Guardians of the Tower of Terror

So five years after buying Marvel and making piles of money in the process, Disney still doesn't have a high profile Marvel presence in the Disneyland / Disney California Adventure theme parks.  Or sure, there have been a slew of meet and greets along with various movies prop displays, but nothing with a WOW factor.  So the rumor is now out there from various blogs and Disney gossip websites that rather than spending gobs of money on a Marvel attraction (especially while large sums of cash are being plowed down on Star Wars efforts), why not just take an existing attraction that doesn't quite fit the Disney profile anyway and re-theme it to a Marvel movie tie-in.

And so we get the highly probable rumor from various inside sources that Disney will take the existing Twilight Zone Tower of Terror attraction in Disney California Adventure and re-theme to Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy (a second Guardians movie is due out next year).  Sounds like a pretty workable idea to me.  I wouldn't mind getting frightened out of my wits on a a scary ride with a fresh look.

A Face Lift for Soarin'

View from Soarin' Around the World - A Disney Parks Blog Photo

Who doesn't love the Soarin' Over California attraction at DCA? Well, Mrs. DisneylandTraveler doesn't because she says the all to common "it messes with my head". Anyway, most people love Soarin' Over California but after all these years, you have to admit the ride has become a little long in the tooth and well......a bit boring. Finally, after all these years, Disney is giving us a new movie and a new ride experience with Soarin' Around the World which is set to launch on June 17 in both DCA and Epcot in the all new pristine 4K digital projection. I've skipped the Soarin' Over California ride my last few trips to Disneyland simply because it had become been there, done that. But put a big mark for the new and improved Soarin' on my next trip. Maybe I can even talk Mrs. DLT into going with me........ :-)

A Food Sampling from Disneyland's Food & Wine Festival

The Food and Wine Festival is in full swing at Disney California Adventure this month, a welcome return for an event that has been missing the last few years. The Disneyland Resort posted a video this week of the some of the more exotic food selections available at this this year's F & W Festival. No churros here just some high quality munchies you just don't see every day at everyone's favorite theme park. Hopefully, it's an event that continues to grow in popularity and in size. I certainly look forward to my return.

Return of the Mad Hatter

Oh no!.  Just in time for Memorial Day Weekend, Johnny Depp returns as the Mad Hatter in Alice Through the Looking Glass.  And here come my nightmares.  And there go my hopes of giving DCA's Mad T Party the boot. It's not going anywhere.

The World of Color Dessert Party

Mrs. DisneylandTraveler is not huge fan of DCA's World of Color water show spectacular. Oh, the show is fine, glorious in fact. Mrs. DLT's issue is the endless standing. Standing to wait for the show to begin, standing throughout the 25 minute performance. After and hour and half of standing around, it's then time to leave and Mrs. DLT, after being on her feet in one spot for that long, is pretty cranky.

But the Disney people are solutions oriented and understand the issue with their guests having to stand for endless amounts of time for a nighttime show after running around their theme parks all day. The good folks at Disney announced a World of Color Dessert Party offering last week which promises a nice seat with the prime view of the show. And you get a dessert to boot. The cost for a seat and something like a cupcake? How about a nice $79 per person (but that includes tax and gratuity).

Mrs. DLT is sleeping in this morning. Can't wait to tell her that Disney is finally offering a seat for the World of Color show. She'll be thrilled. And when I tell her it's only $79, she's probably going to want to break something. I'll tell her the good news, probably at a safe distance of about 20 ft.

Frozen in May

Brrrrrrr.......Shiver........ The new Frozen musical opens at the Hyperion Theater May 27.  I've been Frozened to death over the last year or two and sure didn't want this.

Please remember fondly the great 12 year run of the wonderful Aladdin musical. Gone but certainly never forgotten.  We'll miss you Genie.

Read to Ride on Luigi's Rollickin' Roadsters in Cars Land

Luigi's Rollickin' Roadsters is officially set to open in Disney California Adventure Cars Land on March 7 replacing the much maligned, slow, ponderous, confusing, and sometimes dangerous Luigi's Flying Tires which were shut down about a year ago.

While the new ride hardly looks like must do entertainment on your checklist, it does look a little bit fun if the annoying soundtrack doesn't get to you.  All in all, you would have to consider the new ride attraction a bit of an improvement over the previous occupant of that space.

DCA Turns 15 Years Old

It's hard to believe Disney California Adventure turned 15 years old this month. A lot has changed because a lot had to change for the much maligned park that opened back then. I guess you could say most of the changes of have been for the better and it is a far better park now than when it first opened. These are few of the Disneyland Traveler's pictures of DCA in 2002 - views that have been radically altered if not completely eliminated.

Return of the DCA Food & Wine Festival

I haven't been paying to close of attention to what's been going on down at the Disneyland Resort lately for assorted reasons. This one slipped by me - the return of the Food & Wind Festival at Disney California Adventure which was dropped a few years back.. This event was fun, a lot of fun. Glad to see the return of a good thing. Probably too late to get it together for 2016 F & W Festival, but 2017? Thinking ahead, way ahead. Weekends only during April.

The Tower of Terror - Anxiety Revisited

A couple of years back in a posting on another website, I wrote that I has officially retired from going on The Hollywood Tower of Terror. Anxiety had got the best of me. It wasn't the ride that got to me. From the time you strap in, the ride experience is what?....maybe 40 seconds long? It's easy to think that in less than a minute a relatively benign ride will have me walking towards the exit (which is a store of course with plenty of do-dads that tell you how you survived the Tower or Terror).

No it wasn't the ride, it was the waiting to get on the ride that eventually led to my retirement from the Tower of Terror. The little waiting room scene with Rod Serling on the TV added to the the rides immense theming and didn't bother me. The ghouls that made sure everyone got strapped in didn't bother me. What finally got to me was standing there waiting for the elevator doors to open. That was the moment that did me in.

I could feel my heart beat faster, the anxiety level rise. The waiting....however brief it was......got to me. The ride was only the finishing step to getting out of the place.

It's been 4 years now since I've been on the Tower of Terror and I'm fine with it having made the elevator plunge at least a dozen times in my lifetime. The only way I could see getting on the ride again would be to go with someone who wanted to spend the time waiting for the elevator doors to open talking about the weather or where we are going for dinner. Sometimes distractions from what is about to be are a good thing,

Is California Screamin' A True Disney Attraction?

Let's face it - size matters. When talking about Disney Parks classic ride attractions, does California Screamin' make the grade? The coaster has zero Disney theming. The ride queue and loading platform are about as vanilla as it gets. The ride was purchased from a European manufacturer rather than being Disney "imagineered"? Just what's so Disney about California Screamin'.

Well, nothing at all. It has nothing Disney related going for it. California Screamin's can and probably does exist in any major theme park in countless cities around the world. But yet all but hardened Disney traditionalists kind of look fondly on California Screamin'. Why? Because the ride is huge and certainly isn't going anywhere. It's better to adapt and learn to love it. Besides, the huge structure does provide a backdrop for the well themed Paradise Pier section of Disney California Adventure. And the ride is fun, fast, thrilling, and to my knowledge, the only Disney ride that has a loop.

Now, if only Disney could do something about that ugly queue line and loading platform some day, the ride may finally get the Disney boost it deserves.

Message to Disney California Adventure: Just Say No to More Monsters

For the longest time, there was a rumor that Disney was going to take the under utilized buildings that surround the Monsters Inc. attraction (Stage 17 and the old Who Wants To Be A Millionaire buildings) and build a themed roller coaster based on Pixar's Monsters Inc. and Monsters University films - the so called "Door" Coaster. And while I'm all for Disney shelling out the dollars to build new and compelling attractions, my question has to do more with the Monsters Inc franchise.

I finally got around to watching Monsters University last weekend. You can read my brief thoughts of the movie under the Pixar tab at the top of this page. Hint: I didn't like it. So the question is why Disney would want to build an attraction based on a movie franchise, while quite profitable, isn't one of its best. That statement kind of answers its own question. The Monsters franchise is popular and profitable for Disney. A mini - Monsters Land in that tucked away corner of the Disney California Adventure would be a people eater - something that it isn't now with Monsters Inc. basically being a walk on ride and the nearby Muppets Theater hardly pulling anyone in anymore.

My thought would be forget the Monsters - a coaster is a coaster - why not build a Muppets themed coaster and put a new film in the Muppets Theater. In my book, Muppets trump Monsters any day of the week. Kermit and the gang have withstood the test of time while the Monsters franchise seems weak and lacking in energy.

Ultimately, I would care what Disney put in that one corner of the park as long as they put something. Any kind of attraction would mean less space for silliness like Mad T Party and ElecTRONica.

More things the Disneyland Traveler will ponder when he returns from this Disneyland trip.

• Saw Billy Hill and the Hillbillies yesterday. Will see them again before we leave as the clock is ticking before Disneyland executive chowder heads send them to.... (probably Knotts Berry Farm).
• Long wait for the "Jingle Cruise". Was it worth it? (no)
• Finally saw the "running of the goats" - real cute. Cross off bucket list.
• World of Color Christmas show - it helps to know Olaf and see Frozen first.
• The Disneyland Traveler's experience with lunch at the Carthay Circle Restaurant.
• It took 3+ days of being here before setting foot in DCA. For me, that's about right.
• Still looking for that perfect souvenir or two.
• And still continuing to lose at both Buzz and Toy Story Mania to Mrs. DLT.

Is There Anything I Miss About The Old Disney California Adventure?

Home Base for the Food and Wine Festival.
Rumored to become Monsters Inc. city of Montropolis

So while I'm trying to contain myself and keep myself in check from thinking about our December trip to Disneyland, Mrs. DisneylandTraveler and I have been quietly asking the question of what are the 'must-do' things we must put on our agenda. And thinking of Disney California Adventure and how much there is to do there now and some fine places to eat, I thought to myself ":is there anything I miss about the old California Adventure?"

The short answer is a resounding No. Everything Disney has done to the place for the last 10 years or so has been an improvement beginning with the Tower of Terror construction. Cars Land was just the crowning achievement. But two removals come to mind and yeah, I sort of miss them. The first is the removal of the Disney Electrical Parade (packed up and sent to Florida). True, the parade was a bit hokey and maybe the music relentlessly buzzing in your brain could cause brain damage, but there was something about it. Maybe it was the tradition, maybe it was than on that special night, when the mood was right, it really was a beautiful site.

The second thing I miss about the old days was the shutting down of the DCA Food and Wine Festival held for a couple of years in late spring. Imagine, a Disney Park event really meant for adults - not the street party non-sense of Glowfest, ElecTRONica, or Mad T Pary, but a sophisticated festival built around the enjoyment of fine wine and beers along with some excellent finger foods to enjoy along the way. Even my sister, a non-drinker, thoroughly enjoyed the festival with cooking demonstrations by top chefs and the whole grown up spin on the park experience. The Food and Wine Festival was a great addition to DCA.

The Food and Wine Festival was stopped due to the massive construction occurring in DCA especially with Buena Vista St. Others believed that Disney used the construction as an excuse to bring an end to the event. The rumor mill had the story that while there was some opportunity to produce revenue from the Food and Wine Festival in California, it just didn't produce enough revenue to make it worth while and it gets back to an old story. The Food and Wine Festival is an enormous success at EPCOT in Walt Disney World in Florida. People travel from all parts of the country to attend the festival, spent money in the resorts, and dropped additional money into special Food and Wine Festival events (often hundreds of dollars to enter certain events). It's a money making machine.

The Disneyland Resort is a different animal. Most of the attendees of the special admission events featuring guest chefs and wine experts were the usual Disney local annual passholders, the kind who drop into the park, attended the event of there choosing, then went home. Disney just wasn't able to pull people into the Food and Wine Festival high admission events who came from great distances and filled the hotels with extra tourists dollars.

At the time it was announced the Food and Wine Festival would not be held due to construction reason, Disney insinuated that the event would return. That's the last that was heard of it. But I know a couple of people who would love to see it return. Imagine: replace Mad T Party with a Food and Wine Festival - replace an $11 cocktail that glows in the dark with a sophisticated glass of a nice wine or unique micro-brew. There is a place for adult events in Disneyland.

Even the Food and Wine Merchandise was for adults.

Some were for beer, some were for wine, but DCA was littered with sampling opportunites

Where To Place A Restaurant In Disneyland and DCA

Beer and Pretzels from DCA's Bayside Brews
A Disney Parks Blog Photo

I must say I found it rather amusing that last Friday, Disney posted in their Parks Blog (link) an announcement that had the Limited Time Magic promotion celebrating an Ocktober Fest time over at DCA's Bayside Brews. The picture shown above of the beer and pretzels came from the blog posting. What does Bayside Brews usually provide to guests when it isn't October? Well, they serve beer and pretzels. I guess when you serve up special German brews and add Bavarian mustard to the pretzels and offer a bratwurst, you can call it a Limited Time Magic event. 

But maybe there is something else. It isn't written about a lot but every once in awhile out in the Disney blog world you hear that DCA's newest dining facilities, Boardwalk Pizza and Pasta & The Paradise Garden Grill, on the far side of Paradise Paradise don't pull in the people that Disney had hoped even though the food served up at these places is really pretty decent. Meanwhile the neighboring Bayside Brews seems to have a line that is much shorter than the Karl Strauss beer truck located in the more centrally located Pacific Wharf dining area (often 10 or 15 people deep).

Bayside Brews - usually never a long wait

Here is the reason lack of diners summed up in a simple question. "You mean we have to way over there to get something to eat?" Very few people just pass by the Paradise Pier dining establishments. Being in the far corner of the park you have to be over there for a reason, If the mostly amusement park rides of Paradise Pier do not appeal to you, then you have no reason to be in that area,

Over at Disneyland, the same can be said for the Hungry Bear Restaurant. Now Hungry Bear can pack them in at lunch time due to the close proximity of the popular Splash Mountain but much of the day, the place can be pretty quiet (and a very nice place to take a break). On really slow days in the winter months, the place may not even open at all. Compare that with a place like the Tomorrowland Terrace which serves up some of the worst food in the park but because of its centralized location, usually has people searching for tables. Being off the beaten path is also why a place like Toon Town probably doesn't have a real dining facility at all (hot dogs and slices of really bad pizza don't count).

If you want a dining facility to be really popular try keep it close proximity to foot traffic where people just pass by getting from one place to the next. It doesn't hurt to serve good food although this doesn't appear to be a requirement in all cases.

Entrance to the Boardwalk Pizza and Pasta & Paradise Garden Grill

Around Disneyland - September 12, 13 - Pictures - Part 2

Aladdin 

Continuing on with my friend and his wife with the photos he passed on to me from his Disneyland trip a week ago.

Aladdin - Wonderful Show Still Going Strong:  Aladdin has been showing to packed houses in DCA's Hyperion Theater for about 11 years or so. There was a bit of down period when the show's best sequence - the Whole New World, flying carpet ride segment - had to be tamely altered following an accident with the carpet. But the flying carpet is back and the show is restored to its total glory. These really are some good pictures.

I know - Jafar is the bad guy - but he really is a good bad guy

We could all use a magic lamp, a genie, and 3 wishes

The Genie - Still the best part of the show and the movie

Cars Land at Night:  As regular readers know, I spent so much time in Cars Land during my week at the Disneyland Resort last spring that by the time I left, I was sick of the place - crowded and over hyped, lacking in any substance other than one really great, great ride. But even I have to admit, the place makes for beautiful pictures at night glowing in neon and accented by the gloriously lit mountains.

Sun going down - lights coming on at Cars Land

World of Color's Winter Dreams

Official Disney artwork for World of Color Winter Dreams

I guess the official announcement was made last week on one of the days my surgically repaired face was hurting so much that the pain medication made Disneyland the furthest thing from my mind. It had been a rumor for a few months but now it's a reality. World of Color will have a brand new holiday themed show featuring the blending of some new characters from Disney Animation's November film release - Frozen - and the classic characters from Disney and Pixar we all know and love. And the promise is the new show will be more narrator driven which will lead the audience into yes..... singing. 

This is welcomed news (I think). Certainly Disney California Adventure needs its holiday theming to be picked up a notch because it does lag behind Disneyland's efforts. There is also the unsubstantiated rumor that DCA is upgrading their holiday theming because Disneyland is about to put their special holiday features behind a separate admission event similar to Walt Disney World's Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party.

Again, whether I make it back to Disneyland this year or not, what WOC's Winter Dreams means is the return of the herd and the show packing people in like when WOC first opened a few years ago. And it will make someone in my demographic age group almost certainly buy some sort of dining package to avoid at least a little bit of the intolerable lines and waiting (and waiting, and waiting) I would expect.

The show is set to debut November 15 - first day of the official Disneyland Resort Christmas season but I would expect a few days of perhaps soft openings and preview shows. 

Disney California Adventure Sinks Into Starbuckification

On our most recent trip to the Disneyland Resort, Mrs. DisneylandTraveler and I twice began our Disney day by having a Starbucks beverage now served up at the Fiddler, Fifer, and Practical Cafe on Buena Vista Street in Disney California Adventure. It's a fine way to start a day. Starbucks serves up a delicious product and you are IN a Disney Park. What could be better? The F,F, & P Cafe also prepares Starbucks breakfast sandwiches, which again is a very tasty little sandwich - a notch up from the McDonalds breakfast variety, but they are the same sandwiches that are available at Starbucks locations around the country. I was also impressed with the  F, F, & P Cafe as a dining facility with its huge interior and large seating capacity that was well staffed with people trying to keep the tables cleaned off and the guests comfortably moving through. All in all, my impressions of Starbucks efforts to find a presence in a Disney Park was quite positive.

I also heard wonderful things about the regular lunch time food offerings the Fiddler, Fifer, & Practical Cafe served specializing in custom prepared sandwiches, soups, and salads. We never made it back to F, F, & P Cafe for lunch. I thought I'd catch a lunch meal on my next trip. Well, Disney shot that idea down the drain. Instead of going with the customed served sandwiches, soups, and salads, the good folks at Disney have taken another step backward and are now offering the pre-made, pre-packaged grab and go type sandwiches and salads that are available from from display cases in Starbucks locations anywhere. It's not a Cafe at all anymore. It's just one big Starbucks with nothing original or special whatsoever.

There are plenty of other places to eat around the Disneyland Resort so this is no big deal, right? Wrong - as once again Disney taken what should have been a pretty good idea and pasted it with laziness. That's the part that is hard to swallow.

Welcome To The C A L I F O R N I A State Fair

When Disneyland fans attend the California State Fair in Sacramento beginning July 12, they will be greeted by some old friends standing out front. The recycled letters from the entrance of Disney's California Adventure for its first 10 years of existence have found their new home.

Hopefully it will be less than 100 degrees by then.

(Corrected State Fair start date)

The Disneyland Traveler And His Cars Land June Pledge

Here what is?

That's it! I've had enough. My co-worker just returned from a trip to Disneyland with her daughter and grandsons. You would have thought Disneyland was renamed to Cars Land as that one small stretch of land with the big mountains at one end dominates the Disneyland discussion. Of course her grandsons are 2 and 4 and live in a world of Cars, their favorite movie so they now have Cars suitcases, Cars t-shirts, Cars mouse ears, and probably a gazillion other Cars related souvenirs. But I have had enough. I want my Disneyland back.

To their credit, Disney created something amazing with Cars Land. They recreated a town from an animated movie and gave us one of the great ride attractions in recent years with Radiator Springs Racers. While Cars Land itself is relatively small (and crowded and hot in the midday sun), Radiator Springs Racers is huge, dripping with detail, and most of all a lot of fun for guests of all ages. Cars Land probably would have been "cute" without the Racers attraction but with it, Cars Land is an over the top destination for anyone visiting the Disneyland Resort.

So after hearing about Cars Land for a year, making my first trip to Cars Land to see what all the fuss is about myself, and now hearing others talk about their first trip to Cars Land, I'm just about Cars Land out. There's a saturation point. If I hear Larry the Cable Guy do his Mater schpiel one more time, I'm going to beat my head against a wall. Who says there isn't money to be made in being a dufus?

So here is the Disneyland Traveler pledge for the month of June. I'm not going to write one word or post one picture about Cars Land for the next 30 days. I'm not going sing Cars Lands praises for how amazing it is or bother you with how sick and tired I am hearing about the place. There is still a Disneyland out there worthy of blog posting and discussion without reference to Cars Land. The Enchanted Tiki Room turns 50 years in a few weeks and in my book, talking birds trump an idiot talking tow truck any day of the week. Now that's something to write about.

Of course, if Cars Land disappears into a sink whole, all bets are off.