My SoCal Trip to Disneyland and Universal Studios

 

 

I'd been hankering for a trip to Disneyland, and I was fortunate to find some people to join me. So here are the results! I booked a hotel in Anaheim, which Lynda, who RPs Jake in the JF role-playing communties joined me in. We were there for three days total.

 

Day One

Today, Lynda and I hit Disneyland. It turned out to be a great time, but not without it's pains :(

After calling a cab and giving up on it when it never showed up at the motel, Lynda and I hopped on the local bus line and rode up to Disneyland. We got there bright and early at 8am, and boy, was it nice and empty! In fact, all day I've never seen such short lines at an amusement park. It was great.

This is just inside the entrance. Disneyland is celebrating their 50th anniversary. Anticipating huge lines, we ran over to Pirates of the Caribbean for our first ride. This attraction had been down for renovations in order to make it tie in with the second movie. Hmm, wonder what changes they might have made ....

This is a new addition to the wall that lines the waiting area. I tried taking some pictures during the ride but I didn't want to turn on the flash and disrupt the experience and so all the pics I took turned out blurry. But on the last animation of the ride I risked the flash so I could get at least one good shot of Jack. There were a handful of other additions from the movie which I won't spoil and let you see for yourself.

We also saw a live-action Jack who was super hot. He looked just like Johnny Depp and had the voice down perfectly. Lynda asked for a picture with him but he said he was on his way somewhere and couldn't pause. Bummer.

Another new addition to the ride is this map with updated places from the movie.

As you'd expect, there was a ton of pirate paraphrenalia to buy at the neighboring stores. I liked this shirt. I saw it on a lot of little girls, which I found funny. Next door was a shop for A Nightmare Before Christmas.

They had a lot of fun items from the movie. I wish they made a ride of it. Next, we headed to the Haunted Mansion, which had some of the shortest lines all day (the second time we rode it there wasn't a line at all).

Outside the Haunted Mansion. We hadn't eaten breakfast, so we thought we'd have some brunch/lunch in the New Orleans Square area.

Here's Lynda going to town on her clam chowder in a bread bowl. They gave us only spoons to eat with so she turned native and tore her bread bowl apart with her teeth and fingers, the savage. It turns out my watch was on Colorado time. We were thinking we'd just eaten brunch. Turns out we ate at 9 am, so later, we were wondering why were starved so early! After "lunch", we headed to Thunder Mountain.

Then it was off to Adventure Land to hit the Jungle Cruise, which Lynda had never been on.

On the boat.

Since it was still early, we tried to hit up the Indiana Jones ride but the line was still relatively long. So we took the fast track option, where you can pick up a ticket that guarantees you quick admission during a set time later in the day. It was the only ride we needed to do this for.

Outside the temple of Indiana Jones. During the ride, which is really bumpy and jerky, my hat flew off. I yelled out, "I lost my hat!". I turned around (we were sitting in the last row of the jeep) and there was my hat, sitting on the fake cargo in the back of the jeep. Talk about luck! I mean, if you've ever been on that ride, you know you should kiss your hat goodbye if it flies off. But nope, I snagged it and sat on it so I wouldn't lose it again. I was laughing my butt off during that ride. Loved it. The next major ride was Space Mountain. The last time I rode this thing I must've been 6 or 7 and it was my most traumatic Disneyland experience ever. I got off the ride terrified and bawling my eyes out. So I was a little nervous getting on the ride again (though no way was I going to tell this to Lynda! haha)

Here are riders boarding the shuttle things. There's an automatic camera that takes a picture of you while on the ride. We bought ours for one very specific reason:

Can you tell what it is? Here's a closeup:

No, it's not my hat head, it's Lynda's expression! Omg, she looks so mad here, lol. We had a good laugh over it. After riding Star Tours (awesome), Fantasy Land was next. By this time it was around 1 pm, and it was blazing hot. Hot and humid and ugh. I'm surprised little kids weren't passing out everywhere. It was really tough standing in long lines and Lynda had developed blisters on both feet by this time. But we got in line for the Alice in Wonderland ride after I got a pic with the White Rabbit:

The ride turned out to be lamer than I remembered (I think I was really young the last time I rode it). But we got a pic out of it.

Lynda was in major pain by this point and could barely walk, so a lot of time was spent trying to find places to rest and rides that would allow us to sit. We rode a couple of more things and then we headed out of the park and back to Downtown Disney where we had dinner at the Rainforest Cafe. The food was decent enough and the atmosphere was relaxing. It was good that we got out of the sun, too. Heat stroke might have been an issue. Then we rode the monorail back to Disneyland where we repeated on a couple of rides. Lynda wanted to catch the fireworks, so I left here in front of Sleeping Beauty's Castle, and went to the Matterhorn by myself.

You can see maintenance guys repelling down the side of it. I rode it, but it was only moderately fun. I remembered it being scarier. Then I trekked back to SpaceMountain and waited an hour to ride it again. I kept my hands up the entire time and I think I got mild whiplash but it was worth it. I want to ride that thing while I'm on Ecstasy, lol. I love that ride. Just as I got out of Space Mountain, the fireworks started up so I watched them while I stood next to the Orbiter:

After the fireworks, I tried to find Lynda but she'd taken off to watch another show. I paused to take a pic of the castle, all aglow:

While lynda watched her show I bought myself a strawberry shortcake and had a nice moment of sitting on the curb on Main Street in front of the penny arcade, eating my shortcake :) Poor Lynda is in tremendous pain from her feet. She could barely walk and I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. As strong-willed as she's been for my sake, pain is pain. We'll see. She's passed out as I write this. I should go draw on her face or something :P I'm very proud of myself that I didn't spend much money. I bought two Alice in Wonderland pins, an Ewok and Jack Skellington plushie magnet for myself. For you guys, I bought a Jack Skellington plushie magnet and a cool Pirates of the Caribbean pin. It'll be for the next goody bag I give out. In a few hours we're meeting up with LdDurham and Co. at Universal Studios. I hope it's as fun as today was :)

Day Two

As promised, on to Universal Studios!

Our trip to Universal Studios was defined by how long we waited. For everything. Omg, I feel like I sacrificed part of my soul to experience this day. But oddly, it was still fun :)

The biggest issue was getting to and from the park and our hotel. Universal is already about a forty-five minute drive from where we were staying and that's a straight shot by car. Lacking a car, we were at the mercy of the L.A. public transportation system and oh, did we get flailed. It's fortunate Lynda knew the system so well, otherwise it could've been way worse.

We hopped on the bus in front of our hotel which took us to Disneyland. Then we got out and waited for the next one which would take us downtown. This second bus took us to the train station, which in turn took us to Universal. It took 3 hours of riding. On the way, we were supposed to meet up with Lisa, Lynda's roommate, but bad timing meant we missed her, so Lisa agreed to meet us at the park. Once we were at the park I forgot about the travails of getting there because yay! LdDurham and her wife, Jen, were waiting for us. I'd met them only briefly at last year's YaoiCon and they seemed very fun and cool so I was looking forward to spending the day with them. is known for her "Indago" series in HP fanfiction, and she's the author of the Juxtan novella, "Descent Through Darkness". As I expected, these two ladies were great company! I hope they can manage Japan with me next year :)

Universal Studios is a lot more cramped than Disneyland. It's on two levels and there really aren't that many rides; mostly they offer movie-inspired shows to watch. I was hoping the day wouldn't be as hot as Disneyland had been, but as the temperature soared, I realized we were in for more torture. First stop after purchasing wristbands which allowed us to eat at select cafes throughout the park was the Jurassic Park ride since we'd get nice and wet and cool down a bit. Lynda wanted to eat and wait for Lisa to show up, so she sent LdDurham, Jen and I off on the ride. It was very fun and the last drop was steeper than I expected so about midway through the drop my screams of enjoyment turned to those of pure terror. I wish the automatic photo would have caught that, lol.

When we got off the ride, Lynda and Lisa had braved the humongous food line and were eating, so we three went to the Mummy ride. On the way I saw Spiderman, who had a massive bubble butt and, as Jen said, was "packing", lol. Everytime I referred to Spiderman from then on, I had to hold my hand out like I was cupping a cantaloupe.

Actual conversation:

Spidey: Hi, what's your name?

Me: Tricia

Spidey: Georgia?

Me: Tricia

Spidey: Where are you from, Tricia?

Me: Las Vegas

Spidey: And what do you do there?

Me: I'm a writer.

Spidey: For who?

Me: Myself. I'm, uh, self-employed.

Spidey: What do you write?

Me: Uh ... adult fiction.

Spidey: Whoa-ho!

Me: Yeah. You don't need any more stimulation.

Spidey: *laugh* No, I don't.

He pressed his package into my leg :(

Then we continued on to the Mummy. This was a great ride! It reminded me a little of Space Mountain since it was in the dark.

From left to right: Jen, me, and LdDurham. We're still kind of wet from the Jurassic ride.

We were starved by this point, so we three went to a diner that accepted our all-you-can-eat wristbands. It was like standing in line to enter Hell, only you were already in Hell and the anticipation of receiving food at the end was the only thing that allowed you to endure. Boy, that was miserable hot and took forever. I want to say we were in line for hours, but that's probably an exaggeration. While eating, Lynda and Lisa joined us. Lynda had sprained her ankle, so now she was officially crippled, lol. She was now in a wheelchair, being pushed by Lisa.

The only upside to this was that Lynda had been given front of the line passes, so from there on out we were given priority wheelchair seating and never had to wait in line. So that was pretty sweet :) We rode the Back to the Future ride, which was awful. It was rough and I swear I got whiplash from it. The backlot tour was agreed upon by everyone, so that was next. Strangely enough, this turned into a minor voyage to Hell, also.

As you know, my guilty pleasure is Fast and the Furious. So of course when the cars showed up I had to take pictures of them. A cool thing was that in the props area they had replicas of Tokyo vending machines and they were exactly like the ones we'd seen when we were there. I was excited by this for some reason.

There was a little show with the cars dancing around and stuff.

Here's the 'bigature', a model used in the filming of King Kong.

Set of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, made out of foam.

I'm not sweaty and hot. No way!

The airplane crash set from the War of the Worlds was pretty cool. It truly looked like a disaster area.

LdDurham and Jen, enduring the heat. Two years later we got off, and I bought my most prized possession of the trip: a Spongebob Squarepants sipper. Oh, how I love thee, Spongebob.

We went to Shrek 4-D, which was awesome and tied for my favorite attraction of the day. I hope someday they'll make an entire Shrek movie this way. Then Lynda wanted a picture of all five of us on the Mummy ride, so we skipped the line again and hopped on that. Yes, five us entered, yet only four of us showed up on film. Hmmm...could one of us be .... a vampire?!!

Where's LdDurham? She's supposed to be behind me, yet she's gone! Haha! Lisa looks like she's going to die, Jen looks too cool for school, Lynda finally looks a little scared, and I look like I'm about to eat someone. The park was about to close by this time so we caught the last showing of the Special Effects show.

Still bitter about the torture we'd suffered to get lunch, we all vowed that we'd eat one final time so we could stick it to Universal and 'make them pay', lol. So we shoved some Italian food down our throats, and then it was time to go. We wished LdDurham and Jen goodbye, with hopes that we'll get together again soon. Then oh, yay, Lynda, Lisa and I slogged it back to the train station for the fun 3-hour trip back to the hotel.

Never again will I ride public transportation for longer than half an hour!! So that was the end. Thursday morning we checked out of the hotel. I want to send much love and thanks to Lynda for being the ultimate trooper. She paid someone $75 to cover her work so she could go on this trip with me, a trip which she'd been saving up for. She suffered through multiple, debilitating blisters and a sprained ankle and didn't let any of it ruin the week. You're awesome, Lynda. Really :)

--Tricia, July 21, 2006