Day 2, Part 2

When I last left you, I had just finished a lovely lunch at Carthay Circle. I had spent a good six hours crying all over Disneyland and Disney California Adventure. Basically, I was overstimulated and ridiculously happy. It was pretty perfect.

My post-lunch plan was to head back to Disneyland until it was time to return to DCA for my World of Color reservation. (Let me say it again: two parks within walking distance of one another is a terrific luxury. Florida will never be the same for me in this regard.) Of course I have bad timing on both coasts, meaning I am gifted in the art of entering the Magic Kingdom/Disneyland during a parade:

With no real destination in mind, I wandered, taking pictures:

Eventually, I decided it was time for something that I had never even done at Walt Disney World:

Yes indeed, never had I taken a ride on the Rivers of America. Sunset at Disneyland might be the perfect time for one’s first trip:

I should also mention that it was upon the Rivers of America that I was reunited with my fellow Carthay lunch diner, Thomas! Much to my delight, he happily agreed to serve as my personal Disneyland tour guide for the next few hours. I don’t mind solo traveling, but there is certainly something to be said for good, humorous, knowledgeable company.

Thanks to my intrepid guide, I learned that Alice in Wonderland might be my favorite ride, ever (so much Mary Blair!). I know now that one ought to sit in the caboose when riding upon the Casey Jr. Circus Train. I also know that Tony Baxter is my god and I bow down to him now.

Why?

The Sleeping Beauty castle walkthrough.

Now, here’s the thing: in my veil of ignorance, I hadn’t even entertained the thought that you might be able to walk through the Castle. I’m accustomed to castles of the Cinderella variety, where one overpays for a mediocre meal and/or a princess makeover. So the mere act of talking a stroll through the Castle is pretty great in itself, but to have that walk take you by amazing forced perspective dioramas that recreate the Sleeping Beauty story? Amazing. I’m told that the former walkthrough was a bit of an ugly disaster, but Tony Baxter deftly returned the walkthrough to its original 1950s glory. (Or so I’m told – I wasn’t alive in the 1950s.) Oh, and that the walkthrough has a handful of really clever special effects that you wouldn’t know where there unless you knew they were there? Perfect. I was breathtaken.

After exiting the Castle, Thomas asked me what I wanted to do next. Before I could answer, his eyes lit up, and he started me on a purposeful walk toward it’s a small world. Why? Because it was nearly time for the 6pm showing of the Soundsational parade. Now, no offense to Thomas, but I was pretty dubious: I will pretty much go on record and state that I hate parades. But since this was Disneyland, and I was willing to try any- and everything once, I figured…why not? Plus, he mentioned knowing a fantastic place from which to watch it (spoiler: it’s near it’s a small world, hence the purposeful walk there). Okay. I’m in.

So here’s where things got interesting. As we maneuvered toward the vaunted favorite viewing spot, we noticed two ASL interpreters signing enthusiastically to a roped off section of the crowd, and we stopped for a moment to admire. Suddenly a woman sitting in that section motioned for us to join her, and we happily obliged. I admit, I’ve long had a fascination with ASL, as well as an interest in learning it (it’s on the “someday” list). I find interpreters in everyday life amazing, and to see these two individuals joyously signing, singing, and acting out parts of the parade – oh did I cry. It was just beautiful.

ASL interpreters for the parade are seriously amazing.

Amazing interpreting aside, I have to admit: I’ve found a parade I actually like. One I would voluntarily see again. One whose soundtrack I might – allegedly – listen to on occasion now that I’m home. It has great music. Beautiful floats. A cohesive narrative. Incredible performers. It’s really infectious – I don’t know how you could see Soundsational and not enjoy yourself. I was really having too much fun to take many pictures, so here, you get this one:

So. Parade over, I’m basically drunk on parade happiness. Determined to continue exposing me to Disneyland things one can’t do in WDW, Thomas leads me to Tomorrowland in hopes that we can hop on the monorail. Maybe even take it to Downtown Disney and go to Trader Sam’s! What a lovely idea, and we even find a waiting monorail once we’ve made the several-football-fields-long journey up the ramps and into the station. But curiously we’re not allowed to board, and then are told that the trains are being held indefinitely due to “debris” on the track ahead. We decide to wait it out, figuring that the walk to DTD would be at least as long as waiting 10 or 15 minutes for the debris to be cleared. Eventually, however, we are told the monorails are out of service for the night, and we are – wait for it -evacuated! My dream has come true!

Except. Being evacuated out of the monorail station is actually incredibly lame; we are just asked to exit down a staircase. Oh well. Now what?

So I couldn’t ride a monorail, but I could take a ride on the Disneyland Railroad. I was pretty intrigued when Thomas told me that basically every train has seats that face outward, unlike the trains at WDW. Of course, we happened to get the one train that was like WDW’s. But still, the rest of the journey – and we did the full circle tour – was so different. For one thing, dinosaurs?

So by this time, I was growing a little worried about getting stuck in DL’s fireworks crowds and not making it back over to DCA in time for my World of Color reservation. Before I left DL for the night, however, Thomas wanted to show me one more thing: Saturday night swing dancing.

So, you know, cue more crying: to see people of all ages – from toddlers to senior citizens – doing something fun, together, with no characters or gimmicks or other distractions, well it was just pretty overwhelming. (In a good way!)

Pulling myself together, I let Thomas know that I wanted to start making my way out of the park. We got halfway down Main Street, and then…fireworks. In keeping with the day’s theme of “why not?,” we elected to stand in the middle of Main Street and take in the show. Guess what I did next: yep, more crying!

Here’s the thing: second only to my hatred of parades is my indifference toward most fireworks (IllumiNations being the one exception, a show that makes me ugly cry every single time). This show – Remember…Dreams Come True – blew my mind. For one thing, these are as close as I’ve seen to 360 degree fireworks – there were fireworks on Main Street. Main Street! There were also lasers, fire, perimeter fireworks – it was hard to process all of it at once. Further, there was an actual premise to the show, and one that is so simple but so perfect I can’t believe it took so long for it to exist: a musical tour of Disneyland attractions. It’s genius. I cried. I laughed. I was genuinely surprised. I was genuinely surprised that I was eager to see it again the following night.

Sadly, Thomas and I had to part ways, and so I made the treacherous journey (of 30 seconds) across the promenade and into California Adventure. I thought maybe I’d have time for a drink, but I didn’t want to risk being late and missing out on a good spot, so I headed straight to Paradise Pier. Honestly I probably needn’t have rushed, since the reserved “seating” I had secured through my Carthay Circle lunch was maybe one of the very few disappointments I had all weekend?  Yes it was a reserved area, but there was no seating, and the view was obstructed in places by several large audio towers. I don’t know enough about World of Color to speculate on whether I could’ve found a better vantage point elsewhere, but I suspect so.

Anyway. What minor grumpiness I had about the view didn’t last long, because the show was Amazing, capital A. Probably the best Disney show I’ve ever seen. The most moving marriage of music and light and color and emotion you could possibly ask for.

What a day. By this point – 11pmish – I had been in the parks for 15 hours, far longer than I’m normally in the WDW parks. I was *exhausted.* My feet were blistered, painful messes. I was also freezing cold (another lovely California feature that I seriously would have loved if I had dressed a bit more appropriately), and the Howard Johnson felt about twelve miles away. But eventually I did make it back, showered, and fell into bed…where I promptly saw a huge spider on the ceiling. So after I got up to kill it, I settled in for a nap. I had one day left and I wasn’t going to waste it.

Up next: I hobnob with a Twitter celebrity; find something at Disneyland I actually really hate; and get a bad case of Stockholm Syndrome thanks to an afternoon at Trader Sam’s.