Re: Disney Max Capacity

Taking off for the Park!

Frie had to use or lose  the last day of her Disneyland SoCal Resident ticket this weekend, so we decided to take our third and final girls' trip of the year for a nice day of Mickey Mouse and relaxation. We've been lucky on our last girls' trips to have had tremendous luck and fun, so we were hoping that yesterday would be good, too. Spoiler: we had a blast. Plus, she offered to drive, so how on earth could I have been unhappy about anything?

"'Ta ta', San Onofre!"

I honestly think that I got up at the crack of dawn yesterday morning to get going, though, because I somehow managed to get over to Frie's place, intentionally dump most of what was in my bag for the day onto her living room floor, and get myself into the car by 5:58am. We said we were leaving at 6:00 and despite our tired little brains (and with the help of a Diet Dr Pepper on my end) we were able to get en route on time. And we made it there without traffic. Our only two moments of note in the car were when we passed the San Onofre Power Plant boobies and then when Google Maps tried to take us to the Cast Member parking area of the Toy Story Parking Lot, but we really didn't hit any traffic and there weren't a ton of idiots on the road. In hindsight, we incredibly lucky.

 We knew that we were in for something, though, when we were directed immediately to the Jesse side of the parking lot and not the normal Woody area. They seemed to be loading the parking lot backwards for the day which registered to me that Grad Night or something else big must be going on. We got a good parking spot next to the bus stop, though, and we were able to walk right onto the bus without waiting, so Frie and I both kind of shrugged off the fact that we had to be parked on the other side of where we were used to.

Our bus driver spoke really quietly, but then got frustrated when we all couldn't hear her. It was weird, but we made it to the Parks area safely despite the fact that she dropped us off at the normal Toy Story Lot pick-up spot instead of the drop-off zone. No other bus was doing it, but hey, we got there and we were able to pass through security as fast as any other groups that were getting there around the same time so it was fine. And then when we got into the Promenade, the lines were really short, too. Our timing seemed to be perfect.

It was around 7:50-7:55am and Cast Members were slowly letting us into the park to line up for the Rope Drop, an event that happens every morning to "officially" open the Park for the day and allow guests into the main attractions areas. I wasn't able to get a great picture of our area because we were several people back from the rope, but yesterday was the first day that I'd ever actually been able to make Rope Drop and it was really fun and somehow magical, too.

Queuing at Peter Pan's Flight

And then the magic turned into excitement, the ropes came down, and the two of us were on the verge of running to Peter Pan's Flight in Fantasyland. Both Frie and me were dying to understand why this ride caused such a big stir at Disneyland. We wanted to know why the lines were always over forty minutes long and what on earth could possibly be so cool about a "baby" ride. We also expected to be there with just a handful of other guests who had gotten there early, but we forgot to account for Magic Hours and we walked up to a line that was just as long as usual.

This is what we had come for, though. We got to the Park at open specifically to try and get on this ride, so we quickly found the end of the line and decided to camp out. During this time is when I realized that backpacks and Disneyland do not get along well together, particularly when you're in line for attractions that were built back in the olden days. The queuing in the area was absolutely beautiful, but if I wasn't standing exactly straight forward or exactly facing Frie, I was either getting stuck on something or barely keeping myself from hitting other guests in line. 

Lies!

The line moved in spurts, too. It was pretty interesting. It wasn't the normal "stop, shuffle for a bit, stop, shuffle" queuing that I was accustomed to. We'd rapidly move up about twenty feet and then stop and then repeat. And then shortly after we moved past the "WAIT TIME 40" sign, everything came to a grinding halt. We must have waited there for something like twenty of thirty minutes before we heard cheering from guests up near the front of the line. Our guess was that the ride must have broken at some point, but they were able to bring everything back up. And since our wait was entirely in the shade, we were pretty much just content to hang out with each other.

It took us almost exactly seventy-five minutes to get through the Peter Pan's Flight queue, but if you ask me, it was worth it. I had never seen the ride prior to renovation, but all of the effects and lighting that they have in the attraction now are absolutely incredible. My breath was taken away and I felt like I was being transported back to my childhood with how exciting everything was. We flew over London, we saw all the characters from the story, and even Tick Tock made several appearances. And even though the ride went quickly, it didn't feel like it was over too soon. I gladly would have ridden it several more times, but I feel like the seventy-five minutes we waited were worth it and I rarely ever say that.

And after having such a wonderful experience, I honestly was happy to do whatever Frie wanted for the rest of the day. Tthe last two times we had come to the park, she had wanted to ride Alice in Wonderland, but the lines were either too long or the ride had somehow managed to break at the exact time we wanted to go on them. Last time we were there, the ride was broken with a mother and daughter in a caterpillar on the little outside track by the queue. There was a man who was clearly dad was trying to talk to a CM to get information and all he could say was "Well, when do you think it'll be fixed?" I felt bad because the girl couldn't have been more than six years old and I felt for dad, too. Thankfully, when Frie and I walked over to the ride yesterdat it was not only operational, but the sign only said "WAIT TIME 30."

 

Isn't it pretty?

So, we hopped into line and began to look at all the wacky Alice in Wonderland theming around us. My newfound favorite thing in the world was to look at the passing catepillar cars and decide which one was the most grossly colored. There was a burnt orange one, a booger colored one, a Pepto pink one, and a few others, but my favorite was the poop colored one. And if you really used your imagination, it kind of looked Eevee colored. This was the one I wanted. It was perfect. And to be perfectly honest, I'm not entirely sure what color we ended up on, but I was so excited that these ugly things existed that the color of the one we actually went on meant nothing.

This is supposed to
be the Catepillar's hooka.

???

The ride was insane, though. I'd never been on Alice before, either, and it was pretty epic. And very I-think-I'm-high-out-of-my-mind colorful, too. All of the different areas and animatronics were spot on. Even for Disney I was impressed and every different scene we rode through reminded me of why I love Disney movies so much. The Mad Hatter and Red Queen were two of my particular favorites, but I forgot how sad the croquet scenes make me when the little critters get beaten all over the field. Oh, and before I forget to mention this, I absolutely tried to get pictures of the different ride areas, but it was impossible and my phone wasn't behaving at all. The two images above were were only actual photos that my camera decided that it would take. Ugly, huh?

Attempt #4 to get
this picture.

Regardless, though, we had a lot of fun on Alice and we could easily have just people-watched for the rest of the day and been content, but after some conversation of "I don't know. What do you want to do?", Frie and I decided that we would just take everything one bit at a time and do whatever seemed like the most fun in the moment. So, the next I did was firmly plant myself on the ground for a photo-op that I had never been able to get before by siting right down in front of the White Rabbit's front door. The image you're seeing here is after quite a bit of fussing. Frie kindly took my photo, and then I needed to take off my visor and throw it into the grass, so she took another one, and then I realized that my visor was still in the shot, so I flung it back to where she was standing and then we had to start all over again. She was an awesome sport and to her credit, all of the pictures turned out really well.

I'm sorry that I
blinded you, Frie!

...But then we both realized that we really needed to grab some water, put sunscreen on, etc., so we headed down the road toward Cheshire Cat and the ever-famous White Rabbit statue. When I stopped Frie for a picture with Chessy, I had no idea that I was forcing her to look directly into the sun and of course she didn't say anything about being blinded, so if my poor best friend goes blind in the next few days from staring in the sun, it's my fault. And if she did go sun-blind I wouldn't be at all surprised, either, because by about this time the sun was beginning to absolutely beat down on us. It was one of those sunny days where the sun was just frying us alive even though we had sunscreen on and it was rough. We were hot, but the humidity didn't seem to bad so we were able to keep on in our adventures for the time being.

It's Mary Poppins, ya'll!

As we made our way through Fantasyland and toward New Orleans Square, we ran into some of my favorite Disney characters--twice. Alice was out roaming by Storybook Land and she was just surrounded by kids. It was really, really sweet, but she was getting swarmed so we walked by pretty fast. We we passed Mary and Bert we saw that they  were swamped, too, but they had a handler with them to help with the lines. My guess is that Miss Mary Poppins is quite popular right now with park goers because of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. I felt pretty lucky to have been able to snap this shot while they were between visiting with other guests. It's not the best and I didn't realize that the photo is actually slightly out of focus, but it makes me smile nonetheless, so I'm sharing!

Just between us, I never
want to know his secret.

It took us a while to weave our way through traffic to get to New Orleans Square and once we were there, Frie and I were pretty amazed. The line for Pirates was probably 2 hours long from what we could see and the area for Haunted Mansion queuing was a pit of disaster, so we went and visited all the fun little things down around Rivers of America. One of the things I was most excited to show her was the creepy little angel baby in one of the little garden areas. Frie didn't believe me about how freaky this thing was until I showed her. I swear that if you stare at it long enough it'll steal your soul. And what secrets it's trying to keep from the rest of New Orleans Square, I don't want to know, but maybe it's trying to help induct the 1,000th ghost into the mansion. Whatever it is, you know it's bad if the little "angel" in the garden area is more alarming than both the nearby haunted house and the crypt you plan to visit later.

1764 Crypt

And visit we did. The 1764 crypt is really close to the creepy baby angel, so we swung by there and hung out in the shade for a bit before braving the Haunted Mansion courtyard area to get Fastpasses. Frie and I have had really good luck with Fastpass times, so we clocked our tickets for a return time about 80 minutes later and headed toward the Haunted Mansion store to check and see if there was any new merchandise in the parks.

Cutest. Lanyard. Ever.

Now, people who know me offline also know that I have a deep rooted love affair with both the Haunted Mansion and Nightmare Before Christmas. I pretty much know about everything that's come out in the parks that's HM or NBC related and I've accumulated quite a collection of memorabilia, too. So imagine my surprise when I see this adorable little lanyard for the first time. Oogie Boogie is one of my all-time favorite villains. Period. End of story. And if I hadn't just replaced my work lanyard and I hadn't promised Husband that I wouldn't spend any money on this trip, this lanyard would be sitting on my computer desk next to me right now. It is one of the cutest pieces of Disney merchandise that I have ever seen and if it's there the next time I'm in the parks, I'm buying it. Frie helped keep my wallet in check, though, and we decided that we should go find shade while we waited for our Fastpass return time to come around.

As we pursued fun out of the sun, we headed into Adventureland  and were pretty surprised to see that Indiana Jones was completely shut down for renovation as we walked by. We were not expecting to see the "Returning in Spring 2017" signs posted all over the temporary walls and Frie was pretty bummed. This was one of the other rides that she really wanted to go on besides Peter Pan. I cheered her up, though, and to be honest it was pretty easy. When she told me that she wanted to try a Dole Whip for the first time, I was like, "Sure! No problem. That's the line." And I showed her how the usual line was stretching all the way back to Aladdin's Oasis. She seemed pretty disappointed, but I promised her that we'd get one and I headed toward the Tiki Room.

Waiting for the show to begin!

As a large portion of other DL regulars can attest to, the Dole Whip line inside the Tiki Room waiting area always seems to move faster than the main line that goes around the fence. We were both able to get Dole Whip floats withing less than ten minutes. In thinking about it, that might have been a new record for me to get through the line, especially with how hot and how busy the parks were getting. It was awesome and Frie was psyched to finally have a Dole Whip from Disneyland. FYI: Frie is like me. We love food. And we ate our newfound food without abandon while we sang along with the birds, flowers, and tiki statues in the air conditioned comfort of the "Enchanted Tiki Room Presented to you by our friends at Dole!"

And it was over too soon as it always is. I have always liked the Enchanted Tiki Room, but it was Husband who really got me to love it. I don't think I'll ever be able to master the flowers' or the tikis' songs, but I definitely know the ending song. When the Tiki Room version of "Hi Ho, Hi Ho" (i.e. GTFO) started playing, I was sad to leave because I honestly did not want to go back out into the heat.

Helen tried to eat a person.
I thought it was gross.

But like the troopers we are, Frie and I were back to New Orleans Square with Fastpasses in hand just a few minutes later. I was really feeling for the cast members because it was almost 100° F and even in the shade we were all sweating. We were lucky to have the overhang right against the Mansion before we headed in or I think both Frie and I would have melted into little puddles. And the heat was starting to make us silly, too. Every moment we were outside was like being roasted alive, so the opportunity to be on the Doom Buggies and in an air conditioned environment again was wonderful.

I will be perfectly honest with you: when we left HM, I was sorely tempted to hop into the Single Rider line for Splash Mountain so that I could cool off, but Frie doesn't do "scary" rides and I couldn't leave her. We went to the "Jack" cart instead and found really cool hats. As per the "promise not to buy anything," I didn't grab the Ghost Host hat, but I'll definitely be back for it soon. Now whether or not I can promise to ever make that smile again, I'm not sure. It looks downright evil, but at least sweet Frie was there to balance everything all out.

      

Throughout the day, I can proudly say that neither of us petered out in the heat, but like silly people, neither of us remembered to bring water with us for the trip, so we were starting to wither. (With bias,) I suggested that we head over to Tomorrowland for lunch so we could people watch and possibly get a table inside where that we could continue to cool off. I also figured that if we went over that way, we might be able to hop onto Star Tours or Space Mountain if the lines weren't horrendous.

Traffic control
in Tomorrowland.

They were. And traffic was so bad that they had cast members trying to direct traffic in and out of Tomorrowland so that people weren't getting stuck in there. The line for Hyperspace Mountain was 150 minutes and Star Tours had a wait time of something like 95 minutes. Even Astro Blasters's queue was snaking up and down, so we quickly ducked into the Astro Blasters Fastpass line and then hightailed it for Pizza Port.

Once we got to Pizza Port, the amount of people pushing by us dropped dramatically and we were able to sit down together and reminisce about our day thus far while we ate. Neither of us ended lunch on a high note, though, because Frie's chicken had gristle in it and I learned very quickly that apricots are probably one of the most disgusting foods on the planet.

PSA: Don't eat apricots.

Side note, here, but let me explain. I love dried apricots. They're tasty, they're chewy, and they're easy to take along when you're on the go. But fresh apricots are NOT the same as dried ones. Chewing on a piece of fresh apricot is like trying to consume lightly flavored fruit water with fresh snot mixed all into it. It's foul. I couldn't eat it. I almost lost the rest of my lunch.

I'm bummed.

Also, don't  shove your hat into your backpack all day if you plan on keeping your awesome Hitchhiking Ghosts sticker on it forever. Somehow as I shuffled through my stuff all day, I managed to rub the edges up on the sticker that's been on my black visor since the 2016 Star Wars Dark Side Half Marathon weekend, something like fifteen months ago. I may never know how it stayed on for so long, but in the words of a younger Little Bob, "It's a goner." I don't have the heart to actually peel the sticker off, but there's no way that it'll stay connected to my hat for very much longer. And I have replacement stickers to try and duplicate the original, but my Hitchhiker pals have been with me through quite a bit of running, especially with runDisney events. I wish I'd been more careful.

Things got a bit better, though, when our next set of Fastpasses went live and we headed over to Astro Blasters. When we got to the ride entrance, we basically traded our Fastpass tickets for a (coveted) red queue-time-check pass. Basically, you hold it with you from the beginning of the line until you board...which for us was about five minutes. Frie and I were both very excited, so thank you to the cast member who gave it to us. Fast forward to the end of the ride. Frie, I won.

 

Thinking a little bit about it now, I think yesterday was my subconscious attempt to stay inside and in air conditioning as much as possible because the next place we headed for was Star Wars Launch Bay. Now, from the yesterday's shirt alone you should be able to tell that I am a Star Wars fan. Frie, not so much. I would say that she tolerates it and she knows what it is, but I don't think she'd consider herself  a fan. I could have spent hours in there, but I could tell she was getting bored, so after about ten or fifteen minutes we headed to the exit.

And as soon as we stepped out, I noticed a Photopass photographer waiting in front of the "May the Force be with you" sign with no line. I honestly couldn't believe that there wasn't anyone waiting for him, so I asked him just to be sure if he was taking photos. He stared me down (mind you, he's a big beefy ex-military looking dude) and after probably ten to twenty seconds he goes, "Yes, but only because you're with the Dark Side, Princess" (a reference to my Tie Fighter shirt.) I got all excited and like a well-trained Photopasser, I dumped my backpack out of frame so we could get our shots.

Frie didn't, though. I was already standing by the wall posing and she still had her stuff on. So I kind of looked at her like "if she wants to leave her stuff on, that's cool" and kept my eye on the photog. Nothing happened. Instead, he walked up to Frie and just stared at her for--no joke--something like thirty seconds. By that point I had the giggles because she was just frozen in place. He finally asked her what I'd done that she hadn't and she dropped her stuff on the ground faster than I've ever seen her move. But this is where things turned magical for us. Our photographer, Paul F., spent probably twenty minutes total with us. He took some incredibly flattering photos of us that were also pictures that I'd never seen before in the Parks. He made us laugh and much to my happiness, razed Frie to no end. When she told him that she was afraid of Darth Vader, he told her [the truth] that Darth Vader did everything that he did because of his love for Padmé. Paul convinced her to actually go in for the Darth Vader meet and greet. I was ecstatic. Frie was terrified.

Force push for the win.

Selfie!

Our newfound friend Paul was there to encourage her, though, and even though Frie wasn't 100% on the idea, she was willing to make the leap and we hopped into line. About 25 minutes later, I saw Paul quietly sneaking up behind Frie. He put a finger to his lips and then snuck up behind her. I honestly don't remember what he said to her, but he scared her so bad that Frie must have jumped three inches straight up in the air. She honestly thought that Darth Vader had come to get her. It was incredible. I must have had the giggles for a good five minutes. It was great, but the best part was the news that we would for sure be seeing him soon, in a few minutes, in the meet and greet lounge with Vader himself. I was stoked. Frie was even more terrified.

Bob's Happy Place

 When we rounded the corner and actually got to meet Vader, I basically squealed and asked him if I could have a hug. He is one of my all time favorite characters of any story line, and yesterday I was feeling rather emboldened by the knowledge that I had a newfound CM friend and by the fact that I had finally worn some of my Dark Side gear into the Parks. Darth didn't let me hug him, but he didn't kill me, either. That had to be a step in the right direction, right?

Frie's Unhappy Place

When he turned and talked to Frie, though, I know she wasn't as excited as I was. As we left the photo area, she told me that she was really surprised by how tall and menacing he was which actually turned into a kind of cool history lesson. I got to tell her a bit about Dave Prowse and how huge he was and how he had fully acted out the role of Vader including his voice only to have his lines replaced by those of James Earl Jones. She had no idea. One of the store areas inside Launch Bay even had a bunch of Prowse-signed photographs which I got to show her, too. It was something that I hadn't seen in the parks before and It made me really happy for him to get the recognition he deserves. I wondered if I Am Your Father had anything to do with his park presence, but now I'm not necessarily sure.

After Vader, we started to meander toward the front of Disneyland. Frie still had to do some shopping before we left and I was pretty exhausted, so we moved slowly but steadily toward home. In some ways, I actually felt like we cheated, too, because we got to ride the fire truck from the Castle to the beginning of Main Street, something that I hadn't done in ages.

From there, we split up and Frie did her shopping while I waited in line for City Hall. Paul had been so good to us at Launch Bay that I wanted to make sure he was acknowledged.  And acknowledged her will be. Apparently, when you submit a positive comment about a CM at City Hall, theCM is not only notified that a guest said something good, but s/he also receive a certificate and the positive remarks go into their permanent employee file. I had no idea about those parts when I went to go and say something, so I'm really glad that I did now. Paul was awesome and it was his unique brand of Disney magic that really made it such a great day. I waited almost forty minutes to submit my thank you note and I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Her makeup was
absolutely awesome.

Frie and I both had perfect timing with our respective to-do lists on Main Street, though. As I was walking out of City Hall, she was just coming back from Starbucks, so we hung out, regrouped and then decided to make our way over to where Cruella De Ville was standing near Disneyana. She was hilarious and on point more than almost any character I had ever seen as she interacted with guests. I was really glad that we got to see her and despite the fact that she was super busy with other guests, I managed to get some pictures both of her and with her.

Until yesterday, I never even
knew about the Bambi lot.

She scared me way more than Darth Vader ever could, though, so we pretty much decided to call it a day after that between the heat and the number of people that were inside of the Park. Admission into Disneyland had been cut off, so we knew that we needed to get out of the area soon or we'd have major traffic problems getting home. Just trying to get onto the Toy Story Parking Lot bus took us twenty minutes and apparently they'd also opened up the "Bambi Parking Lot", as well. I'd never heard of the Bambi lot before, but apparently it's part of the Katella Cast Member Lot. It was so busy that DLR was parking guests in the cast member lot. That's nuts!

We found Mickey at Frie's pool!

And let me tell you, I'm glad we got out of there when we did. We hit traffic starting in Oceanside and it persisted all the way home. It was a lot better than going northbound, but we were still surprised by how many cars were out on the road. It took us two hours to get back to my house where we ate dinner with Husband and then all hung out before heading over to Frie's house for a while. When we got there, her complex even had a little hidden mickey in it. Apparently, Mickey had been trying to beat the heat at the pool while we were at the parks. It was a perfect way to end the day.