California Adventure

On our third day, we tried out Disneyland's sister park, Disney's California Adventure. As you can see, it was blue shirt day - this time chosen by Mason. The gates to DCA are across the Esplanade, directly opposite the Disneyland gates. The crowd wasn't as large and when we finished counting down ten, we all shouted "Where the magic continues". I thought this was an interesting difference from the "Let the magic begin" cheer that we participated in the first day. Truely, Disneyland is the place where it did all begin and many claim that it's special charm comes from the fact that it is the only park that benefited from development under Walt's own hand. And DCA could best be described as a continuation of that development; prior to its opening in 2001, it had been a Disneyland parking lot.

DCA has approximately 1/3 of the attendance that Disneyland enjoys, but our family actually preferred this smaller park because of its less-frantic pace. Everyone in the family loved 'Soaring Over California' and the kids really enjoyed the Monsters Inc. ride.



Up to this point we had seen the 3D presentations of "Honey I Shrunk the Audience" and "Muppet Vision 3D", but the show "It's Tough to Be A Bug" was the best of all. The theater is underground and is modeled to look like the inside of an ant hill or something. A realistic looking Flik robot peeks out from the ceiling to introduce the movie and there were a lot of other real-life effects to compliment it. For example, at one point a termite mistakes the audience for intruders and starts to spit acid at everyone. You are already flinching backwards because the 3D acid drops look like they are coming right at you, but at the same time, you are sprayed with drops of real water. When debris on the screen appears to shoot past you, pressurized gusts of air accompany it. When an 8' tall Hopper robot suddenly appears out of the wall and tries to pay back the humans for all their crimes against bugs, the audience is blanketed with fog that looks like it is coming out of the bugspray can on the screen. While the fog is still too thick to see through, Hopper orders a hornet attack which comes though the surround sound speakers and is punctuated by screams from the audience as the hornets shout "I got one". Suddenly something in the back of your seat pokes you. Then giant black widow spiders drop from the ceiling and hang just above your heads. At the end of the film, the narrator asks the audience to remain seated to allow the cockroaches to exit the theater. You hear a scuttling of little feet and feel things passing underneath you seat cushion in the direction of the exit doors, eliciting more surprised screams and laughter.

Our kids didn't care if they met the characters or not, so we didn't have to spend much time waiting in line for autographs or pictures; however, they still got to meet a few of them.






It just happened that the day we got there was the first day that the play "Aladdin" was reopened after being closed for upgrades and we were there for the very first show. The people in the row in front of us were all armed with pens and notebooks and accompanied by a Disney cast member. I think they were probably guest reviewers. Tanis told us that we had to see the show and I had read that it was worth the cost of admission all by itself. I have to agree. The actors were fantastic and the sets were elaborate. Price Ali makes his grand entrance on the back of a giant elephant that appeared unnoticed though one of the theater entrances and of course there is a magic carpet ride that takes place over the heads of the audience.



Ella and I did the "Twighlight Zone Tower of Terror" ride. I accidentally grabbed the leg of the guy beside me the first time the 'freight elevator' dropped us. Ella and I both enjoyed a sense of accomplishment for having gone on it. I wish the kids felt the same way about "Space Mountain" in Disneyland, but unfortunately, the roller coaster-in-the-dark was everyone's least favorite experience. When we were on it, I could hear Mason beside me yelling "we're out of control". Heather was sitting next to Tyson and she said that he cried a little.

Since that time, whenever the kids got in trouble, I would say "OK, you just earned another ride on Space Mountain", and I kept a tally of how many turns each of them had earned. Actually no one got in trouble for real - before the trip, I told the kids that they had to remind me, if I ever got upset, that "we're in Disneyland". They used that response a few times and as a result, ended up drinking more pop and jumping on the bed more than they usually would. Here's a shot of Ella and I after the Tower of Terror.



In the evening we got to watch the Pixar Parade before heading to the hotel for some cartoons before bed.






- C