An eager young 8-year-old boy pressed his nose up against the car window. Excitement was rising. It had been a long, long drive from Washington state to California. After all those restless hours in the car, this was it! The gates to the Magic Kingdom were in sight! The family parks the car. The boy's step-dad gets out of the vehicle... and proceeds to light up a joint. Within minutes... Disneyland security throws the entire family off the lot.
Having never set foot in the park, the boy never returned...
Until now....
Righting the wrongs of the universe, one misdemeanor at a time...
I present to you...
Mr E at Disneyland.
Credit: justthemaid
Credit: justthemaid
Regardless of the fact that Mr E is cagey about crowds, children, noise and non-climbing related fun or happy places in general...I intended to fix this childhood travesty. For his 51st birthday... he was going to Disneyland...even if it killed him.
Reticent hard-man E got the full tour...
Trams:
Credit: justthemaid
Main street USA:
Credit: justthemaid
The Magic Castle:
Credit: justthemaid
Credit: justthemaid
Tomorrowland.
Star Tours, Space Mountain and Autopia. Evidently a freezing cold Monday in January is the perfect time to go if you don't want to wait in lines BTW.
Mr E on Autopia
Credit: justthemaid
After that, I dragged him around to see the usual suspects:
The Matterhorn:
Credit: justthemaid
Credit: justthemaid
Matterhorn in motion.
Credit: justthemaid
Took in the sights.
Big thunder Mountain (closed for renovations)
Credit: justthemaid
Submarines
Credit: justthemaid
Ship
Credit: justthemaid
...and there was no way in hell he was getting away without wearing the damn ears.
Credit: justthemaid
Jungle Tour , Indiana Jones, & the Treehouse:
Credit: justthemaid
A nice lunch at the Blue Bayou
Credit: justthemaid
Mr. E meets the Pirates (kinda cool freaky shots from taking pics in the dark)
pirate of the Carribean
Credit: justthemaid
Credit: justthemaid
Mr E rubs elbows with the Disney stars
Credit: justthemaid
Chauffeurs before his wild ride with Mr. Toad:
Credit: justthemaid
Mr. E was a terrifically good sport. He seemed to have a good time, and lasted a whole half a day before getting cranky, demanding his binky and having to be carried back to the car all tuckered out. :)
I thought for sure this was a story being told many years after the fact by a third person, then got the greatest punchline ever: Stepped out of the card and lit up a joint… within minutes security had tossed the whole family….
There is just no chillin out in the magic kingdom… oh the humanity, and what a total travesty for the young mister e…
glad to have been around to read the conclusion to that story.
Probably scarier than R/X runout to a guy like Erik. He handled it well.
... and no.. they are definitely not weed-friendly there. The cameras are everywhere and no one want's the humiliation of being locked in Disney-jail. . I had a Disney-fanatic friend get caught hunkered down, hiding in his car trying to get a little puff in. They cancelled his season pass and tossed him out.
I had a blast! It was a cold Monday, and like Maidy said: probably one of the best days to go. Probably didn't hurt that a few of the big attractions were shut down.
Moving the old light parade to California Adventure... yet another travesty... for future generations of hallucinogen users that is. Toon Town was but a small consolation.
but I digress.
Edit to add: Not that I would know anything about that... Mom... if you are reading... :)
Awesome! Love this report... you two are way high on the creative spectrum!
For my 50th last year, that's where we went. When you have three young kids plus are a 50 year old kid yerself, where else could I have possibly wanted to go? Spent three days and two nights at the Disneyland Hotel and had a complete blast. Was a tad warmer since it was May!
Only problem is now all the kids think that you get to stay at Disneyland for three days for their birthdays!
Not my first time by far, since my wife is ex-Diz from back in the day. Plus her Mom lives about 15 minutes away so access is easy. Literally due west in a straight line by about a block. You can see the fireworks every night from Grandma's street.
If you want warm temps and low crowds, we always go for the day on the last Saturday in August. It's usually pretty quiet because everyone is gearing up for back to school and done with vacations plus Saturdays are blacked out for most season pass holders.
I always enjoy the people watching. You get to see a cross section of some kind of America that I (at least) don't get to see every day. :-)
Nice report. It's wild you'd never been there. I grew up in Orange County so we could and did go fairly often. Now that I live in LA, it's no problem taking my three kids either. Can't imagine missing out on that as a kid. I think getting that familiarity earlier in life helped ingrain it as a special place to me despite, what is now, a clear acknowledgement of what a corporate money extracting machine it truly is. Still have a great time despite how much lighter my wallet is when I leave.
I'm in your camp. Erik (my husband) is the one who grew up out of state. I grew up in LA. My family went to Disneyland pretty regularly. In college I had friends working there and got in free or cheap so I'd go to Disneyland at the drop of a hat (pre-climbing when I had no life).
In spite of the "corporate money extracting machine" aspect of it... I still felt pretty nostalgic about the visit. It had probably been 10 years since I was last there. I got into climbing on weekends. The friends stopped working there and when they cleaved off California Adventure and raised the prices it seemed to dilute the experience so I stopped going.
There was some major sticker-shock over the current ticket price BTW. Not sure how Joe-Blow affords to take his kids there these days.
I love Dada! A fried sent that CD to us when we were living in Hong Kong and I fell in love with it. My wife worked for Disney there at the time so that's why she sent it (to keep on TR topic!).
She didn't work for the theme park side (she was in consumer products) but as an employee we got into Disneyland for free and got the 30% discount on everything else in the park. Now that that she's ex-Diz, we gotta pay for the full ride too. Wallet emptying, yes, but we still have fun. It's kind of like crack. And I love the people watching.
I have a funny story about returning another defective Dada CD in Hong Kong, but that's for some other thread. :-)
The rotating tea cups are the best ride at Disneyland. Trade in all of your tickets and do the tea cups until you send a spray of spew across the entire ride.
I came very close to doing just that--spewing across the swirling floor of the Tea Cups.
The other three in our cup were intent on spinning it as fast as they could. And spin it they did. The crowds on aligned against the sides of the ride cheered each time we went past, we were spinning like a top I suppose.
And, I suppose it didn't help that we were all high as kites, and not just from the joint we sparked on Tom Sawyer's Island... And to think, that was just a few years ago when I was a senior in High School. Ho dear...
