A Disney Parks Around the World Journey: Day 19 – Disneyland and Disney’s California Adventure Part II

We then pass by Goofy’s Sky School. We debate whether we want to do it, but we have a Lightning Lane for it so figure why not. It’s a pretty short ride, and we aren’t expecting much out of it. It reminded me of Primeval Whirl at Animal Kingdom, with the main difference being that Primeval Whirl spun around as you went through the track. If we didn’t have a Lightning Lane I don’t know if it would have been worth the time, but with a Lightning Lane we couldn’t really complain.

The last ride in Pixar Pier before we move to another part of the park is The Little Mermaid – Ariel’s Undersea Adventure.

This is basically the exact same ride that is in Magic Kingdom with some very minor differences.

The queue and ride building are way better themed in Magic Kingdom though.

It’s not a bad ride, but aside from the “Under the Sea” scene it really lacks any major “WOW!” moments. It’s still a fun diversion, and Lucy loves The Little Mermaid so she enjoys it.

That finishes up our time in Pixar Pier to so we head to Soarin’ next.

After doing the Soarin’ in Tokyo, the queue and theming for this are just sorely lacking.

It is the exact same ride as in Orlando only with a different ending sequence where you fly over Disneyland instead of Disney World.

There are only a handful of rides we still have Lightning Lanes for in California Adventure and they are on the opposite side of the park so we head to Avenger’s Campus to do Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout.

On the way we stop by a snack stand. After spending three days in the Japanese Parks, we pass a snack stand and I am nearly blown away. There are literally 14 DIFFERENT snacks for sale in the same stand. Not only that, but it ALSO SELLS DRINKS!!! DRINKS AND SNACKS in the same stand!!! THIS IS MADNESS!!! We are mindblown by the amount of choices and have analysis paralysis at this point. We debate and debate some more and eventually we choose a Diet Coke and a Sprite.

We eventually make it to Avenger’s Campus and arrive at Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout.

In 2017 we were supposed to do it right after it was reimagined, but missed our fast pass return time due to watching World of Color. To be honest I was super against the retheming of this ride from Tower of Terror. I have found Tower of Terror to be one of the greatest them park rides of all time. It was one of the greatest achievements in Imagineering meshing together theme and ride for a perfect combination. The new overlay on the original tower just felt awkward to me.

For this reason I was very hesitant to see what Disney did to what was one of the greatest rides of all time in my mind. The queue was nice and was rethemed to the Collector’s den well with lots of artifacts everywhere.

The preshow was fun and had everyone’s favorite trash panda, Rocket.

We lucked out and got the animatronic rocket, as my friend Dave was on the other preshow, and apparently they got the B mode where Rocket just appeared on the screen.

I was very impressed with how they rethemed the basement area. They didn’t do too much with the basement aside from add a lot of alien signage and some other props.

It was enough to make it feel alien, despite it obviously still having roots as the basement of the Hollywood Tower hotel.

Well, somehow, they managed to make a ride via retheming that was incredibly, fun, and entertaining and a more than worthy successor to the original Tower of Terror.

The ride was similar to Paris and Tokyo in that there was no track and you started and ended in the same location. Much like Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, the song is totally randomized for this ride and we got “Burning Love”. The combination of the music and the Guardians making various video screen appearances throughout the ride just make it for an extremely fun ride.

They totally stripped the ride of any of the “terror” aspect and went for the “fun” side of things which was a smart design choice. Any attempt to make the ride “scary” or a “terror” would have only invited endless comparisons to the Tower of Terror. By completely changing the tone, they totally avoided the direct comparison controversy. For those that love Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, you’ll absolutely love Mission Breakout. Much like Tower of Terror you exit through a gift shop, and Lucy pretends to be a trash panda.

Right on exiting, Star-Lord AKA Peter Quill was outside having a dance off. We stopped to watch for a bit as he had some pretty good energy and was pretty fun to watch.

Once the mini show ended, we headed to Monsters, Inc. Mike and Sully to the Rescue which wasn’t too far away.

This was a dark ride that replaced one of the worst Disney attractions of all time Superstar Limo. That ride did not last even a year if I remember. I was one of the lucky few that managed to ride it before it closed back when California Adventure first opened in 2001.

We weren’t really expecting much out of this ride, as we hadn’t heard much about it. It was a basic dark tracked dark ride that reused a lot of components from Superstar Limo.

In all honesty it was definitely better than I anticipated. It was not nearly as good as Monsters, Inc. Ride and Go Seek in Tokyo, but as a dark ride, it was pretty enjoyable.

They had some neat ride scenes especially toward the end with all the doors.

It was very cute, and they did a good job improving upon Superstar Limo, but it really takes nearly no effort to improve upon that awful ride.

We the tried to go on Web Slingers: A Spider-man Adventure, but literally right after we scan our Lightning Lane the ride goes down.

We didn’t feel too strongly about this ride the first time we did it to be honest, but it was a ride we’ve only ever done once before so figured we’d do it again. Today we have a Fantasmic Dinner Package at Blue Bayou at 5:50PM so we leave for Disneyland.

Main Street is a little crowded as the parade is about to start so we cut through the Candy Place and Candy Kitchen. They have a beautiful display of treats, but we’re about to eat dinner so we have to resist that temptation.

Dave and Nathalie go off and have dinner elsewhere during our time and we’ll meet back up with them afterwards.

We walk through New Orleans Square, and given Kendall is from New Orleans, we are impressed in that it really does look and feel like the French Quarter, just without the awful smell.

We arrive at 5:40PM which is ten minutes early, but we don’t get seated till 6:30PM.

We are a little aggravated to be honest as what’s the point of arriving on time for a reservation to only wait 30 more minutes. At this point we are starving as we really haven’t eaten much since lunch.

This is a good thing as we are having a four course dinner that includes quite a bit of food.

We had never eaten at Blue Bayou before and felt it only appropriate to eat at one of the original “Theme” Restaurants on our around the world trip. The setting was beautiful and felt like an outdoor dinner party out on some southern plantation.

They started out with some bread that was actually very good, and I had to keep myself from getting full from just the bread.

The second course was chicken gumbo, which not surprisingly surpassed the gumbo we had in Tokyo Disneyland. No tomato this time!

Both Kendall and I also chose the Oscar Style Filet Mignon which was very good. In all honesty at this point we had way too much food to where we could only have a couple bites of the filet. We didn’t want any of the sides, but being Filipino we asked for some rice, so they swapped it out for the veggies.

By the time the chocolate tart came out, I literally just couldn’t eat any more.

Lucy got the gumbo, petite steak and a petite sundae. She loved the gumbo and sundae, but the steak was not her favorite.

Kendall, Lucy and I coulda easily split one meal, but sadly you can’t just order one meal, as in order to get the preferred Fantasmic seating from the dining package everyone has to buy a meal. At the end of the meal the waiter gives us our tickets for the preferred seating area for the 9:00PM Fantasmic show. The Blue Bayou get’s the best preferred seating of all the restaurants with seats that are dead center in the viewing area.

We meet back up with Dave and Nathalie, and it’s just 7:30PM so we still have a while till the 9:00PM Fantasmic show. Pirates of the Caribbean is literally right next door to Blue Bayou, so close in fact that Blue Bayou is actually incorporated into the ride in that the boats float right by the restaurant.

Dave and Nathalie meet back up with us after dinner and we all fall in line for Pirates real quick. Pirates in Disneyland is the very original pirates and aside from the version in Shanghai, still the best version. We start of the ride floating right by where we just had dinner.

It’s notably longer than the other versions and just more elaborate. The scenes seemed bigger and overall the theming of the ride just feels grander.

The only place I felt Magic Kingdom improved was the queue which is better themed in Magic Kingdom, but aside from that, the Disneyland version is just far more impressive than the one at Magic Kingdom or Paris.

Shanghai is a different beast altogether and really can’t be compared to the more traditional Pirates rides. We did not have time to do the Tokyo version so we cannot compare it.

Pirates doesn’t take too long to do so we head over to Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Forbidden Eye. The queue is a little different from the Tokyo DisneySea version, but is still an excellent queue and feels like you are exploring a hidden temple.

I remember when this ride opened up when I was a kid and I was DYING to go to Disneyland to ride it. I was obsessed with Indiana Jones as a kid. It opened in 1995, and I didn’t make it to Disneyland till 1998 and I thought it was the greatest ride ever. Twenty six years later it is just as good as ever. After riding it again in such close succession to the version in Tokyo, I’m honestly slightly torn as to with version I like better. They are both amazing rides and nearly identical, with only a handful of differences in certain scenes and effects. Either way they are both spectacular rides and the epitome of Imagineering.

To be continued here.

Read about the previous day here.