Friday, October 10, 2008

The unforgettable tour 2

Here goes the second part of the so called unforgettable tour which I made to LA. After a wonderful and entertaining day at the universal studios and an overnight stay at the hotel, next morning we headed to the supposedly, happiest place in the world. The place where the clock never strikes midnight, the place where everyone irrespective of their age becomes a kid. We thought we would be the early birds by making it there before others come in but we were in for a rude shock. By the time we entered disneyland after wading through the marathon crowd on foot, we saw the entire world there. Again due to maverick planning of our tour guide, we managed to hit all the famous and not to be missed spots first.

As soon as we entered, we saw a breathtakingly beautiful disneyland railroad station and the street called main street U.S.A. And there was goofy waiting for us to take snaps with it.

First on our list was the most famous indiana jones ride. After a really long walk to the ride from the entrance into a cave like structure we were made to sit on a jeep prototype and then made to ride on rough roads having lots of ups ,downs curves and artificially created dangers. The best part was the statue of a man hanging from the ceiling as if he will just jump into the jeep and the big dummy stone being rolled over as if it would straight land on your head. After around 5 to 10 minutes the bumpy ride came to and end but not before giving us very nice thrilling moments.

Next was the best of the lot, the pirated of the carribean ride. This ride was a very smooth ride , no ups,downs,thrills whatsoever. But the effect they have created of the sky and other sets relevant to the movie inside this ride gives an out of the world experience. At one point it looks like the end of the world, meaning there is a dead end in the ocean and the way it looks here in the ride is nothing short of the real experience. This ride lasted for more than 10 minutes and all the time as expected we were seated on a boat navigating on an artificially well created ocean.

After this rather calm and spellbounding experience, we were headed for some short and quick thrill in the form of splash mountain. Which is nothing but just another water ride with a steep and thrilling fall at the end of it. A good place to take some memorable picture at the cost of 15 bugs though.

Next we headed to the other side of park , tomorrow land where our first destination was space mountain. The amount of thrill felt in this ride cannot be expressed in words. Your carriage(if we can call that fast moving thing a carriage) , moves at breathtaking speed in a pitch dark auditorium kind of structure. The only small source of light throughout the entire ride is some artificial shining star. The twists and turns, the steep climbs and falls, the sharp U turns, all at a breathtaking speed and pitch dark environment, this is surely enough to give a nauseating feeling but fortunately and intelligently we had hit upon this ride just before lunch. The single thought that came to my mind after this ride was about the amount of testing and planning that would have gone in for this ride .Our guide was smart enough to get us fast pass for this one when we were enjoying the other rides.

Fast pass means you do not have to wait for the next ride in the queue. You will be given a ticket with the ride timings and you can just report at that time.

Once done with space mountain we went for lunch and that’s when the other group among us who wanted to hit california adventures, the adventure park opposite to disneyland moved on after lunch. And post lunch we were left on our own as our guide moved on with them and this is when we were left on our own for the rest of disneyland trip . Post lunch we were not sure where to go and we lost lot of time and post lunch rush at all the spots was very high.

After deciding to go to the Findind Nemo submarine ride next, we boarded Disneyland monorail , not knowing that it is less for sight seeing and more for real transportation from nearby hotels to the disneyland. So we reached back to the same place after a rather disappointing ride on monorail. My personal recommendation, use monorail only if you have to , otherwise it is just worth a snap.

Once back from here, we found that the queue for the much hyped submarine had a waiting time of more than 1.5 hours and hence, we made our way to the the nearby autopia but again a long queue and a waiting time of more than 20 minutes. This was a kid dish version of the go carting experience, and to be frank the hot sun blazing us did not allow to enjoy this either.

The next we decided to give the finding nemo submarine ride a try nevertheless and waited in queue for more than 1 hour and 15 minutes before getting into an kid dish submarine ride. With all artificial fish and creatures underwater, I would say this one was not worth the 75 minute long wait but nevertheless when you become kid you are bound to enjoy all these stuff.

Once done with this we headed to the other side of the park , Mickey's toon town to meet all the famous characters created by Sir.Walt Disney. And yet again another queue at Mr.mickey's house as if it is a visit to tirupati devasthana. We finally waited and took some nice snaps with the richest mouse of the world in his own house.

Next after having a stroll around the toon town which was indeed very beautiful , we took the Disneyland traditional railroad back to the main area from where we began our morning trip as it was time for some refreshment before the ultimate fun.

After meeting our California adventures folks and then taking all the memorable snaps, finally we went and waited for the two best part of the day.

First one being the disneyland parade. Where all the world famous disney characters, you name them they are there march in front of you in their beautiful and decorated carts. Mickey,minnie,goofy,snow white and the seven dwarfs,pinocchio,donald duck all of them were there and this whole parade lasted around 18 minutes and I had to see the entire parade through the small 4" display of my digital camera as I was recording the entire parade video. To say the parade was awesome would be understatement by all means.

Finally after the parade, we managed to grab something to eat and then started the rock music by an unknown brand singing songs unknown to me but the whole auro surrounding the place was enough for one to be engrossed in the music. It went on for around 40 minutes for every hour and we managed to watch it for two consecutive hours and it was a nice experience. The amazing sound effects created using the high tech instruments was indeed a superb experience.

After buying some souvenir, we went to back to the main street U.S.A reluctantly though, from where we were supposed to see the next of the show stealers. It was the disney fireworks. It started at 9 pm with all the other lights put off. It was by far the best fireworks I had ever seen. The amount of precision they maintained and the flawlessness which was observed can only be felt and cannot be described.

After about 20 minutes of this fun, we were all set to go back but the park was open , open till midnight. We returned back to our hotels, with our minds, hearts and cameras full , full of some everlasting memories. For me it was a day of mixed responses but the two events towards the end of the day the parade and fireworks worked for me. They stood out as the man of the match for this one day entertainment package. As one of the pamphlets of disneyland read " here you leave today and enter the world of yesterday ,tomorrow and fantasy", we experienced the world of fantasy. The world where everyone turns into a child.