Disneyland: Critter Country

I'm being a little rebellious here, but I need to give some back-story to explain why.

Critter Country is relatively new. In the Disneyland of my childhood, the only part of it that was really there was the Country Bear Jamboree, consisting of animatronic singing bears. That entrance for it now leads to The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh ride.

I considered that to be part of Frontierland. There was some reasonable overlap between New Orleans Square and Frontierland. New Orleans straddles the same Mississippi River that Huck and Jim traveled on. If the cultural influences were different, they were still neighbors. Generally speaking, in my mind the attractions on the left were New Orleans Square, and on the right was Frontierland. Therefor, even though you pass the River Belle Terrace just as you are heading into New Orleans Square, and the baguette sandwiches sound like there is a French influence, when the park classifies it as part of Frontierland I accept it. After all, it is on the right.

So, this is where I get rebellious. The web site classifies the Harbour Galley and the Davy Crockett Explorer Canoes as being in Critter Country, and I disagree, and I am not going to write about them until we get into Frontierland next week.

For me, Critter Country (whose existence I wholly support) consists of the following:

Splash Mountain: Actually, going back to my youth, the one big thing that Knotts Berry Farm had that Disneyland didn't was a flume ride, so that was a nice addition. It is a wetter one than the log ride, but as I said writing about the Grizzly River Run, you don't always get soaked on this one. Sometimes you hit certain corners and splash more, and other times you and the current don't intersect quite the same way. Also, you do get much wetter in the front.

One thing that I really appreciate about this ride is that in addition to incorporating the Uncle Remus characters, they also brought in several characters from the old America Sings ride, and it's good that they are still somewhere, because I liked that one.

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh: This is a simple but cute ride. You get into sideways beehives and go through scenes from various Winnie the Pooh tales, including blustery days, rain coming down, and heffalumps and woozles. It is pretty adorable.

Hungry Bear Restaurant: This is a basic hamburger drill, and the setting is great, but we didn't like it. This surprised us because we like the hamburgers at the Village Haus so much. I think the issue is that they are smokier here, and some people may prefer it that way, but not us.

Critter Country also has some of our favorite shopping. We always go in the one store, at the end of the land. All things Pooh and Tigger are here, but there is also a great candy selection here, and of all the places in the park where you can watch them making candy apples and dipping pretzel sticks, this is my favorite, based on atmosphere.

That shop is huge, but there is another small one that is worth mentioning. I usually don't know the names of the shops, but based on the picture I have, it appears to be called the Briar Patch. I was just amazed by the selection of character hats. If you want Dumbo or Tinkerbell or anything you can imagine, this is the place.