TUESDAY · March 15, 2005

Day two in Sunny California (and yes, it is ABSOLUTELY sunny) is otherwise known as " Jason's trip to DisneyLand. "

The Castle

This was literally my first trip to any Disney park of any kind. I think it was probably much better than even I expected. There were some great sites,

Bobsled Mountain Innovention Celebration
Monorail Chip N Dale Celebration

and, some great rides. Of course, you can see above, there were the usual LARGER-THAN-LIFESIZE characters. Some of the attractions were amazing. Unfortunately, Splash Mountain was closed, but what are you going to do? I was lucky enough to go with my friend Cheryl, who was not only kind enough to come with me, but to drive all the way up from San Diego to take us there.

Cheryl

Pirates of the Caribbean was really cool. Surprises all abound. Star Tours was OK, but was held back by the fact that it doesn't look like ANY of it has been updated since RETURN OF THE JEDI was released in theaters. As such, the film quality is less than stellar (it hasn't aged well), and the videos that accompany the tour show actors that are clearly wearing 80's clothes and hairstyles. Besides which the music and sound effects quality are right on par. Well, I still enjoyed it anyway. We went to the Haunted Mansion, which was incredibly well done. The ghost effects were downright eerie at times. We ended the day with the Indiana Jones Adventure. This was probably worth the whole thing. It incorporated some of the best elements of the films, and was completely immersive for a mini-coaster kind of ride. We were lucky enough to have tickets which let us get FAST PASSes. A Fast Pass for certain attractions gives you a certain time that you have to come back to go on the ride. During that time, (which could be 20 minutes to--three hours,) you can walk around and do other things. When your time comes, you get on a special line which goes right to the front. It's like a ticket to cut the line. Too cool.

Also, interesting of note was that they had a full-size sailing ship there. And wouldn't you know the thing moved? I mean, OK, it was clearly running on a motor, but it was impressive nonetheless to see this thing in motion.

Columbia Docked Columbia Moving Away
Columbia Further Columbia Turning
Last Columbia Picture..I promise eeeeewwwwww

The only creepy thing here was the color of the water that the Columbia (the huge boat) was in. I mean, blue water in the tropics is one thing, but this green was just TOO unnatural for my tastes.

After a long and fun day at Disney, Cheryl took me to IN & OUT BURGER. Now I've heard of them from many places, most notably The Big Lebowski, but let me tell you they make some really great burgers and fries. Not only do you get to watch them make the food, but you also get to watch them prep it. This means you can watch them slice the potatoes for the fries. Also, according to them, they never freeze their meats. And they taste that fresh too. Enough of a commercial, though. Unfortunately, they're not paying me.

Finally, as promised, some pictures of my hotel room. I have to apologize for them being at night, but since I'm in here now it's the only time I can guarantee the bed is made :-)

My Room My Room 2 My Room 3


JMR