Disney California Adventure – 20,250 steps
We managed to hustle out of our hotel in fairly short order this morning. What we hadn’t done is eaten any breakfast. While we were lined up at Disney California Adventure, the kids started asking about food. Knowing that the plan at “rope drop” would be to rush to whatever our first attraction would be, Sean went hunting for snacks in the vicinity.
Incredicoaster and the Pixar Pal-A-Round Ferris wheel
After wolfing down our pastries and slogging our way forward with the rest of the crowd after rope drop, we hustled back to ride Incredicoaster. Sean tells me this is a retrofit of a ride originally called California Screamin’. It was re-themed as an Incredibles-based attraction to tie in with re-theming of Paradise Pier to Pixar Pier. In my memory, we didn’t stand in line but maybe 15-20 minutes and then we were on our coaster.
The story is that Jack-Jack (Maya’s favorite character, by the way) is on the loose and we’re trying to catch him. The character Dash counts you down before you LIM-launch forward (at 55 mph; I looked it up) through a very enjoyable series of twist and turns. It’s a satisfyingly long ride for a coaster, zips through a number of tunnels, and it even features a loop within the Pixar Pier sign in the center of the coaster’s big hill.
The kids loved it. Sean was sad that the cameras weren’t operating, so we didn’t get ride photos. Then he was again sad that the cookie stand outside the ride was closed.
Waiting for Web Slingers
Instead of enjoying a cookie, we made our way to the Avengers Campus to check out Web Slingers: A Spiderman Adventure. Here the idea is that Spiderman has made spider-bots. These spider-bots are able to replicate, and after doing so unchecked for a period of time, begin raining down destruction on Avengers Campus. Our job was to board the ride vehicle with our 3D glasses in place and shoot webs at as many of the spider-bots as we could.
I hadn’t really been paying attention, but later on, Sean pointed out that he had been winning through the whole ride but that at the end, I had the high score. Just so we’re all clear here, I never have the high score, nor do I particularly care that I don’t have the high score. But last time we were on one of these Disney shooting-stuff rides, Maya taught me a trick. As she says, “spam” the firing button. In this case, you moved your arms and hands in a particular way to fling a web, but the principle remains. My habit is to carefully aim at something and then fire, but speed is rewarded in these scenarios. And so, I flung webs at spider-bots just as fast as I could without a great deal of regard for fine-grain aim. Also, I wasn’t watching the score, LOL.
When we went to Disney World, there were still many pandemic precautions in place, and so between that and the kids’ need to ride as many rides as they could, we didn’t really meet our favorite Disney characters and gather character autographs. In fact, Sean still had the autograph books he had bought for the kids back when we thought we were going to Disney in 2020.
Wakanda forever
This time though, the kids were interested in autographs. Ian’s 2020 book was frilly and pink, but he has since grown out of his princess phase and requested a new book for this trip. The kids’ first autograph was that of Black Panther. I think it seemed weird to Maya that she’d be expected to actually interact with the character instead of just watching, but otherwise, photos were taken and signatures gotten. Wakanda forever.
Ian’s light saber ears
Next we popped into one of dozens of conveniently placed souvenir shops to get Ian some new Mickey ears. This trip’s ears for Ian featured light sabers, which fits in with his love of weaponry. Maya thought she *might* like some Black Panther ears, but held out for a while to see what else we happened upon.
Woodses in Cars Land
Next we went to Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree. The theming all over any Disney property is incredible, but to me, especially the Cars part of the park was bonkers good. The Junkyard Jamboree is a spinning ride where your ride vehicle is one of the tractor “cows” from the movies. They look fantastic. Mater’s emceeing the ride – warning you to hang on since these tractors have on their dancing tires. It was a relatively tame ride, but the kids seemed to have fun anyway.
Maya’s Black Panther ears
Then, we went for our lightning lane for Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout. (I think it was on our way to this that we went ahead and bought Maya her Black Panther ears as well.) This used to be Tower of Terror, but was re-themed to tie into the Avengers Campus part of the park. I won’t lie; I loved this ride. You’re visiting The Collector’s display of creatures that he’s collected throughout the galaxy, which includes the Guardians of the Galaxy characters. Maya was delighted to find that Cosmo the dog was on display.
At the beginning of the attraction, you crowd into a room and start to hear the Collector give you his welcoming spiel. Then we see an animatronic Rocket, who has broken out of his cell, interrupt the transmission to explain his plan for breaking everyone else out as well, including his fellow Guardians.
Poor Maya had herself worked up into a right state as we waited to board the next phase of the attraction. She was near hysterics, speed talking about possible ride failures, explaining all the things she had been bothered by in the Tower of Terror ride in Florida. I couldn’t really enjoy the ride (though what I did see was fabulous). Initially, she death-gripped me around the neck, literally blocking my oxygen intake. After extricating myself from her, she insisted on ducking. With the ride shooting you up and down at random intervals, I was very concerned she’d hit her head – hard. And so I spent most of the ride watching her and hoisting her back up if she slumped. Still, the story was hilarious and the ride was indeed thrilling. (The soundtrack for the attraction might feature any of six different songs – this time we were treated to “I Want You Back” by Jackson 5.) And Maya exited telling us excitedly how much she loved it and wanted to ride it again. Fine, fine, but she’d be sitting next to Sean next time.
The pretzel was immense
We headed over to the Pym Test Kitchen to get some snacks for the kids. Ian and Maya were astonished to see a mechanism inside the restaurant that seemed to be taking normal-sized pretzels in and outputting giant pretzels instead. Ian wanted to know, was that really happening? Were Pym particles (from Ant-Man) real? Sean assured him that they were. Maya’s usually a bit more skeptical, but even she seemed to be considering believing her dad.
In the end, they shared one of the giant pretzels and some candied bacon. I believe they discussed that the Pym particles didn’t seem to make the pretzel taste weird or anything, so they thought it was probably ok.
According to my notes, we did a couple of quick-hit rides next. The Little Mermaid – Ariel’s Undersea Adventure is a tame dark ride that features several scenes filled with animatronic characters that tell a condensed version of the story. The kids were enthralled and everyone got to rest their feet for a bit.
Maya and Ian wanted to ride on the Golden Zephyr. You board a steam-punk / science fiction sort of aircraft and are swung in circles around a central post. The views were nice and the kids seemed to have a good time.
Bulgogi Fried Rice – one of the Food and Wine Festival dishes
Throughout the day, Sean and I were partaking of the Food and Wine Festival being celebrated at Disney’s California Adventure. We’d sneak in our tastes and snacks as it became convenient, so we mostly just had to remember to keep the kids fed. For lunch, we bought them slices of pizza and cotton candy (shut up, it’s vacation), and we shared one of our Food and Wine Fest tastes. We relaxed for a bit, listening as a band played for the Festival. We watched Ian’s poor face get more and more blue as he tried to attack his cotton candy head-on.
There are feral cats roaming the grounds. They help keep the rodent population in check (look out Mickey!), and I’ve read that they have homes to sleep in at night and receive routine veterinary care.
After our lunch break, we headed over to ride DCA’s version of Soarin’. Whereas Florida had you soaring over the wonders of the world, DCA has you soaring over the wonders of California instead. Actually, I just looked this up. They only offer the experience as Soarin’ Over California from March 3 – April 25 to tie in with the Food and Wine Festival. Otherwise it’s Soarin’ Around the World, presumably similar to its Florida counterpart.
You see Yosemite, you see San Francisco, you smell the oranges as you soar over orange groves. At the end, you even soar over Disneyland. This is another relax and lean into it kind of a ride. Let your feet rest. Enjoy the sensation.
Radiator Springs Racers … our car won the race
We were back to Cars Land for our next ride – Radiator Springs Racers. We paid extra to lightning lane this one, and I think it was wise. Every time Sean checked, the wait time was immense. Remember how I said the Cars Land theming was really spectacular? That definitely extended to this ride. We started out on a casual drive through the rocky, cactus-laden desert landscape. Then we entered a “dark ride” part of the attraction where we really felt like we were moving within scenes from the movie. Then the race was on, and to the kids’ delight, it became a thrill ride from there.
Disney California Adventure’s Cadillac Range
In reading up a bit on the Disney site, I discovered that the line of Cadillacs that make up the mountain range in Cars Land was actually modeled after the Cadillac Ranch art installation in Amarillo. We’ve been to there.
After a spin through the Goofy’s Sky School ride for the kids, we decided to procure cocktails for the adults. Sean had a Chipotle-Pineapple Bourbon Sour and I had a Smoked Cherry Mezcal-tiki Cocktail. They were excellent and a bit of a respite from our Disney mania.
We largely consumed them while in line for our next attraction – Pixar Pal-A-Round. It’s the huge Ferris wheel that, along with Incredicoaster, dominates the DCA skyline. You have options when riding this one. You can choose to ride in a fixed gondola – what I’d have called the “normal” Ferris wheel experience. Or you could choose what they called a swinging gondola – which is what we did. Your gondola not only moves in the main orbit of the Ferris wheel, it’s also able to glide along an interior track that provides radial movement to and from the center, which exaggerates the swinging motion of the gondola. They include barf bags in the ride, if that tells you anything. We all really got a kick out of it – taking what is traditionally a ride that’s maybe a bit boring outside of the views you get to see at the top and adding a bit of a thrill.
Cosmo the dog is part of The Collectors exhibits
Since we were in the area, we rode Incredicoaster again before eventually choosing to stand in line to ride Guardians of the Galaxy again. We’d be there for about an hour, which gave Sean time to make some food runs for us and the kids. Even though we wound up waiting quite a while, this was overall a better experience – Maya wasn’t so terrified this time. As an added bonus, since we didn’t zing through on a lightning lane this time, we actually got to peruse more of The Collector’s prizes than we had earlier. And at the end, we had a much better ride experience, since Maya wasn’t trying to choke the life out of me. (Though none of us can remember which song they were playing this time.)
Much happier this time through
And finally it was time for us to get lined up for World of Color. I’m not entirely sure how Sean finagled it (some business about adding us to a virtual queue earlier in the day), but we were able to enter one of the fancy roped off areas about an hour beforehand and score primo positioning right along the waterfront. Before it got crowded, we took the opportunity to sit and rest our legs for a while.
Projection on a screen of water – Mirabel!
It was already chilly out, and the warnings all over the place that we’d definitely get wet where we were standing had me a little nervous. We needn’t have worried though. Throughout the show, we’d occasionally feel a light misting, but never anything more. One of the guests near us visited often and explained that if the winds were right, you might get a more thorough soaking.
The Ferris wheel and roller coaster are even worked into the light show
The show was amazing. Beautiful jets and fountains and fans of water cavorted all over that bay, underlit with multi-colored and ever-changing lights. Huge fans of misty water had scenes from favorite films projected on them. Lighting on Incredicoaster and Pixar Pal-A-Round were incorporated into the show. For certain things (think Remy’s kitchen and Moana’s Te Ka), jets of fire accompanied the show. Soaring music complimented the action. It was intense.
Use the Force!
When things were wrapping up, and it started to seem more like “closing credits” and less like “show,” we thought we’d sneak out and maybe get ahead of the throng. Ian was having no part of it – he didn’t want to leave. Maya really liked the show, except for the parts with fire. She’s still not a fan of the fire.
And then after all that standing and waiting and riding and eating and watching, we made the long walk back to our hotel room, where we discovered that the clothes I had hung over the shower rail really hadn’t dried much at all. We carefully arranged the necessary stuff for the next day on the heating vents and hoped for the best before crashing.
