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Friday: Disneyland
Dec. 16th, 2006 09:56 amYesterday after I took Libby in for a routine oil change and tire rotation -- both to keep within the strictures of my we-replace-your-tires-for-free warranty, and to make sure she's in good shape for the long haul home -- ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
zoonut and I headed to Disneyland. This was significant for me since, although I've been to EuroDisney twice as part of overseas choir tours, I have never actually been to a regular, normal Disneyland.
Well, I still haven't, not really. Disneyland is all tricked out for Christmas, which is kind of awesome. There's a Christmas Tree of gargantuan proportion -- the kind that could provide Christmas Trees for a small nation if you hacked it up and distributed branches -- in the big main square, and even more lights (I think) than usual, and a lot of the rides have been altered to fit a Christmas theme. Sometimes that was sort of lame, because the Small World people were alternating "Jingle Bells" in English instead of their usual little cheerfully nauseating chorus in dozens of languages. Apparently children all over the world sing Jingle Bells in English. Go fig.
But the Haunted Mansion had been taken over by The Nightmare Before Christmas, which was so incredibly full of awesome that I cannot properly enunciate my reaction without gurgling.
Also, Jack Sparrow has been added to Pirates of the Carribean. I understand he wasn't there before. I think it's pretty cool, though I suspect it makes some people unhappy.
Happily, Star Tours -- the only ride I remember from EuroDisney, and let me tell you, it just isn't the same in French -- has NOT been updated with Episodes I-III. I mean, it could use a facelift, but I'd have to cry if it had turned into a podrace with chibi Anakin. ("...Darth Vader just said 'yippee.'")
The most disturbing thing in the park, however, was Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, with which I was not previously familiar. It's a cheerful little romp through London, with your car swerving every whichway, through pubs and alleys and other places cars aren't normally supposed to go. Then you wind up on a traintrack, and the light of an oncoming train is heading straight for you. Of course, having been accustomed to narrowly evading such things all through the ride, you wait for the punchline, the quick save that sends your car careening out of the way...
This doesn't happen. You die. YOU GET HIT BY THE TRAIN AND YOU DIE. There is no escaping this conclusion because then the landscape around you changes and YOU ARE IN HELL SURROUNDED BY IMPS AND DEMONS. WTF MAN, AUGH.
And it doesn't get better, either. Your little out-of-control car does not escape into Heaven. The last thing you see before you reach the unloading zone is the car descending into the mouth of a fire-breathing dragon.
THERE IS NO HAPPY ENDING TO THIS RIDE. Disney's happy, cheerful message is a complete lie - they're killing people in there. I'm not sure whether to be horrified or impressed. I mean, these are the people who let the Black Cauldron get banned for years? How on earth did that happen when Mr. Toad is still alive and well (or dead and unwell, as the case may be) in Anaheim, California? (I've had a lot of people tell me they thought it got shut down, and that may be so on the east coast, but either I was really, really tripping yesterday, or this location has held out.)
Also? I had a nightmare last night that I was clinging to a roller coaster track, too high up to just let go and drop safely to the ground. There was oncoming traffic (cars, not coasters - go fig) and my only option was to reach over to the parallel monorail track and cling to that instead.
I blame Mr. Toad.
zoonut and I headed to Disneyland. This was significant for me since, although I've been to EuroDisney twice as part of overseas choir tours, I have never actually been to a regular, normal Disneyland.Well, I still haven't, not really. Disneyland is all tricked out for Christmas, which is kind of awesome. There's a Christmas Tree of gargantuan proportion -- the kind that could provide Christmas Trees for a small nation if you hacked it up and distributed branches -- in the big main square, and even more lights (I think) than usual, and a lot of the rides have been altered to fit a Christmas theme. Sometimes that was sort of lame, because the Small World people were alternating "Jingle Bells" in English instead of their usual little cheerfully nauseating chorus in dozens of languages. Apparently children all over the world sing Jingle Bells in English. Go fig.
But the Haunted Mansion had been taken over by The Nightmare Before Christmas, which was so incredibly full of awesome that I cannot properly enunciate my reaction without gurgling.
Also, Jack Sparrow has been added to Pirates of the Carribean. I understand he wasn't there before. I think it's pretty cool, though I suspect it makes some people unhappy.
Happily, Star Tours -- the only ride I remember from EuroDisney, and let me tell you, it just isn't the same in French -- has NOT been updated with Episodes I-III. I mean, it could use a facelift, but I'd have to cry if it had turned into a podrace with chibi Anakin. ("...Darth Vader just said 'yippee.'")
The most disturbing thing in the park, however, was Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, with which I was not previously familiar. It's a cheerful little romp through London, with your car swerving every whichway, through pubs and alleys and other places cars aren't normally supposed to go. Then you wind up on a traintrack, and the light of an oncoming train is heading straight for you. Of course, having been accustomed to narrowly evading such things all through the ride, you wait for the punchline, the quick save that sends your car careening out of the way...
This doesn't happen. You die. YOU GET HIT BY THE TRAIN AND YOU DIE. There is no escaping this conclusion because then the landscape around you changes and YOU ARE IN HELL SURROUNDED BY IMPS AND DEMONS. WTF MAN, AUGH.
And it doesn't get better, either. Your little out-of-control car does not escape into Heaven. The last thing you see before you reach the unloading zone is the car descending into the mouth of a fire-breathing dragon.
THERE IS NO HAPPY ENDING TO THIS RIDE. Disney's happy, cheerful message is a complete lie - they're killing people in there. I'm not sure whether to be horrified or impressed. I mean, these are the people who let the Black Cauldron get banned for years? How on earth did that happen when Mr. Toad is still alive and well (or dead and unwell, as the case may be) in Anaheim, California? (I've had a lot of people tell me they thought it got shut down, and that may be so on the east coast, but either I was really, really tripping yesterday, or this location has held out.)
Also? I had a nightmare last night that I was clinging to a roller coaster track, too high up to just let go and drop safely to the ground. There was oncoming traffic (cars, not coasters - go fig) and my only option was to reach over to the parallel monorail track and cling to that instead.
I blame Mr. Toad.
