Northwest Carousel Trail Passport and the Carousel at Oaks Amusement Park

A few months ago we heard about a carousel passport, where you could get stamps for visiting. That sounded right up our alley.

We even visited the Jantzen Beach Carousel exhibit at the Oregon Historical Society -- which was supposed to be on the trail -- without locating one. I guess we felt shy because we could not find anything, but we should have asked.

Recently, a small blurb let us know that we could get one at Oaks Park Guest Services and ride the carousel there. Finally!

There are eleven carousels on the trail. It is not an exhaustive list of historic carousels in the Northwest. You may note a star without a number for Spokane in Washington. That surely refers to the Looff Carousel. 

I think the other stars are state capitals, but there does appear to be a carousel at the Boise Zoo, and there is definitely one in Helena. There are five carousels in Montana that aren't listed.

https://www.distinctlymontana.com/wooden-wild-horses-montanas-seven-carousels

We are not sure which ones we will make it to, or when. We have already been to the one in Albany. We nonetheless knew we could get to Oaks Park, and we did!

This is the Herschel-Spillman Noah's Ark Carousel, which may be why some of the animals have two of each, though not necessarily next to each other.

I don't think they are trying too hard to evoke the ark specifically, or there probably wouldn't be a dragon, but we liked the cats.

It's common for carousels to have benches, but this one also had these round booths that I have never seen before. We rode animals, though. Of course.

If we wanted to go back and take additional rides, we could. Riding the carousel is free, like riding the train. That did not end up being temporary.

The carousel is covered under its own pavilion, which seems like a good idea. It was raining on and off that day.

That may have been part of why it was not very crowded, but things were running and we are Oregonians.

And then -- after riding -- we went back to guest services and got our passports stamped.

They did scan one of the passports at the carousel, but they did not do the stamp there. Did they check the scan to make sure we rode? I don't think so. We picked up the passports, rode, and then returned to Guest Services for the stamp. You probably do not need to do it in that order, but obviously we were going to ride.

And we will ride more, at some point.

COVID: This was all outdoors. I did wear a mask at guest services, but even then there was probably enough air circulation that it may not have been necessary.

Accessibility: There is a ramp for mobility devices. It is not left open, so that would require the attendant.

https://www.oakspark.com/

https://oregondigital.org/concern/images/df67mj964

https://www.facebook.com/CarouselTrailNW

Disneyland: Smaller changes

The addition of two new lands and major revision of an existing one is a lot of change. There are always other changes happening, with little tweaks and improvements.

Fantasyland is literally the heart of Disneyland, central, and the most closely tied to its animation history. That central location means there is not really room to expand. Even though the Royal Theater and Picie Hollow kind of relate to Fantasyland, they are outside of it.

Still, things happen. Disney characters were added to appropriate sections of It's A Small World (like Lilo and Stitch in the South Pacific) or an Arendelle section to the Storybook Land Canal Boats. I noticed the most changes with Snow White's Scary Adventure.

Some are minor changes, like that shaft of sunlight shining on the cottage.

I loved these bird-adorned light fixtures. I can't swear to how new they are, because it had been about eight years since I had last been on the ride, but I really liked them. Of course, Disney is always good for creatures.

I don't have a great photo of it, but see that shadow in the window? Shadows reflecting the dancing inside the cottage were moving back and forth. I knew the dancing would be the first scene, but there it was while we were still waiting in line.

I think the birds and butterflies and chipmunk on the outside were new, and the barrel of tools definitely was.

Again, so much effort goes into the queue... though to be fair you could spend a lot of time there.

What was most interesting to me was that they changed the castle interior from the Evil Queen's dungeon to Snow White's garret. At first I thought maybe they were trying to make it less scary, though they had not changed the name.

The movie does show her with doves at the window, and then you get to see her closet... many visitors to Disneyland love the princess dresses.

Then I realized what they were doing is giving you the lead-in to the story: this is who she is and why she fled into the woods, thus meeting up with all the woodland creatures and the dwarfs.

It's not like we don't know the story, but it's a nice touch. 

These are minor things, but one of the joys of visiting the parks is that combination of the familiar with the novel, and they do a great job with it.

COVID: This is an indoor ride, and the line is mostly indoors. I put on the mask early.

Accessibility: This is one of the rides that has what they call "Transfer Access Vehicles", and you do have to transfer. Enter at the exit to board.

This is a great place to point out that if you look at individual rides you can bring up accessibility information. That tells us that for this ride you can also pick up a receiver for audio descriptions at Guest Services for visual disabilities, or you can pick up a handheld captioning device.

https://disneyland.disney.go.com/attractions/disneyland/snow-whites-enchanted-wish/

https://disneyland.disney.go.com/destinations/disneyland/fantasyland/

Disney California Adventure: Branding

While the addition of two new lands since I was last at Disneyland is a pretty big deal (and part of Disney's brand expansion), there was another change that had been going on for some time, and continuing.

This used to be the Sun Wheel, then Mickey's Fun Wheel, with a big Mickey Mouse face added on the side.

Now the individual cars on the Pixar Pal Around have characters from various Pixar movies on them, that match the benches down below. You can observe them as you get a really hot dog from Inside Out's Anger, or grab one of the famous Disney turkey legs from a Poultry Palace, a franchise familiar to Andy of Toy Story.

The candy store is now themed for Bing Bong, and King Triton's carousel was given over the Cowgirl Jessie.

Just like the Avengers Campus Shawarma Palace comes from an inside joke in the movie, you can get your frozen treats from the Adorable (not Abominable) Snowman.

It is part of a rebranding that went from celebrating California to Disney, which in many ways makes more sense.

This was done without a lot of changes to external architecture, and there are certainly things there that don't have obvious Disney tie-ins, like the Pacific Wharf (though there was that one scene in Superdad)
.

There is a lot of Pixar off of the pier, with Cars Land and Monsters Inc Mike & Sully to the Rescue in Hollywood Land.

It could also seem like California Adventure is for Pixar and the Magic Kingdom is for all of the non-Pixar Disney films, except for Ariel's Undersea Adventure and a focus on Oswald on Buena Vista Street. (Also, the Redwood Creek Challenge Trail that used to be just California landmarks and then focused on Russell's scouting in Up now has a sign for Raya and the Last Dragon.)

Plus there is Mickey's PhilharMagic.

What used to be posters for movies in Hollywood Land has been replaced with references to many Disney characters performing music, and you can see a 4-D performance driven by Donald Duck and the hat from "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" portion of Fantasia.

I enjoyed it a lot, but it did replace Muppet Vision, another acquired Disney brand that is close to my heart.

With a new series, maybe they will show up somewhere else.

https://disneyland.disney.go.com/destinations/disney-california-adventure/

Disneyland: Avengers Campus

I had more fun at the Avengers Campus. (It appears to be the campus consisting of Avengers; not belonging to them.)

I don't know that I would have expected that. I have certainly seen a larger percentage of Star Wars movies than Marvel movies. Star Wars thrilled me as a child, like it did for many of us. I have enjoyed the Marvel films I have seen, but there's not so much pressure.

For example, I have not seen the first Avengers movie, and yet I know about the shawarma scene at the end. So when walking through and noticing Shawarma Palace, that seemed perfect and made me smile.

Maybe it is just that things are more light-hearted; they don't take themselves too seriously. For example, I really thought the "demonstration" by Spider-Man would involve some web slinging. The existence of the Broadway musical made me think that was possible. Really, it was just a lot of tumbling up top, and then him descending upside down, because of adverse wind conditions.

But then Spidey strutted by and high-fived all the kids, and they loved that. That made it kind of cool.

But also the rides were more fun.

Web Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure, has you slinging your wrists every which way. I was waiting for their to be some kind of device like a wand or button, and you just start moving your arms, and you get a score. (The couple next to me had clearly ridden before, but I was still slung better than their small child.)

Without being super serious, there are fun nods to the comic books everywhere. Featured scientists included some names that might not mean anything to a lot of the visitors, but I know who Lunella Lafayette is.

Tower of Terror was one of my favorite rides, but Guardians of the Galaxy - Mission: BREAKOUT! is a good replacement.

The Collector has most of the Guardians captured, but Rocket breaks out and into your introduction to the collection tour, enlisting you to help him free the rest.

There are still the thrilling plunges and flights, but with breaks in between where you see their progress in escaping. I loved it, especially because (spoiler!) they had the dog with them at the end.

In retrospect, I wish I had explored more. The Ancient Sanctum apparently has things happening at night.

Also, it appears that Okoye periodically leads some training exercises.

I saw a lot of cast members walking around in just a short time, including Ant-Man and the Wasp, and Sam Wilson as Captain America.

Next time I will delve deeper.

COVID: Both rides were inside. Mask up.

Accessibility: This seemed pretty good. The normal lines for Mission: BREAKOUT! go up staircases. There is other access, and I thought that there would be a loss in taking an elevator, because you would miss what you could see from the staircases. I was a little disappointed to find that I did not see much from the stairs. They have brought in remnants from previous attractions, but the way things are situated you may not see much, especially if the line is going quickly.

Of course, there could be several conditions where riding that particular ride might not be wise. That should not be an issue for Web-Slingers.

Otherwise, it's a place where you can get a sandwich for 6-8 people, and find a statue of Benicio del Toro;

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/disneys-newest-sandwich-costs-an-eye-popping-100-but-theres-an-even-more-expensive-item-on-the-menu-11621957133

https://disneyland.disney.go.com/destinations/disney-california-adventure/avengers-campus/