First of three posts

[rbandrews]

I've had three posts kicking around my head for a while, and this one seems basically done. The second post follows a theme with it, sort of, but we'll get to that.

A few weeks ago I went to Disneyland.

This is not something I would ordinarily do: I don't live anywhere near it, I never really had a strong desire to go to it (well, I did as a little kid, but not as an adult), and I don't really like Disney as a company or their shows / movies. I like some of the comics: the old, classic Carl Barks and Don Rosa duck comics are fantastic and a huge part of my childhood, but that's about it. And yet, I got into the spirit of it, had a fantastic time and would absolutely go back!

This all happened because my friend turned 55, and he's a huge Disney fan: lives in Costa Mesa, a few minutes from the park; has had a season pass for years; goes there once a week at least. He wanted to show us Walt's park as a way to celebrate his birthday, so Megan and I went. At first I thought, well, I love history and especially history of American culture (huh, guess this ties into all three planned posts) and Disneyland is a huge part of that. Plus this is a good example of a principle I have, which is that the best of anything is probably worth trying: maybe you hate theater but if you get a chance to see the Royal Shakespeare Company, that's probably not something you turn down, right? I'm not that into theme parks but Disneyland is the gold standard of them.

Anyway we go down there. First, everything's on an app, so we set up the app, and then go through security and a tram and into the park itself, and I'm just following people, but we walk to the back and end up in a Star Wars themed area in line for... something. I'm not sure exactly what. The line is long; apparently this is the one thing we do all day where we're not able to skip the line. We wait for like an hour. And then walk into a room where there's... a hologram. Just like Star Wars. I mean just like the ones in Star Wars, but in real life. I can't figure out how they did this. It's literally magic to me. Then into a motion-ride-thing, which is just absolutely full of special effects, and I can pick out most of it but there are still a couple things in there that I don't know how they did. I eventually did look up the hologram effect and even knowing how it works I'm extremely impressed. It was unreal, it was perfect, it was even better because I legitimately had no idea what was coming, I didn't even know we were in line for a ride, or what the rides were like, I was just following the group, and then suddenly was transported to this fantasy world.

That first one was the best, but the rest were all extremely good, magical. My overall impression was that everywhere I looked I saw evidence of years, decades, of work and cleverness and polish by extremely smart people with the goal of making something delightful. It wasn't what I expected, I don't even know what I was expecting, but it was amazing. Some disconnected things that got me:

• The food. I figured it wouldn't be great, but the thing is, parents come here too, right? So there was actual food that was actually good, and it honestly didn't cost any more than a restaurant outside. We went to the Storyteller Cafe, which was extremely good (little red bell pepper pesto tortelloni things!). Lunch at Tiana's Cafe, was also surprisingly good (very good cornbread!).
• I expected everything would cost a fortune but actually once we were inside we barely bought anything. I bought a bottle of water and refilled it a couple times, and Megan and I each got a hat, but that was about it. Except for...
• Genie. This is some sort of pay-by-the-day thing that lets you skip lines by booking ahead. We did this for every ride after the first Star Wars one, and it was great, pretty much just walk on to most things. Absolutely worth whatever it cost.

There were all sorts of things. There were rollercoasters, motion-simulator-rides, the parade... The parade got me. I was kinda still trying to be my usual cynical skeptical self, but I just fell in love with the parade. I went to Disney World once as a little kid, and missed out on the parade then, but this time we were right in front right near the start, and saw everything.

The only two I really wanted to go on before we went were the Small World ride, which was again magical, it was pure 1960s campiness, exactly the sort of thing I like. And Space Mountain: when I was little, and we went to Florida, I desperately wanted to ride Space Mountain, and it was the first thing we went to, stood in line for an hour, got to the front... "sorry kid, you're an inch too short." Devastating. So the first thing I looked up when I got the app was what the height limits all were, and of course now I'm well over them, but I really wanted to do Space Mountain, and for the last ride of the night we got to, and it was great! We also got to see an amazing fireworks show, ride Pirates of the Caribbean (with no wait; we were standing around waiting for something else and Joe pointed out that there was no line, so I just walked over there and went through it alone), see little hidden details of the park...

Everything was great. It was exactly what I wanted, and didn't expect, for it to be like. I still don't like Disney the company and I still don't like what pop culture has become, largely because of them, but I have to admit that what they do, they do extremely well, and it's not all bad. Walt's park is a nice place to spend some time.

Comments

[vvalkyri]

That sounds pretty perfect