One Disneyland Day: Early Bird Gets The Mouse

I only spent one proper day at Disneyland, but I made the most of it! Read all the entries in this trip report here. Onward!

I knew I had only one shot at Disneyland, and I intended to make the most of it with a return to theme park commando touring. Step one: a very early wakeup call for a very early arrival at the gate. In fact, I think this might be the most ahead of the game I have ever been in my Disney career: I arrived at the resort entry point at 6:35am. By rough head count only 30-odd people were ahead of me in line. A solid start!

ROPE DROP AT DISNEYLAND

We were permitted to pass through security at 7am if I recall correctly, after which we were free to line up behind the gates to the tapstiles. I took up a position in line for Disneyland, my assigned first park of the day. (Unlike Walt Disney World, Disneyland still has single ticket buyers choose a first park reservation. After 11am anyone with a park hopper is permitted to jump across the esplanade.)

Once permitted into the park I went straight for the roped off area on the right side into Fantasyland, part of the very first layer of Walt’s acolytes this morning. Here, I’ll prove it! I’m right next to the rope and everything!

Finally the Cast Members dropped the rope on the dot of the 8am opening time. This was preceded by an announcement to PLEASE NOT RUN; as soon as the rope hit the ground, 90% of the crowd started running. Sigh. Does NO ONE ELSE heed the wise words of one Monica Geller? Rules help control the fun!!!

Anyway, I walked briskly into Fantasyland. It was time to Execute the Plan.

IN MY HOMETOWN OF FANTASYLAND

Said Plan involved prioritizing all those rides that we do not have in the Magic Kingdom to start. And as Fantasyland mostly does not have Lightning Lanes, it made sense to begin there.

As such, I bypassed the already-growing queue for Peter Pan’s Flight in favor of a deeper cut: Pinocchio’s Daring Journey. Apparently I was thinking further outside the box than even I realized, as I was literally THE FIRST person on the ride. It was… slightly terrifying? Which makes sense, as you could same thing about Pinocchio. The part with the donkey boys just made me sad. 🙁

From there I was off to a ride near and dear to my heart: Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. As much as I am fond of Mr. Edward Bear, Pooh never should have replaced this ride in the Magic Kingdom. It remains SO. MUCH. FUN. The careening is obviously charming, but the ending in hell? Deviously delightful. I hope Disney never bows to pressure to change it. (Is there pressure? Nobody say anything.)

Next on the docket was Alice in Wonderland, where I was dismayed to encounter a Line already. Drat! Should’ve done her first. Ah well; it was only 15 minutes, so still not too shabby. The colorful journey and blacklit weirdness fit the subject matter well. I can see why they line up for this one.

DISNEYLAND ADVENTURES DENIED

Here I was a bit torn, as both Indiana Jones Adventure and Tiana’s Bayou Adventure were down. Was it something about the adventure? Anyway, I waffled ever so briefly as to my next move before hustling over to Pirates of the Caribbean.

While we obviously do have Pirates in the Magic Kingdom, everyone knows Disneyland’s Pirates is inarguably better. Having now ridden it again, I’ll take it one step further: Disneyland’s Pirates is barely a hoppity skip from being a different ride entirely. Forget the double drops; the set design is majestic. I’d trade the entire burning Tortuga segment for more scenes like the skeleton examining the map in bed. Plus the simple addition of the cursed treasure story element ups the stakes of our involvement. Love!

Indy and Tiana were both still down, so I decided to head to Jungle Cruise. I figured if I was in the Adventureland area when Indy came back up, I could slide in ahead of the crowds.

Well, good idea, bad execution: Indy came back up just as I was about to get on a Jungle Cruise boat. I guess I could’ve pushed my way out of line but at that point there was no easy exit route. Instead I boarded and enjoyed a capable skipper with excellent comedic timing. I had forgotten that Disneyland doesn’t have the temple segment. Score one for the Magic Kingdom!

KEEP MOVING FORWARD

Somewhere in there I had picked up my first Lightning Lane reservation for the day in the form of Space Mountain. I headed over to Tomorrowland to cash in, snagging an Indy LL reservation as soon as I had tapped through. Space Mountain is definitely different in Disneyland than the Magic Kingdom, but without several ride throughs I’d be hard pressed to articulate exactly how. Well, aside from the cars themselves, which are a million times easier to get into and out of. I did get the front seat, which is always nice.

I do not have my on ride photo for Space Mountain because I had not yet clued in that photo collection works wildly differently from WDW. Rather than pick up on the presence of your phone or Magic Band, you have to manually type in a code in the Disneyland app to get your picture. I highly recommend taking a cell phone photo of your code for later rather than attempt to input the number in real time.

CHASING TIANA

Tiana’s Bayou Adventure was still down at this late morning juncture, but I had learned my lesson after the Indiana Jones debacle. If I wanted to ride Tiana without a wait, I had to earn it with patience. I saw logs cycling, which was a good sign, so I grabbed a cup of watermelon from a nearby snack stand and settled in to wait.

And I was vindicated! It took about 30 minutes’ chilling time, but I was reward with a Cast Member on the intercom announcing that they were turning on all show elements. The ride music kicked in as I hustled over to the entrance, one of the first in line.

Which was great and all, except because I walked straight through the queue and onto a log I think I may have missed some key storytelling elements. I spent most of the ride with only the vaguest understanding of the plot. Did you know Mama Odie shrank us down to frog size? Because I was very surprised to hear that as we headed to the top of the drop. Otherwise it was cute, but I think I’ll need a few more go-rounds before I can provide an informed opinion.

I slid out of my ride vehicle just in time to grab a new Lightning Lane slot. By some miracle Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout LL slot times had moved way earlier, and I snagged one for mid-afternoon before considering my next move.

INDY, I LOVE YOU

My Indiana Jones LL time was coming up; I killed some time swinging through the hub for a quick photo stop with the Partners statue and Sleeping Beauty Castle. ‘Cause ya gotta. I also stopped to swap around my socks, one of which had gotten swamped by swamp water in the bayou. I figured dry sock + wet sneaker and wet sock + dry sneaker = avoid blisters? Hey, one way or another it worked!

Then it was off to Indiana Jones Adventure – which was AWESOME. I know it’s the same ride as Dinosaur with different set dressing, but it felt brand new. I also know we are not getting a clone of Disneyland’s version in Animal Kingdom. As long as it’s the same quality, however, we are in for an upgrade. And I say that as a Dinosaur apologist and a heckuva paleontologist myself.

Oh, FYI – wifi is spotty in the Indy queue, so if you have any app/Lightning Lane business to attend to, I’d take care of it before entering for safety.

DISNEYLAND: A WALKER’S PARADISE

From there I wandered through some of the Main Street shops on my way out of Disneyland and into Disney’s California Adventure. I firmly believe Disneyland Resort vs Walt Disney World is a silly war to wage; both have their strengths and weaknesses. That being said, MAN do I love how easy it is to hop between parks in Disneyland!

After being awake since 5:40am, it was way past my lunchtime. I grabbed a mobile order slot for 20 minutes in the future at Lucky Fortune Cookery in San Fransokyo. Then I killed the subsequent time in a short queue to meet Hiro (probably short because Baymax was absent). While I’m sometimes awkward around face characters, we had a productive discussion about the similarities of our shoes and incognito superhero outfits, and of course rounded it out with a fist bump. Oh, and I got a sticker!

After lunch (review forthcoming!) I was able to grab a new Lightning Lane, this time for the the Spiderman Web Slingers ride. Then I sidled into the single rider line for Radiator Springs Racers. Despite the posted wait time of over an hour, I was in a car in about 20 minutes.

While I did experience this ride last time I went to Disneyland, I found it exponentially more charming this time around. It still reminds me of Test Track in some ways, but the dark ride scenes of Radiator Springs at night were quite striking. I guess one of these days I’ll have to get around to watching Cars…

HERE ENDS PART ONE OF MY DISNEYLAND DAY

Here I made the controversial decision to… LEAVE Disneyland? Technically I could pick up my conference stuff in the morning, but I decided to walk back to my hotel and grab it during the afternoon window. This would also give me the chance to charge up my phone and rest briefly before boomeranging right on back for round two with the mouse.

Next up we’ll review my lunch in San Fransokyo (including an adorable Baymax macaron) before circling back for part two of my whirlwind Disneyland day. Don’t miss the thrilling conclusion!

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