That Was Awesome!

That was the phrase of the trip. Or was it, "That was cool!"  These were the two most common phrases during our recent trip to The Happiest Place on Earth.  The new attraction was Cars Land and the remodeled entrance to the California Adventure theme park.  Gone are the giant letters spelling out C-A-L-I-F-O-R-N-I-A. Gone too is the Golden Gate Bridge near the entrance to the park. In its place are stores and eateries.

We posted a clip of one of our rides on the Radiator Springs Racers earlier so I won't go into much details now.  Besides the racers, Cars Land has two other rides: Luigi's Flying Tires (apparently this ride included giant beach balls originally, but there were no beach balls for our ride) and Mater's Junkyard Jamboree.  Both very tame, easy going rides which we checked out once each.

In Hollywood Land, parts of our group checked out Muppet Vision 3D (which has a show running called "Prep and Landing" during the holidays with the Muppets on vacation), Monster's Inc. and the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.

In "a bug's land," the boys chaperoned by Cousin Bill flew on Flik's Flyers and bumped around on Francis' Ladybug Boogie.

On Paradise Pier, a couple of us screamed on California Screamin' at the end of the day when the wait time was down under 20 minutes.  Mickey's Fun Wheel has stationary cars and cars that swing back and forth.  Let's just say that we went the more adventuresome route and some of us rode on what is about an 8-minute ferris wheel ride with eyes mostly closed.  The rest of took in the sights as we swayed back and forth.  The longest line that we endured during our whole trip was the 75-minute wait for the Toy Story Midway Mania on Paradise Pier.  The final ride in this area that we rode as a group was Ariel's Undersea Adventure.

In Condor Flats, we soared on Soarin' Over California, a family favorite that includes sights of the Bay Area.

The last event in California Adventure for us was the World of Color show that includes Disney characters projected onto water spouts and sprays over the Paradise Pier waterfront.

In Disneyland, one of our favorites turned out to be the remodeled Star Tours.  According to Cousin Bill, this ride has something like 54 possible journey from the 11 random segments of the story.  We went on the ride three times and each ride was slightly different from the next. Cousin Bill and Auntie Susan went on their own once and repeated a journey so it's possible that one could experience the same journey more than once in one visit to the park.

In Adventureland, we went on the Jungle Cruise, climbed Tarzan's Treehouse and sat through a show at the Enchanted Tiki Room.  One of the highlights was the Dole Pineapple Whip before the show at the Tiki Room. 

In Critter Country, some of us who were splash-worthy rode on Splash Mountain.  Ryan wanted to be at the front of the ride so he could sort of get wet, although he made sure to cover his cast with his rain coat.   Those us who were less splash-worthy rode on the dryer, gentler The Many Adventures of Winnie of Pooh and got a workout on Davy Crockett's Explorer Canoes.

In New Orleans Square, the main attraction for us was the Pirates of the Caribbean which passes by the indoor Blue Bayou Restaurant, where we had a later reservation under Ryan's name.  Kimmie was the only one willing to try out the restaurant's famous Monte Cristo sandwich, which is a deep fried sandwich.  Cousin Bill and Auntie Susan survived the Haunted Mansion holiday edition on their own at the end of one day.

Frontierland kept us busy with Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (more than once) and the Sailing Ship Columbia. 

As the kids have gotten older, Fantasyland has grown to be a less popular part of the park.  However, "it's a small world" is still a favorite that we made it to once this time.  The Matterhorn does not have a FASTPASS option so lines were still quite long allowing us to make it through this ride once.  The only other rides in this area that we took part in were Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan's Flight and Storybook Land Canal Boats. Quite a change from past years, where we would spend a considerable part of our time just in Fantasyland.

We didn't even make it to Mickey's Toontown.

We probably spent the most time in Tomrrowland because of Star Tours and Space Mountain.  Other attractions in this area that we visited were Autopia and Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters.

One of the last activities for us was Fantasmic which apparently is now 20 years old.  Due to Cousin Kimmie's excellent knowledge of the park, we got spots for Fantasmic that were basically right at the railing straight in front of the show's stage.  The kids were amazed and had a great time.

I think we're ready now to move up to Disney World next time.