Disneyland: New Orleans Square

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Orleans Square has great atmosphere. It is all stucco houses and wrought iron balconies, Dixieland Jazz and hints of the Gothic. As you leave Adventureland you find the entrance to Pirates of the Caribbean and just before you exit New Orleans Square into Critter Country (having passed a Disneyland Railroad Station) you have the Haunted Mansion.

Therefore, there is pirate themed shopping and there is Halloween themed shopping, with a strong presence from The Nightmare Before Christmas, but there is also a perfume shop and one with fancy Christmas ornaments, giving a feel for the decadence and the French influence.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Yo ho, yo ho! A pirate's life for me. This is one of our favorite rides. We have had trips where we have ridden it every single day, and one tragic trip where it was closed for renovation and we couldn't ride it at all. By boat you start in a Louisiana bayou and head down into ghostly pirate scenes, and then pirate scenes that are not so ghostly, with fun animatronics and a very catchy song.

Unique in having inspired a movie, instead of being inspired by a movie, the retrofitting for the inclusion of more references to Captain Jack Sparrow is a bit overdone.The should have left the dialogue with the well dunking the same, and just stuck to one hiding and one relaxing Jack. It's still a fun ride.

The Haunted Mansion: I have no doubt that the success of the Pirates movie is behind the making of this other movie, but just as you cannot necessarily get four good movies out of one theme park ride, also, not every theme park ride can make a good movie. I will admit the way they worked different bits of the ride into the movie was clever, and it was still better than Van Helsing.

There are a lot of fun details here, with the sinking room, changing pictures, and hitchhiking ghosts, but my favorite will always be the ballroom. I always want a better look at the ghostly figures, and yet part of their allure is the impossibility of getting that look. It is how ghosts should be.

One thing that they do is switch it over to a Nightmare Before Christmas theme for the holidays. The pumpkins on the outside and the overall decor are great, but I like the regular style better, and it is so much more appropriate for Halloween, and yet they make the switch in October. Always with the cross-promotions. I do love that Zero shows up though. My love for dogs is not limited to the living.


Blue Bayou Restaurant: This restaurant is awesome because you are eating in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. The food is fine, but really, you are going here for the atmosphere. It's pretty inside, and people are loading up on boats and heading through the bayou. It is very popular, so you will probably need to make a reservation. Going for lunch instead of dinner helps, and since we like to get the Monte Cristos, which they do not serve at dinner last time I checked, that works for us.

Cafe Orleans: We have not been to this one, but it looks like the menu is similar to Blue Bayou, but presumably without the wait.

French Market Restaurant: We have also not been to this one, but we really need to. They have beignets and live entertainment. Or perhaps we will walk up to the Mint Julep Bar window there and order something refreshing and non-alcoholic.

Royal Street Veranda: Okay, we hit this one every time. This is where we like to get our chowder bowls. You can also get steak or vegetarian gumbo in the sourdough bread bowls, but we have been getting clam chowder since our first trip back as adults in 1996, and it works for us.

Disneyland: Adventureland

 

In the last post I mentioned that as you head up main street there is Central Plaza and Sleeping Beauty's Castle right in front of you. The natural instinct is to go through the castle to enter Fantasyland, but there are three other entrances here. If you turn left you can enter Tomorrowland. On the right is Frontierland and to the right of that is Adventureland, which is where we will start.

Walking underneath the torches, Adventureland may seem small. There is one path, and you don't have to go very far before you have passed through it completely and entered New Orleans Square. However, in that space, you have four attractions, three places to get food, and some great shopping.

Many of the rides exit into gift shops, and most of them are fun to look in, but the theme is carried through very well here. So leaving the Jungle Cruise you find plush jungle animals and rubber snakes, and across from that you can get hats, whips, and jackets like Indiana Jones, and we have always enjoyed ourselves here.

The first stop is the Enchanted Tiki Room, and you get a good idea of the way the entertainment and the purchasing opportunities go together here, because the Tiki Juice Bar is adjacent to the courtyard where you wait for the next show, and so you can enjoy refreshment while you wait (and I believe take it in), but you can also make purchases from outside.

Enchanted Tiki Room: Listen to animatronic birds, flowers, and the building itself sing, and sing along yourself during one part. It's pretty cute. There is only one showroom, so you may have to wait for the next show, but that wait is not lengthy, and as showtime approaches the courtyard tiki figures from Hawaiian mythology begin to move and speak. 

Tiki Juice Bar: Sponsored by Dole, you can get pineapple whip here like you would get at the Dole Pineapple plantation. This should be especially refreshing in hot weather.

Jungle Cruise: This and the Tiki Room are both older attractions, relying heavily on animatronics. In this case, instead of listening to them sing in a room, you are going past them in a boat while your guide tells corny jokes. It is fairly predictable, but the animals look great for the most part, and every now and then they add things. Those piranha did not used to be there.

Tropical Imports: This is another one of those spots where you can buy the healthier snacks, like fruit cups. However, it may be one of the best examples of how they make the individual stops fit in well with the overall design. There is a definite look and feel to the land, and it works with what you are doing there.

Indiana Jones Adventure: Speaking of design, one Disney specialty is giving you a lot to look at while you are waiting in line, and this may be the best example of that, as you work your way through an ancient Bengalese temple. Once you work your way through, you board cars that look like old military transports, and take off through the temple, where after you look in the eyes of Mara, a goddess depicted there, well, everything goes wrong, from darts shooting out of walls, rats, bugs, a giant snake, and a big boulder rolling towards you. Every now and then Indy pops back up to help. The ride is exciting. The cars do jerk a lot, so it is not as smooth a ride as the Matterhorn or Thunder Mountain, but not as shaky as Space Mountain.

Tarzan's Treehouse: This used to be the Swiss Robinson Family Treehouse, and it was a pretty good model of the one from the movie. I was initially not keen on the change, but one thing they have done is turned it into another attraction where your children can tire themselves out. In addition to the steeper climb, there are ropes to pull on and sand pits to dig in, and the occasional scene from Tarzan. You do get a pretty good view from the top.

Bengal Barbecue: This is one of our favorite restaurants in the park, and one we always go to. You will notice that the prices for the skewers they sell seem remarkably low. The skewers aren't really that big. You may find that you want more than one. However, since they are sold in single units, if you decide you want a spicy one and then a not spicy, or both beef and chicken, or you want more vegetables, but not all vegetables, this should work for you. We usually each get a single skewer and then two Mickey pretzels to share, or something like that, and it works out.

The Barbecue is very popular, and there is not a lot of seating here, nor any seating for Tropical Imports. It just isn't a very big land. However, there is a building, Aladdin's Oasis, where they have story time with Aladdin and Jasmine, and one of the park workers recommended it for overflow seating when not in use. We found a table so we haven't tried it, but it's something to keep in mind.

Disneyland: Main Street, U.S.A

I already talked about Main Street a little in talking about Buena Vista Street. Main Street is bigger though, and has more attractions.

Again, it is designed to resemble the main street of a small town in Middle America (Disney  himself was from Marceline, Missouri) in the early 20th century; this is before World War I and the Great Depression. It is somewhat idealized, but it is also beautifully designed, and it is an interesting place in it's own right.

There are a few rides, but there is nothing exciting or fast-paced. At the same time, everyone coming in or out of the park (with the exception of people using the Monorail to get to Downtown Disney) comes through here, so it is always bustling, and not feeling particularly quiet. However, there is a lot of entertainment, so you can sit and let the attractions come to you.

All of the rides are old-fashioned modes of transportation. First of all,  you have the Main Street Station for the Disneyland Railroad. There are also stops in New Orleans Square, Mickey's Toon Town, and Tomorrowland, and you can use the train just to get from one part of the park to another, but we always take a full circuit at least once. You see a few decorative parts that you would not normally see, coming in behind buildings and scenery. You get to cut through Splash Mountain and catch a glimpse of the animatronics there.

Also, and this is our favorite, there is a tunnel where you go past scenes from the Grand Canyon, both in the modern age and in the times of the dinosaurs (specifically, we see triceratops and tyrannosaurus, so let's say Cretaceous). There are more impressive sets and animatronics all over the park, but we have a fondness for this one.

The other rides are classified as the Main Street Vehicles, and they are all different one-way rides going either up or down Main Street. When you enter the park, the first thing you see is the train station, and you can take a tunnel on the left or the right that takes you into a green space where they have character greetings and seasonal decorations. It is like a small park, as is Central Plaza at the other end (right before Sleeping Beauty Castle) where they have the statue of Walt Disney and Mickey. The vehicles run you between these two points.

Honestly, they are all kind of similar, but each with their own twist. So you can tell the horseless carriage from the fire truck, because the fire truck has a roof and the jitney is open. The horse-drawn trolley has the horse, and then the double decker bus clearly two stories. They are smaller than a regular omnibus or trolley would be, navigating a relatively small space, but they are pretty comfortable and make frequent runs.

Obviously you are not riding them for the thrill, but just for the experience. I think we have ridden each one at this point, but we don't prioritize them. We do still get excited seeing horses.

Main Street Cinema: It's been a while since we have been to this one. You stand in the middle, and there are six screens around, and each screen is playing a different classic Disney cartoon. It can be a fun idea, but it can also be a little boring. Maybe that is true for most of Main Street in a way, but I still like it.

The Disneyland Story presenting Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln: I guess this can seem a little cheesy too, but I love Abraham Lincoln, and it's kind of a nice tribute. It is old-fashioned, but you just have to enjoy the moment. And, in the words of Jay Pritchett, you get a robot president. This is true, and it is cool, but you should know that it starts out with narration and paintings, and you only get the animatronic Lincoln towards the end.

When you are entering the park and having your passes scanned, there are maps and schedules. Grab one and check the entertainment options. It is not foolproof. We wanted to see the Dapper Dans, and they pop up in different spots, so we caught a glimpse of them but they were not nearby. However, we did get a chance to watch the Firehouse Five, right in front of the firehouse, as well as another band, and between the two various characters performed as well, including Chip and Dale, Goofy, and Cruella DeVil. Sometimes it's worth just hanging out.

For food and shopping, each area has it's unique draws, and various specialty items. Facing the Central Plaza, you have several interesting shops on the right. We love the left though. You start with City Hall, which houses Guest Services. This is where you would go for lost children, but this is also where you get your celebration buttons, or work out issues with gift cards, and they always seem to know the answer. The firehouse, where so much entertainment occurs, is right next door.

Next to that is the Emporium, and this is the ultimate store for Disney things. They have a bit of everything. As you work your way up you will also find an amazing candy store that is just fun to look around in. The Gibson Girl Ice Cream Parlor is also on this side, and no, it's not significantly different than Clarabelle's on Buena Vista Street, but that works well. If you are heading on your way out of the park, but not quite ready to be gone, stopping for ice cream and soaking up the atmosphere is completely reasonable.

And again, I said this before, but pick up some of the Blue Ribbon Chocolate Chip Cookies when you get a chance.

California Adventure - Condor Flats

I regret not having any photos for this one. It is a small land, with basically one ride and one restaurant, but both of them are pretty good.

I guess one reason I tend not to take pictures is that everything is set up to look like air hangers, so it is not particularly decorative, but it works with the theme of honoring California's aviation history. This is especially true of the entry line for Soarin', where you have plane parts, along with photos and biographies of famous pilots.

There is also a water play area and a shop, and apparently Minnie Mouse does a number with her fly girls, but we have never seen it.

Soarin' Over California is one of my favorite rides ever. It simulates hang gliding over California scenery. You are in the seated position, but the seats are lifted up, and into a large screen, and aerial footage is shown from a creek in the Redwoods, an orange grove, an aircraft carrier in San Diego, a golf course in Palm Springs, and many other places, finally ending up over Disneyland at Christmas. Scents are piped in too, so you smell the oranges and the cedar. It is one I usually try and repeat.

Taste Pilot's Grill: This is basically a burger restaurant, and a pretty good one, based on the time we did eat here.