The Things We Pack For A Disneyland Trip

We may take the 1 hour flight to Disneyland again some day but as for now, Mrs. DisneylandTraveler and I drive the 434 miles from our home outside of Sacramento to the Disneyland front gates. While the plane flight is short and convenient, driving has spoiled us. Sound backwards? Maybe, but the one thing we have found out through the years is driving allows us to bring "stuff" all kinds of "stuff" we could never take on a plane.

Of course there are the essentials when packing for a Disneyland trip...you know....layers of clothes, comfortable shoes, a camera, toothpaste, deodorant, the usual suspects. Here are some of the more items we take that are a bit out of ordinary.

Those little 4 cup coffee makers they put in hotel rooms are pretty much a joke. 4 cups? Maybe in the world of the seven dwarfs you could get 4 cups out of one of those things - 2 cups max. Forget that, we bring a coffee pot - good ol' 12 cup Mr. Coffee. Of course we now have to pack sugar, splenda, and creamer. "Wait a minute" you interject "Don't you need to keep creamer refrigerated?" Unless its the powdered kind - yes you do. So into the back of the Disneyland Traveler Disney-mobile (a Ford Explorer currently) goes the ice chest - 48 quarts worth. "That's a little large for creamer" - well, add soda, water, beer, and anything else that needs to be kept cold and a large cooler comes in handy.

We live in a digital age, an age of cell phones, laptops, iPods, digital cameras,and video recorders. Everything has a battery that needs to be charged (kind of like people, that's what the beer is for). Well, most hotel rooms have like 2 visible outlets that aren't being used by something. Nothing that a large multi-outlet power strip couldn't fix and which we now always pack.

Speaking of plugging in.... most Disneyland area hotel rooms have working air conditioning that sufficiently keep rooms cool. But no, that's not quite good enough. Mrs. DLT needs a fan, an oscillating fan to blow a breeze on her when she sleeps. It also helps drown out noises from outside the room. Of course, every hotel room has a slightly different layout so just in case, we also pack an extension cord for the fan - about 20 ft. should do it.

Now this is the one that drives me crazy. Mrs. DLT can't seem to pack for a 5 day to Disneyland even though she appears to have enough clothes that will get her through any natural disaster. She has to make one trip to the hotel laundry room to wash clothes. She makes me go with her. So here we are at the Happiest Place On Earth separating lights from darks. Of course whatever detergent the hotel sells out of a vending machine isn't going to work so now we''re packing containers of liquid laundry detergent and fabric softener. Don't forget to pack some extra quarters for the machine.

Speaking of liquids. I'm pretty much good with hotel soap, shampoo, and conditioner. It works for me. Not for Mrs. DLT on the other hand as she brings bottles and bottles of stuff - not just shampoo and conditioner but assorted lotions and cremes. There isn't a square inch of flat space in that bathroom that doesn't have a bottle of something on it (and I'm not talking small bottles).

Some people are napkin people, Mrs. DLT and I tend to be more paper towel people. We go through a lot of paper towels. Better pack a roll or two along with plastic knives, forks, and spoons just in case. Then throw in some plastic garbage bags for dirty clothes and such. 

I mentioned a laptop computer earlier. Now, traveling with a laptop is commonplace these days. Maybe a trip to Disneyland is the one place you should be able to get away from computers for awhile. For us, a laptop is pretty much mandatory as I use it download huge amounts of pictures and videos on a daily basis so everyday we start with a clean memory card. The laptop also becomes essential to watch Disney suck the life out of our bank account on a daily basis. It's quite entertaining really in a perverted kind of way.

So that's pretty much our out of the ordinary packing items. I'm sure there are more. Pictures in this blog entry are of the Candy Cane Inn, our favorite place to stay outside of the Disneyland Hotel or Grand Californian. It's very nice and a third of the price of a Disney hotel which leaves us more money to spend inside the park where we take a look each night and review how Disney has just sucked the life again out of our bank account.

The Selling Of Frankenweenie

Frankenweenie Plush Merchandis
A Disney Parks Blog Photo

Disney is making a big park push to promote Tim Burton's Frankenweenie film scheduled for release on October 5. An exhibition of Tim Burton's Frankenweenie art will be displayed at Disney California Adventure beginning this month along with movie previews shown in the Muppet's 3D Theater in the evenings. And of course, Frankenweenie merchandise is hitting the store shelves. Am I the only one who finds this to be a little too weird and unsettling to actually be enjoyable? I've seen a couple of previews for the movie including what is being shown in theaters in 3D and I have to admit there is a bit of sad sweetness to what I saw on the screen but overall - unsettling seems to be the word, at least for me.

Labor Day and Cast Member Appreciation

Disney Artwork from Disney Post Blog

Today is Labor Day, a holiday for us in America where we celebrate the workers - kind of sounds like communism there for a minute. Anyway, Hello - I'm Labor and I have the day off - also no school, no banking, no mail, but if you want to buy something, everything is open.

Since this is a Disney blog, the Disneyland Traveler wants to give his tip of the hat to all the Disneyland cast members who work hard to give everyone a special time in The Happiest Place On Earth. True, not all cast members work as hard as others in making sure smiles stay on guest faces as evidence in my story from last year - Story Of A Mean Ol' Cast Member but by and large, Disney has some great people working in their parks.

I have a lot of respect for cast members. Every once in awhile Mrs. DisneylandTraveler will blurt out about how wonderful it would be to work at Disneyland. I shake my head and just think about, other than a small handful of great jobs, most of these cast members have to put up with an awful lot from rude people often with a large sense of entitlement. I think especially about the cast members who have to work something like crowd control who spend a lot of time telling people something they don't want hear then get an earful in return. 

Cast members aren't in the park to give people a hard time. They are there to maintain order and safety for all guests and try to give all a magical day (and of course, sell you stuff). I'm just hear to express my appreciation to the Disneyland cast members, most of them anyway, working hard to keep a smile on my face.

Walt Disney World vs. The Home Office

Walt Disney World in Florida is near the top of the list of most sought after tourist destinations in the world and with good reason - deluxe accommodations, fine dining experiences, 4 theme parks, 2 water parks, a sports complex, golf, and many other activities. Grand and spacious, you could spend weeks there and still not take it all in. Fans of Walt Disney World sometimes have an air of smugness about them simply because in their world - size matters. One thing that WDW has in spades is size.

And fans of WDW have a tendency to get defensive when you bring up the Disneyland Resort compared their park. After all, compared to WDW, Disneyland is down right puny. But the last few years, WDW fans have had to take it on the chin a bit and they don't like it.

I think it started with the lush World of Color and the plans for Disney California Adventure expansion. WDW was expanding too - expanding Fantasyland - but DCA got Cars Land (and Buena Vista Street). How come DCA gets the good stuff, never mind the fact it flat out needed something to bring it to life after years on life support? And the hot topic (or hot button topic depending on who you ask) is the bringing in of the Marvel brand into the theme park realm - something that can be done in Disneyland but cannot be done in WDW due to contractual agreements with Universal that are in place.

But there's other things too. D23 - Disney's exclusive "fan club" primarily caters to the Southern California contingent. Expo number 3 is slated for next year in Anaheim and grand plans to bring the show to Orlando seem more like wishful thinking.

There's a reason why Disney pays so much attention to its little park in Anaheim. Despite it size, WDW is not "the home office". Disney corporate offices are in Burbank along with its film and TV enterprises (excluding Northern California's Pixar and Connecticut's ESPN). Disneyland sits in their backyard (or about 30 miles away or so). When Disneyland has a major project, company execs like Bob Iger, Tom Staggs, and John Lasseter tend to be around front and center. True, Meg Crofton runs both U.S. Disney Resorts along with Disneyland Paris and she is headquartered in Orlando but compared to Bob and Tom and John, Meg is a minion. Disney has the bulk of its resources in Southern California both people and things so its easy for them to trot out celebrities and movie memorabilia without much logistical effort.

And then there is one thing that fans of Disneyland can always hang their hat on - Disneyland is the only Disney park Walt Disney himself ever stepped foot in. You can see Walt's presence every time you walk by the Main St. firehouse and see the light on in his upstairs apartment. You can go on the rides that Walt personally oversaw the construction. There are pictures of Walt in the Tiki Room, in the Golden Horseshoe, walking through Sleeping Beauty's Castle, having coffee in the Cafe Orleans, riding the Mark Twain or his beloved steam trains. Walt Disney also conceived Disney World and EPCOT but the most visibility you see with his involvement with those endeavors is pictures or TV clips of him standing around maps.

Yes, Disneyland is Walt's park. The corporate types that run the place now basically use Walt as a marketing tool but the fans of Disneyland know better. 

The fans of WDW in Florida have the crown jewel of resort destinations. The fans of Disneyland have a man of very large dreams and imagination. Its been that way for almost 60 years now.

Another "Glowing" Look At Fantasmic!

My favorite Disneyland videographer Asianjma123 took his camera out to Fantasmic's Glow With The Show performance and captured this cool looking video. No - haven't changed my mind - not going to wear the ears - but it does look pretty impressive. Check out the 2 guys at the end. I don't think they wore ears either. I respect that.

...But I Don't Want To Wear Mouse Ears

Glow With The Show Mouse Ears
About $25

Does not wanting to wear Mickey Mouse Ears make me a bad person? My refusal to wear mouse ears came up this morning over coffee with Mrs. DisneylandTraveler. She used the word "fuddy-duddy". This came up right after I told her I didn't think too much about the 10 minute version of Sweet Caroline that Neil Diamond sang when we saw him in concert this past Monday. A fuddy-duddy.

The mouse ears topic came up when I told her that Disney held a special annual passholder "Glow with the Show" Fantasmic performance a week or so ago. You can take a look at a little bit of video Disney shot for the event and posted on Disney Parks Blog.

Now I have to admit, it looks pretty cool. Those that were there for the event said that the "glow with the show" ears showed off better for Fantasmic than they did with World of Color (mostly because Fantasmic is a better show). But mouse ears? Mouse ears that cost around $25? (Disney didn't supply the lighted mouse ears for Fantasmic like they did for the special World Color Glow with the Show performances - you had to bring your own.) 

I have written about My Disney Bucket List in this blog. One thing that will never appear on the bucket list is "Wear a Pair of Mouse Ears (of any kind)". I can't do it. I'm a grown-up. When Mrs. DLT used the word "fuddy-duddy" this morning to describe me and my disdain for the ears,  I came back with "at last I'm not a sheep". Disney tells several thousand people to come to a special show where you have to wear $25 blinking lights on your noggin. Sounds like sheep being led by a shepherd to me (a shepherd that is pocketing a lot of profit on these things). Or lemmings. No, I am not going to do it. 

The guy below has a pair of mouse ears in his hand. Notice they are not actually on his head. Nor do I imagine they were ever on his head. For those of us, males in particular, who have a few decades under our belts, mouse ears on the head - just not cool. Sorry. Just a fuddy-duddy.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of (Darkness)

Forgive me for continuing to explore the Indiana Jones character in a Disney blog but I can connect the dots. Even though Indiana Jones is NOT a Disney character (I believe our friend George Lucas is the rightful owner and maybe Paramount Pictures a little bit), the Indiana Jones Adventure - Temple of the Forbidden Eye ride continues to rank near the top of the favorite attractions when talking about Disneyland. When it runs, it is a great, great ride. It breaks down a lot and as mentioned earlier, several features inside the ride are not operational - hence it goes down for refurbishment on Tuesday and will not open until it is almost time for Santa Claus to come to town.

In the meantime, Raiders of the Lost Ark is set to hit a one week run on IMAX screens beginning next weekend and this is right ahead of the release of the Indiana Jones movies in high definition blu-ray on September 18. Of course, they make you buy all 4 Indiana Jones movies not giving the consumer the opportunity to pick and choose. So yes, in order to be able to watch Raiders of the Lost Ark in blu-ray at home, you will have had to also buy Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom along with it - two movies in that series that are not looked upon very fondly by many. (We'll give the third movie - Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade a pass since Indy goes back to his Raiders roots and fights the Nazis and it has Sean Connery in it)

Yesterday, Sports Guy Bill Simmon's Grantland magazine (somehow connected to the Disney owned ESPN) published an article written by Bryan Curtis that explored the darkness of the second Indiana Jones movie - The Temple of Doom. It is a very interesting read on what was going on in the lives of George Lucas and director Steven Spielberg at that time. You can read the article from the link below.

Exploring Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom - Grantland

I'm not sure I am buying into all the doom and gloom aspects of the article. Granted, Temple of Doom did have a few disturbing scenes and a long period of the movie is spent in underground caves but I thought the movie was entertaining enough (though certainly not up to the standards set in Raiders of the Lost Ark). Anyway, it is an interesting article written about an interesting movie made by some interesting men. Memo to self: Go watch Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom again.