12:05 a.m. - 2004-12-30
Disneyland, part two.
Our first day in Disneyland, we got up pretty early and got there for the opening of the park. We stood in line for a while, and then got shuttled into the park to wait around there. When they let us into the main part of the park, we made our way over to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. It was kind of an arbitrary choice, but we figured we'd tackle a big ride first before the lines got long.
We hustled right up to the front of the line and climbed onto a train. As the train prepared to leave, the safety announcement came on. It gave the usual spiel, but it ended with "Cause this here's the wildest ride in the WILDERNESS!", and the Raisin and I gave each other this look of total glee as the train went leaping off down the tracks.
It ruled. It was so fun, and silly, and fast and hilarious, and we laughed the whole time and took goofy pictures of each other on the hills and stuff, and as soon as the ride pulled to a stop we ran around and went on it again. We couldn't stop laughing the whole time. It seemed too good to be true, this place where everyone was cheerful and having a good time and it didn't matter that I didn't have a job and I didn't know what I was doing with my life, because I was having the time of my life and nothing could bother me for those magical nine days.
We ran around all morning, quickly grasping the concept of FastPasses, which let you skip large parts of the line, and soon assessing the best way to avoid the worst lineups. We climbed up in Tarzan's Treehouse while we were waiting for our turn on Indiana Jones, and we got the bejeezus scared out of us by the panther, which made both of us screech and caused the four year old behind us to ask "are you guys ok?" It was kind of embarrassing but totally hilarious.
We went on rides all morning, laughing and joking and having a non-stop fantastic time. Indiana Jones was totally wicked - we were both extremely impressed by it. Jungle Cruise was more fun than I was expecting, mostly because our tour guide totally kicked ass. One of the most hilarious moments on the entire trip was actually on that ride. We went past this one part where there's this animal chasing two tourists up a totem pole, and the tour guide says "I don't recognize that animal. It must be new!" And of course, it was a gnu.
Well, I totally guffawed. It was funny! But I was the only person on the entire freaking boat who laughed. Everyone else looked at me like I was a total weirdo, including the Raisin. So of course, I had to explain the joke to her, which makes it less amusing. But when we were getting off the boat, the tour guide (who was really cute) said "thanks for riding on Jungle Cruise, and thanks to the one girl who got my gnu joke!" and I giggled some more and the tour guide smiled at me and I felt like a thirteen year old girl.
And it was just so AWESOME. The whole day was like that - laughing, being silly, singing along with the music that's omnipresent (somehow, though, they manage to have different music in the different lands and yet the music never overlaps! It's magic.), and skipping down the streets. Even the lineups were fun, because we'd goof around, and take pictures, and point things out, and make fun of the pin collectors. (There's this whole genre of Disneyland visitors who make us look completely non fanatical. They have these lanyards covered in these collectible pins, and they all trade them in and share tips and stuff, and it's quite frankly a little creepy and a total marketing scam, but it was a good way to make fun of people while killing time in line.)
We went back to our hotel room in the early afternoon, where we had some lunch (much cheaper than eating in the park) and went for a swim. When we headed back to the park, we'd missed the hottest part of the day and were feeling much more alert than most of the other people looked.
Once we got back into the park, it wasn't too long until our FastPasses on Splash Mountain were activated, so we hustled on over there. And it totally kicked ass! Splash Mountain was the one ride that had been closed when I went in high school that I'd really wanted to go on, so I was even more excited about it. We were expecting a pretty standard flume ride, so as we piled into our log we were kind of disturbed to find no seatbelts or restraints of any kind. We'd watched a lot of people go flying down that drop, and we spent the first few minutes freaking out about the fact that we were not secured at all.
But then we hit the first drop, and it was really fun and we did not need a seatbelt or anything, so we prepared ourselves for the big drop.
Little did we know that there was actually a lengthy musical interlude between the two drops. We laughed, and laughed, and laughed. We were totally expecting a big log drop and ended up in this major pyschological drama with animatronic animals. It ruled! We got soaked, and it was totally worth it.
After that, we headed over to ToonTown to get a fast pass for Roger Rabbit, and then rode the highly unsatisfying Inspector Gadget roller coaster which was an endless ride for an extremely lame ride. Roger Rabbit was really fun - the Raisin doesn't do well with spinning, so we took our own cars, which meant we passed my camera back and forth between our cabs to get some very hilarious pictures of us wheeling around in Benny the Cab.
After a small snack, we wandered around the rest of the park and onto some more rides. The details of what we went on when are woefully fuzzy, although I do think I have the beginnings of writing about it on my parents' computer somewhere, so I'll have to look at that next time I'm there. The day flew by, between rides and lines and laughing and singing. We watched the parade, and we poked through a couple of the stores, and we didn't stop smiling the entire time we were there. I don't think I've ever smiled that much before in my life.
And that was only the first day.
