TR: Utah/California Trip Pt. 8; Disneyland (9/6/2013-9/8/2013)

Walt’s first foray into the world of theme parks, Disneyland opened in 1955 and effectively re-wrote all the rules as to amusement park design from that point forward. Today, Disneyland is still massively popular and influential across the globe. The tendrils of the empire started here have firm grips into the European and Asian continents, as well as at sea and in standalone resorts on some of America’s beaches. Then when talking about Disneyland at any length, it isn’t about what one can say so much as what they can say but about how it is said. Disneyland has been analyzed to death. Super fans and harsh critics have both made their position known. They’re not budging, and their analysis is the stuff volumes of academia has been written of. A college may pay my bills, but I don’t consider myself a professional intellectual. Or an intellectual at all.

TR: Utah/California Trip Pt. 7; Disney’s California Adventure (9/6/2013-9/8/2013)

Parts 7 and 8 of these series will be for a simultaneous time frame where we split effort between the two California Disney parks.  It isn’t narrative so much as analysis of the parks and whatever. Sorry if that’s boring to you but I guess it is what I feel like writing right now and, given how we go to parks like this, probably the best way to write about it without spending the whole time telling you about how we left one and walked to the other and then walked back to the hotel and then…yeah.

TR: Pacific Duality Pt. 1: Disney’s California Adventure (8/25-26/11)

Over the last 7 months, my wife and I have embarked on scheduling a trip that, was for us at least, the most exotic and difficult we’ve yet put together. The idea was hatched on an otherwise boring January Saturday earlier in 2011 thanks to a trip report on a general purpose message board my wife lurks on (the name of which I do not remember and is frankly unimportant). The exotic and strange nature of the trip will be revealed later on when we actually get around to arriving there – this was a multi-stage trip, I suppose you could say.

The first stage of this trip was to get to where we needed to go for the second stage – that being the enormity of LA’s greater metro area. In doing so, a large part of our plan was to visit a long-time favorite amusement area of ours in the Disneyland Resort area. We unabashedly love Disneyland. In fact, we like it more than Disney World. For example, the Downtown Disney in Anaheim serves an actual need for guests and is thusly not abandoned and pathetic. The off site hotels are more convenient than 2/3 of the onsite facilities and generally don’t suck. The rides are generally better than their Disney World counterparts, cramming in a sort of greatest hits and then upping the ante in other ways. I refuse to get into a “The way Walt wanted things!” sort of discussion because that always ends badly and with lots of fanboyism, so I don’t include that, and I don’t need to either. The rides speak for me.

TR: Disney/KBF & Arce/Darchinyan (2/7-10/2009)

A couple weeks ago happened and wifey and I had decided to make a run to the West Coast to get away from lousy weather here in the midwest. Naturally, it followed us west while Michigan warmed up and melted down, but hey, you can’t win every battle, right? The boxing section gets the usual separation by “######” symbols too.

PARKS:

-DISNEYLAND-

Last time I was here, I think I forgot to write a TR. Which is fine, I suppose, because there’s not much I can add to what’s already been written about the park and its attractions. Here’s what I can add right now: