USA Trip (12th Sep - 8th Oct) - Day 17 - Disney California Adventure

We woke up early to hit the first of our Disney Parks - Disney California Adventure.

The Disneyland Resort in Anaheim consists of two parks - Disneyland and Disneyland California Adventure.

Disneyland was built in 1955 and was the first theme park built by the Walt Disney Company. Disney had their studios at Burbank and were often getting fans asking for tours, so he decided to open a park for them to visit. The area in Burbank was too small, so he purchased the site in Anaheim. Disney got the idea for Disneyland from visiting Griffith Park in LA and watching his children on the carousel. Disneyworld in Florida was opened much later in 1971 based off of the original Disneyland.

The Disneyland California Adventure was opened in 2001 in the area that was the original carpark for Disneyland.

After seeing the success of the multiple park resort in Florida, Disney wanted to replicate that at Anaheim and initially proposed WestCOT (A Californian version of EPCOT). There wasn't a lot of free space around Disneyland due to growth in the area and the Disneyworld Florida site was 30,000 acres, while Disneyland was only 400, including the park, carpark and hotel. Disney cancelled the idea of WestCOT after a number of issues - financial issues with Disneyland Paris, the death of the Disney President in a helicopter crash and a high proposed cost.

The Disney corporation considered the problems facing Disneyland and concluded that tourists coming to California would have Disneyland as just one of a few things on their to-do list, opting to also see California and other attractions, like Santa Monica and Hollywood. By building a park dedicated to the history of California, so tourists wouldn't need to go anywhere else. The park was designed to be more adult-focussed, like Epcot with a focus on food and scenery.

The park opened in Feb 2001 and drew 5 million visitors that year, compared to 12.3 million at Disneyland. The park had an initial capacity of 33,000 but was drawing only 5,000 visitors on weekdays and less than 15,000 on weekends. People were choosing Disneyland over California Adventure because the parks were equally priced and Disneyland had many more rides, attractions, characters and things to do.

In 2007 the park was redesigned to appeal to a larger audience. It was designed with sections spoofing different parts of California as well as Disney and Pixar themes.

When we visited, the park had the following areas:

Buena Vista Street
Shows LA in the 1920s and houses restaurants and shops

Hollywood Land
Themed on Hollywood in the 1930s - houses cinema attractions.

Avengers Campus
Based on the Marvel Universe - houses the revamped Tower of Terror - now Guardians of the Galaxy - Mission Breakout and the Web Slingers Spider-Man adventure ride.

Cars Land
Themed on Route 66 and Pixar's Cars: Radiator Springs it houses Radiator Springs Racers (to date the most expensive ride ever made at US$200 million), it also houses Luigi's Rollickin' Roadsters and Mater's Junkyard Jamboree.

San Fransokyo Square
Based on California's Fishing wharf and Big Hero 6 this area serves as the food court, housing restaurants and food shops.

Performance Corridor
This is a pathway that houses the parades

Pixar Pier
Based on Victorian Boardwalks and Santa Monica Pier, this area is themed on Pixar movies and houses the Incredicoaster, Pixar Pal-A-Round Ferris Wheel, Jessie's Critter Carousel and a few other rides

Grizzly Peak
This area is themed on the wilderness and houses Grizzly River Run and Soarin'.

The park was themed up for Halloween, with some rides changing names and pumpkin theming throughout:

We were allowed into the park at 8am, however the main sections were blocked off and rides didn't start until 9. We queued up in Bueno Vista Street and into Hollywood Land.

The crowd started to gather

Walking down Bueno Vista Street

Off the Page - A shop which sold pictures and animation frames

We were held in Hollywood land until the park officially opened.

The walls in Hollywood Land were drawn to make it look they they continued into the distance

The Hyperion Theatre was the main focus of Hollywood Land

The crowd with Guardians of the Galaxy ride behind it.

We started the day racing (pardon the pun) to get to Cars ride as Brett was most excited to try it. However the line blew out to around an hour and half before the ride had even opened. We took a quick look around Radiator Springs and then made our first ride Luigi's Rollickin' Roadsters - a ride where we sat in cars that spun around in a dance formation:

The queue to meet Lightning McQueen

We then checked the lines and saw that most of the main rides had leapt up to 40min or so, so we headed to the Spiderman - Webslingers ride back in Avengers Campus. The Campus was themed up from the Marvel Avengers movies and the Webslinger ride was themed on Peter Parker giving a tour of a lab where they had invented self replicating spiders. The spiders got out of control, devouring everything to make more spiders. We were given 3d classes and set in a vehicle that travelled through scenes of the spiders destroying the lab. Similar to the Ninjago ride in Legoland, we were able to fire web by moving our hands over sensors and had to shoot down the spiders for points.

Ruined Sanctum Sanctorum

Mysterious Artifact at Sanctum

Theming on the way to Webslingers

3D Glasses

Peter Parker Explaining the robots

After we spent the start of the ride teasing Alana for always losing at these rides, she beat us all by quite a bit:

We then headed to the Monsters Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue Ride! in Hollywood Land:

After the ride we decided to head to Pixar Pier and the Incredicoaster. We walked through San Fransokyo:

Unfortunately the Incredicoaster closed for maintenance just as we arrived at it. With no timeline for it restarting we decided to explore the pier and met Frozone:

We passed by Angry Dog Hotdogs, the Midway and Jessie's Critter Carousel before settling on the Pixar Pal-A-About - a ferris wheel. 

The wheel had two options, cabins that rocked and those that don't. Kris, Alana and I went in a fixed cabin and Tara took the boys in a rocking one. By now, the temperature had reached the high 30s and it was really hot waiting in line, so we took the opportunity to crowd in the shade when we could. Luckily there was a nice breeze on the wheel:

There was a Toy Soldiers show going on at the base of the wheel

Looking down on the Inside-Out Emotional Whirlwind ride

After the ferris wheel, Cameron and Brett took on the Midway games, but at US$5 a shot, they only played two games:

Next we moved further into the pier area and rode the Inside-Out Emotional Whirlwind, a spinning ride and Goofy's Sky School, which was a mad mouse style coaster:

Jumping Jellyfish

Signs at the Goofy Ride

We also rode the Golden Zephyr spinning ride, which was nicknamed the giant Kebab as the carriages looked like kebabs wrapped in foil:

The Incredicoaster had finally reopened, so we jumped in the line. It was originally named California Screamin' but was rethemed for The Incredibles. It reaches 89km/h on start and had a full loop.

 

From there we headed back to ride the Radiator Springs Racers:

The start of the ride took us through various scenes from cars as we prepared for the race and then the two cars split up - Alana, Tara, Brett and I went one way and Kris, Cam and Tom went another. We went through a scene where our tyres were changed, which involved the car bucking and the others had a scene where they were sprayed down. We then had a race through the mountains, and their car won. They had a scene talking about winning and we had a scene talking about winning not being everything.

We then had a look around the Radiator Springs area, which was themed for Halloween, with Mader's Junkyard Jamboree, being rethemed as Mader's Graveyard Jamboree.  We stopped at the restaurant for lunch and watched as some cars characters paraded past:

Brett and Tara split off for a bit, with Brett meeting Black Panther:

and the boys are I riding the Guardians of the Galaxy ride. We made the last ride of the Guardian's theme before the ride swapped over the Halloween theme:

As we left the ride we saw Iron Man and a musical band:

At this point, Kris and Alana were worn out and the heat was getting to them, so they headed back to the apartment, while Tara, Brett, Cam, Tom and I continued. First Cam, Tom and I rode the Incredicoaster again as single riders - I got a seat right at the front.

We then paused for a quick photo with Dug the dog from the movie Up:

and then we checked out the Coco area and found a musical parade that Brett joined in on:

Tom then took Brett on the Jumping Jellyfish:

Once we'd finished up, we headed back to check a few of the shops:

At this point we realised we'd completely missed the Grizzly Peak, so we headed there and Brett played in the Redwood Creek Challenge and then we headed to the Grizzly River Run, which was a white water rafting ride where I got soaked.

Our final stop of the day was back to Hollywood Land to watch the Turtle Talk with Crush:

By now we were all pretty hot and tired, so we decided to call it a day and rest up for the next park tomorrow. On our way back to the hotel we stopped and picked up Subway for everyone and Tara and the boys went in the pool, while Kris, Alana and I crashed out in our room.