisposed to enjoy Taste when I found out who the entertainment for the evening was going to be - a group called "Barrage". We saw them several years ago at Epcot and really liked them...and they put on a good show at Taste, too. They are kind of hard to describe, but here's a blurb from their web site: "Barrage - A high-octane fiddle-fest that features an international, multi-talented cast performing an eclectic mix of music, song and dance." Picture a group of young and very energetic violinists accompanied by drums, electric guitar, and bass. They played everything from Irish reels to Duke Ellington to Bolero. All while jumping around the stage, step dancing, and even singing. Whew.

Taste started at 6:30 and ended at 9:30 - I hadn't expected that we would be there for the entire time but we were. Promptly at 9:30 the lights inside the building were turned up and we got the polite Disney announcement: "Thank you for coming. We hope you will visit again soon." Translation: "It's over, so get out of here already!" On the way out they handed out nice bags for us to carry our souvenir wine glasses in - that was a very thoughtful touch.

We had a really good time. I'm not sure this is something that we would want to do *every* year, but we certainly enjoyed it. We will be going to Epcot's Food and Wine Festival this fall, and had planned to attend Party for the Senses...but now I'm wondering if I really want to do that - it might be quite a disappointment after Taste. (And the only night we have for PftS also happens to be the night of the Tower of Terror 13K, which Mike Scopa has written about in his blog. We thought it sounded like a lot of fun - but it conflicts with PftS. Of course a lot of people would say that given the choice between running and eating we'd be crazy to choose running...but that's just the kind of people we are.)

"Taste"fully yours...

Laura

I've been asked about "Tips" for visiting Disneyland...so here's a few
things that I hope will be helpful.

1. Be at the park when it opens. You can do a LOT of rides in the first couple of hours after the park opens when most of us lazy southern California people (who have to drive in from somewhere else) are still arriving. If you're not staying within walking distance make sure you allow enough travel time to be at the front gate when the park opens - if you're driving and parking at the Mickey and Friends parking structure, make sure you allow time for the tram ride, too. The parking structure usually opens an hour before the park does - though it opens at 7:30 on mornings when the park opens at 8:00.

2. Use Fastpasses, especially for popular rides like Indiana Jones, Space Mountain, and Soarin' Over California. Here's a tip...the Fastpass machines for Roger Rabbit's CarToon Spin at Disneyland and Grizzly River Rapids at DCA are not linked in with the rest of the Fastpass network, so you can get a Fastpass for either of those, and then right after that get a Fastpass for some other ride.

3. If you want to eat at the Blue Bayou, Ariel's Grotto, the Plaza Inn Breakfast with Minnie, or Goofy's Kitchen, make Priority Seating arrangements in advance by calling Disneyland Dining at 714-781-DINE (3463). And if there's *any* table service that you really, really want to try, make a PS in advance so you won't be disappointed. Sometimes you can walk up to table service restaurants and be seated without much of a wait, and sometimes you can't.

4. Toontown opens an hour after the rest of Disneyland does - and right after it opens is a great time to be there and interact with the characters before it starts to get crowded.

5. Saturdays and Sundays are going to be busy days at any time of year - unless it's raining. If you must be there on a weekend, be prepared for crowds and long waits. Attractions that are usually uncrowded even on busy days are: Disneyland, The First 50 Magical Years in the Opera House on Main Street, Innoventions in Tomorrowland, The Many Adventures of Winnie The Pooh in Critter Country, the Enchanted Tiki Room in Adventureland, and Honey, I Shrunk the Audience in Tomorrowland. The first two shows of Aladdin and Jasmine's StoryTale Adventures are usually walk-ins, though later shows fill up.

6. If you have a ticket that allows you to parkhop, then do that. Disney's California Adventure (DCA) doesn't open until an hour or two after Disneyland does, so start your day at Disneyland, and when people start pouring into the park around 10-11:00, head over to DCA and get a Fastpass for Soarin', see Aladdin, ride Monsters, Inc., etc, and enjoy DCA while it's least crowded. If you want to head back to Disneyland later in the afternoon for the parade you can easily do that.

7. By all means spend time in the Animation Building at DCA. There's two different shows (Turtle Talk and Animation Academy) in there, plus interactive activities in the Sorcerer's Workshop. We like just sitting in the main gallery and watching all of the animation on the video screens - there are clips from almost all of the Disney animated movies. It's a nice place to relax and take a break, especially on a hot day.

8. See the Aladdin show at DCA. It's a wonderful live show with great musical numbers, comedy, elaborate staging and special effects. My favorite place to sit for overall viewing is the front row of the Mezzanine level, but I think if you're in the first couple of rows of the Orchestra section you feel like you're part of the show yourself!

Until next time,

Laura

Today is Disneyland's 52nd birthday. I'd have to say that Walt's Big Experiment looks pretty good 52 years later!

This year we've already seen the the second annual Disney's California Food and Wine Weekends, and the openings of Pirates Lair on Tom Sawyer Island and the new Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage. Coming up, Disney has announced the return of Disney's HalloweenTime this fall - this year it starts earlier, on September 21. Haunted Mansion Holiday will be open then, and all of the Halloween decorations will be up. Mickey's Halloween Treat will be returning to Disney's California Adventure for 11 nights in October - this year, in addition to all of the trick or treat stops there will be a "character cavalcade" show.

And after that there will be the always wonderful "Merriest Place on Earth" holiday celebration, with all of the special decorations, parade, and fireworks show.

Next year Toy Story Mania will be opening at Disney's California Adventure, and who knows what else Disney might have planned?

Happy Birthday, Disneyland!

Laura

AllEars.net pages on items mentioned here:

Disney's California Food and Wine Weekends

Pirate's Lair on Tom Sawyer Island

Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage

Disney's HalloweenTime

Mickey's Halloween Treat

Toy Story Mania

As many of you know, when considering a trip to Walt Disney World, the issue of whether to stay on-site or off-site can be rather hotly debated. At WDW staying on-site certainly has advantages with its access to Disney transportation, proximity to the parks, and the wide range of resorts (and room rates!) available.

At Disneyland it's really not so much of an issue, though.

Location, location, location.
Though Disneyland was originally built in the middle of an orange grove, the city of Anaheim grew up all around it, and it's surrounded by its own variety of hotels with a wide range of prices and amenities. In fact, all of the Disney-owned hotels (Disneyland Hotel, Paradise Pier, and Grand Californian) are all "high-end" hotels, so those traveling on a more modest budget have no choice but to choose an "off-site" hotel. Proximity of the Disney hotels is a non-issue, though, since several of the off-site hotels are actually closer to Disneyland's entrance than the Disney hotels! Just a short walk (~5 minutes) across Harbor Blvd are several moderately priced hotels that provide clean-but-no-frills accommodations at a much lower rate than any of the Disney hotels - and there's that shorter walk to the parks, too. Now, there's also no theming at those hotels, either, but some of them do offer a complimentary continental breakfast, free parking and high-speed internet, *without* the "resort fee" Disney charges.

So what about transportation?
The Disneyland Resort is a "walking" resort - other than the trams from the two parking areas, the only Disney transportation is the monorail, and it only has two stations: one inside Tomorrowland, and the other at the far end of Downtown Disney. It's closest to the Disneyland Hotel, but it's really not so convenient to any of the hotels that I'd consider it a factor in deciding to stay there.

That Disney theming
Of the three Disney hotels, only the Grand Californian was originally owned and built by Disney - the Disneyland Hotel and the Paradise Pier were originally built by third parties, and later acquired by Disney. So a lot of the "Disney" touches in terms of design and theming are missing from those two hotels. Both hotels were constructed as very ordinary rectangular high-rise towers (three at the Disneyland Hotel and one at the Paradise Pier) - pretty boring and quite a contrast from the beautifully designed Grand Californian across the street.

The Disneyland Hotel has done a lot of remodeling and renovation in recent years, and it does have a lot more of the "Disney resort feel" these days. The grounds and landscaping are quite nice, and the Neverland Pool area can compete with any of the WDW pools. The Paradise Pier suffers from a lack of space, though - the hotel itself takes up all of its lot, and there's not much room for niceties like landscaping. The pool area is actually built on top of the convention center.

You notice I haven't really mentioned the Grand Californian - it's really in a class by itself, at least in comparison to the other Disneyland hotels, and reflects Disney resort theming at its finest. And it has the price to go along with that, too...

So...on-site or off-site?
Well, in my opinion, at Disneyland it's really a matter of economics. If you can afford to stay at one of the Disney-owned hotels you're going to get more of a Disney experience in terms of theming, service, and room decor than you will at any of the off-site hotels. But as far as proximity to the parks goes, a number of the off-site hotels are better choices, as well as being much more inexpensive.

What about you? Where is your favorite place to stay at Disneyland, and what do you like about it?

Laura

We made another trip to Disneyland on the afternoon/evening of Friday, August 17...thought I'd share a few observations...

With the "Year of a Million Dreams" extended through 2008 (doesn't that make it "Years of a Million Dreams?" the banners in the main entry plaza have changed...and the letters in front of DCA that spell out "CALIFORNIA" now have a blue-sky-and-clouds look, like the "Dream" mouse ears.

The waits for most attractions were less than an hour (15 minutes for Indy, 5 for Pirates, 10 minutes for Buzz, etc.), but Finding Nemo was still two hours.

This was a first for us - the standby line for Big Thunder Mountain was shorter than the Fastpass Return line! Since the attraction loads on two sides they send Fastpassers to one side and standby riders to the other, so we got on faster than a lot of people who had Fastpasses!

We saw the Ratatouille "pre-parade" float with Remy and Emile - since it doesn't fit into the Parade of Dreams it gets to be its own mini-parade.

On our raft ride over to Tom Sawyer Island at about 4:25 we saw one of the Pirate Stunt Show characters climbing up to the "crow's nest" waiting to make his grand entrance - which was still about 10 minutes away. I recognized this particular actor as one that had been playing Jedi Master Endo Valaris in Jedi Academy...from Jedi Master to Pirate...guess he went over to the Dark side!

 

The Disney Gallery (above the Pirates of the Caribbean) is closed, which means no more Fantasmic! dessert buffet on the balcony...but Riverside Premium seating for Fantasmic! is still available.

Disney's new High School Musical 2 movie premiered Friday night, and a new street show at DCA, High School Musical 2: School's Out, opened on Saturday, replacing the High School Musical Pep Rally.

The three towers at the Disneyland Hotel now have signs over the entrances with their new names: Magic (formerly Marina), Dreams (formerly Sierra) and Wonder (formerly Bonita). The hotel map signs scattered around the property have not yet been changed to reflect the new names, though.

We had dinner at Hook's Pointe (review to come) - Lee noticed that there's a map of Never Land on the ceiling.

The Fantasy Waters show at the Disneyland Hotel has been gone for a while, but the fountains and lights still put on a little bit of a show - we seem to have been there at just the right time to see it.

Until next time...

Laura

Well, ok...make that Disney's Electrical Parade, now that it's at Disney's California Adventure and not Disneyland.

But it's still a "spectacular festival pageant of nighttime magic and imagination in thousands of sparkling lights and electrosynthomagnetic musical sounds!"

These days it runs at DCA during peak seasons, which generally means the two weeks around Easter, mid-June through Labor Day, and about three weeks during the Christmas holiday season.

We saw it on a recent Friday night visit - there were a fair number of people waiting in the area around Sunshine Plaza, but about 10 minutes before it started we walked up the parade route to a spot near the Golden Dreams Theater and had a front-row seat right on the edge of the parade route. We also saw the parade a lot earlier than all those people who were at Sunshine Plaza, since it starts at Paradise Pier and ends in Sunshine Plaza.

Soon enough the lights dimmed and we heard the first strains of that very bouncy Baroque Hoedown. Makes me smile just thinking about it. The Electrical Parade is by far my favorite - SO much better than SpectroMagic! (And I know there's at least two people out there who agree with me!) Lee leaned over partway through the parade and asked me what happened to the scary clowns, but nope, there's nothing creepy about the Electrical Parade - it's all whimsical and fun.

One thing we'd never noticed before is the music coming from the spin-around turtle, bees, and snail. They actually have their own "electrosynthomagnetic musical sounds", sort of a slower, deeper, more plodding-paced one for the snail, and a higher-pitched, faster snippet for the bee. I thought I recognized a bit of the melody for "Golden Afternoon" from Alice in Wonderland in there. For some reason I'd never really noticed the Cheshire Cat on the front of Alice's float - he fades in and out, so maybe he's just usually faded out when I see him!

When I told someone at work that we'd seen the Electrical Parade he asked me if they'd switched it to using LED lights yet. Gasp! I was horrified! It wouldn't be the Electrical Parade if they didn't use light bulbs, would it???

Laura

I made a quick weekend trip to Disneyland and actually spent the night up there for a change - mainly because I was doing the Segway tour which started at 7:15 a.m., and would have meant getting up *really* early if I left from San Diego!

I met my friend Patty at my hotel on Saturday (Best Western Park Place Inn - more on that in a later blog), and she surprised me with a Disneyland birthday button! My birthday was the day before - I've never had a birthday button before. And it was fun - CMs at the turnstiles and in the park said "Happy Birthday, Laura!", and so did several guests, and I got singled out for some special attention by the Laughing Stock Company, and the Mariachi Divas over at DCA sang "Las Mañanitas" (the Mexican birthday song) to me and two other birthday people who were watching.

There were banners up at the parks (mostly where you saw them on your way out) advertising this year's Disney's HalloweenTime, which starts on September 21 - a week earlier this year. It was very festive last year, with great decorations! I hope to visit this weekend.

Now that summer is over the park is a lot quieter (even on Saturday it wasn't horribly busy, and it was a beautiful day - sunny and shorts weather, but a lot cooler than it had been in the last month!), and the Nemo line is down to something semi-reasonable - 45-60 minutes most of the time.

I don't think I've mentioned this before - the "yellow submarine" monorail that they premiered at the Finding Nemo grand opening is still decorated and has been in use ever since the opening (though they removed the conning tower!) - it's really cute - we saw it zooming around a number of times.

The construction of Toy Story Mania at DCA is beginning to take a more visible shape - as Patty pointed out to me the facade is taking on more of a Victorian look than the seaside amusement park look of the rest of the area. There's rumors that there are lots of changes coming to DCA (especially Paradise Pier) in the next few years, so maybe this is the start of it?

I saw the Remember fireworks at Disneyland that night from a spot near the castle where I could actually see the projections on the castle for a change. There's some really cool stuff - stars during the Main Street portion, flying spooks and hitchhiking ghosts during the Haunted Mansion section, skull and crossbones for Pirates, a moving duck target during the Frontierland Shooting Gallery bit (that's my favorite - it just quacks me up), crazy swirls for Toontown, "water ripples" for the Submarine Voyage, and a "light speed" pattern for Star Tours. I like that show more each time I see it.

The next morning Patty and I did the Segway tour - but you can read all about that HERE. It was a lot of fun - I liked it even more than the Epcot Segway tour, I think.

While waiting for the tour to start I *finally* got a decent picture of the new cloud-patterned "CALIFORNIA" letters in front of the park - just in time for them to change to the Halloween candy corn, I'm sure!

After the tour I wandered around the Disneyland Hotel taking pictures - and eventually found the Disney Vacation Club (DVC) sales office and models that are way on the far side of the Dreams (aka Bonita) Tower. I asked about the Grand Californian DVC, and they said they had no news on that...but it was finally announced earlier today. The press release is HERE.

Other news bits...

Ariel's Grotto at DCA will be starting a daily character breakfast on September 21, which runs through January 6. Breakfast will be served from 8:30 to 11:30 - $25.99 for adults and $13.99 for kids. Since the park doesn't open until 10:00, Cast Members will direct guests to the restaurant either from the main entrance or the Grand Californian entrance. Priority seating arrangements can be made up to 60 days in advance by calling Disneyland Dining: 714-781-DINE (3463).

And there's a new tour for the Halloween season - Disney's Happiest Haunts tour runs daily September 21-October 31. It starts at 6:00 at night and visits three attractions - Tower of Terror, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and Haunted Mansion Holiday. From what one of the guides told us, each tour guide gets to assume the persona of a character of their choice - like a pirate, or a miner or a psychotic actress. The tour includes creepy stories, and it's not for young children or those who might be easily frightened. Lee and I are signed up for the tour on September 28, so we'll know more after that. In the meantime, what we know about the tour is HERE.

It was a short trip but a lot of fun!

Earlier this summer I wrote a blog entry about staying on-site vs. off-site at Disneyland, and how there were certain advantages in proximity to staying off-site.

I had the chance to experience this for myself on a recent overnight trip when I stayed at the Best Western Park Place Inn & Suites, which is as close as you can get to Disneyland's entrance - the hotel is right at the crosswalk of Harbor Blvd that goes over to Disneyland's bus area and main entrance.

I was pleasantly surprised when I checked in just before noon on a Saturday and my room was ready! I put the parking permit on my car (good until 3 p.m. the day I checked out) and grabbed my bag and took it up to my third floor room. The hotel is one very long narrow building with external staircases and corridors, though there are elevators, too. Not much in the way of landscaping or grounds - it's either building or asphalt parking area. (Though as you'll see in a later photo, there were some potted plants on the edge of the walkways on the first floor.)

My room was quite nice - much better than I was expecting, actually. Just inside the door was a small seating area with a sofa (which pulls out into a full-size bed), a table, chair and a lamp. Beyond that was the bedroom area with two queen-size beds, a desk and chair, wardrobe with television, and a good-sized refrigerator and small microwave. A closet with full-length mirrored doors held an iron and ironing board as well as extra pillows. The sink and vanity were outside the toilet/shower room - there was a lot of counter space on the vanity, which had a blow dryer and a coffeemaker. The shower head was nice and tall, and the shower curtain was one of the bowed-out "no touch" types. All the rooms had individual wall-mounted air conditioning/heating units. Everything was very clean and the carpet, tile, furnishings, bedding, etc. all looked fairly new.

The pool area is located in the center of the complex. Nothing special about the pool - it was on the small side for a hotel pool. There's also a hot tub there. The laundry room and vending machines are nearby. There's a small store in the lobby where you can buy sundries, souvenirs, and some food items.

Wireless internet access is included, though I didn't bring a computer so I was unable to try it. There's also a free Continental breakfast available next door at Captain Kidd's from 6:30-8:00, but I had to be up and off early enough that I didn't check it out.

But the best thing about the hotel is its proximity to Disneyland. It took me less than 4 minutes to walk from Disneyland's main entrance to the hotel's entrance - and it only took that long because I had to wait about a minute for the light at the crosswalk to change. That's a lot closer than any of the Disney hotels - even the Grand Californian, where even if you cut through DCA it's still a little further than that.

It's not themed, and it's not Disney, but it was clean and comfortable - and very close to the parks. A good value for my money, and I'd stay there again.

Disney's HalloweenTime returns to the Disneyland Resort for its second Halloween season - it officially started on Friday, September 21, though the decorations have been going up over the last several weeks. But it's not really official until Haunted Mansion Holiday opens, and on Friday Jack Skellington and the HalloweenTown gang returned for their 7th season.

I visited on Saturday - had to see what was new! Most of the decorations are the same as last year - the cute Halloween display along the tram route, big character pumpkins over the main entrance, the huge Mickey pumpkin in Town Square and the many jack'o'lanterns in the windows on Main street. You can see pictures from last year HERE and HERE.

The new addition this year is Goofy's Candy Corn Acres in Sunshine Plaza at Disney's California Adventure. "Sweetness and Sunshine in Every Bite." It's very cute - Goofy has been busy planting all sorts of kinds of Candy Corn - carrot candy corn, pumpkin candy corn, cactus candy corn, etc. Each is in its own garden patch with a sign identifying the variety. There's even candy corn kernels hanging from the palm trees!

The stage is also the setting for some live entertainment - the show I saw was hosted by the Mayor of Candy Corn Acres (also the town's dentist, and he encourages everyone to eat lots of candy corn!). Chip and Dale, in their straw hats and neckerchiefs, were also on hand to help. Various audience members spun the wheel located up on stage to determine what games we were going to play - Candy Corn Bowling, where audience members used a candy corn bean bag to knock over some candy-corn colored bowling pins, Corny Jokes, where the audience had to answer candy-related riddles (What kind of candy can you make a shirt out of? Cotton candy.), and Wordscramble, where the audience had to come up with words spelled with the letters of "candy corn". Chip and Dale came up with acorn, of course. :-)

Oh, and they've also changed the background music in that area - instead of classic California tunes, now it's all candy-themed songs - On the Good Ship Lollipop, The Candy Man, My Lollipop Tree, Sunshine Lollipops and Rainbows, etc.

It's a fun addition, and I have to say that there's no kernel of truth to the rumor that says it's all a plot, and that the area is a husk of its former self. You can't believe everything you "ear". :-)

When I was at the Disneyland Resort last weekend, I noticed that a number of shops and restaurants are featuring special treats for the fall season. Some of them are rather cute and clever, so I thought I'd share.

The Blue Ribbon Bakery at Disneyland and Baker's Field Bakery at California Adventure are both featuring these cute Mickey pumpkin muffins and cookies.

I found the Mickey pumpkin cheesecake at Plaza Inn and the Pacific Wharf Cafe.

These candy corn cookies (candy-coated, of course!) and pumpkin sugar cookies were at the candy counter in Greetings From California.

The French Market, the restaurant located closest to Haunted Mansion Holiday, offers several creative desserts with the attraction's theme - like Jack (Skellington)-in-the-box chocolate cake.

And several different desserts served in Zero's food bowl - from a selection of fresh fruit to a piece of blueberry or strawberry cheesecake decorated with your favorite trio of hitchhiking ghosts!

They almost look too good to eat! (Notice I said "almost..." :-) )

Hello everyone!

Sorry for the rather extended break in the blog...real life and all of that stuff. You know how it goes, especially this time of year.

I hadn't been to Disneyland since early October, but Lee and I stopped by on Monday on our way home from central CA, where we'd seen our niece and nephew perform in The Nutcracker.

I just love Disneyland at Christmas...all the decorations and the Christmas music and holiday-themed attractions and the parade and holiday fireworks...

New this year Sleeping Beauty Castle (like Cinderella Castle at Magic Kingdom) is adorned with snow and "ice". During the day the turrets appear to be covered with snow, but at night the castle sparkles with glittering ice. We saw the 5:30 show where the castle goes dark, and then starts to sparkle, and meanwhile snow starts falling on the street! It was a short show but we enjoyed it. We didn't stay for the fireworks, but it would be interesting to see how they incorporate the castle into the show.

I made a quick commando-type trip to Disneyland/DCA on Friday - my objective was to take photos of as many menus as I could since I haven't updated them for AllEars in a while. (And if anyone out there is interested in helping with that in the future, please let me know!) I'm used to sticker shock when it comes to food prices at Disneyland, but I'd just like to say that I find the breakfast menu at Storyteller's Cafe to be ridiculously overpriced. $17.59 for a Mickey waffle????

But back to my day...I took my GPS runner's watch with me, since I was interested in seeing how far I walked - I hit all three hotels, Downtown Disney, and both parks, and covered 6.95 miles in 3 hours and 24 minutes. It was all the pictures that slowed me down! :-)

It was a beautiful, beautiful day - sunny and clear and in the mid-60s. Which isn't warm by southern California standards, but I'm sure most of the rest of the country would be really happy with those kind of temperatures in mid-January! (And no, this picture is not upside-down!)

Despite the awesome weather the parks were quite uncrowded - the only attraction that had much of a line was (what else?) Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage - 55 minutes at 11:00 in the morning.

This is the final weekend for "it's a small world holiday" before the attraction goes into a lengthy rehab - it'snot scheduled to re-open until November. So I guess there's no reason to remove the holiday decorations inside - it'll be holiday time again when it reopens. :-)

Construction on Toy Story Mania at DCA continues - they are working on the walkways in front of the attraction now so you can't walk all the way around Paradise Bay - if you're at California Screamin' and want to ride the Sun Wheel you have to walk all the way around the Bay. No official opening date for the attraction has been announced - still listed as "Coming in 2008".

Disneyland has renamed "Early Entry" to "Magic Morning", and changed the days - it's now Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. It's still available to DL Resort guests every day it's offered during their stay, otherwise it is offered one day of most 3- 4- or 5-day park hoppers. There's more detailed information on the AllEars.net page HERE.

I was surprised that Disney's Electrical Parade (which will always be the Main Street Electrical Parade to me, even though it's at DCA) is still running - usually it ends after the holidays. But according to the schedule, DEP continues on weekends/holidays through March 9, then nightly through March 31 (and perhaps beyond, but that's as far out as Disneyland's calendar goes at the moment).

The new Pixar Play Parade starts at DCA on March 14.

In honor of the Snow White "Fairest of them All" 70th anniversary exhibit in the Animation Building, Snow White has a meet and greet spot outside, with the Seven Dwarfs' cottage as a backdrop. She seems to be very popular.

Rancho del Zocalo in Frontierland has some good-looking desserts! They have coconut flan and tres leches cake, and a special chocolate praline "Year of a Million Dreams" cake (all $4.99 each). The tropical fruit plate ($4.59) also looks really good...if it's nice ripe fruit that would be delicious!

There's a big crane on the south side of the Grand Californian where they are working on the new wing that will be part DVC and part regular hotel rooms.

Last year Disneyland started offering a greater selection of healthier snack options in the parks, and there have been more fruit stands popping up around the parks. Toon Up Treats in Toontown now serves only fruit, drinks, and snacks, and there's a fairly new fruit/snack stand in Tomorrowland at the base of the Observatron. Traditional fruit stands like the Main Street Fruit Cart and the fruit cart in Critter Country have expanded their offerings.

In addition to the old standbys like fresh whole fruit ($1.75) and large dill pickles ($2.50) there's also boxes of grapes ($2.50), sliced apples with caramel sauce ($3.75), mixed fruit ($4.00) and even mango slices ($3.75). There's also pineapple spears ($2.50), organic fruit leather ($1.25) and slices of watermelon ($2.50).

Non-fruit choices include carrots with ranch dip ($2.75), veggie box with ranch dip ($4.00), trail mix ($4.00), and a bag of apple chips ($2.75). Bottles of Simply Orange and Simply Limeade ($4.50) are available, as well as Dasani water ($2.75) and PowerAde Option ($2.75).

Not all of those items are available at each location, but the Main Street Fruit Cart has an especially nice selection, as does Tropical Imports in Adventureland (where in addition to fruit they also carry a fine inventory of rubber snakes). Over in DCA the Fruit Stand at the edge of "a bug's land" has the best selection of healthy snacks, and also offers several types of Boudin sourdough bread - baguette, round loaf (both $5.50), and one in the shape of Mickey's head ($7.50).

Toon Up Treats Menu
Main Street Fruit Cart Menu

There have been a couple of recent news items about Disneyland on non-Disney sites that I have found interesting, so I thought I'd share, in case anyone else is interested..

My husband Lee sent me this link to an article published in the New York Times on February 10... "Will Disney Keep Us Amused?" talks a bit about the expansion planned for DCA, but mostly it's a lot of interesting info about the new Toy Story Mania attraction - including a statement that it is opening in June, something that I have not heard before. All I've ever seen from Disney is: "Opening Summer 2008." Sounds good to me. :-)

The other news item is an AP piece published on Febuary 13, and available in various news outlets on the web, including this Google page: Disney Revives 'House of the Future'.

The original House of the Future opened at Disneyland in 1957 and closed in 1967 - this new one is scheduled to open in May. It's 5,000 square feet and they say it "looks like a normal suburban home" - but I can't say there's any "normal suburban homes" in my normal suburban neighborhood that are 5,000 square feet!

Anyway...sounds like it will have lots of gadgets like lights and thermostats that automatically adjust when people walk in the room, with things like artwork and music that are customized to different individuals. And presumably there's some kind of priority system that determines whose preferences take precedence when more than one family member is in the room. :-) Hmmm...I'll have to find out about that...

I thought I'd post some follow-ups to a couple of previous blog entries.

Last week I wrote about the new House of the Future, coming to Disneyland in May. (That blog entry can be found HERE.) One thing the article didn't mention is that it was going in on the ground floor of Innoventions. We asked a Cast Member when we were there last week who confirmed that. There have been quite a few changes to the upper floor of Innoventions since we were last there - the Disney Interactive gaming area has received several different kinds of "virtual gaming kiosks", and the Virtual Resort area has been replaced (at least temporarily) by a Segway demonstration. The ASIMO demonstration and Stitch's Picture Phone areas are still there, though.

My second follow-up has to do with DCA's upcoming Food and Wine Festival (original blog entry is HERE). The Signature events for the Food and Wine Festival went on sale Friday morning. Though the web site with pricing information was supposed to be up earlier in the week, it didn't go on-line until they opened it for reservations, so no one knew how much the events were going to be until it was time to sign up for them. That made it a little bit difficult to know what the budget would stand, though fortunately DCA's events don't sell out immediately...at least not yet.

As I expected, there were price increases almost across the board - the most notable being that Taste went from $100 last year to $125 this year - though it's still $10 cheaper than Party for the Senses at Epcot. (Though it still requires separate admission to DCA, and since May 3 is a blockout day for all but Premium Passholders, a lot of people attending will have to pay an additional $40 for a blockout day ticket, or otherwise pay for park admission to DCA.) The Festival Wine Receptions also went up $10, to $55 (though this year they include a premium viewing location for Disney's Electrical Parade, which wasn't running during the Food and Wine Festival last year), and the Taste Wine Like an Expert class is up $25, to $45, though its format will be different this year. The Napa Rose Cooking School went up a whopping $75, to $400/person, and the Celebrity Chef dinner went from $145 to $185. Interestingly enough, the price of the Winemaker dinners stayed the same - $125.

As of this writing, nothing has sold out yet, and there still seems to be plenty of availability for all of the events. Check out http://www.disneyland.com/foodandwine to make reservations.

Lee and I took advantage of a Friday off work to spend the afternoon/evening at Disneyland. It was a gorgeous day, though chilly by southern Californian standards - only in the upper 50s. You may have heard about the freak winter storm that hit southern California on Thursday, bringing cold air that dropped the snow level to about 1000'. There were still some signs of that at Disneyland. :-)

The floral Mickey just inside the entrance was re-done earlier this year - though you can't see it in the photo, there are also sparkling lights, which of course look more impressive at night. And the Tinker Bell figure was added, too.

During the month of February Disneyland is celebrating the Lunar New Year, and there's a special display set up in Town Square. Mickey and Minnie, wearing Chinese attire in honor of the Chinese Year of the Mouse (really the year of the rat, but "rat, schmat" to quote our Muppet friend Rizzo) greet guests, and there's a large sign which describes the new year celebrations of Korean, Chinese, and Vietnamese families. My favorite part is that at the top of the sign there's a "What Year Are You?" timeline from 1919 to the present, where they represent the twelve different "year of the <whatever> animals with a different Disney character. Mickey of course represents the Year of the Mouse, there's Thumper for Rabbit, Mushu for Dragon, Abu for Monkey, Tramp for Dog, etc. I don't recognize the choices for Ox and Sheep...I think Horse is Prince Philip's horse from Sleeping Beauty, though. (I'm a Mouse/Rat, myself.)

It was the Friday before a long weekend and the park was fairly crowded - lines for the major attractions were an hour (or more) - way too long for us. The food lines were insane - 15-20 people deep for things like Dole Whips, the Corn Dog Wagon, the ice cream, shop, and even McDonald's French Fries. So we wandered around enjoying other aspects of the park instead. Like these colorful tulips planted around the Partners Statue:

Since lines were long we decided to enjoy some of the live entertainment...and we weren't the only ones listening to the ragtime pianist outside the Refreshment Corner!

The Disneyland Band was performing in Town Square - in addition to marches and patriotic music, they also performed medleys of songs from Lady and the Tramp and the musical Oklahoma.

We had an interesting surprise on our way out of the park - Cinderella, the Fairy Godmother, Aurora, and Belle were sitting around one of the planters just inside the park entrance and Cinderella was telling her story to the kids crowded around them. It was really very cute. After a few minutes Cinderella finished her story and told the audience that she and the others had to go and get ready for the parade. A nice way for them to pass the time while waiting for the parade to start!

We had lunch at La Brea Bakery Cafe (yum!) and dinner at Ralph Brennan's Jazz Kitchen - I'll have reviews of those later.

I had a new experience last Friday - I got to tour Disneyland with a fellow All Ears staff member - All Ears Picture This! blogger Lisa Berton. We hit both parks, all three resorts and Downtown Disney.

It was a beautiful southern California day - they don't get much better. Lisa was taking lots of pictures, since she's going to try to fill in a lot of the things that we don't currently have in the Disneyland section of AllEars. Let me tell you that it was a real treat for me NOT to be taking photographs - it was great to leave it in the hands of a professional.

There were a lot of characters out and about and many of them are total hams when it comes to getting their picture taken. Pluto kept striking all kinds of different poses for Lisa, and putting his ears in various positions. My favorite was when he rolled them into round Mickey Mouse ears. :-) I was surprised to see the Mad Hatter over in DCA outside the Animation Building - I guess they'd let him escape from Disneyland for the afternoon!

I've found another fan of the Orange Stinger - Lisa enjoys flying around on it, too, so we had fun doing that. And we checked out the S.S. Rustworthy play area. They've cut waaay back on the water effects (no more water cannons - and I don't think that's such a bad thing!), so it's pretty hard to get wet these days. But you can try "surfing", or steering the ship, or ringing the ship's bell, or pushing buttons for the foghorn, dropping the anchor chain, and throwing a life preserver.

We caught a bit of High School Musical 2 before heading over to the Paradise Pier for dinner. At this point we REALLY wished that the back entrance that Paradise Pier guests used to be able to use to enter DCA was still open! We used the Grand Californian's egress instead.

We had a very nice dinner at the PCH Grill at the Paradise Pier - but I'll write more about that later.

After dinner we went back to Disneyland - by way of the Disneyland Hotel and Downtown Disney. Last month I wrote about the new floral Mickey inside the entrance, and how it has new sparkling lights that show up better at night. Of course just as we walked up the lights *stopped* twinkling. We waited for a few minutes but no luck - we think Tinker Bell was mocking us. Eventually we gave up and went into the park and found a spot in the hub for the Remember...Dreams Come True fireworks.

Though we had a good view of the castle and a great view of the Matterhorn, we had an obstructed view of the fireworks - they were off to the left of the castle, and mostly blocked by some trees. I'm beginning to wonder if there is any spot where you get a good view of *everything*. The show proceeded just fine until Tinker Bell's flight...the spotlight went on her and she flew about 50 feet...and then she stopped. And kind of swung in place. Eventually they turned the spotlight off and the rest of the show continued, but she was stuck there for at least 5 minutes before they were able to get her apparatus moving again and she finished her descent. Normally she makes a return appearance near the end of the show - not that night! The rest of the show appeared to be unaffected.

On our way out of the park we checked the floral Mickey again - sure enough, it stopped twinkling just as we arrived. Guess that's my new mission in life!

I'm just back from a short overnight trip to Disneyland - we went up to attend Taste - the final signature event of this year's Food and Wine Festival. Taste was fun - I'll have more information and pictures up later.

We stayed at the Paradise Pier - the last time I stayed there was almost 11 years ago, when it was still called the Pan-Pacific. We had a room with a view of the Paradise Pier area of DCA - it was really pretty at night:

And in the early morning:

It also gave us quite an interesting perspective for viewing the Pixar Play Parade, which has changed (again) from what I saw a couple of weeks ago, as I reported in this blog entry. Lightning McQueen and Mater were back at the beginning and end of the parade. And the stilt-walking chefs of Ratatouille also returned - though there were only three of them.

From the room we could see many of the floats on the parade route

The biggest change, though, is the return of the "bug's life" parade unit - Heimlich and his many parts plus the float. The float was modified significantly - only the front part with Flik and Atta on the swing is there now. It looks a little odd when you compare it with the size of the floats for all of the other units.

Even with the "bug's life" float back, the weird Toy Story Tinker Toy creature is still part of the parade (but don't get me wrong, I think it looks pretty cool):

The acrobats have not returned to the Toy Story float - it's still just the monkeys hanging on the bar.

A while ago I talked about the Prince Caspian Pre-Parade that was coming to Disneyland at the end of April, and I had a chance to see that. I didn't notice any swooning females, but Caspian looked pretty good. And the horse was quite beautiful, and BIG.

He had quite an entourage - the banner bearers in front, the standard bearers, plus the courtier leading the horse - but it was his final attendant who cracked me up - The Royal Pooper Scooper. :-)

During Magic Morning I had a chance to get a close look at Jingles, the lead horse on the King Arthur Carrousel, which was dedicated to Julie Andrews last month. If you look closely you can see Mary Poppins' umbrella on the rump. Her initials, JA, the number 50, and Mary Poppins' boots and flying silhouette are on the saddle. It's really beautiful - so detailed!

The sparkling/chasing lights that are on the floral Mickey at the entrance to Disneyland cooperated with me a lot better than they did when I was there with Lisa Berton back in March - this time the light show was running almost continuously. It's more impressive in person when you can watch the lights as they move and twinkle, but hopefully you get the idea.

And now that I'm back from Disneyland I'm leaving for Disney World, where I'm planning to blog live this week. A little bonus trip for me - but I'll be writing more about that in my next blog entry.

Here's some info on some upcoming events at Disneyland...

Annual Passholder previews for Toy Story Mania will be June 9-12. Unfortunately, unlike AP previews at Walt Disney World, you can't just show up with your AP and get in - AP holders must register on the Disneyland.com web site ( http://www.disneyland.com/ap) and then be selected by lottery. I've got my name in, but I'm unlucky with these things... I'll know around June 2, though. The attraction officially opens on Tuesday, June 17.

There *is* a Passholder preview event open to *all* Passholders, though -- special viewing of the Innoventions Dream Home. Here are the dates:
June 17 - 8:00-9:00 a.m.
June 18 - 8:00-9:00 a.m.
June 19 - 8:00-9:00 a.m.
June 20 - 8:00-9:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. - 11:30 p.m.
June 21 - 8:00-9:00 a.m.
June 22 - 8:00-9:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. - 11:30 p.m.

According to the AP web site, this is what's inside:

"Discover a 5,000-square-foot home of the future inhabited by the dynamic Elias family and learn how the technology of today -- and the technology of tomorrow -- seamlessly interconnects within the home, the surrounding community and the whole world.

* Help the Elias family celebrate their son's recent soccer victory and plan their upcoming trip to China for the World Championship.

* Explore this beautiful Taylor Morrison Home and sample the benefits of a digital lifestyle provided by Microsoft, HP and Lifeware.

* Visit the adjacent party tent and explore new technology in a fun, hands-on environment."

Starting May 22, the Indiana Jones Summer of Hidden Mysteries begins at Disneyland. You can read more about it in this press release. It sounds like a lot of fun: "random acts of Indy" in Adventureland, following a map with clues to find artifacts and symbols, special Indy-themed surprises on the Jungle Cruise, and a new photo op location. There's also going to be a new show called Indiana Jones and the Secret of the Stone Tiger. It will be presented in the Aladdin's Oasis area, replacing (at least temporarily) Aladdin and Jasmine's show. I hope to see that (and some of the other new Indy stuff!) on Monday.

Tickets for this year's Halloween party at DCA are now on sale. The event has been renamed this year, from Mickey's Halloween Treat to Mickey's Trick-or-Treat Party. Other than the name change it sounds the same, though. Still no fireworks show or a real parade -- they are still calling it a "Character Cavalcade". I hope that will be at least slightly expanded from last year. Discounted tickets are available to Annual Passholders for selected dates only, and *all* tickets for the party on October 31 are priced at the day-of-event price of $37. There's more information on the Halloween party page on AllEars:
http://allears.net/dlr/tp/dca/mh t.htm

Lee and I went up to Disneyland on Memorial Day to meet up with AllEars' Deb Wills and Linda Mac, and also to see some of the new Indiana Jones Summer of Hidden Mysteries stuff that started over the weekend. You can read more about it in this Disneyland Press Release.

We arrived in time to see the first Indiana Jones and the Secret of the Stone Tiger show at 10:30. This is held in The Oasis, where the Aladdin and Jasmine StoryTale Adventures show used to be. We arrived about 10:05 and there was already a huge line (something I never saw for the Aladdin show!), but we got into the theater - a Cast Member said it holds about 250 people.

As you can see from the picture below, the sign outside The Oasis makes it look like more of a lecture by Dr. Jones. But of course how interesting would *that* be? :-)

As with the Aladdin show, there's a large area right in front of the stage where kids are encouraged to sit on the floor. The stage is filled with a variety of interesting-looking archaeological artifacts.

Dr. Rachel Flannery comes out and informs the audience that Dr. Jones isn't available - he's disappeared while searching for a powerful artifact associated with the stone tiger, and she's trying to interpret the clues he has left in his notes to find him. Which requires a lot of help from the junior members of the audience. (At least 6-8 different kids get to participate in a variety of tasks.)

With everyone's help, the Stone Tiger portal opens, and Indiana Jones himself appears in a cloud of smoke, bearing the artifact. Which he then has to fight Dr. Flannery for. Kind of a fun fight scene - Indy gets to use his whip. After vanquishing Dr. Flannery and thanking the audience, Indy takes off for his next adventure - no photo ops after this show.

Not long after the show ends (10 minutes maybe) the Random Acts of Indy (I love that term!) begin in Adventureland. Indy and a "bad guy" show up at various places throughout Adventureland and they are fighting over possession of a treasure map. They engage in several fight scenes up high - on top of Tropical Imports, on the balcony above South Seas Traders, and, my favorite, on the rope bridge of Tarzan's Treehouse. Both of them are miked so you can hear their dialog, and there's accompanying Indiana Jones background music, too. The "bad guy" definitely gets the worst end of it. :-) Indy also is out among the crowds in Adventureland at several points during this time, as well. I thought it was a lot of fun.

Here's a link to a short movie I shot of the fight scene at Tropical Imports.

Another aspect of the Summer of Hidden Mysteries is the Indiana Jones Adventure Map. These are free (CMs were handing them out as we waited in the Stone Tiger show queue). There are symbols scattered around Adventureland, and the map has a list of symbols and their translations (though more symbols are identified than actually exist, otherwise it would be way too easy!). Find the symbols and use the map to decipher them and reveal the message. I was a little disappointed in this - once you knew what to look for the symbols (as you can see in the photo below) were really obvious and very easy to find. And the "message" is hardly news to anyone who has ridden the Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Forbidden Eye attraction! :-)

There's also some Indiana Jones relics that have been left along the way in the Jungle Cruise attraction, but we didn't get a chance to do that.

I think it'll be a fun addition for the summer months - I think the kids especially will enjoy the show, and probably the map hunt, also. We got a kick out of the "random acts", though I am concerned that when the park is crowded the traffic in Adventureland will come to a standstill, and that place is enough of a bottleneck as it is (I avoid going through there most of the time).

AllEars Reader Chelsi Murphy attended the Annual Passholder Preview of Toy Story Midway Mania! at Disney's California Adventure on Tuesday, and has kindly shared her experience in this guest blog.

My husband and I received an email a few weeks ago announcing the Toy Story Mania sneak preview for annual passholders. You had to pick times you were available to go and enter your pass number. Lo and behold an email arrived instructing winners to bring a copy of the confirmation, along with a valid Disneyland annual pass for each member of the party, to the West information booth "at least 30 minutes before your time slot." Our time was between 10 am and 3 pm on June 10th. We, being very excited to see this new ride, arrived at 9 am at the designated booth and exchanged our email for our passes

This gave us plenty of time to get through security and wander over to California Adventure and wait for the park to open. Once inside and allowed past the main holding area, we walked over to the Paradise Pier Boardwalk where the new ride is located, along with an estimated 100 or so other lucky pass holders. Mr. Potato Head was not out and working this morning to greet us. He was having a few mechanical issues but there was plenty of signage to help us along the way.

Once in line we had both passes and our annual passes checked three times before finally getting the go ahead to pass through to the main line to get our 3-D Glasses.

Along the walls of the waiting area are what resemble circus posters explaining how to play games once on the ride.

At this point you are divided up by groups to get on your cars. They resemble a cross between the Buzz Lightyear car and your cab from Roger Rabbit. You sit in pairs, each with their own shooting device and you share a score and information screen.

When you take off, you should have your glasses on ready to go. You pass by great big scenes of all your favorite games as a kid.

Once you come to a stop, a giant 3-D video screen comes on and you are in an interactive video game. Depending on what you hit you will have different experiences: Some symbols are worth more points than others and some shoot air or water at you when you hit them. You make your way through different areas and each time you stop you play a shooting gallery style new game. I know if you hit certain things, a new game may come up on your screen but you are going so fast and having such a good time, its hard to concentrate on hitting exactly the right pattern!

At the end, your screen comes on to tell you your score, accuracy and give you a prize! We both got Rabbits! They also have a giant screen at the end that gives high scores of the day and month.

Some pictures while you're waiting to exit the ride.

This was at the end of the ride and I thought – “how does this help me now?”

When we first exchanged our email for our pass they told us depending on the crowd size we would be able to ride it again. We asked and sure enough they let us back in line. The unfortunate part was that by the time we were about to receive our 3-D glasses they made an announcement that the ride was down and that everyone should go enjoy other areas of the park and check back in later. This is Disney code for "this is going to take a while." My husband and I and most who had already ridden left the line happy we got to do it once.

The ride is amazing to look at and a heck of a lot of fun – and should not be missed. I can’t wait for my next opportunity to enjoy it, I just hope the others waiting for their 1st opportunity yesterday eventually got on.

Disneyland's Half Marathon Weekend is coming up on August 29-31. The Disneyland Health & Fitness Expo is August 29-30, the 5K and Kids' Races are Saturday, August 30, and the third annual Half Marathon is on Sunday, August 31.

Disney's HalloweenTime starts on September 26 and runs through November 2 and this year Disney has put up a pretty nifty interactive website for it. There's information on the attractions that are decorated for Halloween (Haunted Mansion Holiday, Woody's Halloween Roundup, and the Tower of Terror), on the decorations, the characters, and special merchandise. And a list of locations at Disneyland that will be featuring special foods and beverages. There's also a page with crafts (including pumpkin carving patterns) and some interactive games. The web site is here: http://disneyland.disney.go.com/disneyland/en_US/calendar/specialEvents/detail?name=HalloweenTimeSpecialEventPage

Miley Cyrus will be celebrating her "Sweet 16" birthday at Disneyland with a special event on Sunday, October 5. Much more information is available on Disneyland's web site HERE, and in this Disneyland Press Release. A limited number of tickets (5,000) will be available to the public, and go on sale on August 30, for $250 each.

The 2008 CHOC/Disneyland Walk in the Park, benefiting Children's Hospital of Orange County, will be held on October 19. More information is on their web site: http://www.chocwalk.org. You can read about Photo Blogger Lisa Berton's CHOC Walk experiences from last year in her blog entries:
CHOC Walk Part 1
CHOC Walk Part 2
CHOC Walk Part 3

There's finally a date for "it's a small world" to come out of its lengthy rehab - according to the Disneyland calendar it opens on November 29. I wonder if it will come up in the holiday configuration or not this time...

Fantasmic!, which goes into rehab on September 2, will begin running again on November 7.

The three McDonald's restaurants in the parks, Conestoga Fries and Harbour Galley in Disneyland, and Burger Invasion in California Adventure, will be closing on September 2. No information yet on what will be replacing them, but it appears they will all reopen on September 27.

From January 6 - April 30, 2009, Disneyland is bringing back its Everyone Get in for the Kid's Price promotion. 3, 4, and 5-day park hoppers are available to adults and kids alike for the kids' price. More information is on the Disneyland web site.

Thought I'd post a trip report from my day trip to Disneyland on Thursday - I went up to spend the day with my "Evil Twin" Pam and her son Mark. (No, we're not really twins, but we look like sisters - so we say we are twins separated at birth - separated by several years, different parents and birth places on opposite coasts, that is. Oh, and by the way, SHE is the "evil twin". :-) )

Left San Diego at 6:35 and had NO traffic, which really surprised me, so I was parked in the parking garage by 8:00, and back at Space Mountain by 8:15 where I met my ET and her son.

I thought the park might be fairly crowded since this is the first week that those who have the Southern California Annual Passes have been able to return to the parks since June, but the park was pretty uncrowded for the first couple of hours. We pretty much walked onto Space Mountain, Buzz Lightyear, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Haunted Mansion. We wanted to ride Indy but it was down. :-(

We also went over to Pirate's Lair, since Mark and Pam hadn't been there yet. We hung back at the entrance to Dead Man's Grotto and let everyone else go in first so that we could take our time going through there, and play with the special effects, like the chest holding Davy Jones' heart and the treasure area with Pintel and Ragetti's pop-up head and swing-down arm and eye. Mark and Pam found some things I hadn't noticed before - down at kid's eye level there is a "cursed treasure window", where you can see a box filled with gold coins until you reach in to touch it, and then it disappears. And there's another view into a different treasure chest which has a genie in a bottle. Fun stuff. :-)

Jack Sparrow was not in his usual meet-and-greet spot, but when we left the island he was waiting to board the raft to go across.

After a late breakfast (Mickey pancakes!) at the River Belle Terrace we went over to DCA - both Mark and I really wanted to ride Toy Story Mania. He'd done the one at Walt Disney World earlier this summer. Unfortunately when we got back there the line was 70 minutes long. Why, oh why did Disney NOT make this a Fastpass attraction??? Seems like a really bad decision to me.

So we did a couple other things - Orange Stinger and Mulholland Madness, though MM went down for about 10 minutes while we were in line. I still say that's the scariest ride in the park - every time we go around one of those 180 degree turns I have visions of the car flying off the track. <shudder>

We'd gotten Fastpasses for Grizzly River Run and Soarin' on the way in, and it was time to use those. Mark got pretty drenched on GRR - he was sitting right by one of the openings in the raft. Pam and I were in the middle and not quite so wet, but we were both glad we had quick-drying shorts on!!! (I always feel sorry for the people who wear blue jeans and ride GRR - they end up having to walk around in wet jeans for the rest of the day!) The Fastpass line for Soarin' was all the way up the ramp almost to the building entrance, so even with the FP we had a 15-20 minute wait. The standby time was posted at 35 minutes - I'm not sure I believe that.

For "lunch" we had ice cream from Bur-r-r Bank Ice Cream - yummy. Mark was pretty tired (they had had a long day the day before, plus early entry already) so we went back to their hotel, the Howard Johnson's Anaheim.

I'd read a lot of good reports on this hotel, but I'd never been there...I'm happy to say that it seems to be just as nice as they say. The room was on the order of a Walt Disney World moderate, I would say - except that not many moderate rooms have a view of fireworks, and a number of the HoJo rooms can see the Disneyland fireworks - including their room. Earlier this summer the hotel opened a new water park area called Castaway Cove - it has a number of water features including a spiraling water slide. Mark had a lot of fun there, and the water seemed to revive him.

We went back to DCA later in the afternoon. At the information booth at the front of the park I asked the wait time for Toy Story Mania - still 60 minutes. So we went to Monsters, Inc. instead, which had only a 5 minute wait. I pointed out the Attention All Monster Passengers sign, which I think is really funny, but most people seem to miss it. And we also took a look at the Harryhausen's menu that is posted on the wall - how does some Yukitori or Ice Scream sound to you???

We got about 3/4 of the way through the ride when it stopped. And after a couple of minutes the lights came on. And then we were told that there had been an automatic shutdown of the ride due to proximity sensors on the cars (people weren't loading/unloading fast enough, apparently), and they walked us out of the ride. Which was kind of interesting for me, but I felt bad for Mark and Pam since this was their first time on the ride. No "sorry for the inconvenience, here's a Fastpass for you", either - just a "try back later" attitude. (If you're counting, that's three rides so far that had problems...and they'd had an issue with Space Mountain the day before.)

By the time we got out of there the Pixar Play Parade had started...but we were hoping to get around it to get back to Toy Story Mania, thinking the line might be a little shorter. The parade seems to be back to its original version - the stilt-walking chefs and bungee-jumping rats in the Ratatouille segment are back, as are the twirling acrobatic cowboys on the Toy Story float. When we were there a few weeks ago I saw that the "bug's life" float was back to its original configuration with the flower swinging bugs in the center - that was taken out of service not long after the parade started because one of the swings broke during the parade. Hopefully the original parade has been running all summer - I haven't seen the full parade since early May, when it was still missing the more acrobatic elements.

It took a while to make it back to Toy Story Mania, and the line was down to 45 minutes by then. The CM told us we'd picked a good time - that once the parade ended it would be over an hour again. The line kept moving well, and we were on the ride in a little less than 45 minutes.

Man, that ride is a lot of fun!!! Mark and I rode together and he beat me by a substantial margin (31,000 points), but he was nice and didn't gloat *too* much. :-) He noticed that at the end when your scores come up, if you keep shooting, it shows up on the screen as confetti.

We had dinner at the Farmer's Market - they still have the California Wrap on the menu from the Food and Wine Festival. (Other restaurants that have kept the F&W menu items are Pacific Wharf Cafe and Award Wieners.) The wrap seemed smaller to me, though. For $7.99 it wasn't very much food. I really wanted to eat at the Pacific Wharf Cafe, but as usual the line was ridiculously long, and it's always very slow moving. (And they also replaced my favorite salad - the Nicoise - with the F&W festival Mandarin Chicken Salad. Which is good, but the Nicoise was better!)

I needed to get on the road after that, since I had to drive home and go to work the next day. Pam and Mark walked me to the tram, and we said goodbye, though I'll see them in San Diego, too.

Other random observations from the day...

• I saw the new Mark VII Monorail Blue go by a number of times - but never
  when I had my camera out, of course. It looks very swoopy and modern.

• The weather was GREAT - a summer day in southern California just doesn't get any better! It really wasn't too hot at all.

• The parks were not as crowded as I expected - though Pam told me DL was really busy when they went back after I left. Soarin' never had more than a 45 minute standby wait posted - and it's usually an hour - same for Grizzly River Run. I think Toy Story Mania is pulling a lot of people back to Paradise Pier and off the other big rides.
  

And a few things Lee and I noticed on our visit several weeks ago:

• Award Wieners has a new seating area - they took out the outdoor section of the Muppets Inc. queue and put in tables and chairs. Still left the Muppet stuff there, though. It looks like there's quite a bit of shade there.

  

• The parking lot trams have a new seat - it's more of a rubberized surface than the slick fiberglass, and not so slippery.

• As I mentioned in my Toy Story Mania blog entry there are two new food stands on the Boardwalk - Hot Dog Hut serves (surprise!) hot dogs, chips, and drinks, and Don Toma's offers turkey legs, chimichangas, and drinks.

• The Snow White 75th anniversary exhibit has been removed from the Animation Building, and the animation screens have returned to running the various clips from classic animated movies. I missed those during the Snow White exhibit.
  

Thanks to Mark and Pam for sharing some of their vacation with me - I had a great day.

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Warning: This is going to be a rambling collection of various observations.

On Friday, September 26, the first official day of Disney's HalloweenTime, I made a day trip to DL with my friend Kristin(e). (Spelled Kristin, but pronounced Kristine - got that?)

Weather was beautiful and the crowds were minimal - the longest line we waited in all day was 20 minutes for Toy Story Mania. We practically walked onto Space Mountain at 11:30 that morning. And even Soarin' and Grizzly Rapids had less than 15 minute standby lines - we really didn't need Fastpasses, though we used them a few times. (Since it was Friday, I'm sure crowds at Disneyland picked up in the afternoon/evening, but we left at 6:00, so we missed that.)

Disneyland continues to have big problems with the Indiana Jones attraction - it was down when I was there last month, and it was down when we walked by it just after park opening. We went back later and it was up, and we got as far as getting into our jeep and belted in - and then it stopped. And after a few minutes the lights came on. And then they started sending Cast Members into the attraction to walk people out of it (which would have been really cool, but we weren't in the attraction at all!) They gave us a Fastpass to return later, which didn't end up happening, but Kristin gave it to a group of very nice young teenage boys who rode Grizzly Rapids with us. Anyway...seems like Indy is in major need of an extended rehab.

Haunted Mansion Holiday is back, and still a lot of fun, though I didn't notice any new additions to it this year. But I took a few movies inside (movie mode on my camera handles low light a lot better than still photography!) and noticed something I'd never noticed before: the gingerbread coffin on the table in the ballroom scene has a lid that opens and closes, with a gingerbread man corpse that sits up then lays back down! The scent of gingerbread in the air is a nice touch.

Other things that have returned in Disney's HalloweenTime:

The Halloween displays along the tram route.

The huge pumpkins over the Disneyland park entrance, and the large Mickey pumpkin in Town Square.

The Dapper Dans on Main Street in their orange and black striped vests

Woody's Halloween Roundup in the Big Thunder Ranch area, with live shows featuring Woody, Jessie, and Bullseye - and your host, Tex Tumbleweed (and sponsored by Cowboy Crunchies!)

Free coloring crafts for kids at Woody's Roundup, or there are bat and pumpkin-shaped Halloween cookies available to purchase and decorate.

The pumpkin carver at the Roundup

Special menu and food items - especially sweets like Halloween-decorated apples and cookies.

Lots of Halloween merchandise - both quite a collection of Nightmare Before Christmas stuff and Disney Halloween plush, pins, Mickey ears, etc.

Goofy's Candy Corn Acres at DCA, which features character greetings and "corny" shows.

Over at DCA, one thing that is NOT back this year is the Halloween decorations around the Tower of Terror - the last couple of years there has been a glowing-eyed bat banner outside, and decayed Halloween party decorations inside, but those were missing this year. Golden Screams has also not returned.

I collected menus from some of the Disneyland and DCA restaurants, and there have been some significant changes in the Blue Bayou lunch, dinner, and kid menus. Price is up, of course. Cafe Orleans also has a few changes, though mostly in their dessert items and the kid's menu. I think the kid's menus were changed just about everywhere that I looked. More "healthy" options - like a turkey dog, or string cheese, fruit, and yogurt, or a turkey wrap. All kid's meals come with fruit (e.g. grapes or apples) though parents can request chips or fries. Prices have gone up slightly - most kid's meals start at $6.99 now - and the price of the Arroz con Pollo Toddler Meal has gone up from $2.99 to $3.99.

Ariel's Grotto had the most significant changes, though - they have completely redone their menu with more of an Italian theme. It actually looks a whole lot more interesting to me - I might actually consider eating there now. They've also changed their pricing - $29.99 if you eat outside, and $31.99 if you eat inside. (Sorry, I didn't get a kid's menu for Ariel's, but maybe someone has one they can photograph and send to me???)

Some of the updated menus:

Blue Bayou Lunch

Blue Bayou Dinner

Blue Bayou Kids

Cafe Orleans

Cafe Orleans Kids

Tomorrowland Terrace (updated kid's menu)

Ariel's Grotto

Wine Country Trattoria Kids

(You can always find all the menus on our Disneyland Menus page.)

We had a very nice lunch at the Wine Country Trattoria at DCA - that's one menu that had NOT changed at all. With the demise of the Vineyard Room, that's my favorite park table service restaurant now. Kristin had the Tuscan Salad and I had the Chicken Bruschetta Salad. They were both really good.

An unexpected surprise - I ran into my IRC friend JD in line at Soarin'. I knew he had an upcoming trip to Disneyland, but thought it was in October. After Soarin' we all went to Grizzly River Run - JD and I got drenched, but Kristin escaped most of the water. It was nice to see JD!

Toy Story Mania continues to be way fun - Kristin had never been on it before but she had a good time, and she scored very well - better than I did my first time!

(If anyone would like to help with All Ears menu updates for Disneyland, please let me know - it can be as simple as taking a picture of a menu and emailing it to me. You can contact me at laurag at allears dot net)

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When my friend Kristin(e) and I went to Disneyland last month, Kristin got her first Disneyland Annual Pass, so I thought I would share that experience with you. (Those of you who have WDW APs will find it's quite a different process!)

Here's she's smiling with anticipation as we take the tram from the parking structure to the park entrance. :-)

First thing, Kristin had to decide which kind of Annual Pass she wanted. If you live in Southern California you have a choice of 4 different ones. The main difference is the price and the number of blockout days.

Premium Annual Pass: No blockout days, $389 (also includes parking)
Deluxe Annual Pass: 60 blockout days, $269
outhern California Annual Pass: 150 blockout days, $174
Southern California Select Annual Pass: 195 blockout days, $134
(Parking can be added to any non-premium AP for $59 - since parking is $12/day now, if you're going to go to the park more than 5 times a year you'll want the parking feature.)

Kristin chose the So Cal Select - yes, it's quite restrictive, but the days she is likely to go are on Fridays with me, and most Fridays when we would go are open.

She purchased her ticket at the Disneyland Main Entrance Ticket Booth - but she could have gone to the Disneyland.com website and purchased it on-line and printed it out at home. Since it was one of the Southern California-type passes she was required to show proof of residence (Driver's license in her case, though they also accept utility bills, etc.) Another thing to be aware of: if the day we had purchased her AP had been a blockout day for her pass (it wasn't), she still would have been able to get in and activate/use her AP on that very first day.

Once we entered the park we went straight to the Annual Pass Center at the Bank of Main Street so that she could actually get her REAL Annual Pass (unlike WDW, where the ticket they give you at the ticket booth before you enter the park IS your Annual Pass, at Disneyland you must go to the Annual Pass Center to get your permanent AP).

After a brief wait she went up to one of the "teller" windows where they asked various information of her (at this point she would have been able to upgrade her pass if she'd changed her mind and/or add the parking feature):

And then took her photo:

And then handed her her bright, shiny, new AP, customized with her picture on it! They also gave her a nice color blockout day calendar and a copy of the October issue of Backstage Pass, the Disneyland Annual Passholder news magazine that we receive ~quarterly.

After we were finished at the bank we went into the park to Haunted Mansion Holiday where she used her AP for the very first time to get a Fastpass.

And then, as I wrote in this blog entry, we went on to have a wonderful day at Disneyland and DCA - and since she's now got an AP, I look forward to at least one, and hopefully more, fun days at the park with Kristin in the next year!

Other miscellany:

If you're adding parking to an AP, bring your parking receipt with you to the AP Center - they will credit the money you already paid that day to the cost of the parking feature. Note: the parking feature is not valid on your AP's blockout days.

If you want to go to the park on a blockout day you can do that by purchasing a blockout day ticket for $40 at any of the ticket windows. (If you're staying at any of the Disney hotels they are also available for purchase at the Front Desk.) Disney advertises blockout day tickets as "subject to availability", so it's possible that on very busy days you could still be denied entry.

Once you have your AP, you can register it on the AP section of Disneyland's web site: http://www.disneyland.com/ap. This area of the web site lists offers available only to AP holders, such as sneak previews of attractions, hotel and restaurant discounts, etc. You can sign up there to receive special AP-only email from Disney.

Disneyland APs can be renewed either by mail or via the Disneyland.com/ap web site. There is a small discount for doing so, and it also means no standing in line at the AP Center again! In addition you usually receive a 20% off merchandise coupon, plus choice of AP design - the standard one available at the park or a special design available only to renewing passholders.

If you must vist the AP Center, go first thing in the morning right after park opening - the line can get pretty long as the day goes on. Though I have occasionally seen a short line in the afternoon on a not-so-busy day.

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The "it's a small world" attraction at Disneyland underwent a long rehab
in 2008 - it closed in January and didn't reopen until November. When it
did reopen, it was in the holiday configuration, so some of the changes
were not yet in place. The most controversial change seemed to be the
proposed addition of Disney characters to the attraction - a lot of Disney
fans were very vocal in their opposition to that idea..

After the holidays, the attraction went into rehab again, the holiday
overlay was removed, and the remaining changes were put into place. Today
the attraction was open to members of the media and to Annual
Passholders (the attraction opens to the public on Friday, February
6.). As a representative of AllEars® I was invited to do a ride-through
of the attraction with Imagineer Kim Irvine, which was quite an
honor!

But before the ride-through with Kim Irvine I was able to ride
twice, and get some idea of what the updated attraction was like.
Up front I have to tell you that I'm not a huge fan of "it's a small
world" - That Song really gets to me, and I can usually only stand
it in it's holiday configuration (though I love the holiday edition!).
So it's probably been almost 10 years since I was in the non-holiday
version.

I was very impressed with the new attraction. It looks just gorgeous -
lots of vibrant colors, and the lighting is much improved. And the
characters? They aren't in-your-face at all - they have taken
characters who fit into the various scenes (like Cinderella in
France, Mulan in China, Simba in Africa), and given them the same
stylized "small world" look. For the most part, if you didn't know
they were new, you wouldn't know they hadn't been there all along.
I actually had a hard time finding them all, and only found two of
them because other people told me where to look. I think that part
of the fun of the new attraction is going to be trying to find the
characters - I think that's something that will appeal to kids and
adults - I know I had fun with it. It would be nice if Disney would
hand out a list, though.

The other big change is the addition of the "Spirit of America"
scene. It's a western scene with a farm on one side, and hills
with some cowboys and Native Americans on the other side, Woody and
Jessie from Toy Story make an appearance as well. The scene was
based on original concept art by Mary Blair.

The soundtrack has been augmented with short snippets of themes from
Disney movies, such as "A Whole New World" from Aladdin. This is very
subtle, and I have to admit that I never could hear them, even though I
knew they were there.

I will have more on the ride-through with Kim Irvine after I have a
chance to listen to my audio recording - with That Song playing at a fairly
high volume it was hard to hear her sometimes. It was interesting to
hear what she has to say.

There are supposed to be 29 characters in the ride - here are the ones
that I found. Let me know if you think I got any wrong.

UK:
Peter Pan and Tinker Bell
Alice in Wonderland and the White Rabbit

France:
Cinderella, Jacques, and Gus

Italy:
Pinocchio

Middle East:
Aladdin, Jasmine, and Abu - and I think the Flying Carpet should count
as a character.

China:
Mulan, Mushu, and Mushu kite

Africa:
Simba, Pumbaa and Timon (I really like how they used the same hot pink
and purple color for Pumbaa that they use on the hippo in the same scene.)

Mexico:
Donald, Panchito and Jose Carioca (Donald is the only member of the Fab
Five to appear)

Under the Sea:
Ariel and Flounder (Ariel sings That Song as a solo)

Down Under:
Dory and Nemo

Hawaii:
Lilo and Stitch

Spirit of America:
Jessie, Woody and Bullseye

That's 29...does that mean I got them all? That's not counting the
flying carpet, and I'm not sure if the Mushu kite counts or not.

***Friday morning update:

AllEars reader Carol tells me that I missed Jiminy Cricket, who is in the Italy scene with Pinocchio. We think that he is just barely visible in the upper right hand corner of the Pinocchio photo posted further up. Thanks, Carol!

Just some notes and observations on some things going on or upcoming at the Disneyland Resort.

As I posted in my recent blog entry, the new Celebrate! A Street Party opened on March 27. This not a traditional parade - it's more of a traveling dance party with three performance stops, so getting a good viewing spot is a little more of a challenge.

The Celebration Roundup and BBQ at Big Thunder Ranch opens on April 2.

According to Disneyland.com:

"Want to do something out of the ordinary to celebrate your special occasion? Have a cowboy-style party in the spirit of the Wild West!

* Authentic Western favorites like barbecued ribs and chicken, corn on the cob, beans, cole slaw -- and a surprise dessert
* Delightful live entertainment
* Disney Character appearances
* A Critter Corral"

Priority seating can be made by calling Disney Dining at 714-781-DINE (3463).

Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique opens in Fantasyland on April 17 at the site of the former Once Upon a Time shop behind the castle. Call 714-781-STYLE (7895) to make reservations.

According to the Orange County Register the Yamabuki restaurant at the Paradise Pier is scheduled to close on April 11. http://ocresort.freedomblogging.com/2009/03/26/39-disney-employees-told-restaurant-will-close/6929/

Last week I noticed that they were handing out pamphlets near "it's a small world". These contain a list of the Disney characters that can be found in the updated attraction, as well as some idea of where to find them. People in line for the attraction were perusing it and seemed to be enjoying the idea of hunting for the characters. (While I guess I can't take credit for it, I *did* suggest in my blog right after the attraction reopened that having some kind of guide would be a good idea. :-)

We saw the new Monorail Orange on the track last week.

Disney's California Food and Wine Festival starts on April 24. We saw some signs and banners advertising the upcoming Festival, as well as a glossy info sheet at the Wine Tasting Terrace at DCA.

Points at the Disney Vacation Club's Grand Californian Villas went on sale to the public on March 27. If you missed it, I have photos of the models and a writeup of the "Hard Hat Tour" I took of the site last week in this blog entry.

I had a nice chat with a CM at the "Birthday Party" kiosk outside of the Plaza Inn. She showed me her box of "What Will You Celebrate" buttons, and said she had lots of new ones - like "I Graduated", "Happily Ever After", "Just Engaged", and "Family Reunion". They have a lot of fun stuff available at the restaurants for people celebrating birthdays - there's a pop-up Disneyland Castle centerpiece, Goodie Bags, and a Princess or Pirate-themed birthday treasure chest. At the Plaza Inn there's an afternoon birthday celebration with Pat E. Cake (and Mickey and Minnie!) for $15.99/person.

My last item will probably be old news to you by the time you read this blog entry - but I'll mention it any way. Disney Cruise Line is planning to establish a permanent presence on the west coast by homeporting the Disney Wonder at the Port of Los Angeles in 2011. You can read the press release here. It will be interesting to see what new itineraries there might be in addition to the Mexican Riviera cruises they've done in the past. My friend Masayo suggested one that I had not considered - Hawaii, anyone? :-)

I ate in Downtown Disney a couple of times last week, and thought I'd share.

The first time I was on the lookout for a snack. I was thinking of getting a Mexicone at Tortilla Jo's Taqueria, but as I was walking by Ralph Brennan's Creole Cafe, I noticed they had a few new menu items. The new section of the menu is "Cajun-Asian". I can't say I've ever associated New Orleans with Asian food, but ok. But on the menu they had a Cajun Wonton Salad, Chicken Pot Stickers, and Blackened Chicken Spring Rolls. (You can see the menu, with a more complete description of the new items, HERE.

Both the Pot Stickers and Spring Rolls sounded good, but I decided to go for the Spring Rolls. There were two of them, which they cut in half. The spring rolls were crispy, and filled with chicken, cabbage, caramelized onions, corn, tomato, and pepper jack cheese, and served on a bed of shredded lettuce and red cabbage, with a side of honey mustard dipping sauce. They were really tasty - just a little bit spicy but not overly hot. At $6.99 it's pricey for a snack - but in Downtown Disney you're not going to find much of anything for any less than that. I really enjoyed them, and would definitely get them again.

Friday night Lee and I had dinner at the Naples restaurant. We are still trying to get around to eating at every Disneyland Resort restaurant, but we still have quite a few left. We had a Priority Seating at 5:15, and were seated right away. At that point there were still empty tables. But the restaurant was full long before we left, and we were amazed at how quickly they really turned the tables - within a minute or two of a table being cleared it was re-set and they were seating a new party!

They have tables outside and inside - it was a very pleasant evening, and outside would have been fine, but the available outside tables were in the sun so we sat inside. But we were right next to the big door that opens to the outside, so it was kind of the best of both worlds!

Our server Florica took our drink orders - a glass of pinot noir for Lee and passion fruit iced tea (yum!) for me. And then she disappeared for a while which concerned us, but when she came back she apologized for the wait - she'd been handling a problem with the kitchen. And certainly after that we had very good service. Florica was back to check on us regularly, and anytime dishes were ready to be cleared someone was right there to do it.

While we'd been waiting to order they had served us a basket of really nice chewy (but not tough) ciabatta bread. It came with a bowl of olive oil and spices, which was also excellent.

We ordered the spinach salad to share - fresh spinach with goat cheese, pancetta and candied pecans with a citrus (orange) vinaigrette. I'm glad we ordered it to share because it was huge. Of course, for $12.50 it *should* be good-sized!

For entrees, we both wanted the Ravioli Della Zucca (Pumpkin Ravioli), but we decided to also try the Rigatoni Di Pesto Con Gambero (Rigatoni with Shrimp).

The Pumpkin Ravioli came in a light olive oil broth with chili flakes. It had just a little bit of a kick, but not enough to overwhelm the flavor of the pumpkin. It was really excellent, though they could have been more generous with the number of ravioli in the serving. There were also pieces of broccolini in it, and there could have been a few more of those, too.

The Rigatoni was just ok - it was a fairly large serving of pasta, but there were only five shrimp in it, and I thought they were a bit tough. The pesto sauce was flavorful and not too garlicky. It also had a few blistered tomatoes and slivers of toasted garlic.

I have to say that nothing on the dessert menu looked particularly good to me. Our server recommended the Buttermilk Panna Cotta with Peppered Berries, but Lee wanted to try the Cannoli. It was filled with a sweetened ricotta cheese with cinnamon and some miniature chocolate chips. I didn't think it had very much flavor and I didn't really care for it - not something that I would order again, that's for sure.

As Disneyland Annual Passholders we got a 10% discount on the bill, which was $78 with tax and tip.

Would I eat there again? I don't know...given the other choices available in Downtown Disney, probably not. The pumpkin ravioli was really good, but other than that nothing on the menu is all that appealing to me. And I think the pizza is ridiculously expensive - the cheapest family size pizza is $37.50.

You can view the Naples menu HERE.

Actually the first event is one that's already happened - and that's the opening of the Celebration Roundup and Barbecue at Big Thunder Ranch. We have the menu on-line - it's fixed price barbecue chicken, ribs, beans, coleslaw etc., served family style. There are vegetarian options, also. Though not billed as a character meal, Woody and Jessie make the rounds, and there is a fairly continuous show going on featuring Tex Tumbleweed and Miss Chris, the owner of the place.

I haven't been there yet, but from most reports I've seen people have been pleased with it - the main thing that seems to put people off is the price - $28.99 for adults and $18.99 for kids, not including tax and tip.

Next up is the opening of the new Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique in Fantasyland, behind Sleeping Beauty Castle. That will be opening on Friday, April 17. Appointments are already being accepted - call 714-781-STYLE (714-781-7895). We have information on the services available as well as the prices HERE.

Disney's California Food and Wine Festival starts Friday, April 24. Deb Koma and I will both be covering the opening weekend. There is still availability for most of the Signature Events - though all but two of the Napa Rose Cooking Schools are sold out. And the new Sweet Sundays event is also proving to be very popular, as four of the six are also sold out. (I will be attending the opening session on May 3.) Sample menus for the World Celebration Dinners are available though to see them you have to get to the actual event sign-up page which means completing the first page of the registration process. The daily event schedule has not yet been published, but I hope that happens soon so I can plan. Deb and I hope to see some of you there!

Deb Koma and I attended the Celebrate Today press event at the Disneyland Resort today.

The press event featured the many new and upcoming events at Disneyland this spring and summer. It was a very busy day, so we'll just hit the highlights for now, with more details later.

We started our morning with three video interviews. First up was a segment on Disney's California Food and Wine Festival, which started today. Deb Koma got to stomp grapes in this one - she said they were very cold! (Sorry that there is no video of this one - I was using an unfamiliar camera and somehow put it in a weird format that we haven't figured out.)

Next up was an interview with Alex Villa plus Jessie and Woody, on the new Celebration Roundup & BBQ. Here's the scoop on that - and when you see the desserts, you'll know that I do mean "scoop!"

(Deb and I want to say a HUGE thank you to my husband Lee, who did all of the video processing on these videos, which took most of his day.)

Last but not least, Deb received a makeover from the Fairy-Godmothers-in-Training at the new Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique, which opened last week in Fantasyland.

The style Deb received is called Pop Princess. Doesn't she look great? She received a lot of (positive) comments on it the rest of the day - but once we came back to the room she took it off - we wanted her to wear it to dinner tonight. :-)

Next up were lunch at the aforementioned Celebration BBQ and then we saw the new Celebrate! A Street Party We'll have more on those later.

I must say that the What's Next presentation was the one that I was most looking forward to. This was where they told us about all of the cool things that are coming up this summer in the Summer Nightastic. Everything starts on June 12.

The TLT Dance Stage at the Tomorrowland Terrace will feature DJs Monday-Thursday nights, and live entertainment Friday-Sundays.

Disney's Electrical Parade is returning to Disney's California Adventure with a new Tinker Bell float to lead it off. The Pinocchio and Snow White Diamond Mine floats are returning after an absence of several years. There are new and updated elements on the rest of the floats, also.

Pixie Hollow Enchantment - by day it's the queue for the Pixie Hollow Meet and Greet, but at night it's a pixie festival, where all the pixies have added their own special magic.

Fantasmic! returns with a lot of enhancements, including hi-def digital projections on the water screens. There's a new crocodile who will be following the pirate ship, and their are two new "cast members" - Flotsam and Jetsam, who will be gliding on the surface of the water. Their mouths open and their eyes move, and they are quite manueverable. There is also a new 40' tall dragon who is fully automated.

Magical sounds like an amazing new fireworks show. In addition to Tinker Bell's flight, Dumbo the Elephant will also fly! The show will feature the voice of Eden Espinoza (Elphaba on Broadway). Steven Davison, Vice President of Parades and Spectaculars, actually acted out portions of the show, as you will see in this clip where he acts out the finale.

It was a great day - we'll have more details on some of the upcoming events soon.

A few (ok, actually a LOT) more details on the What's New presentation last week.

The presentation began with our host Russ Marchand introducing Summer Nightastic! - Disneyland will be the hottest place for kids and adults this summer. (All of the nighttime activities described below start on June 12.)

Jill Estorino, Senior Vice President of Marketing was the first guest. This summer Disneyland wants to make the night sparkle even more - "when the sun goes down, things light up." There will be new glow-in-the-dark merchandise and even glowing drinks. The TLT Dance Club at the Tomorrowland Terrace will feature entertainment 7 nights a week, with dance club DJs Monday-Thursday and live bands Friday-Sunday. Trivia games and other activities will offer something to appeal to the whole family.

She also spoke about the new Summer Fun Pass for Southern California and Northern Baja residents. This is a three-day park hopper for only $99. It is valid for 45 days from first use (a LOT longer than the usual 13 days!), which must occur between June 1 and August 23, 2009. The pass is available to residents in zip codes 90000-93599 and 21000-22999. Proof of residency is required for purchase. The tickets will be available at Disneyland.com, Disney Stores and the Disneyland ticket offices, and also at Vons, Albertsons, Ralphs, Stater Bros., Food 4 Less, Gelsons, Dearden's and Toys 'R' Us. (It's highly recommended that you purchase your tickets in advance either on-line or at one of the above-mentioned outlets to avoid lines at the ticket booths.) $33/day for a park hopper? That's a great deal!

The lights dimmed in the room, which was suddenly filled with the sounds of the Baroque Hoedown. One of the spinning turtles from the Electrical Parade came into the room, as did several of the light-costumed lords and ladies from the parade who posed artfully on the steps leading up to the stage. As the lights came up the "lord" on the top step removed his glowing jacket - and it was our next speaker, Denny Newell, Senior Show Director.

Disney's Electrical Parade is being spruced up for the summer, with some new elements added, and some older elements that are returning. The Baroque Hoedown music has been enhanced - it's mixed better with deeper lows and higher highs.

A new Tinker Bell float will now lead off the parade - "a fairy's Magic lights the way." The float has state-of-the-art LED lighting, with 160 dimmers on that float alone to provide all kinds of different lighting effects. There are new LED lights on all of the floats, and also on the costumes. This new technology gives them more control over the lighting to better choreograph it to the music.

The Cheshire Cat on the Alice in Wonderland float has been redesigned, and now he can really disappear. He's obviously a cat now instead of a "pink...pile".

Captain Hook's Pirate Ship is a foot-and-a-half taller, and the skull on the front of the ship glows with internal LED lights.

Updated versions of three floats are returning to the parade - Snow White's Diamond Mine and the two Pinocchio Pleasure Island floats. They were part of the parade when it left Disneyland in 1996 but did not return when it came back to Disney's California Adventure in 2001.

Denny Newell also spoke about Pixie Hollow Enchantment.

Normally Pixie Hollow closes in the evening, but during the summer it will be open, as the fairies transform the queue area and pond into a Festival of Pixies. The "Light Talent" fairies will light up the trees while the "Animal and Garden Talent" fairies light up the grounds, and the "Water Talent" fairies light up the water with fountains and pop jets lit with fiber optic lights. There will be a 90 second show choreographed to music about every 15 minutes.

Next up was a short skit on the two big summer vacation specials - the $99 Park Hopper I mentioned above, and the "Two Nights Free" vacation package. Those who purchase vacation packages including lodging and tickets at the Disneyland Hotels and selected Good Neighbor hotels will get two additional nights and two more days of park hopper tickets for free. This offer is good for stays at the Disneyland Hotels starting immediately, and for stays at the Good Neighbor Hotels starting on May 1. It's valid through 9/26/09, and packages must be booked by 8/11/09. I checked, and these are the "Select" Good Neighbor Hotels:

Anabella
Anaheim Marriott
Best Western Pavilions
Best Western Raffles Inn & Suites
Best Western Stovall's Inn
Carousel Inn & Suites
Clarion Hotel
Courtyard by Marriott Anaheim
Fairfield Inn Anaheim
Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites
Hotel Menage
Jolly Roger Hotel
Marriott Suites
Motel 6
Portofino Inn
Red Lion Anaheim Maingate
Residence Inn Anaheim Resort
Staybridge Suites

The agent I spoke to said things are booking quickly, and you'll pay less if you book a Monday-Friday stay and avoid the higher weekend prices.

The lights dimmed again, as the psychedelic glow-in-the-dark monkeys from Fantasmic! made their appearance, ushering in Carla Carlile, Show Director who spoke about the updated Fantasmic! show.

All of the animation on the water screens has been converted to high-definition and will be projected with HD digital projectors.

There's a new crocodile that will be swimming along behind the pirate ship - he is more animated and will be able to jump toward and snap at Captain Hook.

There are two new Cast Members - during the Ursula portion, Flotsam and Jetsam will make their debut. They will appear to slither on the water. Each has a Honda personal watercraft inside so they are quick-moving and maneuverable. Designed by Michael Curry, they are partly automated, partly manual: their eyes and heads move and their mouths (with all of those pointy eel teeth!) open and close.

And there is a new 3-D dragon - a dragon that finally looks like the dragon we've been seeing on the Fantasmic! logo all these years. 40 feet tall and fully automated, it weighs 10,000 pounds. Some of the pieces had to be air-lifted into place with a helicopter.

She showed stop-animation sequence of the maquette as it flapped its wings, drew up to full height, and then leaned down to breathe fire on the water. I thought it was pretty impressive when the dragon puppet did this before, but this is going to a whole other level. As Carla said: "HD means Huge Dragon!"

Our final speaker was Steven Davison, Vice President of Parades and Spectaculars. (And that has got to be one of the coolest job titles ever!) He made his entrance to a burst of fireworks from either side of the stage.

Magical is the name of the new fireworks show. The score is by Greg Smith, who also did the score for Wishes, and features an 80-piece orchestra and a choir. Eden Espinosa, who was a featured performer at Disneyland prior to her appearance as Elphaba on Broadway, is the featured soloist.

The show is divided into six different sections. Tinker Bell flies over the castle to lead off the show in the Neverland - The Magic of Childhood opening accompanied to the music of "Second Star to the Right".

Gepetto wishes upon a star and Blue Fairy pyrotechnics light up the sky in the Pinocchio - The Magic of a Wish section. Musical selections include "An Actor's Life for Me", "Give a Little Whistle", and "I've Got No Strings". Eden sings the following lyrics at the end:

"Make a wish on a shooting star
Wish for magic and see who you are.
Because if you don't believe
That things that you see are so unbelievably
Magical, wonderful
Wishes make your dreams come true."

Mary Poppins and The Magic of Imagination follow, with the music of Chim-chim-chirree, Jolly Holiday, Step in Time, Let's Go Fly a Kite, and Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

In the following video clip, Steven Davison acts out part of the Mary Poppins segment. When he refers to the "9-line", he's talking about the 9-position launchers behind ToonTown. And "the castle" refers to the launchers there.

Don't you feel like you've seen part of the show now??? Is this a man who loves his job or what?

In Dumbo - The Magic of a Mother's Love, Eden sings "Baby Mine" as Dumbo himself flies slowly over the castle. He is a fully-articulated character created by Michael Curry, and will be highlighted by search lights that have been added to the castle. It sounds like this part of the show will bring tears to most eyes.

The first finale is called The Magic of a Kiss and features the songs "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes", "So This is Love", "Beauty and the Beast", and "Once Upon a Dream".

The real finale features the original song, Magical, sung by Eden and the choir, with Tinker Bell making a final appearance. And for the rest of it, well, I'll let Steven describe it for you:

Whew. He had to be exhausted after that!

In the audience we got a confetti shower, and the presentation ended as our presenters took their bows.

It was really a great show - I'd have to say it was definitely the highlight of my day. Lots of "WOW" moments!

I know where I'm going to be on June 12!

One of the parts of Disneyland's Summer Nightastic! event is the new Pixie Hollow Enchantment. This is a short light and water show that takes place in the queue area for Pixie Hollow in the evenings after the Meet-and-Greet area closes. The show is a couple of minutes, and occurs about every 15 minutes from about 8:00 until park closing.

Lee shot this video from the queue area, but I think the best viewing is actually from the walkway between Matterhorn Way and the AstroOrbitor - that way you can see the water fountains in front of you and the lights in the trees further in front of you.

It's a cute show.

(Thank you to Lee for taking the video and processing it!)

Afterwards you can make your way into the Pixie Hollow Meet and Greet area - no pixies, but without all the people around you can pose with all of the various props and backdrops.

I think this is one of the extra-special things that Disney does - they certainly didn't HAVE to do something like this, but it's a fun and entertaining little feature that we can enjoy.