I remember parking in this lot. Weird how my brain has so completely remapped itself around the current configuration. But it’s still in there somewhere: being little, going there in the back of the old Falcon station wagon, no seat belts (!), and you parked in that huge expanse (“Everybody remember: Bambi”), and you got the ticket book with those precious E’s and the D’s and C’s and B’s and there was always a leftover A that you were going to use on Mr. Lincoln on the way out if you weren’t too tired but of course you never did, that’s why the junk drawer at home was full of those old ticket books with only A’s, and someone gave you a piggyback ride because your feet were sore and at last the Falcon was there again and someone poured you in and you drifted off as the lights and shadows slid by.

Reposted from http://ift.tt/2sevp5r.

This morning Linda and I were in DCA at 8 a.m. as part of “early entrance” time (because we stayed in the expensive but ridiculously convenient hotel), and after we entered the literally-empty Tower of Terror lobby (which was a creepy experience all by itself) and did the up-and-down thing, we were walking over to do Radiator Springs Racers when we encountered a new attraction, Luigi’s Rollickin’ Roadsters, which neither of us had heard of before.

There was almost no one in the entrance queue, and it looked like a little-kid ride more than an E-ticket sort of thing, but we thought what the heck; we should try it. It turns out it had opened just that morning, in a “soft open” for Annual Passholders; the official opening is this coming Monday. So we were accidentally two of the first visitors to ride it, and got to walk on with no wait.

It was a lot of fun! It’s more exciting than it looks; it has that new-style “trackless” technology, where the cars are basically following choreographed moves under computer control, such that they zip around but don’t ever run into each other, doing a “dance routine” that varies from one ride to the next.

So. That was nifty.

Reposted from http://ift.tt/1Qzszfp.

We got passes again this year. With the kids growing up we’ve been going more as boring old people, rather than with kids in tow. It’s fun.

One thing I’ve been doing is to try to pick out some aspect of the parks I’d never done before and making it a thing. Like, I’d never been on the sailing ship Columbia before, so last time I did that.

For the next visit I’m thinking of focusing on food. (This came out of Linda’s telling me how awesome the corn dogs were, and my never having had them.) So I’ve listed a bunch of popular Disneyland/DCA food-related things I’ve never done before and want to try to experience. At the top of the list currently are:

• Little Red Wagon corn dogs – Main Street
• Tiki Juice Bar pineapple whips – Adventureland
• Mint Julep Bar Mickey beignets – New Orleans Square
• Pooh Corner peanut butter sandwich – Pooh Corner
• Candy Palace – Main Street
• Wine Country Trattoria – DCA
• Carthay Circle Restaurant downstairs lounge – DCA

I know I have some followers who are Disney fans, so I’m putting this out there: What are your favorite foods/places to eat at the park? Thanks!

Reposted from http://ift.tt/1DKlIiV.

guyfarris:

STORYBOOK FASHIONS APRIL 9, 1961

ORIGINAL CAPTION: Passengers on board Disneyland’s new Columbia sailing ship will never get scurvy… especially if handsomely suited in gay tangerine.

We’ve bought annual passes again this year after a few years of not doing so. I’ve never liked the crowds, but with the right attitude I can enjoy the crap out of DL, and having the passes really helps. Because the pressure is off, and eh, we’ll get to it next time. So instead we can focus on little things, new-to-us things, and it’s wonderful.

Our last visit was just a one-day dash on Sunday. High on my list was going on the sailing ship Columbia, which I’d never done. I’ve been bingeing my way through the Patrick O’Brien novels (currently on The Ionian Mission), so I was totally down with exploring an age-of-sail replica.

One unexpected thing for me was how all the rigging is finished off. You can see it in this photo. Basically, the ship has all the masts and shrouds you’d expect, and some (small) sails that are almost always kept furled on the yards. But where you’d expect all the running rigging to be, there’s… nothing. All those belaying pins under the rail in the photo: On a working ship there would be lines going to most of those, coiled halyard falls and the like; basically there’d be rope everywhere. On the Columbia, though, there’s nothing. Nothing at all for the vessel’s thousands of inquisitive visitors to get into trouble with. It’s like being an infant in the most obsessively baby-proofed home ever.

Which totally makes sense, and I shouldn’t have been surprised. Down below is similar: I was excited about seeing the belowdecks museum of life aboard in 1787. But rather than being configured the way it would have been, there’s a big open area in the middle that you walk around, with tiny screened-off cabins on the sides.

All of which was fine, and fun. In effect, the Columbia is a museum piece that faithfully represents not only what an 18th-century sailing ship was like, but also what a mid-20th-century Walt-Disney-imagined amusement park attraction was like.

It’s like with Disney’s version of fairy tales, or the Tomorrowland vision of the future. It’s simplified and sanitized, the rough edges smoothed away in service of an uncluttered, slightly kitschy, middle-America narrative.

Which is cool. Disneyland is what it is, and I love it. Not the way I loved my imagined version of it as a kid, when it was perfect and awesome and it made my stomach hurt just to think about it. But the way you love someone you’ve come to know over decades, having seen them at their best and their worst, until their imperfections become cherished reminders of who they are, of your shared history.

Reposted from http://ift.tt/1HRsKBo.

mistyaiya:

anthroguard:

Feeling all feely about today’s episode? 

Have a Behind the Scenes-Alysson-is-sass-Lucas-slides-on-floor moment. 

You’re welcome

Class!

Haha. I don’t normally reblog AoJE stuff that’s out-of-world (because Real), but the mental image of these two circling forever like Pirates of the Caribbean animatronics is too good to pass up. It makes me want to drift past them in a little boat.

Omg. And now I want that: an Autobiography of Jane Eyre dark ride, à la Disneyland. Or since I’m dreaming, a whole Webseries Storybook Land, with Lydia Bennet’s Wild Ride to Vegas, the I Didn’t Write This Spinny Kiss Teacups, and a Kissing in the Rain Ride, where you’d be carried past scenes of Lily and James kissing in never-ending downpours, then snarking on each other post-“cut”, before the final scene where they kiss on the porch as the music swells before you emerge into daylight.

I’d ride that one again and again. I don’t care how long the line is.

Reposted from http://ift.tt/PG9yP6.

yourland:

Disneyland ticket book, 1965

I remember these. I went to Disneyland a bunch in the late 1960s, and these ticket books were pretty much the center of your world in the park. The books were expensive, and if you were like me your dad probably was only going to buy one for you. Then you had to be super careful managing your use of the D’s and E’s, because those were what you needed to go on the awesome rides (hence the term “E-ticket ride”). I remember working deals with my siblings, trading tickets in return for future favors. I and everyone I knew had old ticket books from previous trips with a single unused “A” ticket, because honestly, who would want to do Mr. Lincoln when there was awesome stuff like Pirates of the Caribbean to go on?

Those tickets, with that special wavy pattern in the paper, were imbued with a really powerful sense of value in my little-kid brain. I mean, actual money was more or less meaningless to me, but those tickets were worth something.

I remember when they phased these out and went to unlimited rides with an increased entry fee. I think Disney did that because Magic Mountain had opened, and offered unlimited rides, and Disney needed to do so too in order to compete. That was the word on the playground, anyway. I didn’t expect I’d ever miss these ticket books, but I totally got a rush of nostalgia from this post.

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/48724902690.

Going there in 2 days for our 29th anniversary. I mean, we actually intend to stay in the Hollywood Hotel!

j/k. But Linda has told me that she recently had a breakthrough, and after years of avoiding the Tower of Terror she’s now decided that she really likes it, and wants to go on it as much as possible. And since I’ve always loved it (thanks in part to a certain follower who made my first time on it so memorable, as I explained — to her embarrassment — at her SBMS Rites of Passage ceremony), I’m totally down with this plan. And since we’re kind of going nuts on this trip, splurging on two nights in the Grand Californian, I’m thinking we’ll probably get some quality no-line walk-on opportunities.

This feels like it could be the start of a third phase in my lifelong relationship with the park. I went there as a kid, usually going on “Aerospace night” when my dad would take all of us, back in the days when we still had that kind of family. And then I started going with our own kids, starting with the aforementioned follower, as soon as she was old enough.

And now Linda and I are going by ourselves. I’m really looking forward to it.

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/44296363083.