The Happiest Place On Earth...

Yesterday, my mom and I spent the entire day at Disneyland. We had free tickets earned volunteering for AIDS Project LA. Volunteering was fun, and Disneyland was a blast! It had been about 4 years since I’d been last and this time we planned out exactly what we wanted to see. There were some great highlights and, yes, a couple low lights. But, let’s start with the good stuff, shall we?




Captain EO

I was really excited to finally see Captain EO. I never got to go during the original run. I was always at Disneyland for a field trip and they never wanted to let us stop for the show. Yes, it’s corny and ful of 80s cliché…but come one, it’s MICHAEL! If you really think about what they were able to accomplish in 1986, it’s still a feat. Michael was as great a performer as he always was. It was filmed sometime between Thriller and Bad. You could actually see his hair transition from the Thriller curl to the Bad wave if you paid close attention. I’m really glad I got to see it.



Blue Bayou Restaurant

Ever since I was a child, I have gotten on Pirates of the Carribean and floated by the Blue Bayou restaurant in awe. It’s a beautiful place with low light surrounded by water and great tropical sound effects. It’s very calm seeing as it’s at the beginning of the ride. So, my mom and I decided we were eating there. Both of us would rather spend money on a good meal than overpriced merchandise any day of the week. And it wasn’t just good, it was great! Like every other Disney attraction, it is meticulously designed and executed. And this was a restaurant with “traditional service”, meaning cloth napkins, proper silver ware, domes over the food and a well choreographed wait staff. I really enjoyed it.

When they brought out the bread with the butter in little balls and the candied walnut & cranberry salad with the salad fork, I got excited! I loved it. A little known fact about me: I took etiquette class when I was a kid. They taught us how to eat, sit, stand, converse, set a table, groom and dress like proper young ladies. Ok, so we were a group of plain jane girls who had no idea where we’d ever use this stuff and it was organized by a mom that couldn’t get her daughter into Jack n’ Jill, but I learned a lot. Every once in a while, I use some of the information. Yesterday was no different; the minute you give me a salad fork, I feel a bit obligated to get it right. It’s a fun, yet personal, challenge to see if I still have it. And I do!

We had a great time on the rides. Star Tours is still as jolting and crazy as ever, Space Mountain is still the most fun you’ll have in the entire park. It was my first time riding the Nemo submarine attraction since they changed it from its original theme to Nemo. It was beautiful. That’s something that strikes you as you walk through the park, the beauty. Disneyland is amazing. But the mechanics behind it are even more amazing. You’ll never see a speck of dirt, a security guard, an employee entrance or area, or any of the machinery that runs the 510 acre park. It’s designed to keep the fantasy intact for everyone 8 to 80. Leave it up to Disney and they’ll have you thinking the place in run on Tinkerbell’s fairy dust and everything is always perfect. They’ve thought of everything. And I do mean everything. You know you’ll never see mice or other pest at Disneyland? It’s outdoors, so you really should. But they have a collection of cats that run the park behind the scenes (and run the entire park when it’s closed) that keep the pests away. Crazy right?

Something that did bug me…the Jungle Cruise and, to a lesser degree, the Tiki House. They are two of the oldest attractions in the park. You can tell because the Jungle Cruise was designed at a time when it was ok to have “giant pygmies” with spears threatening the guests. Basically, in Disney’s eyes in the 60’s Jungle = African and in the most stereotypical way possible. Same with the “Hawaiian” culture in the Tiki Room that included things like statues saying “me like rain”. Mmmmkay. I hadn’t gone to either attraction since I was a kid, neither had my mom. My mom went to Disneyland the week it opened and has probably been dozens more times than I. But, we both saw things a little bit differently when we went to those attractions yesterday.

Interestingly enough, they added Princess Tiana (you know, the black girl) to the lineup at the appointment center where little girls go to get their princess makeovers. We saw a good dozen little girls dressed up as Tiana yesterday. And they’ve gone out of there was to add some New Orleans flavor to a portion of the park. But, they missed the obvious, offensive slant that their oldest attractions have. Yet Small World (which has been there forever) is still the We Are The World of the Disneyland park. Go figure…

I’m looking forward to going again soon though. Nothing really relieves stress like the opportunity to just be a kid again! Here's some of the shots I got...