Way Out West - Day 9 – DCA/Disneyland
Today was another lie-in day so I didn’t get up until 8:45. After getting washed and dressed we were out by 9:30, once again using the hotel’s private entrance to Disney’s California Adventure.
As we got into the park, which didn’t officially open until 10:00, we saw and joined the line for Toy Story Mania which was formed at the rope, although the ride was on the other side of the park. At around 9:45 those of us in the line were allowed past the rope and we all walked over to the ride, maintaining the order of the queue.
We were on the ride by 10:05 and I have to say I think this has become my new favourite ride in all of the parks. It is themed around carnival style games – shoot the targets, throw a hoop over a target, that kind of thing and is in the same sort of style as Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin only in 3D. The ride vehicles are fitted with guns and instead of pulling a trigger you pull a string on the rear of the gun and see 3D pies, darts, hoops or whatever is relevant to the game you are playing flying towards the screen and hitting the targets. There are seven different games and throughout the ride a screen in your car displays your score for the game just played and your running total. At the end of the ride I had scored 70,300 with 27% accuracy and Dad had scored 52,700 with 34% accuracy. All in all I would say this is a must-do ride but ride early or late in the day as lines are likely to be long.
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After Toy Story we found a Photopass photographer and decided to start getting some pictures done, the first ones being taken in front of the Sun Wheel and suddenly Photopass photographers seemed to be everywhere as we saw a few more throughout the day. From there we made our way over to the Animation building and saw the Turtle Talk with Crush show, which is much the same as WDW but with no Dory.
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From Crush we stopped off for a drink and as it was now almost 11:30 had a hot dog each as well. I managed to drop mine on my shirt leaving a nice sauce stain but Disney magic came to the rescue when a guest sitting at the next table offered me her stain removal stick, which removed practically all traces of the stain and saved me having to go back to change my shirt. Thank you to that nice lady wherever you are now.
After the hot dog we made our way out of the park and over to Disneyland. Now I have mentioned how compact the resort is and I decided to take three photographs from the same spot to illustrate the fact:
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Entrance to California Adventure
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Entrance to Disneyland
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Entrance to Downtown Disney
We went into Disneyland, stopping just inside for another Photopass picture before making our way over to Tomorrowland and into Innoventions. This building continuously revolves and you have to wait for a loading platform to come around before you can go in. The building is decked out as a ‘house of the future’ and is filled with touchscreen computers, big screen TVs and touch screens in the walls that control lights, window blinds, music etc. For anybody who loves their gadgets it is a great place to wander around and dream of having a home with that kind of automation, although even today I know for many people it is a reality.
From Innoventions we went over to the monorail and did a round trip to Downtown Disney and back before wandering over to Rancho del Zocalo for a drink each.
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Suitably refreshed we made our way back to Main Street and had a browse around the shops before staking a place at the railroad station to catch the 3:30 Walt Disney’s Parade of Dreams. We initially had a great spot on a bench at the front of the station but got caught out by the sun moving around and had to stand up and wait for the last half hour or so for the parade to reach the end of the route. Once the parade did reach us we were rewarded for our patience with a great view of all the floats going by.
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Re: Way Out West - Day 9 – DCA/Disneyland
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After the parade we left the park and went to Pin Traders in Downtown Disney where I picked up a whole load of pins, totalling $174.88! In my defence I did pick them up all in one go rather than buying them here and there during the days we had been here. Although I had intended to pay for them myself I didn’t have enough left on my FairFX card so Dad had to come to the rescue again as he had in Virgin yesterday.
We then made our way back to the room and relaxed for a while before going down to the hotel gift shop where I bought a T-shirt, pin and DVD before returning to the room to do our packing ready for tomorrow.
Packing done we headed out again at 7:40 and headed off to Disneyland where we made our way round to Tomorrowland and into the Pizza Port where we had a slice of pizza, bag of crisps and root beer each for a total of $24.29.
After eating we found a spot in a ‘pen’ by the Partners statue and settled down to wait for the fireworks. As show time got nearer we started hearing the familiar announcements that due to winds at high altitudes the fireworks might be cancelled and then at 9:25, when the fireworks were due to start, came the announcement that the show had been delayed. We continued waiting and around 9:40 as I was watching two cast members looking up into the sky I heard a noise from behind me and the two cast members suddenly went running off. I looked behind me and saw that the ropes making up the pens were being taken down. A couple of minutes later came the announcement that the show had been cancelled.
We waited where we were for the crowds to die down and after around 10 minutes made our way back to the hotel where I checked in for our flight tomorrow and did the last few bits of packing ready for check-out tomorrow morning.
We were in bed by 10:30 ready for our last trip into the parks and journey home tomorrow.
Tomorrow: Day 10 – Disneyland and journey home.
