FORWARD

Hi friends,

Happy Friday!

As many of you know, I, on the occasion that I get to travel & do fun things, tend to write travel blogs about those experiences. The past couple of weeks I have held residency in LA primarily for work but I also managed to clear up a day just to make Disneyland happen. I wanted to share what I found there & how it differed specifically from my trips to Disneyland in the past. I also wanted to frame this in the light of my usual travel blog with pictures & stories to add a bit more fun into the mix.

I hope you enjoy!

BTW, unlike my other travel blogs that are often many parts, this will only be one. I was only there for one day.

DISNEYLAND/CALIFORNIA ADVENTURE

Allow me to start this by saying that I am not a Disney adult. I am a huge fan of a lot of the mouse’s properties specifically where things like Star Wars & Marvel are concerned, I am also a lover of animated films, but I am by no means a fanatic, nor am I a Disney Parks fanatic. I don’t have the inside scoop, as of yet, BUT I did do quite a deal of pre-planning before even setting foot in their doors, which during the current Ponderosa Steakhouse, is a requirement.

Let me first say that to even get into the parks, under the current conditions, you have to reserve your ticket & your parks ahead of time through the Disneyland App. We wanted to park hop, so we had to book our reservations & date of entry extra early. In addition to your park reservation you also have to make virtual queue reservations for two of the current rides, Rise of the Resistance in Disneyland’s Galaxy’s Edge & W.E.B. Slingers in California Adventure’s Avengers Campus. Reservations for which open up at 7 AM the day of.

I set my alarm the morning of our trip for 6:55 AM in order to get up & make our ride reservations. They allow you to form groups in the app, combining all party members’ tickets into one section so that you can book for the entirety of your party & not just one person at a time. We had been assigned a starting point of Disneyland with our park hopper pass which meant we couldn’t apply for a spot in the W.E.B. Slingers’ virtual queue until noon, we also weren’t allowed to enter California Adventure at all until 1 PM…with that park closing at 6 that night for Oogie Boogie Bash, a halloween party that requires a completely separate ticket & reservation…Anyway, I logged on right at 7 AM & our virtual queue spot for Rise of the Resistance was set to be around 11:45-12 PM. That should show you how quickly they fill up. Think of it like Southwest Airlines boarding group check-in.

We arrived at the park a little later than I’d have liked which ended up being around 11 AM. Disneyland is currently opening its doors at 8 AM & California Adventure does the same at 10 AM. They also are apparently not running the tram system at the moment. How that prevents the spread of COVID when you spend the day masked up with a ton of strangers all crammed together on rides, I’ll never know. So yes, you have to walk from the parking garage to the park entrances & yes, it is a walk, around a half a mile.

We entered Disneyland & immediately headed to Galaxy’s Edge. As I mentioned above I am partial to Star Wars which is probably the understatement of the century. I love Star Wars, truly, deeply. I grew up on it, I have been many a character from Star Wars for halloween, I consume all the lore & media available around Star Wars. So I was looking forward to this portion of the park to say the least. Quite frankly I was convinced that I was going to cry walking into Galaxy’s Edge but I didn’t! I definitely had the cheesiest of grins though.

Upon entering Galaxy’s Edge we immediately went looking for food & drink, we were all pretty hungry. I popped into the Milk Stand & got a Blue Milk & a Toydarian Swirl. I liked the Blue Milk a lot, the Toydarian Swirl, not so much. It was overly salty for some reason & they’d put way too much tajin on it for my taste. After a drink we walked over to Ronto Roasters for some lunch. Ev & I both got a Ronto Wrap (a sausage topped with pulled pork, peppercorn sauce, & tangy slaw all wrapped up in a pita) & Jenna got the Ronto-less Garden Wrap (a plant based sausage, kimchi, pickles, & peppercorn sauce also atop a pita). In addition to the wraps we also got an assortment of drinks; the Tatooine Sunset & Meiloorun Juice. I preferred the Meiloorun Juice but ended up swapping it out with Jenna & Evan because they couldn’t pallet the Tatooine Sunset, which I truly didn’t mind.

After lunch it was time for us to join our physical queue for Rise of the Resistance. Yes, you heard that right, after you spend several hours in a virtual queue you then have to spend around 20-30 minutes in a physical queue. While in the queue it became time for us to book our spots in the W.E.B. virtual queue. We tried & we tried to get in but the app wouldn’t let us through so we ended up missing out on a spot in the queue…more on that later. We got onto Rise of the Resistance & I immediately started geeking out. The ride operates in a fashion that makes it so you enter a landing ship in the park before being sent into space & being picked up by a star destroyer. You then exit through the same doors you entered through into the hanger of the star destroyer, it’s fantastically immersive! From there you’re shown to your “prison holding cell” where you are busted out by members of the Resistance cutting through the wall. You’re then set in a cart led by a droid & have to escape the star destroyer before returning to Batuu i.e. Galaxy’s Edge. It’s truly a superb ride with some impressive effect & animatronic work involved!

By the time we got off the ride it was almost time for us to enter California Adventure. Did I mention the park was beyond crowded the day we went?! So most waits for rides were at the bare minimum thirty to forty minutes. We got to Cali Adventure right around our entry time & made a be-line to Avengers Campus. We did this partially because much like Star Wars I’m a tad Marvel obsessed but then so is Jenna, at least where the MCU is concerned, & partially to try & fix our virtual queue issues with W.E.B.. I was given the task of talking our problem over with a park manager because, if you remember in my previous travel blogs, I have a super power of always being able to get a reservation anywhere. I explained to the parks manager what happened, may have been a tad exaggerated on the details while keeping them honest, but when he looked at our party he found no reason we shouldn’t have been able to make the reservation & added us to the last queue of the day, 5:30 PM. Bag secured.

Once we’d secured our reservation in the virtual queue we headed to Pym’s Tasting Lab for some libations. It was a hot day in Southern California & water, amongst other drinks, were a must. Evan & Jenna got the Honey Buzz, which they both agreed was way too sweet, & I got the Particle Fizz because anything P.O.G., Passionfruit, or Guava will always get my vote. We took our drinks & walked over to Pixar Pier to ride The Incredicoaster, an Incredibles themed launch coaster. Along the way we also snagged a few bottles of water & a pickle which we had downed completely by the time we boarded the ride.

I was more than pleasantly surprised by The Incredicoaster! It was truly a lot of fun. The drops were there but not too extreme, the twists & loops were also there but again, not too intense & the theming of The Incredibles trying to catch Jack-Jack fit perfectly. There’s even a part of the ride where they pump in the smell of fresh baked cookies (subliminal advertising for the cookie stand at the ride’s exit)!

After the rollarcoaster we came to the consensus of being way too hot & hopped over to Ariel’s Undersea Adventure because it was indoors & air conditioned. The ride itself is fine, a dark ride that casually takes you through animatronic events of the movie, but we had really gone in just to get cooled down seeing as it also had no wait.

We left the pier & went back to Avengers Campus to try & get on Guardians of the Galaxy-Mission: BREAKOUT! but they had just closed it for a re-theme they do during Halloween that revolved around monsters of the MCU. So instead we got food. At Pym’s Test Kitchen Ev & I split the Not So Little Chicken Sandwich & Jenna had the PB3 Superb Sandwich sans Candied Bacon. The food there was excellent with the exception of the stale bread on the chicken sandwich which we easily removed & ate like a fried chicken steak. I also got a Proton PB&J Punch here which was a fascinating drink to say the least.

We decided to go back to Disneyland because most of the rides we wanted to do were there, our reservation for W.E.B. wasn’t until 5:30, & all the ride queues were short seeing as everyone & their mother had flocked to California Adventure for that 1 PM call time.

Upon re-entry of the land we made our way to Indiana Jones Adventure, one of the best rides in the whole park if you’re asking me or Jenna! The line was relatively nonexistent so we were on & off in a breeze. We then made our way over to Pirates of the Caribbean, which, if you haven’t ridden, is 1,000X better at Disneyland than its Disney World counterpart! I said what I said & I’m sticking to it. After we had basically, again, walked onto Pirates the people were starting to return from California Adventure. We snagged a few Spicy Pickles from Bengal Barbecue & walked back on over to Cali Adventure just in time for our W.E.B. reservation.

If I’m being completely honest we weren’t exactly the most upset about not getting a W.E.B. reservation initially. You see we thought the ride was going to be very similar to Toy Story Midway Mania in the sense that both rides are “shooting gallery” style where each individual person racks up points shooting at targets. We weren’t really into the idea of that, but we went! We’d put in the effort to secure the resy so why not give it a whirl? There was no one in line when we got there & we actually walked onto this ride, that is after the ride pre-show played, shout out to Tom Holland, pleasure getting to see you as always.

I’m going to lay this out flat for you all. RIDE W.E.B. SLINGERS IF YOU GET THE CHANCE!!! The ride is a complete & utter blast! You are loaded into a cart, Toy Story style, you are given 3D glasses, Toy Story style, but unlike Toy Story there is no mounted gun. “But Charlie,” you may ask, “how do you score points then?” Well my lovelies, you score points by “webbing up” spider-bots & assisting Spider-Man through many different rooms in the ride. What do you use to web up these spider-bots you ask. YOU USE YOUR ARMS!!!! YOU LITERALLY EXTEND YOUR ARM, TOBEY MCQUIRE SPIDEY STYLE, & WEB UP SPIDER-BOTS LIKE THE WEB FLUID IS COMING OUT OF YOUR WRISTS!!!!! It’s a workout for sure but honestly was probably the most fun we had all day!

We exited the park right around the time it closed for Oogie Boogie Bash but not before I picked up a shiny set of display web shooters that I actually ended up using as part of a last minute Peter Parker Halloween costume that weekend. When we once again re-entered Disneyland we immediately went for Dole Whip by the Enchanted Tiki Room. The sun was setting, the day was starting to cool of & it was a nice. We then decided to head back over to Galaxy’s Edge.

If you haven’t caught on, yes, we did spend most of our day bouncing between Avengers Campus & Galaxy’s Edge & I couldn't have been happier about it!

Jenna’s one request when we booked our Disney trip was that we grab drinks at Oga’s Cantina, she wanted herself a Fuzzy Tauntaun (fizzy lip tingling drink). Unfortunately Oga’s is now on a reservation/waitlist system only & all reservations for it are booked out about a month in advance. So we decided to head into Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run. On the way to Smuggler’s Run my reservation sense was tingling & the super power once again kicked in. I opened up my Disneyland app to check on Oga’s & it was still showing a ‘full waitlist,’ I clicked the ‘add name to waitlist’ option anyway & much to J’s surprise was immediately given a wait time of 15 minutes. So naturally Smuggler’s Run got to wait.

In Oga’s I once again start geeking the F out. It’s a Star Wars cantina through & through & it feels like it was literally ripped out of one of the films even though it’s an all new creation. I ordered an Oga’s Obsession (boba & jelly concoction served in a petri dish) & The Outer Rim (a pomegranate margarita-esque cocktail), followed by a Takodana Quencher (dragonberry rum with kiwi & pineapple) which I was not a fan of. The other two things were bomb though! J got a Fuzzy Tauntaun, naturally, & Batuu Bites, an assortment of crispy veggies. She was disappointed to find the fizz wasn’t tingly this go round & apparently it had been a problem all day. Evan got Jabba Juice, a non-alcoholic orange/pinepple boba drink.

After we’d payed our tab at Oga’s it was almost time for the thing I’d looked forward to doing all. freakin. day! It was time for me to build my lightsaber at Savi’s Workshop! Yet another thing that you have to book in advance, Savi’s allows you to build a custom lightsaber all your own. You first choose what type of hilt you want; something reminiscent of the Old Republic, or maybe the Jedi themselves, something more in line with the dark side, or maybe something more that feels like having had to had scavenged for parts. I chose “Peace & Justice” a style more inline with the Jedi.

Once you choose your hilt style you are given a pin to mark which your preference was before being shown into the “back room” of Savi’s to construct your saber amongst around 10-12 other people. I was placed dead center. Like the whole show that accompanies the build was happening right in front of me. This is the moment I expected to cry, the moment I assembled my own lightsaber. I didn’t. I was, however, visibly shaking. To quote Evan it was like an ecstatic tremble.

The first thing that happens once you’re placed is that you’re told to choose your Kyber Crystal. Your options are blue, green, violet, or red (you can buy more colors & crystals in the store next door). I chose blue, anyone surprised there? After choosing your crystal you are given the interior mechanism of your hilt & instructed to insert your Kyber Crystal. The assistants of the show then place your designated tray of parts in front of you & you are walked through the process of building your hilt around the inner mechanism. You have the options of two different pummels, two different igniters, two different emitters, & four different grips (of which you pick two). When your construction is done the cast members come around & place your hilt into an “ignition chamber” attaching it to a blade. You then all ignite your sabers at once as the room darkens & the chambers all open simultaneously. Chills. Instant full bodied chills. I got them but still, no tears much to my surprise. In addition to my blue crystal I also got a red & a white, the latter of which I lean the most towards. If you understand Star Wars lore you know what that means.

I tried desperately to get Jedi robes & a tunic while at Disney but they said they’d been sold out of them for months. I had planned to use that as my Halloween costume for the weekend but I guess some plans fall apart. I even tried to get a Resistance pilot suit but alas everything was too small.

Our last venture of the evening was Smuggler’s Run, yes we made it aboard! Another ride that I cannot recommend enough, Smuggler’s Run puts you in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon. In a crew of six two people are assigned pilot (one controls vertical stick, the other horizontal), two people are gunners, & two people are engineers. It’s a lot of fun & I may have gotten a little too competitive in the midst of it.

With the park closing down & exhaustion setting in we walked (ugh) the trek back to the car & made for In-N-Out for a late night dinner. Overall I’d say it was a pretty great day at Disney, I just wish it hadn’t been so crowded so we could’ve ridden more things or maybe ridden things multiple times!

FN-2187

Travel Blog: Disneyland (COVID Edition)

Charlie Rogers