Patty Winter's
Disneyland Trip
September, 2019
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I'm not going to do an hour-by-hour trip report, but here are some notes. Arriving on BatuuI had originally thought of not going to see Galaxy's Edge until Spring 2020, after the second ride (Rise of the Resistance) opens. But then Disney announced that they'd be bringing back the Main Street Electrical Parade only for August and September, 2019. So I decided to go in September. I would meet up with my friend Larry, and we would also be joined by my Bay Area friend George, who had been wanting to see GE and had other things he needed to do in Southern California. I flew down to Orange County midday on Thursday, September 12th, took a shuttle to the Candy Cane Inn, checked in, met up with Larry, and headed over to Disneyland. George met up with us there. We took the Critter Country entrance to Galaxy's Edge, which brought us into the forest area where Resistance members are hiding from the First Order. This is where Rise of the Resistance will be. There are several Resistance spaceships here, and one might see Rey and Chewbacca. We then made our way to Black Spire Outpost, the largest town on Batuu. Here there's a marketplace, restaurants, and of course, the Millennium Falcon. The First Order has control of the town, and Stormtroopers patrol it constantly. Larry and George had multiple run-ins with them; I tried to stay off their radar. :-) We stayed on Batuu for a few hours before venturing back to Disneyland to do a few rides in Fantasyland and see the MSEP. People were so excited to have this parade back! Even on a weeknight, the sidewalks were packed. I went back to my motel after that, while Larry and George stayed on (until the park closed, as I later found out). We drink and make droidsOn Friday, we had reservations at both Oga's Cantina and the Droid Depot. At the latter, I made an R2 unit in purple and white that I named R2-BR02B. (Pronounce the zero as the British "nought" if you don't catch the name right away.) (Yeah, I'm a Shakespeare fan.) Larry also made an R2 droid; his was all red and he named her R2-Chelsea after a favorite dog he used to have. George made a BB droid, also red, which he's calling BB-13. They're all about a foot high and just the cutest little things. I wanted the novelty of drinking alcohol at Disneyland (as opposed to California Adventure), but the mid-90s temperatures were getting to me, so when we moved on to Oga's, I stuck with a Hyperdrive Punch. I did have a sip of George's Jedi Mind Trick just to fulfill my wish. Oga's is a lot of fun, with DJ R3X (a former Starspeeder pilot of note) keeping the beats going. We went back to the Resistance area and ran into Chewbacca and Rey. We all also spent some time using our "datapads." There's a special section of the PlayDisney app that turns your smartphone into a "datapad" that can interact with many different Bluetooth devices and QR codes around Batuu. For example, you can find out what's inside a cargo container, or eavesdrop on transmissions, or hack equipment. At one point, I was revving up the engines on an X-wing craft. Not surprisingly, we all wound up saying, "I gotta spend more time in this area"! I can't leave the topic of Batuu without mentioning the wonderful soda bottles. You can see them on the Miscellaneous Photos of Batuu page. Amazingly, the Coca-Cola Company has expanded to the edge of the galaxy, so you can get Coke, Diet Coke, and Sprite in Black Spire Outpost. These bottles caused a bit of a dust-up with the TSA here on Earth. For a few weeks, they were saying that even when empty, the bottles couldn't be taken on a plane (although reports from DL visitors indicated that individual TSA agents might or might not allow them). The TSA finally issued a statement saying that empty bottles could be taken aboard in carry-on bags and full ones in checked luggage. I played it safe and had George drive mine back home (along with my droid). Calfornia Adventure and FantasmicOn Saturday, I finally made it over to California Adventure. There have been significant changes here since I last visited several years ago, and more are on the way (such as the Avengers Campus hidden behind the "Stark Industries" construction fences). The three of us went on Grizzly River Run, and later on the Radiator Springs Racers, both among my favorites at DCA. We also saw Soarin' Around the World. The original film, Soarin' Over California, had been playing this summer, but it was changed back a week or so before I went to Anaheim. To me, the new movie is gimmicky. It goes to a bunch of very predictable places around the world, the filmmakers were obsessed with having things (splashed water from a whale, dust blown by an African elephant, a seaplane, a kite near the Great Wall, a hawk in Monument Valley) seemingly head for the audience's faces, and the CGI animals were annoying. It's still an amazing ride, and I love Jerry Goldsmith's music, but the new movie just doesn't do as much for me--and I don't think that's only because I'm a biased native Californian. We watched the lights come on along Route 66 before heading back to Disneyland. I recall this being more impressive previously; I think the trees have grown and it's now harder to see all the neon lights from the end of the street furthest from the Cadillac Range. I've always loved Fantasmic, so this was my night to see that. I must have heard about the show being changed back in 2017, but I'd forgotten about that until it started. Some of the changes I'm fine with, such as the Peter Pan sequence being replaced with Pirates of the Caribbean. The Columbia makes a fine pirate ship. But the Disney people have crammed more of their movies into the story, so the flow isn't as smooth as it used to be. I don't think it's quite as choppy as the version at Walt Disney World, which, at least when I saw it quite a few years ago, seemed to include clips from every Disney movie from the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. But I just went through online videos of the old and new Disneyland versions, and the new one has nearly twice as many segments (some of which are very short). Also, sorry, but green dragons aren't intimidating. The dragon needs to be black again. Nonetheless, the music is still wonderful and the show overall still very satisfying. BTW, as a reminder for those of you who've only ever seen the show at WDW, you must set aside time for Fantasmic if you ever get to Disneyland. Whatever gripes I have about the recent changes don't negate one (or technically, two) of the highlights of the DL show: We. Have. Ships. WDW does not have ships. We have ships. :-) The first time I saw Fantasmic and didn't realize that the Columbia was gliding into the show area of Rivers of America until its cannon fired and the spotlights hit it--well, I was amazed and delighted. And the last part with the Mark Twain? Eight words: Mickey Mouse as Steamboat Willie on a steamboat. Plus dozens of Disney characters, most of whom haven't appeared in earlier parts of the show but are there waving ribbons on the boat to give Fantasmic a grand finale. Well, those are some random notes from this trip. Rise of the Resistance opens at DL in January, so I've booked two nights at the Grand Californian (!) for mid-March. I'm really looking forward to exploring Batuu more. Back to Patty's Disney page patty@wintertime.com Text and photos (c) 2019 Patricia F. Winter, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. For personal use only. Do not distribute to other persons Last updated 9/28/2019 |