Mousekingdom Blog

The meeting was over and I was ready to have some fun. Together with J°o°el, I walked over to Disneyland Park to enjoy the rest of the day.

Entering the park we could already see that it wasn’t going to be to busy. We walked along MainStreet towards the attraction time board to find out Phantom Manor is closed. It has been for a while, as they are doing some work on it, but I will miss it on this trip. So no Phantom Manor, but enough other rides and attractions to enjoy. However before starting our trip around the park we went to Blue Lagoon for lunch. There was no waiting time, a table was available straight away. I love the Blue Lagoon, but this time I couldn’t enjoy it to much. The Shrimp starter was fine but the chicken Dish wasn’t really warm and the rice a little dried out. Also the cream brulee couldn’t please me. It wasn’t totally bad, but I am used to get better food from that place. After leaving the restaurant we started a walk around the park. From Adventureland to Frontierland, passing over the central hub towards Discoveryland to end in Fantasyland. Why a trip and no rides (yet?). Well, the park is more then rides and a wander around the park to enjoy the atmosphere and to see all the changes and work (a lot of work) that is being done is part of the fun.

Of course, once we did the round trip we where ready to use our special shareholders pass. This time shareholder could use their pass for every FastPass entry they wanted. Even with lower waiting times as usual, it still beats standing in line. Peter Pan was our first stop. It’s always great to visit this ride and I always understand why the lines are so long here. It is a great ride, full of fun. I just love the crocodile…

After that we visited the pirates. No FastPass here but with a wait time of only 10 minutes it was impossible to walk by it. Already enjoying the queue area (I think the best queue area of the whole park) we also got ourself some front seat places and off we went to enjoy the ride. But with our special Shareholder ticket we had to get some more FastPass rides done. So up to Buzz to improve my score. Wait a minute! I can’t improve the perfect 999,999 score… So I could only do worst. And I did. 766,600 was my final score, I only hit the Zurg only once for the 100,000 and had to work hard to even get to this score. Even so, that wasn’t going to spoil my day and after a short visit in the shop our trip continued.

Just in time to see the parade. Although not in time for a good place I could still enjoy the floats, trying to make some artistic pictures of the top of the floats and the castle in the background. The villains float is still (and I am sure will always be) my favorite. I love it!

Talking about villains… time for the most evil dolls in Disneyland. A small world visit. You can’t visit Disneyland without visiting small world, no matter how evil these dolls are. Once we survived that ride we walked over to Big Thunder Mountain. David, A cast Member and fellow Disney fan I have known for years, was working the FastPass entry. After a little chat we where ready for our trip on the wildest ride of the west. But not before another Cast Member came up and recognized me from the “From one lightbulb to another” documentary that was a special on an old Disneyland DVD. Thank you! You made me feel like a star…

After enjoying the ride, J°o°el went home and I was ready to see my favorite beast. So many people forget or don’t even care about the dragon under the castle. I love it so much I always visit it and gaze at it for a while. Some people might think it’s a little weird when they would know how long I stay there, but I just love it.

About 1 more hour before the park would close I started some shopping time. I didn’t want to leave to late as I had another 4 hours drive back home waiting for me. Although I did see some new stuff I still couldn’t help myself being a little disappointed. There wasn’t any new park related items, except from the new DVD and park book. I would love to see more park and attraction related stuff. I am happy with the Tower of Terror shop, selling ToT related items, but I always hope they would do more of that with other attractions. I did find one Phantom Manor pin, but that’s all I bought for myself on this trip. I was also looking for some Bolt (called Volt in France) related items. But again, except for some Plush and a couple of books there wasn’t much there. I promised my son I would bring him something back and wanted to surprise him with a Bolt item but I was forced to find something else. After spending some time in the village shops I bought him the big Tower of Terror towel before I walked to the car and started my way home.

It was a short visit, but I loved every minute of it…

This entry was posted on Friday, February 13th, 2009 at 3:59 pm and is filed under Trip Diaries. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.