Strictly speaking we were there the day BEFORE All Hallow’s Eve, but it makes a better title as is. We went to Disneyland in Monday to check out the decorations. Disneyland can be counted on to deliver the goods when it comes to holidays, and this Halloween was no exception (though it was a bit startling to see the Halloween decorations and the simultaneous beginnings of Christmas decorations going up!). They did the place up right, with loads of pumpkins, and other autumn-ish things. We got there with our friends Camille & Drue about 5:15pm, to find that the park closed at 8pm. Yikes! Not a lot of time, you’re thinking. Hah! We were with Camille & Drue, Disney-holics on a truly grand scale who know the park at one speed only: overdrive. We hit the ground running, and before we knew it were at the Haunted Mansion checking out Sandy Claws. We briefly thought about getting in line, but the wait was over an hour, and we had NO TIME TO WASTE! Camille & Drue know the park as well as any long-term employee or actual member of the Disney family, and Camille in particular is like a tour guide from Hell when it comes to Disneyland.
It was about this point when I realized that the only camera I had remembered to bring was my Razr phone’s. Ack! So while they were hustling us along, I was trying to stand still long enough to take ultra low-res photos to memorialize the occasion with my stupid camera phone (I was surprised at how many other people were taking pictures with camera phones – they seem to have largely replaced the old Instamatics of yore.)
*sigh*
We managed to go on the revamped Pirates of the Caribbean (awesome, with Jack Sparrow additions & nifty misty Davy Jones waterfall), the Jungle Cruise (always a hoot and which, if you’ve never done it, is really cool after dark!), and Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters, a new ride that Drue told me is in a part of the park that was once America the Beautiful (a memory from my childhood and one of my favorite rides along with Monsanto’s Adventure through Inner Space – IMAX before there was IMAX, only neater). Turns out Camille is an Astro Blaster addict, and is pursuing a high score record (dream on! Monday’s record was a high of 1,990,000 points – she scored a mere 82,000 points). Chuck, as usual, proved something of a natural at the game, scoring over 32,000 points his first time out. I scored 10,000 points by a technique that involved shooting at everything in sight. Aim played no part in my efforts.
We were booted out of the park at 8pm with the other 25,000 people still wandering around, and headed off to Main Street on our way out for a cup of hot cocoa. Thirteen dollars later (somebody has to help pay for the Michael Eisner payoff!), we headed out of the park and went to Downtown Disney to explore the very pricey stores there that were chock full (already) of Christmas stuff. We blearily made it home about 10:30pm.
Blurry low-res Razr phone photos of the goings-on are here.