I was really happy that we got to do Disneyland on the trip! We've been to Disney World twice before, but I've been curious about Disneyland through all the Wiki Adventure games I end up playing.
The hotel we stayed at was right across the street from California Adventure, which was pretty hella. We ate dinner outside the night we got there to see the fireworks, but they ended up not doing them :( We had to buy our tickets at the park but there was no line. It was so strange.
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It was really cool to be able to go during the Diamond Celebration!! There was a lot of cool merch, but it was kind of expensive :( The walk between our hotel and the entrance to the two parks was really pretty!
Disneyland had a slightly different feel than Disney World had. I think it's to be expected, since Disneyland is in the middle of Anaheim and Disney World is pretty isolated from the other stuff around it. There were a few helicopters that flew overhead and a couple airplanes coming for landing at LAX, and I don't remember really seeing anything at all overhead in Disney World.
This is really bad photo composition ;; The other picture I took seems dark for some reason
I was kind of surprised to learn that the two parks have almost the same layout! For some reason I was expecting that they'd be significantly different than each other, but at least the entrance / castle areas are almost exactly the same. It was actually really nice.
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The castle was all sorts of decked out with celebration regalia. It was really pretty! I think it was Mom that pointed out that Cinderella's castle can be seen from almost anywhere in Disney World and that not having that kind of landmark was a little strange.
But she was really happy that we were able to go inside the castle! They have an attraction thing where you walk through Sleeping Beauty's story. It was dim inside so a lot of my pictures don't look that great ... They had some really cool illusions though where they projected clips of the movie over 3D stills they had made, or used the projections to make really cool effects like fire.
This is something that crossed my mind more than once, and I'm not really sure if anybody will understand, but Disney's grasp of mise en scene is amazing. Every little detail is accounted for in order to create the atmosphere. I don't know where the thought initially crossed my mind, but it's especially noticeable for the Tarzan's treehouse attraction and the queue lines for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and the Jungle Cruise. There are little accents to make everything look so realistic, whether it's the stuff on abandoned desks or how some things just look naturally old.
Anyway! I nerded out a little bit there. Mise en scene is something we talked about in my Vid Prod class this year when we weren't in the studio and were analyzing Star Wars -- my teacher described it as "everything in the shot". Essentially, it's little things that would probably go unnoticed but make the scene more concrete. Like the little telegraph noises you can hear from the loading area of Big Thunder Mountain. Disney goes out of their way to make sure you're really immersed in your surroundings no matter what you're doing.
One of my favorite rides is Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. We had a really short wait for it! I've learned that the Disneyland and Disney World tracks are mirror images of each other, which I didn't realize. The two versions had different feels to them. It was cool to see how they differed.
Instead of the castle being the defining landmark of the park, the Matterhorn Bobsleds mountain is!
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We got to ride the carousel, and we only had to wait for the previous round of the ride to finish! The wait was so short!! The park actually wasn't that crowded in the morning even though it had already been open for a few hours by the time we got there.
We rode on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride next. Because it was only me and my parents and a lot of rides are two-seaters, my parents usually switched off riding with me. Mom rode alone for this one and said the ride was a little scary. There were definitely parts that seemed a little creepy, since the entire ride is pretty dim, but I wasn't familiar with what the ride was based around ;;
We rode the Matterhorn after that. I was really excited at first since I'd learned about it through Wiki Adventures, but Mom commented on the yells we were hearing as the ride went by and made me worry that it wasn't going to be my kind of ride. I'm glad I ultimately didn't back out though! (Mom also wouldn't let me step out of the line ...) There weren't any big dips like Mom made me fear. The ride goes up really steeply at first, but that's just to get you to the top of the ride. It winds around the mountain and there weren't any drops that scared me. It was actually pretty fun!
After the Matterhorn, we regrouped and had a snack. I went into a couple of the gift shops nearby us and bought a sweater since it was cloudy and honestly almost chilly. The sweater is so soft inside! It's similar to a shirt I remember Mom having and should be really cute to coordinate with skirts and collared shirts come the fall.
At some point we watched the afternoon parade, but all I have from it is video so I have no idea where it falls chronologically.
We went on the Buzz Lightyear ride! Courtoon, one of the cosplayers I follow, has posted a couple times about her scores whenever she visits the park, so I was really excited. Dad ended up doing better than Mom and I somehow! There were also Buzz Lightyear hoodies in that gift shop, which I'd wanted when we went to Disney World, but Mom pointed out that it would be harder to coordinate and wear every day. (I might still buy one off the internet or if they sell them at Disney stores. One day.)
And of course I manage to cover most of my face with the gun ...
Mom wanted to go on the Finding Nemo ride, and the wait was kind of long, but it was cool! I took a bunch of video of it but I'm not sure if I can use it because of the format it recorded in on my HTC ;; I still have to do some research into it.
Okay, here's an example of mise en scene. Look at all the stuff stacked on the desk on the left. I wish I'd gotten a better picture to show you guys ;; There are a bunch of books stacked up somewhat precariously and a chemistry set that looks like it was in mid-use. The scene set up where Tarzan is found as a baby was amazing, but my only picture of it is really bad ;; It was so realistic in looking like someone's room that had been destroyed. (I haven't watched Tarzan in a long time. I don't remember what exactly happened.)
The queue line for Pirates of the Caribbean didn't give me a good angle of the sign ;; The ride was really cool! The loading area (and the restaurant) were in a room that was set up to look like night, and I actually couldn't find the ceiling at first! It really looked like we were standing outside at night. (Unfortunately, I did manage to find the wall / ceiling line and ruin the image, but it was still really good even after that.) One of the girls sitting behind us in the boat pointed out that there's a shooting star projected on the sky every five seconds, which was really cool! (Also another example of mise en scene. I would've missed it if it weren't for her.) There were bigger drops than the one in Disney World, which scared me ;; I think that one only had one drop, so the second drop took me completely by surprise.
Mom also had the great idea of going on Splash Mountain, especially since it was closed last time we were at Disney World. I was really apprehensive to it. My parents initially got in line thinking it was going to be close to an hour, max, but I got out of line and walked up to the front where the sign said it was closer to 90 minutes. And then I refused to stand in line that long for it. We got fastpasses and ended up waiting like 10 minutes max. I ended up getting pretty splashed on the ride even before we made it to the top ;; I was not happy about that. And on top of that, Dad and I were really close to the front, so we got really soaked at the final drop. I wasn't happy at all ;; The drop was honestly really terrifying and felt like a complete free-fall to me, and I'm not sure if that's because I'm so tiny or if that's how it's supposed to feel. Mom also didn't buy the picture, which I thought was her initial reasoning for going on it -- my grandparents bought the picture from when we went on it at Disney World the first time. I was pretty ticked that I had to put up with getting soaked and the free-fall for not getting any evidence ;; I sulked for a couple minutes afterwards. I was probably kinda bratty, ngl, and I feel bad for it.
I wanted to go on the Haunted Mansion ride as well because of Wiki Adventures. I rode the Disney World version with my uncle, which was really cool because the ride didn't seem spooky at all with him. We talked about the ride and the effects. Wiki tells me that this version is shorter than the Disney World one, which seems true. (It also says that the floor does go down in the room with the stretching paintings. Take that, Mom.) I really like the one scene with all the dancing ghosts because I learned how they do it.
At some point after it got dark I got what I've wanted since our trip to Disney World: a Peter Pan hat! I even got my name embroidered on the side~ I'm really glad that I was able to get one, even though it was a little bit of a hassle to get it back home ;; (I wore it in the airport so it wouldn't get squished in our luggage. Mom said people were giving me confused looks.)
I took this once we got back to the hotel room. Mom took one of me as soon as I got it but I'm not sure how it turned out since her camera's kind of old and a little useless without a tripod even during the day.
The castle looked like it was sparkling!
After that we waited and watched the night displays that the park did. We watched the first light show that was along the river. Our angle was a little bad and there were trees in the way but it was really cool. The effects were awesome. Then we watched the fireworks from nearby that, and I have no idea if they projected anything on the castle like they do at Disney World, but I was able to see the Tinker Bell figure for a few seconds. One of the cast members told us that if we didn't move out of the area immediately after the fireworks we'd get stuck in a people gridlock, so we took off and managed to get the same seats we had watching the parade earlier in the day.
The electric parade was really cool! I was so surprised to hear Owl City as the parade reached where we were sitting. That was definitely an unexpected highlight. It was a remix of the song from Wreck It Ralph with slightly different lyrics, but it still put me in a really good mood. One of the first floats in the parade was Peter Pan and Tinker Bell, and as it went by my mom said, "Look, it's your boyfriend." I thought that was kind of funny. (Plot twist though I am Peter Pan. My boyfriend is still Jack Frost. P: )
That's all the pictures I have! I probably forgot to mention a few things since I put the pictures in first chronologically and then wrote about them. (I actually forgot about the afternoon parade until I wrote about the electric one ;;) Everything felt more relaxed, which I really appreciated. It had only been about two and a half years since we went to Disney World, so it wasn't like we had to go on any rides. (Dad mentioned going on Space Mountain again, but I didn't really like it, so I said I didn't want to go on it. I feel kind of bad ;; I dictated most of the rides we went on ...) We also had a lot fewer people this time than last, so we didn't have to worry about the group being split up or wanting to go in different directions. The park wasn't too crowded, especially compared to last time since that was a holiday weekend in January that tended to be kind of packed. I don't remember which holiday it is.
Again, I'm really glad that we got to visit Disneyland. I'd honestly kind of figured it would have to be a trip of my own once I'm an adult since it's on the opposite coast of us, and Disney World is much closer to us (though still far away). I had a ton of fun--excluding Splash Mountain--and I'm grateful that my parents let me ride what I wanted.
I actually have a bunch of video clips that I was hoping to splice into a vlog, or at least a teaser video of sorts, but the video format isn't something that my writing laptop recognizes ;; I forget which file type it is. I'll update this post if I ever figure it out!
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