Cali in Minature

Back to the Disneyland trip.

Day Two:

We spent most of the day in Disney’s California Adventure (DCA). I had been in this park once before, but it was all new to M. So, we wandered around and went on a few of the rides. We went on the Monster’s Inc. ride, and Soarin’ Over California. We watched the Muppet 3D show, the Aladdin Musical Spectacular, and Turtle Talk with Crush (from Finding Nemo).

It was a lot of fun, all-in-all. Even if the music in Aladdin was way too loud in the wrong frequencies (parts of it were downright painful to listen to) and the line for Soarin’ was somewhere around an hour and a half long.

Turtle Talk was great. Crush swam onscreen after the audience was settled, and started addressing the audience members. Not in a generic script, either, but directly addressing. Like, “who can tell me about swimming? Sean, dude (the cast member in the audience with the microphone), I want to talk to the Little Dudette with the blue shell.” It was really cute. And then at one point a kid started crying, and Crush said that the “little dude’s practicing his dolphin” and offered to translate (but at that point the kid stopped crying).

(We actually saw the Electrical Parade the first night, and on the second night we were back in Disneyland proper. But since the Electrical Parade is in DCA, the pictures fit here.)

Parts of DCA are very familiar-feeling for a native Californian. There’s a section that feels exactly like (a small version of) Cannery Row in Monterey, a run-and-play place with redwood trees, and a semi-replica of the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. There’s a stylized boardwalk that could either be the Santa Monica Pier or the Santa Cruz Boardwalk, complete with appropriately cheesy music and midway games.

It’s a fun part of the park. It’s not Disneyland, but it’s done well in the Disney style. It’s a good place to relax when the main park gets too busy, since less people go into DCA. (You do need to buy the park-hopper pass in order to be able to bounce back and forth.) It’s also a great place to go for food, since there are fewer people, a different variety of restaurant, and - for those who care - wine or margaritas. (Disneyland itself is dry, with the exception of Club 33, which is an invite-only type of affair.)

I love Disneyland. I can’t say that I love DCA, but I do like it. And it’s Disney.

I guess it counts.