A wild day at DL on 4/22

A mess doesn't begin to describe my day at DL yesterday. One big huge giant mess.

I get to the Park a little after opening and head to TL. The wife has never ridden Buzz. Get there at 9:20 and Buzz is down. Oh well, I need to do some Matterhorn taping. Walk over get in line for a bit and then the loud speaker comes on - sorry folks, we are having mechanical difficulty. Not a biggie yet, frustrating, but not raving...yet.

I decide to go to the Monorail to check out the Sub Lagoon. I get there and sure enough, sorry we are closed for an hour.

Still not complete mad yet but getting close, I decide to go over to AL/NOS area. Walk up to Indy go grab some fastpasses. Wait, there are 10 CMs lined across the front of Indy. Sure enough, closed (and remained down all day.) I walk deeper into the Park getting really steamed. Other guests are too.

Amazing enough PotC (which I did not ride) was working as well as HM (which I did ride.)

Let me take a quick break here. Remember DLR collecting images for the mosaics. Well, several are up. There is Buzz one above his new store in TL. There is a Fantasmic one outside the French Market. There is a HM one on its fence (facing the dock.) And there is a Snow White one outside her auditorium. Those are the only ones I saw. (Pictures coming later.)

Back to my ranting. I move over to Tiki Room and saw a good show. We decide why not grab some lunch at Bengal. Things seem to be picking up now. After lunch we ride the MH twice and Buzz once. My wife has to leave so I am on my own.

It is now 1:50 and I am just sitting down on the now functioning Monorail. I get a call, the 50th Parade is supposed to be coming down Main Street. I make a quick loop of the Monorail and sure enough, I enter the hub area just as 4 of the floats are coming from the MH area to MSUSA. Not the parade mind you, just 4 floats to shoot a commercial. (Video coming later today.)

Now the clouds are really coming in. I decide to head over to AL. I needed to film the Tiki's outside the Tiki Room. I get there, sorry - we are having mechanical difficulty. It is 2:40, 20 minutes to the Aladdin Oasis show. Why not. I buy a bag of chips and an Iced Tea and get in line. That is when the downpour hits. I take some cover in the AL Bazaar. It lets up and I head back to the AO line. Sorry, due to the weather we are closing the show. That's right folks - Tiki, AO, JC, and IJA are all closed.

I mumble a few things under my breath and head nowhere in particular. I end up passing between MH and Alice. I was surprised not to see a huge line for Alice. In fact, as I looked closer, no line for Alice. Yep, she was down. I looked over at the Tea Cups - yep, they were down too.

At this point I just basically decided to save everyone time and go crazy. I mean you can either start screaming at this time or just laugh. I chose the later. I went into TL and just looked around. I watched HISTA; the first time in a long time. I even went into Innoventions. It has to be at least 5 years since I was last in there. And I will say, I am impressed. Hi-Def is all over the place. The exhibits are better, still not great, but better.

What else can I tell you about the day. Oh yea, the Lagoon. Wow, the Lagoon looks weird drained. (Video coming later.) Tomorrowland is looking great. I didn't like the bronze scheme they used to have. The new muted gray's and the deep metallic blues are very cool looking.

So, despite the comedy of ride's going offline; I had a good day. I mean I was at DL which is better then a whole lot other places I could have been. I will try to get to the photos this morning and the videos this evening - time permitting. Check the Visions Fantastic web site to find both. (I will post link info here as they become available.)

RU

Pictures can be viewed at:
http://www.visionsfantastic.com/vfgallery/album27

Here is a sample of a mosaic


http://www.visionsfantastic.com/vfga...2_Gen_0005.jpg

RU

Okay, now it's my turn to tell you, RU42 about my memories when I was visiting Disneyland in 1998 and 2000, that's when my brother Jason and I, alias the Big Sky Montana Brothers (that's because Jason is the Montana Grizzlies and I'm the Montana State Bobcats) went alone together without our parents on both occasions, but we had friends with us in California, our aunt Mitzi and uncle Doug to accompany us on the first trip.

DL 1998 "When we arrived in the Magic Kingdom the problem we had was trying to decide what attraction we go on first, then so on due to the long lines at various rides throughout the park. We did hit Jungle Cruise, Pirates, Haunted Mansion, Star Tours, Indiana Jones Adventure, Honey I Shrunk The Audience, Disneyland Railroad. And speaking of which, onboard the train we were arguing back and forth as what ride we hit next due to the fact we did not have enough time before we had to leave. In the end, however we decided to go on Big Thunder Mountain, followed by It's A Small World, blah-blah-blah..."

"But...by the time Doug, Jason and I were approaching the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad we noticed something strange. There was a long line of people standing around near the queue area and none of the mine trains running. Doug told us to wait while he questioned a Cast Member what was happening then came back to inform us a power surge blackout had knocked out all attractions in the entire park, great scott! So we did not get to finish our visit at DL, but instead headed back to our car in the lot and drove back home to El Cajon in San Diego"

DL 2000 "This was our second trip to the Magic Kingdom by ourselves and this time we were accompanied by more friends from California, Liz and her husband Michael and their children Robbie and Williams. Once in the park we split up to go on our own rides, Jason and I actually running through Main Street USA to get to the rides we wanted to hit first before they got too crowded. Mind you, this was long before we heard anything about FastPass. This time we went on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, that is since Jason didn't want to go due to his fear of rollercoasters so I told him I would go myself just to make him happy but he changed his mind and went anyway, only to regret it later, great scott! That's because he had his eyes shut the entire time we were on the runaway mine train and holding tightly onto the safety bars while I was getting bounced around in my seat, occasionally experiencing zero g's or air-time as it's called while going over the hills & dips. As before in 1998 we again did not have enough time to do all the attractions since time ran out again on us so we had to return to our car and return to San Diego again"

The only other time I experienced the Magic Kingdom was in Orlando, Florida at Walt Disney World last April of 2004 with my brother and parents...:cool: