California
Travel Montage: California [2024]
No Rest For The Wicked
February 8th, 2024
Woke up after 3 hours sleep, at around 3am. Ideal. Just what I wanted. No need to sleep a minute longer, body. Not like you’ve got a full day ahead of you or anything.
CVS was due to open at 6am, so being wide awake, the plan became get showered, dressed and head there to get the supplies we didn’t get the night before and then cross the street to Denny’s for breakfast.
The plan was executed successfully and we now had toiletries, full stomachs and the beginnings of an understanding of just how fucking expensive California is. Especially when it comes to food and factoring in a tip (I don’t necessarily agree with tipping culture, but when in Rome.. or America… Do as the silly American’s do).
Having finished up with breakfast, we made our way to the parks.
When booking accommodation for this trip, I watched a few Disney ‘influencer’ content, talking about where best to stay in the area, as well as reading individuals reviews of the hotels that maybe didn’t appear in those videos. There was a lot of talk about distance to the parks. That city buses were available, the certain hotels may provide shuttles, etc.
We walked.
From hotel to park security, it took us 19 minutes and 12 seconds and that was with having to stop at every crosswalk to wait for traffic to stop and let us cross. If we’d been able to time it slightly better, we could have got to the parks even quicker. This is the journey that people are getting on a bus for? – To be fair, there were a number of other people walking with us, so not everyone was taking shuttles, but still.
Due to still having to reserve parks at the time of our visit, I had selected Disneyland proper as our first park of the day (with Park Hopper kicking in at 11am), we headed through security and got our tickets scanned and photos taken and we were in. We headed down Main Street, being sure to comment on just how fucking small the castle is in Anaheim and… then I realised that we’d accidentally rope dropped or, were about to, at least.
I’ve never, I don’t think, rope dropped any of the parks and I hadn’t intended to do so today. But we were in the hub, surrounded by people amping themselves up to run (presumably) to Galaxy’s Edge for Rise of the Resistance and our plan? Pirates.
When the ‘rope dropped’, we headed to Pirates and, I guess not a lot of people head there first because it wasn’t open yet. Trying to decide where we could maybe go instead, we hung around for a moment and eventually they opened up, allowing us to be amongst the first to set sail that day. My main observation of Pirates in Disneyland is how rough it was, something I don’t remember from any of the other iterations – with every corner, the boat seemed to slam into the side, it also felt like the ride went through a lot of… nothing… at times, before the next scene would come along. Then the wait at the bottom and slow climb of the lift hill at the end felt a little anti-climactic. That’s not to say I hated it, but as someone who can happily ride the Paris version over and over again, it just felt lacking.
From Pirates, we doubled back on ourselves and ventured onto the Indiana Jones ride. The ride itself is pretty cool, but again, it felt extra rough and while the ride layout and system are essentially the same as Dinosaur in Animal Kingdom I, personally, prefer the theming of the Dino Institute. Partly, perhaps, because I have zero connection to Indiana Jones and because I love me a Dinosaur.
From Indiana Jones to Jungle Cruise. The cruise itself was fine, the seats were soaking wet – which I didn’t really understand, because you don’t get wet on the ride and it hadn’t been raining, but it is what it is, I guess. Jungle Cruise isn’t a ride I have a whole lot of connection to either, I’ve ridden it a few times in Magic Kingdom, once in Tokyo Disneyland (made better, or worse by the fact that the entire journey was in Japanese, I’m unsure).
We had talked, before we went, about not throwing money at the problem (the problem being queues), but after three rides, we caved and bought Genie+ and while getting that set up, Churros were bought.
First up on the Genie+ Lightning Lane was The Matterhorn – first time riding it, but I enjoyed it. It was bumpy, but it was enjoyable in a way that Space Mountain in Magic Kingdom (again, similar ride system), just isn’t. Also, I don’t know if there’s air conditioning in the mountain or if it was just a little chill in SoCal anyway, but the mountain being cold felt like a nice touch.
From The Matterhorn, we went to Small World, during which we encountered the first of many ‘friendly Americans in theme parks’ – it’s a somewhat uniquely American thing for people to just randomly start talking to you. In Paris, where I’ve been most, it just doesn’t happen really and the one time it did (for me) was in the queue for Crush’s Coaster one morning, but even then, the people that were talking to me were Americans. I’m sure a lot of it has to do with language barrier or perceived language barrier, whereas if you’re in America, the assumption (especially if you’re as white as I am), is that you’re going to be able to speak English.
With Genie+ there was some time to wait before we could get on anything else, so we booked for Space Mountain and then went to see some Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln. I’ve visited the Hall of Presidents in Magic Kingdom and The American Adventure in Epcot, so I knew what to expect and Lincoln isn’t quite as bad as either of those, but American propaganda really does out-do itself at times. The animatronic is cool though, even if everything else is cringe inducing.
Space Mountain up next and the first example of Genie+’s downside.
Genie+ on the surface is a better system than Paris’ Premier Access set up. It feels a lot more polished, it’s one base price for the day, at Disneyland Resort, photo pass is included, etc. The downside? It’s cheap. So everyone ends up buying it. And if everyone buys it, it’s no longer all that fast, it’s just a second queue.
We waited for a while to get on Space Mountain, but it was a fun time (again, better than Magic Kingdom’s version, but not as good as Paris’). After Space, we ventured over to Toon Town for some lunch. I had the ‘Pepperoni Pizza flop over’, which is like an unsealed calzone, I guess. It was the greasiest thing I could have chosen, I think. But it was good!
The second example of where Genie+ falls short came next, when we headed over to California Adventure and booked our lightning lane for the Cars ride. Cars isn’t included in Genie+ and is, instead, an add-on. Making it even more similar to Premier Access in Paris. However, despite paying to ride, we still had to wait over 30mins to get on the ride, which, granted, wasn’t a huge wait time, but it’s still longer than you expect to wait when you’ve just paid $40 to get on.
In Paris, Premier Access is sufficiently cost prohibitive that only a small number of people actually use it. It means that the paid lines are never too long and the main lines are never crazy long, because they’re not having to filter through the paid guests as a priority. Here, they don’t seem to have worked that out yet.
Cars was cool, we didn’t win the race though. Unfortunately.
Next up – Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout! – I’m extremely familiar with Tower of Terror, but had obviously never been on this re-skin of the ride, it was a lot of fun, but I don’t think I prefer it over the Twilight Zone – Tower of Terror feels like it utilises the drops as part of the actual storytelling, whereas in Guardians, although still fun, the drops feel like an add on.
Not being at all familiar with Disneyland Resort, the next ride – Soarin’ – proved difficult to find, but we got there in the end and by pure chance, ended up sat in the middle, of the middle. Lining us up perfectly so we had the Eiffel Tower (and all other tall structures) as straight as they’re meant to be and not curving to one side or the other.
Flight over, we queued entirely too long for the Little Mermaid, and then headed down to Pixar Pier where we grabbed one of their giant cookies each, got covered in melted chocolate (I did, at least) and then boarded the Incredicoaster (maybe not the wisest of orders to do that in, but whatever).
Incredicoaster was a lot of fun, and honestly a coaster of that size and intensity (not too much, but not too little) is probably what Disney parks as a whole are missing.
We decided to call it a day with that and walked back to the hotel. Feet very much aching. By the time we got back to the hotel for the night, my Fitbit told me I had done 31,536 steps and walked 13.43 miles. All on a recorded 2hrs 50m worth of sleep.
A successful day.
Aberdeen to Anaheim
February 7th, 2024
Being winter, in Scotland, snow isn’t necessarily a given, but it’s not to be unexpected either. Forecast for the drive to the airport told us it was coming, so we left a little earlier than we might have otherwise. I had booked the parking to start from 8am and we arrived pretty much bang on – meaning, for the first time, the barrier raised without any issues, the little sign greeting me as I drove in. Off to a great start!
We got ourselves through security and had something to eat, before sitting and waiting for the flight. Other than a slight mishap with scanning our boarding passes, with the screen saying ‘Do Not Board’ (still not sure what happened there, the attendant waived us through), the flight down to Heathrow went without a hitch.
When we landed, we had to scan ourselves through to get to the main part of the terminal, I got through OK, but Connor was directed to a desk – presumably because he was in an exit row/next to the door. I waited for him at the top of the stairs and we wandered around the terminal before going to the Spoons to get some lunch.
From where we were sat, I could see a departures screen. Our flight had been delayed. Not ideal, but fine.
Once we were done eating, we sat down again to wait for our gate to show up. Only for our flight to be delayed again. And again. And again. In total, it was delayed for two hours.
When we eventually arrived at the gate, we were told that the plane we were due to be on had a fault and there had been a delay in getting another one. There was also speculation that the delay had been due to Prince Harry who was supposedly on the same flight (though if he was, we would have been at very different ends of the plane, so I have no idea).
The flight itself was fine. I didn’t sleep at all, occasionally I’d feel myself dropping off and then I’d hypnagogic jerk myself awake again.
When we landed in LAX (the first time I’d been in the airport since the Arizona incident), we made our way to the customs desk. It all felt a lot less hectic than it did the last time I was there. The past few times I’ve been in the US, mostly Florida airports, the customs people have glanced at my passport, maybe scanned my fingerprints and/or taken my picture and sent me on my way.
LAX guy decided to ask my whole life story.
“Why are you here?” – Oh, the theme parks, basically. Going to Disney and Universal.
“OK. Show me your tickets.” – At which point I had to dig through my emails to find the PDFs.
“Where are you staying?” – I told him.
“How much money do you have with you?” – I was honest in that I didn’t have any actual cash with me. But cards.
“How much money do you have on the cards?” – I told him.
I was able to answer all the questions he had, in a seemingly satisfactory way, but while answering, all I was thinking was that if the other guy was asking Connor the same questions, he’d have none of the answers (at least about where we were staying, unable to produce the park tickets, etc). I was finished before Connor, so I kind of hovered, in case he needed me to provide evidence (he didn’t).
We did it. We were officially in the USA. Now to get a 45min car ride to our hotel.
The LAX-It system was actually a lot more straight forward than I thought it would be. We followed the signs to the shuttle stop. Got the shuttle to the LAX-It area and ordered a Lyft from there – it was my first time using Lyft, as opposed to Uber. The basic set up being the same, but for whatever reason, Lyft was significantly cheaper.
I had forgotten how terrifying American roads can be. With the, at times, seemingly endless lanes and massive trucks, but we got to the hotel and didn’t die.
We got the hotel a little later than planned, and mostly just wanted to get to bed. I had thought about venturing to the CVS that was a couple blocks away, but we found a little shop area in reception that had everything we needed for that night and the next morning.
California Dreamin’
Earlier this year, I was looking at Google Flights as I’m wont to do from time to time and I found that flights from Inverness (my closest airport) to Los Angeles were, while perhaps not ‘super cheap’, a lot cheaper than I expected them to be.
I’ve never been to Los Angeles (or California) before, bar a quick trip through LAX for a connecting flight and perhaps most importantly, I’ve never been to Disneyland. If I could figure out a way to keep it all relatively cheap, it’d be worth doing, right?
Having successfully turned Connor into a Disney Adult, I priced up a trip for two people to California/Los Angeles for a little over a week. Comprising of flights, hotels and park tickets for both Disney and Universal and in total it came out to just over £1000 each – though that’s with the addition of Tesco Clubcard hotel vouchers which brings the cost of one of the hotels (if used on only one) down to next to nothing, which is handy!
The hotel I chose for Disney, for pricing at least, nothing’s final. Was the Clarion Hotel Anaheim. It’s listed as one of Disney’s “Good Neighbor Hotels”, which sounds great, but seemingly means next to nothing, besides the fact that it’s relatively close by. To me, on the map, it looked to be within walking distance, but in the year of our lord, twenty-twenty-three, I wanted to see what it was like on the inside, from people that have actually been, so off to YouTube I went.
The first video I found was from The Disneyland Beat, their video was about ‘A Disneyland Hotel Guide’, they mostly mentioned the hotels across the street from Disneyland, with the hotel I was looking at mentioned toward the end, but being dismissed by them as ‘too far to walk’.
Too far?!
The next video I watched was from a small channel called Carson’s World, he and his family had actually stayed at the hotel I was looking at and in one of his videos, after taking transport to Disney from the hotel, he had to go back to the hotel to drop something off and opted to walk it. Timing himself, he was able to walk from Disney security, to the hotel, go to his room (which was up on one of the top floors), drop off what he needed to drop off, leave the hotel, realise he’d forgotten something, go back and get it and get back to Disney within 40 minutes, which without the forgetting of items, brings it to realistically, a 15 minute walk each way.
And yet, in his comments? – Someone saying that it would be too far to walk…
It got me curious. Both times Connor and I have been to Disneyland Paris, we have stayed at Hotel Cheyenne. One of the cheaper Disney owned Hotels on property. While there is a bus provided and we have used it, most of the time we opted to walk to the parks and back again at the end of the day. How far was that walk?
As you can see, the distance in Paris is actually longer than the distance in Anaheim. Not by a huge amount, but still. And yet, when in Paris, we didn’t give it a second thought to walking to the parks in the morning or back at night.
One argument that could be made is that in Paris, you’re in the Disney bubble. The walk is entirely within Disney property and as such, you’re going to feel safer there than you might in Anaheim where your walk is along a busy road in the middle of a city (even if Disneyland Resort is right next to you the whole time, it’s not technically Disney property).
But then I found this video from Chris Roode, who cycles from the hotel next door to the Clarion and follows the route presented above, and while there is a busy road you have to cross (via a crosswalk), the majority of the path is pretty nice and tree-lined. So it’s not like you’re walking down crack alley to get to your destination either.
The main conclusion of this ‘research’? – Americans are lazy as fuck.
And in my day-to-day life, I’m certainly in no position to judge anyone on their levels of laziness. But if the choice is waiting 10-15mins for a bus to show up to take me a half mile down the road, or walk that half mile? I’m walking it. Even after a day at Disney, with sore feet, I’d rather walk the extra distance instead of standing around waiting. The pain is less when moving!