DISNEY!

“How can I spend an enormous amount of money, be uncomfortable, and listen to my children whine and complain? Disney!”

               ~ Jim Gaffigan

As my sore feet attest, we visited Disneyland in Anaheim just after New Years’ Day this year. A review follows:

First things first: It’s not the walking that results in hurt feet, it’s the standing. Three whole days of standing on concrete. Even in newer shoes with additional support, the standing was excruciating. I could walk all day through those parks. But stand the whole day? Never.

Nevertheless, we did a lot of standing.

Best ride we went on? Radiator Springs Racers, bar none. The retelling of the original Cars story, complete with jump scares from Mack and the combine harvester, wonderful. And the racing afterward? Even better. One tip: The first time I went on the ride, my family had Fast Passes, I did not. I went into the single rider line, however, and got through almost as quickly as they did.

The bestest? Getting to walk through a real Radiator Springs on the way to the ride.

Worst ride we went on? Guardians of the Galaxy. First of all, I should say this: I never went on the original Tower of Terror, so I had no idea what to expect out of the ride. Also, I haven’t seen either of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, so that’s another strike against my experience. But a drop ride? All that time in line for a drop ride, even with a Fast Pass? No thanks. I’ll skip it from now on.

And it was chillingly ironic that the best way to get to the ride from most of the park was through A Bug’s Land, another place that just has no appeal to me or my children, though they loved it in the past.

New this year? A pervasive sewer smell, strongest near Pirates of the Caribbean and the Peter Pan ride, but Tomorrowland was also a bit whiffy. I know we were there at a busy time, as the crowds attest. But we’ve been at the park at other busy times and never had to put up with a smell that bad.

A few other thoughts:

Space Mountain never disappoints.

The Submarine Voyage? Stinkerino. We turned it into a joke – “How was that ride, kids?” “It was better than the submarine.” They tossed in a few nods to Finding Nemo, but left the rest of the ride, after rehab, as it was in the past, to the point some of the starfish clinging to the walls were still missing.

Day three I spent a lot of time with our exhausted 13-year-old. We spent about a half hour watching who would step on the crunchy pretzels someone else spilled in a seating area (!) in Radiator Springs, and another good block of time wondering at all the people who insist on throwing coins in whatever bit of water they see at the park. We were surprised at the end not to see coins in the toilets.

And when I went to the park as a high school journalism student, I recall the vast majority of the “cool kids” – or as cool as they can be when you’re all journalism or yearbook nerds – went on Autopia. So I decided that was the one ride I was not going to go on. Went on it for the first time this year, and saw I didn’t miss much. In fact, it’s clear it’s meant to appeal to those who haven’t driven, or haven’t driven much. I caught myself thinking several times as my 15-year-old daughter bounced us around the track, “They’ve perfectly captured everything there is annoying about driving and built it into this ride. And while the commercial from Honda – the ride’s sponsor, because Disney doesn’t have enough money yet nor does Honda have enough exposure – was the only thing audible. They were playing the old dream visions from Disney’s imagineers on the Traffic of the Future, but without any sounds at all. Probably in the knowledge that the idea of highways being the magical cure-all to civilization’s ills haven’t been realized on the clogged freeways that lead to and from their park.

Other attractions, however, have fared better.

On our last night there, we slipped into the Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, half-hoping Disneyland also had an automaton Donald Trump as does Disneyworld. No such luck. But we watched the Lincoln show, and it brought me to tears. What the country endured during his time is a far cry from any torment we might see now, no matter what the current pundits say.

Missed opportunity: Disney owns Star Wars, yet none of their dining establishments is called the Mos Eisley Cantina. How could that not be a hit?

And It’s A Small World. Oh, how I and my aching feet love that ride. Even getting that earworm tune in my head is worth sitting in that little boat, in the air-conditioned semidarkness, as those puppets slowly fly by offering us that saccharine view of the world that we secretly all want, despite the cynicism the ride typically brings out in people.

For the future: Compromise on saving money and feet by bypassing any for-pay hotel shuttles to and from the park by driving to the Disney lots and paying $20 a day to park there. We walked the first day – and it killed us (we stayed more than a mile from the park), took the hotel shuttle the next day at $15 a head for the day, then parked at Disney for the third day. Taking that third option all three days would have been the best compromise between ease and value.