Wish upon a star *: Disneyland, where dreams come true

Disneyland was never a place I'd dream to go, not because I don't like Mickey and his gang of friends, it's because I know it was never affordable back then. Not a place I can afford when I was a child, not when I'm a teenager and not a place in my to-go list even now. Why?
Because 1. Disneyland are so far away in US 2. The one that are not that far away is in Tokyo which is consider the most expensive city to visit 3. The newly open HK Disneyland is so small it never attract my attention

But then again, since I'm already in LA, why not pay a visit to Disneyland rite? Some more it's Christmas, surely the parade and fireworks will be worth the entrance fee. FYI, admission ticket to Disneyland is now priced at $66, try converting that to RM. It cost a fortune!! What's more the parking is $11 per vehicle.

C.A.L.I.F.O.R.N.I.A sign and the fake hill... lamp post kacau lar...

My SJ colleague who had been there recently suggested that we stay at the hotel just opposite Disneyland. Although the room rates are more expensive compared to what we'd usually prefer, it'd be so convenient as it is just walking distance away from Disneyland entrance. There are many hotels opposite Disneyland, the one we were recommended was the Fairfield Inn Anaheim Disneyland Resort. When we travel, usually we'd opt to stay in motel costing around $60 to $100 per night. Fairfield Inn's room cost $139 per night, but because they allowed 5 person to share a room, it is considerable seeing that we can park our car with the hotel and save $11 parking fee.

Before the trip, I already develop a not-so-syok feeling with Disneyland because of their unfriendly website. Maybe because I was busy with work before Christmas, and thus tensions built up. I have limited time to get info for the LA trip and the website is not showing me what I wanted to know, further more, I was so annoyed by the music from the website (juz found out the switch to turn it off a while ago)

Next is their park, Disney actually have 2 different parks; Disneyland Park and Disney's California Adventure Park. In the website, they did not mention what are the differences of the park but rather their available attractions. All the attractions are so nicely described. We didn't know which should be the best option for first timers.

I didn't know how we decide but we opted for Disneyland Park. We purposely arrange to go Disneyland on Christmas Eve, hoping to see specially arranged programs/shows, but end up not making the correct decision. On eve of christmas eve, park opens from 8am to 12am but on christmas eve, park only opens from 8am to 9pm :(

Walao eh, so many people queuing to go in woh

Even though with the shorter operating hours, still there are thousands and thousands of people flock the entrance in the morning. We were given the park map at the entrance. Again, I beh syok with the information provided in the piece of paper. It's basically a diagram of the park, showing name of attractions but no description. How am I gonna know what is "it's a small world"? Is it a ride? Something to walk through? What about Disneyland Monorail and Disneyland Railroad? What is the difference between the two?

Stepping into Disneyland

There's just so many question flying in my mind. We have to have a plan on what to cover first and so on, but the map is not providing enough info, how? We have only a limited time and the park is so big!! Argh..so frustrated with Disney at that time. Because of my good experience in Universal Studio, I kept comparing it with Disney and it makes Disney looks so much more worse.

By now, I think you can already make a conclusion on how 'fun' my Disneyland trip was. I think I must have grown too old to go to Disneyland. I need a plan for everything, which is what kids don't do!

This is the unhappy me :( + happy YunMei :) on the right

After awhile, I gave up planning and pass all the decision making to the other 4 members. I said, "I don't care anymore, just cover whatever we can and I'll go where ever you guys go".

That actually makes me feel better, being don't care. If you know me in person, you would've know my bad temper. I'm not a nice person when I'm angry/frustrated.

But then after I vented the anger into bending this prison bar, I feel so much better :)

Entering Disneyland at 8am in the morning was not a good decision because most of the ride and park opens at 9am. There's nothing much we can do but only walk around while waiting for the time to reach 9.

Mickey's Toontown is one of the section that opens at 9am

In Mickey's Toontown is where we can find the house of Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Chip & Dale and the other characters. Here we found Goofy, Minnie and Pluto standing around for people to take pictures with them.

Goofy plant corn in his mini garden and there's his scarecrow

As for Mickey, he's too popular to stand in the open air. Mickey only stays in his house, and there's a very very very long queue all the way to reach his house. We gave up on Mickey because we didn't want to waste time queuing more than half and hour juz to snap a photo with Mickey. I only had a picture with Minnie and Pluto, skipped Goofy too.

No Mickey, Minnie also can lah~

There's a roller coaster in Toontown, not exciting at all. Even for me, a person that's so scared of roller coaster said it's not exciting. You can imagine how 'thrilling' it is. It's for kids, ok...don't expect too much.

Went to another part of the park called Fantasyland. There was an on-going activity, Disney Princesses were teaching the little kids how to dance the Royal Dance.

Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and Cinderella on stage showing little kids how to dance

Carry on, we walked into Frontierland and bump into Santa's reindeer.

Reindeer with nice antler

The reindeers were busy eating away, getting ready for the night (it was Christmas's eve that day) to pull big fat Santa around the world giving out Christmas gifts.

Still in Frontierland, we boarded the huge Columbia ship, the replica of the first American ship to circumnavigate the globe. This replica ship sail one round of the so call Rivers of America, there must be about 50 people on the ship.

The Columbia on the left, the Davy Crockett's Explorer Canoe following just behind it and Tom Sawyer Island on the right

We never manage to get ourselves over to Tom Sawyer Island as the queue for the boat transfer is always long :(

Mark Twain Riverboat on the right

This is another boat cruising the Rivers of America. I also never get to experience it because of lack of time.

Walking on, we cross from Frontierland into Critter Country. This is where Winnie The Pooh and his friends are located. Queued up for another 20mins to take pictures with Pooh and Tigger. Eeyore is no where in sight after his 5mins break.

Pooh and me

This photo is actually from Disney's Photopass. When you're busy posing for photos using your own camera with Pooh, the Disney staff will snap a few photos of you and scan them into a card. You can then use this card and give it to other staff when you take pictures with other characters. Later on, you can online register and then buy the photos, purchase a CD of your photos in it or just share the photos with your friends and tempt your friends to go to Disneyland. For people who cannot afford to purchase the photo (like me), I just do a print screen of the photo and there you go...free! :)

Next, we crossed into Adventureland in search of adventure. The Indiana Jones Adventure is one of the highly recommended attractions in Disneyland Park. When we were there the first time, there was a long queue. And we were not able to obtain a FASTPASS because we already have a FASTPASS in hand for another ride. FASTPASS is a ticket that is given out by a machine, you feed-in your Disney entrance ticket into the machine (near the ride you want to take) and the machine will dispense you a ride ticket, providing you a specific range of time for your ride so that you can go sightseeing elsewhere and then come back later for the ride.

Anyway, at the first time we check Indiana Jones out, the queue time was too long, if not mistaken is around 60mins. So we thought we want to come back later, on the second time we came back, Indiana Jones were closed for maintenance. Damn!! No luck.... Third time we check it out one hour later, the queue time was more than 60mins oledi. Gave up liao...

Tarzan's Tree House is also in Adventureland

It was about 3pm by then. We still have one part we have not cover, Tomorrowland and quite a number of attractions in Fantasyland plus those in other Land that we skipped. All of us were already kind of tired from the walking. We got tired much earlier that day because it was our third day in LA, plus we have been walking for the past 2 days.

We took a train to Tomorrowland. Wow, the queue in Tomorrowland is even longer than any other place in the park. Later when we were back in SJ, we found out from friends that indeed those attractions with such long queue are the interesting rides we should be trying. No wonder why so many people lar...

Haunted Mansion, telling the story of Jack from The Nightmare Before Christmas

While we were blindly walking from place to place didn't know what ride we should take, coz all of them have such a long queue, and we were all so tired we got no more mood for it, we crossed the street where the Parade were supposed to pass through later that night. To our surprise, we saw people were already lining up beside the road, sitting on the curb and some other sitting on the provided benches waiting for parade. It was another one hour before the parade begins! Since we were all so tired, we find ourselves a place to sit on the floor. The floor was so cold, it was about 5pm that time, and as the sun begins to set, temperature drops.

People lining beside the street waiting for the parade...18mins to go before the parade starts

As I'm not the earlybirds, I only manage to get a third row floor seating, but that's not too bad.

At 6pm, the parade begins with a bus, where a girl who is a winner of some contest was seated inside. The MC announcing congratulations to the girl while the bus drive on. Next, I think a princess (if not mistaken the princess from Enchanted) sitting in a carriage pulled by a horse.

Princess on carriage with Disney castle in the backdrop

The parade then followed by the Disney characters, dancing toy soldiers accompany by cartoon musical. They have really good sound system despite it was an open area.

Another photo of Disney castle while sitting there waiting for the parade...again, kacau punya lamp post!

I did not get many photos of the parade as I was so captured by their performance. Furthermore, photos wouldn't be nice because moving object and slow shutter mode never comes in pair.

Results of moving objects in slow shutter mode
Toy soldiers dancing away

My mood actually goes back to normal after watching the parade :) It was so good...

Blur night mode pic without a tripod

After the parade, we rush to Critter Country for our FASTPASS ride, the Splash Mountain. Splash Mountain is a ride with lots of water, winding way and a 52feet plunge where you will get WET!! It is even more interesting to take this wet ride after the sun sets and the temperature goes so low. I got wet spots on my jeans and my shoes after the ride. Very cold...brrr~

We walk around the park not planning to take anymore ride, just to pass time until the fireworks at 8.45pm (if I remember correctly). It would be a 15mins fireworks before the park closes at 9pm.

Reach 'it's a small world' with it's beautifully lighted wall

This is 'it's a small world' at night

This is 'it's a small world' in the day time

Tired of walking around, we find ourselves a spot to sit down (on the hard and cold floor again!) to wait for the fireworks. We waited for like, AGES!, before it was time for the fireworks to begin. So cold!

My spot was not a perfect ones, there was a closed umbrella blocking part of my view of the castle. From my pictures posted below, I'm sure you can spot it.

NICE! Have you seen a 3D fireworks before?

My friend who went to Disneyland one day earlier did not manage to watch the spectacular fireworks because of weather conditions. There will not be fireworks if the night is windy, this is to prevent the spark from spreading into dried forest causing wild fire. 2 nights before us, there was also no fireworks. I felt myself being so so lucky to witness it...

Is that a dragonfly? Again, no tripod, blurry picture of castle :(

It's not only the fireworks pattern that amazed me, it was the synchronization of fireworks and music matching so closely together making the extra special feeling.

Here's a short video I got of the fireworks, enjoy!

The fireworks theme of the night - "Remember...Dreams Come True"

Although with the bad experiences early in the day, as I watched the parade followed by the great fireworks, I forgot every bad things that happen in the day time. I walked out of Disneyland like a happy kid. Who said being forgetful is not good? :P