14 Glorious Hours at Disneyland - a WDW Vet Gets One Day at Walt's Park UPDATE 5/19

[heathsf]

Chapter 4 - Waiting for Rope Drop

So we left off with me skipping and dancing my way through Town Square saying to Bobby, "Aren't you glad I spend so much time on the Disboards!!!???"

We were just at the point where we were about to turn onto Main Street and the castle would come into view. And then...

There it was!


Oh wait... where is it?

Okay, I'm being a stuck-up WDW snob. But I don't mean it. I was fully prepared for the size difference between Cinderella's and Sleep Beauty's Castles. If you aren't aware of it and are heading to DL for the first time after seeing WDW, I imagine it can be viewed as "disappointing." But honestly, I thought it was fantastic. I was so excited to be there, and it's a symbol of being in Disney. On top of that, it felt more special because it's the original. It's the one that Walt built! And I had been looking forward to it for so long and was seeing it for the first time. It was quaint and I liked that it was different from WDW. And honestly...it's much easier to see in person than it is in my picture.

Anyway, I snapped pictures left and right as we made our way down Main Street (literally...on the left side of the street and the right!).




There's just nothing in the world like entering a Disney Park for the first time of a new trip. It's 100% pure happiness mixed with nostalgia and feelings of "I can't believe I'm really here!" And it feels like that every time. I will never be able to get enough.





I took this picture to remind me of the time.


It was almost 8:45 and the park was scheduled to open at 9. Silly me, I thought this meant we would be getting in 15 minutes early. I didn't realize there would still be a rope drop for us off-property peasants.



This is when I realized it:


And here's a much better picture of the castle:


So happy to be here!


We watched the late-coming EE people enter Tomorrowland as we took our place at the rope. We were able to walk right up to the very front of the rope. That's how quickly we were able to get into the park from the Exit Only gate. There was a friendly CM guarding the rope who was handing out park maps and happy to answer anyone's questions while we waited. Funny enough, we found ourselves standing right next to the same couple that we entered the park with. We chatted with them for a bit and discovered we were both planning on grabbing FP for Space Mountain first thing. We decided we would go together so the boys gave us their tickets so we could be the FP runners. I was so psyched. Space Mountain was at the very top of our to-do list

Those last 15 minutes waiting at the rope seemed to take forever. I could not wait to get into the park. I did my best to wait patiently, looking around and taking some pictures.

The fourth mountain!


Waiting right at the rope!


Just as it was about to be 9:00, I turned around to look behind me and saw this:


I told Bobby to turn around and check out the crowd as I pointed out one last time how great the DIS is!

And then the ropes were "dropped" and our one day in Disneyland had officially begun!

[LizzieinDisney]

Your pictures are making me wish I was back on the California Coast, exploring Walt's park! There is nothing so spectacular as Cinderella's castle, but what I love about Sleeping Beauty's is that Walt designed it himself. And there is something wonderful about that. Looking forward to the rest of your report!

[OhioStateBuckeye]

Yay! Where are you going first after SM FP?!

[Leshaface]

Doesn't the DIS make life so much easier?!

OMG I had to show DH your picture of the tiny castle...before he even read the caption underneath your picture, he asked, "Where's the castle?" So funny.

I hope Space Mountain was up and running. So excited to hear about your next update!

[caffingdu]

You know, I hear that when Walt designed the castle, he purposefully made the castle so small so that, while walking down Main Street, you had the impression that the castle was faaaar in the distance. I think, in some ways, you lose that impression at WDW. The castle doesn't looked proportioned with its surroundings, I think. On the other hand, it's nice to see that monstrous castle towering over you by the time you reach it.

[DisneyFreak06]

Yay! I love Disneyland! I had a few more days on my first (and only so far) trip, but I was like you! It was the first, the original, WALT's park!

And yes, I google walked the walk from HOJO to the park many times because it was fun. And other parks, just to see the streets! I have walked from the Carousel Inn a few times too, because that's where I'm staying in July!

Can't wait to see more!

[heathsf]

Originally Posted by DisneyFreak06

Yay! I love Disneyland! I had a few more days on my first (and only so far) trip, but I was like you! It was the first, the original, WALT's park!

And yes, I google walked the walk from HOJO to the park many times because it was fun. And other parks, just to see the streets! I have walked from the Carousel Inn a few times too, because that's where I'm staying in July!

Can't wait to see more!

Haha, so I'm not the only person who "google walks" I like that terminology. How was your first trip?

Originally Posted by caffingdu

You know, I hear that when Walt designed the castle, he purposefully made the castle so small so that, while walking down Main Street, you had the impression that the castle was faaaar in the distance. I think, in some ways, you lose that impression at WDW. The castle doesn't looked proportioned with its surroundings, I think. On the other hand, it's nice to see that monstrous castle towering over you by the time you reach it.

That's really interesting. It does make it seem very far away and you're right about the WDW castle not being in proportion with the rest of Main Street. I'm probably also extra-attached to the WDW castle because it's the one from my childhood

Originally Posted by Leshaface

Doesn't the DIS make life so much easier?!

OMG I had to show DH your picture of the tiny castle...before he even read the caption underneath your picture, he asked, "Where's the castle?" So funny.

I hope Space Mountain was up and running. So excited to hear about your next update!

The DIS just makes life better...in general

Space Mountain was up and running. It closed not long after our trip...thank goodness!!!

Originally Posted by OhioStateBuckeye

Yay! Where are you going first after SM FP?!

We will be going to our first ride...stay tuned for an update on that!

Originally Posted by LizzieinDisney

Your pictures are making me wish I was back on the California Coast, exploring Walt's park! There is nothing so spectacular as Cinderella's castle, but what I love about Sleeping Beauty's is that Walt designed it himself. And there is something wonderful about that. Looking forward to the rest of your report!

I absolutely agree with you, there is something so special about that

[heathsf]

Chapter 5 - A Tale of Two Mountains

So the ropes were dropped and we were off. My new friend Rachel (who is a DISer so Rachel please say "hi" if you happen to see this!) and I headed straight to the Space Mountain FP machines. Good thing she knew where she was going because I just followed her! We walked right up to the machines and grabbed our FP with a return time of 9:45.


This was my first time experiencing any kind of FP enforcement. I was really hoping that it wouldn't begin until after this trip but unfortunately it had already started. It very clearly stated on the FP that it needed to be used during the window. Even though I really would've preferred to be able to use them late, just so we didn't have to plan out exactly where we would have to be at a certain time, it wasn't too difficult to do and it certainly didn't diminish the experience in any way.

On our way to what would be our first ride I spotted the monorail!


And we were approaching this:


Our first ride was going to be something unique to Disneyland... the Matterhorn! I was so excited! We got in line with Rachel & Jordan and chatted with them for a while. Quite a long while actually. It was about fifteen or twenty minutes before I realized that the line wasn't going anywhere! We were so enjoying talking with them that we hadn't even noticed that we had barely moved that entire time. We figured since we had already spent that time on line and it was now moving (although slowly) we might as well wait it out.


I scoped out the Finding Neo Subs. I was interested in doing this because it seemed really neat but also because they don't have it in Florida, but I had read that it was slow loading and the lines could get really long later in the day. So if it happened, great, and if not, oh well.


Almost there!!!






And then finally...we were on!


I really enjoyed the ride for what it was. It was awesome to be on the Matterhorn, in Disneyland, on the very first steel roller coaster in the world. It wasn't my favorite ride of the day, but it was good. It just wasn't worth a 45 minute wait first thing in the morning. I'm not sure if it hadn't opened right away at 9 or maybe there was just a lot of people already in line before us, but the line was too long and I was kind of disappointed that we had spent so much time waiting for it. Bobby agreed with me too. But oh well, we were in Disneyland and we were going to have an amazing day! Long waits or not!

It was time to say good-bye to our new friends as we would be heading in opposite directions. We were going to use our FP for SM! Anticipating it being an awesome ride, we decided to get new FP before we went in. These had a return time of 11:10.


I recognized this from WDW. Bobby had lots of fun with it on our last trip.



The FP line moved very quickly and we were being directed to the first row within just a few minutes.

I think I've mentioned this a few times already but I had very high expectations for this ride and I had been hyping it up to Bobby. I'm not a huge fan of SM at WDW but it was one of Bobby's favorite rides so that gives you some perspective when I tell you we had high expectations. So what did we think? Oh. My. Gosh. I have joined the people who feel that SM at WDW needs to be knocked down and rebuilt exactly the same as it is in DL. It was amazing. I don't know if it was actually faster, but it felt faster. And it was so smooth! The thing that bothers me most about WDW's SM is how jerky it is. I really don't like feeling like I'm being tossed around on a roller coaster. It's just too rough for me. But this...was perfect! And it seemed much darker too. In WDW I can see the beams throughout the whole ride. Here, I only saw darkness and stars. It was incredible. We both loved loved loved it! Good thing we grabbed those FP before we went in because we would definitely be using them!

For a moment I kind of wished we had just ridden SM an extra time instead of waiting all that time for the Matterhorn because we enjoyed SM so much more. But of course, had we done that I would have felt that I had missed out on experiencing the Matterhorn so oh well, no regrets!


We had no idea where the camera was so we totally ruined what would have been a totally awesome picture for the family behind us. They all look totally into it like they're having the time of their lives and Bobby looks slightly bored and I'm all worried about what outer space did to my hair

[DisneyFreak06]

I can't wait to try the Matterhorn, just because it is something not at WDW! I will ride Space Mountain more often too, I think we only got on it once last time.

My goal is to try to figure out where the ride pictures are to do something silly, because I am usually just grinning from ear to ear.

I had an awesome experience at Disneyland last time. This time will be amazing too, I'm will be eating lunch at Club 33!!!