Disneyland Resort May 4-5 2012

[Galvan317]

Starting on Main Street, where they were wrapping up a series of refurbishments


The bakery was removed to expand the restaurant next to it. A new bakery opened at the end of the street


The new bakery is themed to Mary Poppins


There are cherry trees planted out front because the Banks live on Cherry Tree Ln.


A special artisan was brought in to work on the stained glass windows


Interior of the new bakery


The queue inside the bakery is themed with a couple paintings and movie props


One more shot of the bakery interior


The interior of Gibson Girl ice cream shop was also re-done for more walking space


A few more pictures of Main Street






The interior of all of these buildings have been redone to address crowd flow issues






The Dapper Dans were singing to these people on the trolley

[Galvan317]

Matterhorn is nearing the end of it's extensive refurbishment. There were some people painting the rocks outside the ride.


Although it's all gone now, the entire mountain was scaffolded and repainted.


The rehab crew studied the snow patterns on the real Matterhorn and replicated the snow patterns, resulting in more snow on the northern side and less snow on the southern side. Before the snow was just white paint, during this rehab the new paint had glass beads mixed in with the paint in order to make it shine in the sunlight like real snow.


The coaster also got an entire new fleet of trains.


Maintenance and ride crews were doing track walks and cycling the new trains.


Matterhorn opened in 1959 as part of the Disneyland 59 expansion that included the submarines and the monorail. It was built by Arrow and was the first ever tubular steel coaster.


Matterhorn will be officially re-opening June 15, the same day as Buena Vista Street and Cars Land

[Galvan317]

Star Tours - The Adventures Continue is a popular simulator that re-oepned last summer after an extensive retheme. The ride now has several different beginnings, middles, and endings so it's like they ride will be different every time you go on it. In addition to the new story and effects, the ride was also made 3D. We only rode it once because we've done it a bunch of times in Florida and this is the only picture I have of it.


The California Space Mountain is still my favorite one


Due to lack of Space (no pun intended), the queue is on the balcony on top of the entrance plaza


Space Mountains track was completely removed and rebuilt in 2005. New special effects and a new onboard audio system was also installed. The ride is very smooth and has wonderful effects, definitely one of the best family oriented coasters out there.


The loading is very efficient and never gets slowed down. Similar to many other Disney coasters, once everyone is seated the train moves to the next block where the lapbars are checked. On the right is the wheelchair train, which is on a separate load track and switches over via transfer track. This prevents the loading from having to slow down when disabled people load onto the train.


This is the back of the castle, which is actually more like the front of the Neuschwanstein Castle that inspired it. The story goes that they accidentally had the castle the wrong way in the Disneyland model, Walt walked into the room and liked it, and so it stayed.

[ttd rox]

Great photos! Thanks for sharing. All the refurbishments look really nice, especially Main Street.

[Galvan317]

Mad Tea Party


Our next stop was Alice in Wonderland, with the goal of doing all the dark rides that aren't in Florida


One thing i've always found kindve nice about Fantasyland here at DLR is that even though it's been redone, it still retains the old school Disneyland charm and the rides are all just low key and simple. For example, the dark rides have 2 people working them: 1 at the load panel and 1 at the unload panel. At WDW these rides have 20 people working on them and fastpass lanes. Not trying to say that either way is better (both ways work for their respective properties), but there is something very serene about Disneyland's Fantasyland that's different from all of the other Magic Kingdom parks.


The Mad Hatter is next to the Mad Tea Party and Alice (who wouldve guessed?)


Next stop was Mr Toad's Wild Ride


This is one of the shortest lines i've ever seen for Mr Toad, definitely picked a good day to come


The story is that you go driving, get drunk, get hit by a truck and die, then go to hell. It's a perfect ride for Disneyland


The interior of Toad Hall


Mr Toad in Florida was removed and Winnie the Pooh was built in it's place


The mural at the load platform kind of gives away the ending


Pinocchio's Daring Journey is another dark ride that is not in Florida


Pinocchio is my second favorite Disney movie (to Hunchback of Notre Dame)


Mural in the loading platform


Chloe and Figaro are carved on the side of the cars

[Director_Guy]

Great pics, keep em coming,

definitely one of the best family oriented coasters out there.

I would argue just one of the greatest coasters all around. It's not particularly thrilling or fast, but I dare anyone not to have a huge smile on their face when they return to the station.

[Galvan317]

This was the first time I had ever seen California Adventure's new entrance in person, which was a total trip for me because I used to work at DCA back...well back before it was good.


Buena Vista Street is not open yet, so when you enter the park there is a series of construction walls that leads around the entrance behind Soarin'


The construction wall has artwork showcasing the parks attractions














First thing we did was get a Fastpass for World of Color


Grizzly Rapids


Little Mermaid was down for a week long refurbishment, but we got to ride it the next day


Mandatory Paradise Pier photo


World of Color viewing area




California Screamin's line was only running 1 station with 3 trains however the wait was less than 10 minutes




The McDonalds that was here was replaced with a much nicer alternative




And it has plenty of seating


One of the few survivors of this section of the Pier


Tower of Terror looming in the distance


The Pacific Wharf also has lots of good places to eat




Cars Land is almost ready to open


But for now the area is still all work walls




If theres one ride at DCA you won't want to miss, it's definitely this one




The theming in Bugs land is often overlooked, so heres a picture




Tower of Terror


Tower of Terror hotel lobby


The tracks are pretty much all finished for the new Trolley that is going to run up and down the street


The Hyperion Theater is huge, you don't really realize until your in it (Hyperion is the name of the street the second Disney studio was on, before they built the Burbank studio)


There was construction going on in this area of the park as the Electronica stuff was being switched out for the Mad T Party




The Monsters Inc dark ride is kind of a hidden gem of the park. It's a more modern type of dark ride with all sorts of cool effects


The biggest hidden gem at DCA (though it's not hidden at all, most people are too lazy to go into it) is the Animation building


Even if your not into any of the exhibits or shows, just standing in the lobby and watching the projections and listening the music is wonderful




It was a little disappointing that Chernabog was removed from World of Color (replaced with the extended Pirates scene), but he still makes appearances in Fantasmic and the Animation building's Fantasia scene


Since I had last been here, Pixar movies were added to the projections


The Carthay Circle Theater is at the end of Buena Vista Street. This is where Snow White, the first full length animated feature ever, premiered. However in the park it will be a full service restaurant.


This is definitely a big upgrade from what used to be here (the sun dial)


Buena Vista Street behind walls

[Galvan317]

Those that know me know I had to ride the Jungle Cruise


The Jungle Cruise is world famous for being world famous


One of the main differences between DLR and WDW's Jungle Cruise is that the names of the boats are different, for WDW the names were modified the names to make them funnier. For example, the Ganges Gal is called the Ganges Gertie, Amazon Belle/Amazon Annie, Congo Queen/Congo Connie, Irrawaday Woman/Irrawaday Irma, Nile Princess/Nile Nellie, Orinoco Adventuress/Orinoco Ida, Ucayali Una/Ucayali Lolly, Zambesi Miss/Zambesi Zelda


Schweitzer Falls is named after the world famous explorer Dr. Albert Falls


Jungle Cruise boathoase


Bengal Tigers jump 20 feet, but it didn't matter because we were 19 feet away and he would jump right over us


We made it to an indian elephant bathing pool


The Gorilla's destroyed our base camp, but it was OK because I couldn't get my car started but they got it to turn over


African elephants have larger ears than Indian elephants


The African Veldt is home to Zebra's, Giraffe's


And the original Hard Rock Cafe


Rhino's weigh over two tons but can still run pretty fast. As you can see not everyone knows that but I think these guys are gonna get the point...in the end


Hippo pool!


These natives weren't very friendly


New Orleans Square is my favorite area of the park, not only does it have amazing food it also has two great attractions: Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion




Quite possibly the best classic dark ride out there


This is by far the best of the Pirates rides


Because the line moves so fast, Pirates has two entirely different queues for the two different load platforms (its the same way at WDW)


The next day, instead of going through the Harbor Blvd entrance we decided to walk in the resorts entrance to the property and take the monorail into the park


The Disneyland (Alweg) Monorail was the first monorail in the United States. It ran from the Disneyland Hotel into Tomorrowland. The Disneyland Hotel station is now the Downtown Disney station.


The monorail runs Mark VII trains, there are three of them: Red, blue, and orange


Autopia




In Redd Rocket's Pizza Port there are vintage posters of the parks attractions. The Peoplemover was re-done sometime in the late 90's to be a thrill ride and called Rocket Rods. Sadly it was unreliable and low capacity and closed down shortly after.


Project Tomorrow, presented by Siemens, is the same exhibit that is at Spaceship Earth's post show


Disneyland's train is the only one I know of where you see the Grand Canyon


And dinosaurs


Little Mermaid had re-opened from it's refurb


There are a lot of nice little details in the queue


The exterior of this is completely different than the Magic Kingdom version, this was designed to fit the Paradise Pier theme while WDW's was designed to replicate the movie


All of the lights and railings in the queue are well themed also




The chandeliers in the loading area are a nice touch. Overall it's a wonderful dark ride and exactly what DCA needed.


We saw the Aladdin musical next, this is the view from the balcony exit of the Hyperion Theater


Of course we had to infiltrate the Redwood Creek Challenge Trail






We got a Fastpass to avoid having to wait for Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Never Ending Line


We also watched the new Soundsational Parade

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And the talking Mickey is in it


And it has Panchito from the Three Cabillero's


Of course we had to ride Small World also


Going to end this TR by saying that strange things were afoot at the Circle K