8/10 Update

Ruben and I ventured to the park Sunday night from 8:30pm-12am. Thankfully, we met our goal of the night and got there early enough to get in a ride on Toy Story Midway Mania. I won (as usual) and finally broke the 150,000 point barrier to get the CAT prize at the end. On our way out of the park, we decided to venture through A Bug's Land since neither of us has really explored that area. Everything was already closed as it was after 9, but we got some pictures with the character displays and found a few rides that we've never been on but would like to experience in the very near future (possibly tonight!). Once inside Disneyland, we went straight to Jungle Cruise, which has become our routine as of late, and we were lucky enough to have Nathan, the best skipper I can ever remember having in my hundreds of journeys through the jungle. Hardly any of his jokes were the typical jokes you hear, and the way he delivered each joke was exceptional. On our way out of the park, we were sure to give him one of the new verbal compliment cards at City Hall. We also experienced another very nice cast member named Dani while exiting Storybook Land. She was with another family talking about taking them to ride Casey Jr., to which I had to profess my ever-growing love for the ride. While waiting in line, she asked us if we wanted to go on any other Fantasyland rides, to which we exclaimed "PETER PAN!!!", and she basically turned into Genie from Aladdin and walked us across Fantasyland, up the exit, and right onto Peter Pan!!! No wait for us!!! To be honest, I was kind of hoping for her skin to turn blue and for her to belt out a rendition of "Friend Like Me", but a free pass to the front of the Peter Pan line was good enough for me! We of course left her a verbal compliment card at the end of the night as well, even though she informed us she would only be working at Disneyland for another two weeks. We finished the night with our typical assortment of Fantasyland rides, though we didn't get on the Matterhorn as we had hoped for. I think we will be returning to the park tonight so there should be another update in the coming days.

Here are some pictures from last night for your enjoyment:







The addition of more pictures (you can all tell how lazy I, Ruben, am when it comes to this can't you?)

Pan + No Flash = can't see much of a picture.

Adam only adds pictures of himself. How self centered can he be! Anyways agreeing with Adam, Nathan was easily the funniest skipper I have experienced all year, though he did have a few of the typical jokes. His delivery is what set him apart from telling the same jokes as all of the other skippers. When Dani asked if we wanted to go on any other rides our first reaction wasn't Peter Pan, it was more us staring at each other thinking "what rides are there?" until I realized and said "Oh... what about Pan?" Its funny because we never go on it. We do a lot of fantasyland rides, probably because you can do so many in such a short time.

7/23 Update

Last Wednesday, Ruben and I went to the park from 9pm-12am. Total ride counts for the year have been updated. Pictures to come soon.

7/15 Update

Last night, Ruben and I once again ventured to the park for a much-needed trip after nearly a month of not being there. Since DCA chooses to close at 9pm (for reasons I don't fully understand), we headed straight to the pier to get a ride on Toy Story Midway Mania. I was victorious, and here is a picture of our scoreboard:


By the time we got off the ride, DCA was closed so us and the entire park headed across the esplanade to Disneyland. Once inside, the park was preparing for fireworks so it was nearly impossible to get anywhere. We had to walk completely around the hub to get to Adventureland, but when we got in front of the castle, we had a perfect view of the fireworks for a good minute or two. While attempting to circle around the hub, a little girl behind us, approximately 10 years old, started screaming "I CAN'T GO NOWHERE GRANDMA!", followed by "I JUST WANT TO PUSH ALL THESE PEOPLE OUT OF MY FREAKIN' WAY!!!". Needless to say, Ruben and I got a good laugh out of that one. We also had another interesting encounter with a fellow guest in the park. While walking on the path connecting Frontierland, a girl i didn't know grabbed onto my arm and walked with us while talking to me. She asked my name, my age, if i was married, and then for my phone number. What a night! We did our usual assortment of rides, including Astro Blasters three times in a row with no line, but unfortunately the camera only worked on one of the three games (which also happened to be my worst!). On our way out, we had time for one more ride and decided to try out Astro Orbiter since it was right in front of us and I hadn't been on since the old Rocket Jet days above the People Mover platform. Bad choice, Adam! The ride basically is the equivalent to Dumbo on crack,and I was completely dizzy after getting off the ride. I'm definitely never trying that one again!

Total ride counts for the year have been updated, and that does it for this update, but I'll leave you with some pictures from last night..






Note: Has anyone else been having problems recently getting their pictures from Astro Blasters? Ever since they changed the format to send the picture directly in the e-mail it hasn't been working for me. I have all but given up on this ride because of it. -Ruben

6/17/2008- Toy Story Midway Mania!

Today Adam and I ventured out to the parks for the opening of Toy Story Midway Mania. California Adventure was probably the busiest I have ever seen it with the wait time for Grizzly Rapids at 80 minutes. We did not arrive at the park until close to 5:00 because of other things that we had to do today (Adam got a hair cut for the first time in forever). We thought ahead from the heat and purchased bottles of water before beginning our wait for TSMM.


We began our wait through the sun and the heat. The start of the long line is right alongside the water side of the pier which provided us the constant launch noise of California Screaming, which gets pretty annoying fast. As the line stretches on they hold up the sidewalk to get groups past and from there we had to zig and zag through the lovely lines until we got to the first indoor portion of the line. Inside here were posters for some of the games we were about to play, but to easily make one forget about that was the heat. The room does not do well with the summer and body heat, while there are fans inside the room they do nothing, except probably make it hotter. Added to it all the screaming and crying kids who definitely did not want to be standing in that line for 5 more minutes let alone another 30+


The heat enjoyed making my hair wavy. Also Disney asks that you wear your 3-D Glasses over your sunglasses to make the game that much more fun.

The Ride itself is everything I hoped it would be and more. Though it was only the first time I rode it the guns are fairly easy to use. My only mistake was that I was not letting the string that you use to fire the gun return all the way before attempting to fire again- or I was not pushing it back in enough. Once you get the hang of aiming and firing the weapon its a blast to play the different games throughout the ride, be careful though because some targets may do some various things that catch you off guard.


Obviously Adam having already been on the ride and knowing what to expect beat me though I feel that I did pretty good.

This was in the exit its the ride in actual size.

Afterwards we were going to go to ESPN Zone for dinner and to watch the game- but we were informed there would be no free tables till after the game. When we left we noticed the large crowd sitting outside just watching the game on the tv.


We ended up leaving the overcrowded parks to have dinner and watch the game at Red Robin where Adam and I laughed.


Hopefully we will take a trip soon with our pal Yoda to continue on our Disneyland quest.

6/14 Update

Ruben and I (no Yoda) went to the park tonight between 10pm-12am. I FINALLY saw "Bones" on Indiana Jones. Total ride counts have been updated. Enjoy.

We will be returning to Disneyland on Tuesday for the grand opening of Toy Story Midway Mania, so expect an update from that glorious day soon.

Also, here are some pictures from the night..



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What Adam did fail to mention was that last night happened to be the unofficial (or maybe official? Nobody ever really tells me these things) "raver" or "candy kid" or whatever you want to call them, day at Disneyland. This was learned when we thought about the fact that we happened to be at Disneyland on this same day last year (as in second Saturday in June) to ride the ever so hard to see out of for people who are taller that 5'5" Nemo Subs, the park was filled with the exact same children as there were last night- crazy kids if you ask me.

We almost didn't go on Indiana Jones. It was about 5 minutes till the park closed and we were standing between Jungle Cruise and Indy. A little over an hour before than we passed by Indy with a wait time of 75 minutes, then the wait was only 20. A coin flip decided our fate.

When we sat in the car we were on the right hand side, Adam turned and said to me "Man I'm not going to be able to see Bones this time" then moments after we passed by Bones on the ride he turns to me and excitedly goes "I finally saw Bones!!"

Here are additional pictures from the night

Toy Story Midway Mania

About a month ago, I entered my name into the Annual Passholder lottery for a sneak preview on the new Toy Story Midway Mania ride, opening at DCA on June 17th. For last year's similar contest for the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage, myself and four people I know entered and none of us won, so needless to say, I didn't have very high hopes for this year's lottery. However, on the morning of June 2nd, I was more than delighted to see an email proclaiming I had won a sneak preview on the ride, on June 10th between 10am and 3pm. I think describing myself as incredibly ecstatic would be a bit of an understatement. I did my best to keep my excitement to myself and not brag to my friends TOO much in the week between the email and my date to ride, as I was only allowed to bring a fellow passholder with me to ride, and unfortuantely, my fellow passholder friends all had prior engagements for the special day. But would that stop me from fulfilling my destiny as one of the first to ride this spectacular ride?! I DON'T THINK SO!

I got to the parks around 1:15 and went straight to the booth in Downtown Disney to be awarded my pass to preview the ride. From there, it was off to the pier to make my dream a reality. At the front of the line, a couple CM's were stationed to make sure that you had a pass for the preview, as well as an annual pass for each member of your group. The line and theming are very impressive, except for the fact that a decent portion of the line is uncovered from the sun, which will not be fun for the long lines expected this summer. The first covered room of the queue features a number of posters, previewing the various games that you get to play on the ride (a picture of my favorite poster is included later in this post). Upon getting in line and eavesdropping on other people's conversations, I learned that CM's were allowing people to re-ride as much as they wanted, as long as the line stayed relatively short. Luckily for me, it did, and I got to ride not one, not two, not three, not four, but FIVE times in a row, waiting only about 10 minutes each time. By my last trip, the CM's started joking around with me about going on so many times in a row, but really, how could I resist?!

The ride itself is absolutely incredible. I had a pretty good idea of what the actual games were going to be like, but really didn't know what to expect for the surrounding areas and the actual movement of the cars between games. The attention to detail is stunning of the sets is stunning for a Toy Story fanatic like myself, and I especially enjoyed seeing the blue wallpaper with white clouds on it, just like in Andy's room in the movies. As much as I want to, I don't feel I should give anything else away, but just know that you will all be extremely impressed once the ride opens to the public next week.

Here are some pictures from the queue, ride, and my final score screen on four of my five rides (my fourth ride's score didn't show up on my screen unfortunately).

My special pass!

My favorite poster from the queue.

The beginning of the ride!

My first score.

My second score.

My third score.

My final, and best score!


[For the record- I hate the fact that Adam was able to ride it while I was stuck at work. He was sending me text messages that made me wish I was able to get that day off -Ruben]

5/31 Updates

Last night, Ruben and I (no Yoda) went to the park between 9pm-12am. Total ride counts and the Astro Blasters challenge have been updated. Enjoy.