"I'll Do You One Better: Why is Gamora?" (WDW Vets Visit Cali, April/May 2019) Completed 6/23

Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout
April 30th, Part 1

*So these next two posts will be very photo heavy, but especially this post where Josh rode (and I walked through the queue) on Mission Breakout. There were so many little details, and being a big Guardians fan I loved them all! :thumbsup2*

But first things first, we started off this morning by dropping the rental car off to Paradise Pier. It was easy to do, but a little confusing because we weren't sure where to go. So for others who may want to drop off there but aren't picking up there: you have to drive to the top floor of the parking garage, park it there, go down the stairs, and into the Alamo office.

This was probably the hotel we saw the least of, but I liked the vibe. It kind of reminded me of YC/BC which are my favorite hotels at WDW.
Afterwards we headed into the park where Guardians was at a 70 min wait. We decided to wait in the standby line which probably makes it the longest we've ever had to wait for anything at the parks.
But what a beauty!


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We made it!

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(If you look closely I've heard Figment is in one of these).

The level of detail was amazing! I only wish the line got held up a little more once we were inside so we time to really look at everything.
I love the Vyloos:


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And Cosmo is one of my favorite things in here:

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Celestial masks:

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Ultron sentry:

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Tivan and the Grandmaster:

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I love this picture :laughing:

(And if I missed anything, know that we did go back later during the event so there's even more pictures coming :rotfl:).

I love the Rocket animatronic! Ever since I saw the first video for this ride I thought the animatronic was really cool.


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If you look down on the side before you get to the lifts you'll see one of the former Matterhorn yetis on the side who guests named Harold. And Delores the octopus from the Country Bear Vacation Hoedown:

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I was amazed and really impressed by it all even if I didn't ride it. I definitely felt like it was worth the wait, and is probably my favorite ride that I haven't ridden.

Many of you probably know from either past reports or my intro how much I love the Guardians. They aren't just my favorite Marvel movies, but some of my favorite movies ever. But the best way I can sum up some of the emotional impact Guardians has had on me is with this quote:

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I'm not going to go into detail here, (although I've briefly mentioned in another TR) but I really relate to this and the characters in the movies. I know it's fictional in this context, but it also comes from a very real place. James Gunn definitely put a lot of his own life and experiences into these movies, and I think it shows in the emotional impact they've had on people. It's nice to see such a mainstream movie that gets it, and shows characters that went through something like that and may be less than perfect but at the end of the day are still heroes.

Many of you also know how happy I was when Gunn was rehired in March, and this was our first trip to a Disney park since then. I know it may sound silly, but he helped create the Guardians ride with the Imagineers, and I couldn't imagine walking through the ride for the first time, knowing he'd never get to finish the trilogy. So him being rehired before our trip made walking through the ride even better for me.
As for the ride itself, for those who don't remember my very first trip report. I hate heights, and I hate that feeling of dropping on rides. So on our first WDW trip for some reason I decided to ride the Tower of Terror. It was our second day, and I thought since it was a popular Disney ride maybe I'd somehow end up loving it. But I absolutely hated it, and I ended up having a panic attack. Reasonably I know it's safe, so maybe I'll try it out one day, but that's much easier to say when I'm not currently on the ride ::yes::.

So Josh did ride by himself, and he really liked it. Sadly, though he did not remember exactly what song he got but I'm sure they're all fun; since I'm completely in love with both soundtracks :lovestruc.

I wanted to buy everything, but I already have a lot of Guardians merch :rotfl:

Continued in next post


 
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Adventures in DCA
April 30th, Part 2

After Guardians it was time for brunch so we headed over to Storyteller's Cafe.


Storyteller's Cafe Review

Back in the park we headed to somewhere we don't have in WDW that I'd always really wanted to visit:

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I was late to the Cars party since I think I only watched the first movie like 2 years ago. I never thought I'd like it, but I really did.

Cars Land was one of the parts of the DL parks I was most excited to visit, and it didn't disappoint.

The first ride I wanted to head to was Mater's Junkyard Jamboree!


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You see for some reason my absolute favorite character from the Cars movies is Mater. I think he's adorable. So the more Mater the better!

We waited about 25 mins for the ride, and I did enjoy it but I thought I was going to get thrown out of the seat at once point :rotfl: those little cars really whip around sometimes!

I haven't ridden the aliens ride at TSL yet either so this was completely new for me.


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Next up is our Radiator Springs Racers FP! So I did buy Maxpass for this day, but honestly it wasn't great. I managed to snag a FP for RSR, but that's about it. The thing that annoyed me the most is you couldn't change your FP when you checked unless you canceled the one you currently had, and by the time you went back in the one you wanted would be gone. It was also prior to 930 am (when we arrived and bought it) and a lot of them were gone for the day or only for much later, and we knew when we came back at night it would be for the event only so we couldn’t really stack them for later.. It was a bit busier than we thought that day, but I didn't think it was too crazy so I was surprised. We had better luck on some of the other days, but overall I prefer WDW's FP system, and on this day Maxpass seemed like a waste, but it was the only way we'd get on RSR during the day so I guess it wasn't a complete waste.

Overall we did probably wait about 30 mins for RSR (the FP line was pretty long but moved pretty swiftly), but the non FP wait time was probably around or above 2 hours so that wasn't too bad.

It was a really beautiful and well themed ride.
Test Track is probably my favorite Epcot ride, and I absolutely think this ride is 100x better. Definitely my favorite ride in DCA (that I rode).


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And our car won!

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Another thing I had really wanted to see was the little Guardians dance off show they have during the day in front of the ride. I'm not normally one for the stage shows/dance parties, but I wanted to check out this one.

Overall it was a fun show, a little more kid oriented since kids are usually involved in the dance part, but still cute.

Afterwards I noticed the characters were signing autographs and taking pictures, and I walked up and got one with Gamora! She said she noticed I was a fan from my sweatshirt :rotfl: I loved that she met at DL because she doesn't in WDW, and she's my favorite Guardian.


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After that we decided to ride on Monster's Inc which was about a 30 min wait.

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Boo's door:

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(And you can see my bag in this one! I normally don't buy the Loungefly bags because I rarely use more than one bag on a trip, but I'm going to try to use this one more because I love it).

Monster's Inc has always been one of my favorite Pixar movies, and I thought this was a cute little dark ride.


I also like to watch Youtube videos about defunct theme park attractions, and the story of Superstar Limo is one of my favorites, because it seems like it was an incredibly ridiculous and awful ride (this is what the Monsters Inc ride used to be when DCA opened). One of my favorite facts about it is that the yellow haz mat suit guys are some of the old stripped down animatronics of celebrities from Superstar Limo underneath, you can tell which one is which by the poses their in:

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Our final ride before we headed back to the hotel was Luigi's Rollickin' Roadsters. The wait was about 30-40 mins so we had been hoping it would go down, but since it didn't we ended up waiting. It felt weird to wait for some many rides here. We usually don't spend a lot of time waiting at WDW, but I wasn't sure when we'd get back to Cali so I wanted to wait for them all.

I was also mainly trying to get in things that were different from the parks in WDW so we did skip a few rides (and didn't get to some others), but we also had the event that night and I figured we'd get to Pixar Pier then.
The roadsters were cute, but not worth the 30-40 min wait in my opinion.
On the way out we also got to see Mater!


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We headed out through the Grand Californian, and Lyfted back to our hotel from there. Later on one of our Lyft drivers told us that wasn't allowed? I'm not sure if that's true, but we had no trouble doing that.

Next Up

The Heroes Assemble Event

 
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Your photos and how excited you are for everything at DLR is making me miss it so much. My first trip wasn't too too long before my CP so those feelings are still fresh and was still basically present during my CP so all the newbie feels.

I'm sad to hear you didn't ride Guardians but I understand. I actually had a friend who had a similar experience to you on Tower and she actually ended up liking Guardians because she's such a Guardians fan and the ride has a more high energy vibe that makes it less scary apparently. I personally think Guardians is more intense because the ride is just constantly going to fit in with the Guardians aesthetic and the rock songs being blasted while you ride. Also, having ridden it many times, yes Figment is in one of those boxes in the queue, he's very high up and hard to see unless you start doing weird neck contortions but he's there. I've been through that queue enough to confirm lol

How lucky that you managed to catch a Gamora and Starlord meet. Gamora actually used to meet with Thor (sounds strange but it was hilarious) for a short time by the stage near Monsters Inc, but that was cut along with roaming Loki and Doctor Strange so them meeting isn't regular. Usually after a show they book it out so it must've been a pretty slow day for them to stand for pics and autographs.

The fact the Superstar Limo animatronics are still in Monsters Inc will never not be funny to me. Also the ride vehicles are basically the same. Such a cute ride and so underrated.

I'm surprised you didn't like the FP system at DLR. I personally prefer it probably because I'm a spontaneous type and miss just going to an attraction and grabbing a paper FP when needed, but I think I'm in the minority. I also found MaxPass super helpful, especially since you basically get free photopass with it.

I think the whole Grand Californian rule is rather new. It used to not be an issue but I've been hearing they are cracking down on any just anyone using that entrance. Very peculiar.

Looking forward to hearing how the Heroes Assemble event was! :goodvibes
 
Your photos and how excited you are for everything at DLR is making me miss it so much. My first trip wasn't too too long before my CP so those feelings are still fresh and was still basically present during my CP so all the newbie feels.

I really enjoyed DCA!


I'm sad to hear you didn't ride Guardians but I understand. I actually had a friend who had a similar experience to you on Tower and she actually ended up liking Guardians because she's such a Guardians fan and the ride has a more high energy vibe that makes it less scary apparently. I personally think Guardians is more intense because the ride is just constantly going to fit in with the Guardians aesthetic and the rock songs being blasted while you ride. Also, having ridden it many times, yes Figment is in one of those boxes in the queue, he's very high up and hard to see unless you start doing weird neck contortions but he's there. I've been through that queue enough to confirm lol


I was sad too. I want to give it a try someday, but like you said I’ve heard it’s overall more intense and if I can’t do ToT, I probably won’t fare much better on that.

How lucky that you managed to catch a Gamora and Starlord meet. Gamora actually used to meet with Thor (sounds strange but it was hilarious) for a short time by the stage near Monsters Inc, but that was cut along with roaming Loki and Doctor Strange so them meeting isn't regular. Usually after a show they book it out so it must've been a pretty slow day for them to stand for pics and autographs.

That meet makes sense to me :laughing: Yeah, it was weird it was a busy day in terms of crowds and ride times, but over in that area for the show there wasn’t much of a crowd. I had actually thought Gamora went straight backstage afterwards, and went over to where people were talking to Starlord, but then Josh spotted her talking to a few people, and I managed to get a picture right after them. They probably only stuck around for about 5 mins though.

I'm surprised you didn't like the FP system at DLR. I personally prefer it probably because I'm a spontaneous type and miss just going to an attraction and grabbing a paper FP when needed, but I think I'm in the minority. I also found MaxPass super helpful, especially since you basically get free photopass with it.

I think it worked better at DL where there’s more attractions, and if you’re coming back at night it’s probably easier to get a bunch. And it is better than having to grab paper ones. But I do like sleeping in on vacation. (We didn’t as much on this trip because it was our first time there). But in WDW we often do this because our FP times are already chosen, and I like that your guaranteed 3, with the ability to choose times ahead, and you also don’t need to cancel them to change them. I did like that it came with free PP, but there seemed to be less PP around in general (we sought out a few just because we had it), and the event had PP included already (where we took all our character photos) so we probably didn’t need to get it.

I think the whole Grand Californian rule is rather new. It used to not be an issue but I've been hearing they are cracking down on any just anyone using that entrance. Very peculiar.

We just thought it was strange because I understand not getting dropped off there, but picked up? I assume hotel guests sometimes call Uber/Lyft so that didn’t make sense to me that they wouldn’t let them through to pick someone up.

I’ll get into it more later, but we had some confusion with Lyft drivers regarding the drop offs due to construction a couple times. Usually it went okay, but a few of the drivers made a wrong turn somewhere and then would try to drop us off wherever they could.

 


This was probably the hotel we saw the least of, but I liked the vibe. It kind of reminded me of YC/BC which are my favorite hotels at WDW. Also here's a creepy dolphin :rotfl::

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After staying there this weekend, I would not recommend it. Definitely not like the YC/BC. Rooms really need work and just the overall atmosphere isn't that good. Plus it's sooo expensive! Worked for us since we got a SWGE reservation that way, but otherwise I wouldn't consider it.
And Cosmo is one of my favorite things in here:

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Cosmo is such a cutie!
We headed out through the Grand Californian, and Lyfted back to our hotel from there. Later on one of our Lyft drivers told us that wasn't allowed? I'm not sure if that's true, but we had no trouble doing that.
Yeah, you aren't supposed to use the Grand as a drop-off/pick-up unless you are actually a guest there! I guess if you are getting picked up they won't really know if you aren't a guest, but they are strict about the drop-off. Like if you stay at Paradise Pier Hotel, you aren't allowed to walk thru the Grand lobby (there is a gate and guard).
 
After staying there this weekend, I would not recommend it. Definitely not like the YC/BC. Rooms really need work and just the overall atmosphere isn't that good. Plus it's sooo expensive! Worked for us since we got a SWGE reservation that way, but otherwise I wouldn't consider it.

Yeah, I've heard it isn't great from reviews, and all of the hotels on property were waayyy too expensive for us (at least for this trip). I was surprised that when I stepped in it kind of reminded me of BC/YC just because I know it isn't a great one but that's what it reminded me of a little.

Yeah, you aren't supposed to use the Grand as a drop-off/pick-up unless you are actually a guest there! I guess if you are getting picked up they won't really know if you aren't a guest, but they are strict about the drop-off. Like if you stay at Paradise Pier Hotel, you aren't allowed to walk thru the Grand lobby (there is a gate and guard).

Yeah, I know you can't enter back through there. The drop off thing makes sense, I'll get to it later but there was quite a bit of drop off confusion with our drivers because the normal drop off point was under construction.
 


Disneyland After Dark: Superheroes Assemble Event
April 30th, Part 3

So last I left off we had gone back to our hotel for a break. We watched some court tv shows before heading back to Disney for dinner and the event.

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So with Lyft/Uber the current drop off point was at Disneyland hotel due to construction, but I’m unclear on where as some drivers dropped us off/picked us up at the front of the hotel, and others did in various places in the parking lot.

Anyway this Lyft drop off, dropped us off in the Disneyland Hotel parking lot. On the way there he tried to give us tons of incorrect Disney advice while also making fun of Disney :confused: For some reason he reminded Josh of Dave Coulier so he kept calling him that afterwards:rotfl:

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In Downtown Disney we had dinner at Uva Bar.

Uva Bar Review

Here’s my Starlord Disney bound:


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It’s not the closest Disneybound, but I’m pretty sure people understood what it was. I got a tshirt version of the shirt he wears in the second movie. I had the headphones already, and I found a red jacket on Amazon (that wasn’t exact but close enough). Josh was going to wear a Spiderman tshirt but it ended up being too cold so he wasn’t really in theme. :rotfl:

Some people really went all out though (this event had similar costume rules to the Halloween party). There were a very well done Nebula and Gamora walking around when we got in that actually painted their skin and everything.

But going back once we entered the gates they gave us an event guide, lanyard, and a pack of trading cards.

Pretty much everything was open and operating which was pretty cool, they had a scavenger hunt game going on, dance parties, photo ops, character meets, and a kind of costume parade over by Pixar Pier.

We headed straight to the Guardians area as I figured that’s where the meets I’d be most interested in would be. Day guests were still in line for Mission Breakout, and mostly people were just milling around and not sure where to go. You weren’t allowed to get in line for anything till 9 pm (even photo ops) and it was a few mins before.


After 9 nothing had started yet, people were just kind of wandering around, and they were playing the Guardians movie soundtracks. CM’s didn’t seem sure what was going on either, and didn’t know where meet and greets would be. They seemed to be waiting for day guests to leave, so I’m not sure why they listed the event as starting at 9 pm.

Around 9:30 pm they told us where Starlord and Gamora would be meeting, but they still weren’t sure about Groot. However it kept getting pushed back while we waited in line.

We were in front of a very odd guy. He didn't seem to know anything about Marvel, but was determined to wait in as many lines as he could. First he asked us if this were the meet for the character that was "blue with tentacles", to which I could only say no, and try to wonder what character he was referring to. He had a friend (that was waiting in another line) that kept coming back and forth and giving him info about when the line would start moving except she also didn't seem to know who any of the characters were. He then started loudly complaining that he “wouldn’t have waited in this line if he knew what it was for”, but never left the line :confused:. Afterwards when the like got moving he kept shouting at people “hey hurry up! We haven’t got all day to wait!”



His behavior was so strange that Josh thought he was pranking us :rotfl: He thought he was acting like a Fred Armisen character from his sketch comedy show Portlandia.

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A little after 10 pm we met Starlord and Gamora.


Starlord seemed fascinated with Josh’s sweatshirt and we chatted about our headphones.


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While we had been waiting Groot had come out so we hopped to that line next. It was long, but moved faster because it seemed like they were limiting the number of individual pictures people in groups could take. Groot was about to take a break soon, but we got in right before.

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Next I had wanted to do the last Guardians photo op which was one of the Collector’s boxes. This one was a little strange because once you got close to the glass there were so many lights and the music was so loud that I couldn’t tell if they had already taken the picture or not. The lights were too weird for my phone camera and I don't think worked that well for the PP camera but here's one that kind of came out.

Cars Land at night was awesome!


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I wish we rode RSR again because I'm sure the line was short, but Josh started having some back pain, and didn’t want to ride anything that would bounce him around too much.

So we headed to see Pixar Pier:


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They had just done the costume parade a little while before, and had some little lights and music going. It was very pretty, and I’d love to see it during the day sometime.

TSMM was a walk on so we went on that.
And I won!

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On the way back towards the front I saw this “interactive” photo op. “Interactive” here means “putting on Hulk hands”, :rotfl: but some of the other “interactive” ones were just standing in front of a pair of character wings.



I liked the PP for this one they were a lot of fun.
They had me do some where I looked at my hands like “who’s hands are these?!” Which I loved :lmao:


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Back in the Hollywood area we saw Iron Man’s meet. It was over 2 hours and I think it was like that the whole time since he doesn't meet during the day :eek: We were okay with skipping that so I got some Captain Marvel nachos.

Superheroes Assemble Event Snacks Review

Finally the event was nearing the end, so we took one last walk through the Guardians queue since there was no wait. (Josh didn't ride this time either since his back was still bothering him).


And with that it was time to go!


And then we caught a Lyft from the Disneyland hotel.

One weird thing about our hotel is if you came back after a certain time you needed your room key to open the front door, or you needed to buzz someone from the front desk to enter, but we had our room key so it wasn't an issue.

Overall I loved DCA. Before we went a friend told me it felt the most like a WDW park, and she was 100% correct. We did 2 days at DL because there were more attractions, but if we went back I’d definitely want to spend more time at DCA. I actually think it was my favorite of the two.
As for the event, depending on the theme I would do another in the future depending on the theme (if I were there), but wouldn’t go out of my way to attend one. It was fun to have access to the park at night, but there’s no way you could do even half of what they offer especially if you’re looking to meet characters, and they didn’t seem very prepared so we lost an hour off the beginning. I will say it’s DCA’s first time hosting one so maybe something like that works better in DL. I have done parties at WDW, and those seem to have a better transition between day guests and event guests, but I’ve never done an after hours (next week will be my first time!) so I’m not sure how I would compare the two.

Next up

Disneyland!


 
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I definitely felt like it was worth the wait, and is probably my favorite ride that I haven't ridden.
:rotfl:

But the best way I can sum up some of the emotional impact Guardians has had on me is with this quote:

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Thank goodness for movies like this. :hug:

It's nice to see such a mainstream movie that gets it, and shows characters that went through something like that and may be less than perfect but at the end of the day are still heroes.
Absolutely :goodvibes

You see for some reason my absolute favorite character from the Cars movies is Mater.
Mine too! :thumbsup2

For some reason he reminded Josh of Dave Coulier so he kept calling him that afterwards:rotfl:
:laughing:

First he asked us if this were the meet for the character that was "blue with tentacles", to which I could only say no, and try to wonder what character he was referring to.
:sad2: I can't imagine waiting in a long line for a character I didn't even know? :confused3

he kept shouting at people “hey hurry up! We haven’t got all day to wait!”
:faint:

He thought he was acting like a Fred Armisen character from his sketch comedy show Portlandia.

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YES! Omg I love Portlandia :rotfl2: You've really painted the full picture of that guy now :rotfl:

#ThanksPhotopass
Yay! Bringing back a classic ;) :laughing:
 
Sounds like a fun event! That guy in line when you were waiting to meet Starlord and Gamora sounds super weird and annoying! Love the pics with Groot!
 
However on our very last day there was no hot water at all!

What?? NOOO!


It's a pretty room!

But it was also exciting because I've never been to the ocean before!

This was a shocker for me!! I'd never been to the ocean before our 2016 trip either, but I think I just assumed b/c of where you lived you'd probably been to the Atlantic coast and seen the ocean


Aww!


I like this lobby!

Parking was free at this hotel

I swear this is always the first thing I look for, LOL


Ew, his eyes say something creepy is on his mind. I've never been disturbed by a dolphin before this :rotfl:


Oh, they're cute!



I love this! I want this for my birthday!!

I haven't ridden the aliens ride at TSL yet either so this was completely new for me.

But you will be riding it VERY SOOOOOON!

Monster's Inc has always been one of my favorite Pixar movies

I saw it in the theater three times with my friends. I was 19!!

Josh wanted me to get a picture of Roz because he says she reminds him of his grandma :rotfl:

:rotfl::rotfl:

There were a very well done Nebula and Gamora walking around when we got in that actually painted their skin and everything.

Wow, that is dedication!

Starlord seemed fascinated with Josh’s sweatshirt and we chatted about our headphones.

I 100% feel like Starlord would definitely be into Arnold. I get it.

But he really liked Josh’s head/face :lmao:

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Like he really liked Josh :lmao:

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Maybe b/c Josh is tall and close to Groot's height?? He definitely looks very into him in these pics :rotfl:
Before we went a friend told me it felt the most like a WDW park, and she was 100% correct
 
Thank goodness for movies like this. :hug:

:thumbsup2

Mine too! :thumbsup2

I’m so happy everyone loves Mater :rotfl:

:sad2: I can't imagine waiting in a long line for a character I didn't even know? :confused3

Yes! Why would anyone do that! I can’t imagine buying tickets to an after hours event if you didn’t know/care about the theme too.

YES! Omg I love Portlandia :rotfl2: You've really painted the full picture of that guy now :rotfl:

Yeah, just picture Peter :rotfl2:

Yay! Bringing back a classic ;) :laughing:

:laughing:

Sounds like a fun event! That guy in line when you were waiting to meet Starlord and Gamora sounds super weird and annoying! Love the pics with Groot!

It was! A little frustrating with the wait for it to begin but cool to experience. It was so weird! Josh thought he was pranking us because of how he was acting :laughing: Thank you!
 

What?? NOOO!

It was soooo cold :cold:

It's a pretty room!

Yeah, I liked it!

This was a shocker for me!! I'd never been to the ocean before our 2016 trip either, but I think I just assumed b/c of where you lived you'd probably been to the Atlantic coast and seen the ocean

Our closest/most popular beach is actually a man made lake and everyone I know that has camps are all up at lakes :rotfl: it’s weird I probably could’ve but I’ve never bothered to go to the coast.

I swear this is always the first thing I look for, LOL

It’s so nice! Especially when so many places are so expensive to park.

Ew, his eyes say something creepy is on his mind. I've never been disturbed by a dolphin before this :rotfl:

Yes! :rotfl: That’s exactly what it looks like! It’s sooo creepy.

Oh, they're cute!

I love them :lovestruc

I love this! I want this for my birthday!!

Here’s the ingredients:

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:rotfl2:

But you will be riding it VERY SOOOOOON!

YES! I’m so excited! :hyper:

I 100% feel like Starlord would definitely be into Arnold. I get it.

Yeah, he remembers him from his time on Terra!

Yes you were the friend! I don’t know why I didn’t just say that :rotfl:
 
Our First Trip to Disneyland! Pt 1
May 1st, Part 1

Due to our late night the night before we got to Disneyland around 9:30-9:45 am. We bought Maxpass for this day too, and had slightly better luck than the day before since overall there's more attractions in DL. But it was also busier than anticipated on this day too.
Once we entered we headed straight for Fantasyland since most of the waits were still low. The Alice in Wonderland ride however was already at about 40 mins, which I figured it would be if we arrived any time after opening, but when we went to get in line the ride was down so we continued on our way.

Our first ride was Pinocchio's Daring Journey.

Although we were surprised to find the 5 and 10 minute waits for the Fantasyland dark rides were actual 5-10 minute waits. I guess we're used to WDW where 5-15 minutes usually means a walk on :rotfl:


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I always enjoy dark rides, and I love the Fantasyland dark rides because they have utterly terrifying parts like when Mr. Toad goes to Hell. No, seriously, why aren't rides this terrifying anymore? I love it. :laughing:

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My confession is I've never actually seen The Wind and the Willows, but I've still always wanted to ride Mr. Toad's.


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Next up we went on Snow White's Scary Adventure which I've heard was once so terrifying that they had to change it so it didn't traumatize all the kids. Luckily that was well before my time because I was so scared of the witch as a child that I saw Snow White once, and refused to ever watch it again. (Well until I watched it on TV a couple years ago).



As much as I love 7DMT, I was really looking forward to this one, and it was a lot of fun.


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(I only took a picture of this room people had thrown coins in for some reason).

The wait looked pretty low for Roger Rabbit's Cartoon Spin so we headed there next. Roger Rabbit was Josh's favorite Disney movie growing up, and he still has a stuffed Roger Rabbit he got back then.


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However when we got to the ride, it ended up being temporarily down so we moved on to look around Toontown a bit.


The little houses were cute, but didn't really interest us. However the one I'd really like to have seen (Minnie's) was down for refurb. I used to have a lot of Mickey and Minnie books as a kid, and though it might not be exactly the same, I remember always loving Minnie's house in the books.


Next we went to our first FP which was for Indiana Jones.
I wanted to make sure and ride it asap because I'd heard it goes down a lot. It was a fun ride, and there was a lot to see on it. Josh loved it, and when I told him WDW had a similar ride he told me not to tell him which one it was and he'd guess afterwards. Well he couldn't guess, and when I said Dinosaur, he said this ride was so good he forgot all about that one :rotfl:

After that we had lunch at Cafe Orleans.


Cafe Orleans Review

Next up we decided to ride the Haunted Mansion because the line was about 25 minutes.



I do prefer the WDW Haunted Mansion inside and outside, but I did like this one too. I've always wanted to see it in person because when I was a kid I had a Disney Singalong VHS I was obsessed with, and it took place at Disneyland. There was a part at the end where all the villains sang "Grim Grinning Ghosts" in front of the Haunted Mansion. Which I loved but it also terrified me as a kid (if you didn't notice a pattern everything spooky terrified me as a kid).



(Another thing in the singalong video that I had always wanted to get were these Mickey pancakes with faces on them that were in one of the scenes. I believe that place was River Belle Terrace, and they do have Mickey pancakes there now but they don't decorate them like that anymore. I know it's a weirdly specific thing and the video in question is probably like 20+ years old but I actually think they had them like that until a couple of years ago).

These ones:

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Anyway back to Haunted Mansion!


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Like I said before I do still like the WDW one best, but it was fun to go through another Haunted Mansion, and the Hatbox Ghost and spooky trees were pretty cool. (The Spooky Trees were in the singalong too!)

We stopped for some PP in the hub:


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(Although I wish we had the pretty newly painted castle instead of the fake scrim castle :rotfl:)

Next we had a FP for Buzz. I did like this better than the WDW one since you could pick up and aim the gun. I did a lot better than usual (which still wasn't great) but enough to know my gun wasn't broken.

Although our PP picture came out weirdly blurry:


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Following that we had a FP for Space Mountain. I am not the biggest fan of this ride, but I wanted to try a different version of it. It's still not my favorite, but I like the seats 1000x better. They feel so much more secure and comfortable than the WDW ones.

Josh says it looks like I've accepted my fate:


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I wrote "kind of fun" in my notes so I guess I had a good time :lmao:

We decided to take the monorail back to Downtown Disney. We waited in a line that probably took far longer than it would've to just walk back, but hey at least I got to sit while we waited.
I loved the seating and the open windows, and I preferred this monorail to the WDW one although that one is more convenient because it goes to Epcot and the resorts.

When we got back to the Disneyland Hotel, we called a Lyft, and the guy went to somewhere in one of the parking lots. Then he called us and said he didn't know where to tell us to go.





Continued in next post


 
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Our First Trip to Disneyland! Pt 2
May 1st, Part 2

Back at the hotel, we watched some court shows again, and there was a live police chase in a nearby city on the news. Although everyone was driving pretty slowly, and I think the guy surrendered in a parking lot so it wasn't anything too crazy (although that's probably good for everyone involved).
Alright, now back to Disneyland!

Disneyland was open until 11pm tonight so we were headed back at around 7pm.

First we ate dinner at Carnation Cafe.

Carnation Cafe Review

Then we shopped a little. In the top of one of the shops there was this creepy barber:


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I can only imagine his look of horror is because he just discovered his barber is Sweeney Todd.
Next we went to get a spot for Mickey's Magical Mix. We got a spot like 40 minutes early, on Main Street, but then to my disappointment shortly before they announced they couldn't set off the fireworks due to wind. I know that happens a lot in DL, but it was our only chance to see it so I couldn't help but be a little disappointed. It was still fun, it just wasn't as cool or impressive to watch as other Disney shows I've seen.

My favorite part was this:


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I've always loved the Aristocats! I know from some Disney history books I've read that it wasn't as well received as many of their other movies at the time. But it was always one of my favorites, and I used to watch it all the time as a kid.

I was so excited for "Everybody Wants to Be a Cat".

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It was kind of like one big dance party with some fake snow. Although Josh never dances. It's kind of like I'm Starlord and he's Gamora :rotfl: I try to get him to dance, but he's just not into it. For years I've been saying he's from the town in Footloose, which I think is funny because there's actually a similar part in the first Guardians movie where Starlord says something like that to Gamora.

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One more thing, we need to talk about that new Mickey Mouse song where they spell out his name. I had never heard it before this trip, and they played it EVERY SINGLE PLACE WE WENT. I wonder if that's to familiarize people with it so when it comes on during shows and such everyone knows it just like they know all the classic Disney songs? Anyway, I didn't like it when I first heard it, but now I sing it randomly. It's always stuck in my head. Mission accomplished, Disney :rotfl:

Overall it was a cute show, but it was definitely missing something without the fireworks and probably wasn't worth the 40 minute wait.

Next we got in line for Pirates. I did note that one of the corners of the queue smelled like someone had peed in it. I have no doubt someone did, so do with that what you will :laughing:



We didn't want to get wet because it was so cold out, but luckily we got the back.

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The only problem was near the end we got stuck in one spot for 30 mins.

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Finally we made it to the end!
Despite getting stuck, I LOVED this ride. It's so much better than the WDW one, and I think it was my favorite attraction in all of DL. :lovestruc

Before we left I decided to grab a snack:


Jolly Holiday Bakery Review

On the way out I wanted to stop and look at the light in Walt's apartment. When people asked me why we would go to another Disney park, isn't it the same, etc etc, my answer was always that they were different of course; but that it wouldn't matter even if they were the same because this was the park that Walt built. And it sounds corny, but I really meant that. Sometimes I get emotional just thinking of all Walt did, and how inspiring he was, and everything he created for us. And I love the idea that the light is always on to show he's always still there. So this was definitely an emotional moment for me, that I feel like all fellow Disney fans will understand.
So goodnight Walt, you created something amazing.


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On a lighter note I had to take a picture of this because we kept laughing about it as we walked by. Now I imagine if an alligator popped out of your cooking pot you'd be terrified, but this guy looks manically happy about this situation :lmao:

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We had no trouble Lyfting back to our room from the Disneyland Hotel this night, and back at the hotel I believe we watched a Lifetime movie called Stalked By My Mother (that spoiler alert had nothing to do with her mother stalking her because of all the random plot twists).

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I'd expect nothing less from you, Lifetime.

Next Up

We'll be heading to Pop Up Disney in Downtown Disney!
 
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Sounds like a fun morning! I love all the dark rides in Fantasyland!

Space Mountain..."kind of fun" :rotfl:

Mickey's Magical Mix looks cool! Sorry about the fireworks though :(

Ugh that stinks being stuck on Pirates for so long!
 
Next up we went on Snow White's Scary Adventure which I've heard was once so terrifying that they had to change it so it didn't traumatize all the kids. Luckily that was well before my time because I was so scared of the witch as a child that I saw Snow White once, and refused to ever watch it again. (Well until I watched it on TV a couple years ago).


Omg! I was so scared by the creepy looking witch too! My parents actually bought a Snow White globe on one of our trips to Disney and I refused to look at it for the longest time because I was convinced that it had some magic to make the creepy looking Evil Witch appear!

I do prefer the WDW Haunted Mansion inside and outside, but I did like this one too. I've always wanted to see it in person because when I was a kid I had a Disney Singalong VHS I was obsessed with, and it took place at Disneyland. There was a part at the end where all the villains sang "Grim Grinning Ghosts" in front of the Haunted Mansion. Which I loved but it also terrified me as a kid (if you didn't notice a pattern everything spooky terrified me as a kid).


I literally watched this SOOOOO many times as a kid! I think I'm most excited to see DL's Haunted Mansion just because of that little video! haha

 

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