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Today was our day to spend at a theme park – Disneyland was the park of choice – and so we got up early to make sure we made the most of the day (the park opened at 8am, and shut at midnight). We woke up for breakfast at 7:30am, and made good time here leaving the hotel close to 8am. We walked a mile or so down the road back to LAX in order to catch the bus to the Greenline station, Aviation. Ed’s list of train times was perfect, and as we reached the top of the escalator the train pulled into the station. We had each purchased $5 ‘day passes’ which would give us unlimited transfers and uses all day on the Metro system – something we had become accustomed to yesterday (although the success of the Metro system as a whole was not clear). The plan from here was to catch the Greenline to a point where we could transfer to the Blueline, then catch the Blueline south (hopefully away from the “chedda-cheese” of yesterday and into the nicer districts towards Disneyland); hopefully only 3 or so miles by taxi from the Anaheim station to the park.

Pick up da poop!

As we changed trains, the crowd (or lack thereof) was certainly nicer than the day before, and the suburbs a nicer sight on the eyes than we had seen previously; however as we counted down the stops to Anaheim, something didn’t seem all that right in the direction of Long Beach. We hopped off the train at the Anaheim station, to find no welcome party, no taxi rank (in fact no taxis at all!), and certainly no sign of Disneyland. It was a few miles to the park according to Ed’s Google Maps search, so we decided to set off on foot until we saw a taxi that could give us a lift the rest of the way.

We walked west a number of blocks (a number of very, very poor-looking blocks) along Anaheim St until Pip finally decided that it was time to ask someone either for directions to Disneyland. A small diner was the help-location of choice, and luckily a car (or two) of policemen were here on their break having something to eat (donuts so I’m told). When Pip asked the direction to Disneyland, she was greeted with the most incredible look of shock – and provided with a similar verbal response to the extent of, “you’re a long way from Disneyland!”… 25 miles as it turned out! Unfortunately we had, under Ed’s direction, taken the Blueline to Anaheim Street Station, Long Beach, and not Anaheim proper. If we wanted to catch the train to Anaheim, we needed to take the Amtrack (a different system altogether, in seemingly a very different direction). The policeman who helped us out informed us that this was not a very nice neighbourhood at all (in fact, one of the very worst), and his concern for our safety was paramount here. Under his direction, we waited out in the diner on this corner and just paused while the taxi he called took its time to arrive (we had still not seen a single taxi in the walk to this point).

As we waited, we saw four taxis drive past this “establishment” that we had camped in (to the somewhat disgust of the Latin owners) but none that stopped to pick us up. A number of minutes later – Ed had been waiting out on the sidewalk during this time, against the wishes of the police officer who had now gone to a call-out – the taxi finally did arrive and we quickly bailed ourselves in a drove out of the neighbourhood we’d found ourselves in. 30 minutes later, at about 10:30am, we arrived at Disneyland. A much, much, nicer area I might add.

Where to next?

The sun was shining, and a very warm 22-degree (Celcius) day awaited us here in Anaheim (the real Anaheim this time). Oh, but so did the crowds. We lined up at the entrance to buy our tickets and decided to spend the day at Disneyland proper (not the California Adventure Park that was across the road for people bored of Disneyland itself). We muscled our way through the hoards of people, and arrived (finally) at the park where magic certainly does happen… mostly.

We didn’t realise the extent of the crowd situation until we were inside, trying to find a ride to enjoy – Space Mountain was the pick. Moving to line up, we found that the expected wait time was 75 minutes. 75 minutes?!?! Luckily for us the wait turned out to be exaggerated by a factor of 2, and this was pretty consistent on all the rides we went on – but that still meant nearly 40 minutes waiting in a line before we got to do anything. As we walked from attraction to attraction, the crowds just seemed to get bigger and bigger. Throughout the course of the day we did experience most of the major attractions, however, and so still had a good time despite the shoulder-to-shoulder walkways and queues.

Lunch was had at the only place where we could find a seat – Toon Town. We had corn on a cob (Pip) and hot dogs (Ed and I), although the hot dogs were most certainly kid sized (unlike the Skyscraper Dogs at the NBA the night before). We didn’t spend too long here at Toon Town, because we out-aged the median by a considerable number of years.

From here, we continued to make our way around the park, hopping from major attraction to major attraction. When we reached Splash Mountain, however, we decided to allocate ourselves a spot on the Fast Pass line (a system where you can reserve a time for later in the day, then come back and skip the queue) for 3:30pm. In hindsight it was lucky that this time was no later than 3:30pm, as we got absolutely saturated – without the sun to dry us off, we probably would have perished in the park from hypothermia. It had been a nice and sunny day to this point, but it soon dropped numerous degrees as the sun disappeared over the man-made mountains.

By 5:30pm, we had done most rides that we had hoped to during the day – except for Indiana Jones. The queue had previously been 105 minutes wait time (way, way too long), but now was only 75 minutes. We decided to take this opportunity and try to experience this attraction as well, so we joined the queue. A considerable time later – at least 30 minutes or so – we had made good progress through the line; however, right as we were about to progress further the line stopped to a dead-halt. It soon emerged that the ride was broken, and would not be fixed for a number of hours… Just what we wanted to hear at this point. A quick chat to the staff member managing the line and it turns out that this is not an uncommon occurrence, with each of the Jeeps containing multiple computer systems, weighing about 3 tonnes, and costing in excess of a few million dollars each. We decided to postpone our waiting, and we left (along with everyone else) to get some dinner.

Pip a little wet

Skipping all of the boring details, we had dinner at Pizza Port (back in Tomorrowland) then attempted to return to Indiana Jones – which was now back in operation. It was 7:00pm by this time, and while we had a Fast Pass appointment on the Thunder Mountain Railroad at 8:15pm, the 75 minute wait seemed a reasonable time filler here – this is where we were very wrong. By 9pm, we were still queuing outside the attraction building – we had moved forward, but not enough to be inside. The slow progress was due to some incompetent line and crowd management skills, and this lead to a very vocal protest from both the crowd, and Ed. Once we had finished on Indiana Jones (about 9:30pm) – not at all worth the wait – we took our last ride on the Thunder Mountain Railroad, caught a glimpse of the main Disney sound and light show, and did a spot of shopping on the way out of the park.

Rather than experimenting with public transport systems again here, we decided that a taxi was the way to get home – $85 later, and 12:15am, we were finally home, after a rather eventful day.

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