Halloween

     This Halloween, I went to Disnyland (surprise) with my friend, Hottie*. This was not my first time at Disneyland on Halloween, but it was my first time going at Halloweentime. I was wonderfully uncrowded, until about 6pm (I think) when DCA let out.

     We went as goths. One thing I learned from the last Halloween I attended was Disney does not allow adults to enter the park in costume. That year, I went as a Greek goddess and my friend went as a monk. The security guard wouldn't let my friend in until he promised to buy regular clothes inside (this was back in the day when DCA was still a parking lot. Soooo long ago). As for me, the old man said I "looked cute" and allowed me to go in.

     Going as goths made sense, because it seemed Halloween-appropriate and it was an accepted, normal wardrobe choice at the same time. Win/win. We had barely walked ten cars away from ours in the parking structure when a mom at a minivan confronted us and told us we wouldn't be allowed inside. I told her our strategy of not really being in costume, to which she claimed her family wasn't that dressed up, either.

     "Yeah, we were pirates." She said.

     Now, unless you believe that everything in the movie "Dodgeball" is true, or you live in a renaissance fair, dressing as an 18th century pirate is not an accepted, normal wardrobe choice. Maybe I just don't live in the right town, but I think even she realized she was reaching.

     Either way, we were allowed in.

     Hottie wore these red contact lenses that I like to refer to as the sleeper-hit of Disneyland. Everyone was looking at her eyes. Many asked her if that was her real eye color! One man took her picture (and then took mine, to be polite). One woman, while we were standing in line for the Haunted Mansion, even asked her if she could tell her son that is what happens when you don't eat your vegetables.

     Even after we were inside, people were asking us why we were allowed in the park in costume. We'd usually point to other goths in the park when they asked us. You could tell they were real goths, though. They're wardrobe looked way better.

     Hottie and I had noticed this one girl in the park who was allowed in wearing a slutty halloween costume. Yes, I know I have pictures of me on here wearing my provactive Strawberry Shortcake costume, but the big difference is I am an adult. We encountered this girl later with her parents in line for Indy. The mom swore up and down that she was shocked that her 12 year old daughter was almost not let into the park in her cute (slutty) doughnut shop costume. Okay, 1. The girl had definitley hit puberty and 2. Her nametag read "Kristy Creams". Stupid mom.

     But enough of my angry I'll-tell-you-how-to-raise-your-kids rant. We had lots of fun. My favorite part was taking our pictures with all of the characters.

     The Fairy Godmother was out! How lucky was that?

     Hmm. Hottie took a picture of me doing the Thriller dance with Mickey, but I can't seem to find it. It was fun, though. Mickey, unfortunately didn't know what the Thriller dance was, so he had to copy my pose. ;)

*Hottie is not her real name, but rather her name on my blog. :)

New Orleans Square, part 2

This is the fountain before the Haunted Mansion and in front of the train station.



They changed the storyline to the Haunted Mansion recently, or at least they did in one room (the attic). Now, apparently, the mansion was owned by a woman named Constance who beheaded all of her husbands for their money. No offense to the actress who plays Constance, because I'd go nuts if that were me, but I don't know how I feel about that revision. I don't hate it, but I sort of had my own storyline in my head for the ride, since it was always so open to interpretation.

I was an extra in the Haunted Mansion movie. You wouldn't be able to recognize me, because I'm wearing a wig with this huge dress. I have a picture somewhere from the wardrobe fitting (sans wig). Also, I wore a mask over my eyes and my back was turned to the camera. I guess you'd just have to watch the movie with me and maybe I could point me out to you. I haven't actually seen it yet, but I'm pretty sure I'm in one shot. So, um, the point of me bringing this up was I really enjoyed the set that was used and all of the people I got to meet. (If you see a woman in a big gold dress walking away from the party while Eddie Murphy's wife is walking into it, that's me!)

I rode Haunted Mansion as the last thing I did in the park. Disneyland closed at 8:00pm that evening. Getting to the parking lot was surprisingly easier than I thought it would be. The CMs running the trams ran them way better that night than they did the last time I was there. But driving home was rather lonely. Next time I go with at least one other person. I'll probably try to wear my big blue hat again, so if you see me there, say hi!

New Orleans Square

Seriously, there are just some places in Disneyland where you cannot take a bad picture. And as I said before, there are just some things you might not even notice when you're in a group. I wonder if this spot has always looked like this? When I say that, I mean since New Orleans Square has been there. I guess before it was there, the place was just covered in flowers, or so I've read.



This little area is called the Court of Angels. I was not aware that it had a name until later, and sure enough when I took this picture there was a little metal sign on a wall near the ground that proclaimed this. The Court of Angels is just a nice little place of the park that seems very intimate. I remember when I first found it (when I was about twelve, I think) I felt as though I'd discovered a part of the park that no one else had. I imagine it gives a lot of people that feeling. It's also a rather romantic space in the park, as I've seen quite a few photos of couples getting engaged there.

This is just a window of a shop opposite of what you see in the previous picture. I don't think my camera did the window justice, and I couldn't edit it any better. I just liked the ornaments hanging and how the blues in them compliment the blue window frame.

There I am. I bought this hat at Target for sun protection, and it was great, except it kept threatening to blow off my head (there was the teensiest of breezes that day). My solution was to bobby pin the heck out of it onto my head. Unfortunately, I only had one bobby pin with me. This prevented me from going on any fast-moving rides. Of course, when I spoke about the experience to one of my friends, she said roughly this: "There's this thing you can do called removing your hat when you go on a ride." See what friends are for? I guess my brain just doesn't think that way when I am alone. It can't be bothered with sensible stuff. :)

Odds and Ends

This is a photo I took between Fantasyland and Tomorrowland. I just loved the speckles on the flowers.



It's hard to tell in this pic, but sitting on the rocks are live ducks. I just enjoyed the combination of audio-animatronic birds next to live birds.

This picture at the Matterhorn is nice. It's accross from the Tomorrowland Terrace, and I just think the bridge makes it feel as though this is a separate little world.

I think this is supposed to be Tinkerbelle's house. Either that, or it could be a random fairy house. I flipped through one of the Disney Fairy books once and discovered that Tinkerbelle's house looks like a giant teapot (or cooking pot, I can't remember). So this could just be a random fairy house. Either way, cute.

Windows '09, Part 2

Found this window display off to the side of the new Bibbity Bobbity Boutique. I'm glad there are more window displays in Disneyland, because for a long time you could only find them on Main Street.



I wonder if the display will be rotated to have other princess stories presented? They might even be able to do Sleeping Beauty and use some of the old dolls from the castle walk-through, seeing as how they aren't used in there anymore.

There was something a little disconcerting about this display to me, for some reason. Some of the dolls looked a little creepy to me. Also, part of me was expecting them to move like the ones on Main Street. Still, it was cute. Most people didn't even notice it, and you can't see the strollers parked beside it.

I like this picture. It's really hard not to take a good picture of this, no matter what camera you use. I guess you could take a lousy picture of the Queen if you had your hand over the lense or something. But there are some places that are just great photo places in the park, besides the ones the planted signs point you to.
Not to spoil the magic for you, but I once heard that the Queen doesn't really have arms. Her sleeves are stapled to the backs of the curtains. When the edges get frayed, the sleeves are pulled out more and stapled again, and this is repeated until the sleeves need to be replaced.
I don't believe this information should spoil the magic, really. Coming from a theatre background, I enjoy learning about how a show is put on. But sometimes people can be a bit sensitive. I posted my picture of the booby door on a geeky Disney forum I take part of, and there were some people who took a particular interest in telling me what a horrible person I was, as though I painted the door that way. Of course there will always be jerks out there who can't laugh, and I feel sorry for them. Laughter saves lives, even if it's as small as a juvenile snork.

Windows 09

After walking around the castle to enter Fantasyland, I came upon this window. It's near the new Bibbity Bobbity Boutique. It's a gift shop and salon for making little girls look like princesses. They also have a few things for boys, but the main focus is little girls.
I used to wish they had stuff like this when I was a little girl. Sure, we had Disney princess costumes, but nothing like what's been available in the last ten years. When I was a kid, all I had was my She-Ra costume. She-Ra taught little girls to be self-sufficient scantilly-clad women with unnatural hair colors. When I first heard about this place opening up, I wished they had some stuff for adults as well. Then I saw a mother and daughter who had both received makeovers at the salon, and I was glad that it was normally for kids.


So, as you can see, this window is a tribute to some of the major Disney princesses: Snow White, Ariel, Belle, Aurora and Cinderella. Each throne is themed to each princess with an appropriate throne and a momento on the seat representing something important about their story. Snow White's has the flowers she picked in the forest before the huntsman nearly hacked her heart out and an apple like the one she took a bite from that put her in a coma. Happy times; real character-builders.
Ariel's throne is adorned with sea plants a shell, and a turquoise pillow is on the seat with her beloved dinglehopper sitting there. I've never seen "The Little Mermaid 2", but I'm sure at some point Eric told her that it wasn't for her hair. I hope.

Below you can see Belle's and Aurora's throne. Belle's is stocked with some books for when it gets boring and the ladies run out of stuff to talk about. Also, resting on the seat is a red rose like the enchanted one the Beast kept as a reminder of his impending doom, had she not been there. That's one way she can make sure he won't take her for granted.
Aurora's throne has flowers on it (I'm assuming roses since her under-cover name was "Briar Rose") and a ball of blue yarn on a pink pillow. The color symbolism is nice, but I kept asking myself, "Why yarn? Sleeping Beauty never knits." But then it dawned on me that it's there because she pricked her finger on a spinning wheel. Her movie never delves too much into her personality, so it's hard to guess how Aurora might react to seeing something that's made by the thing that nearly killed her being used as a sweet tribute to her.
Also below are Jaques and Gus leading into Cinderella's throne.

Cinderella's throne has two of her girly mice friends (I'm sure they have names, but I don't know them), the blue sash used for her first dress (the one that her stepmother allowed her stepsisters to trash while she was wearing it) and one of her glass slippers. And that gorgeous reflection in the window is yours truly. Please note that even in a window reflection you can see that I don't tan.

Little Stone Animals

After taking pictures of the ducks, it occured to me that I could totally use this day of Disneyland by myself to take pictures of anything I wanted. To my right was the castle, so I began my pretty photographic adventure.



Sometimes, when it's crowded or you're with groups of people, you don't always take the time to notice the little things Disney has put in place to add to the detail of their parks.

These animals from "Sleeping Beauty" are a great example. Disneyland opened in 1955, but "Sleeping Beauty" didn't reach movie screens until 1959, so the castle doesn't really look like the one from the film. The castle in Disneyland Paris has the advantage of hindsight and really looks like it. That castle even has an audio-animatronic dragon underneath it that sleeps, wakes up an shoots fire. I would love to see that some day. I can just imagine that discussion with whomever I go to Paris with one day. "So, what do you want to do today? Shop? Eat cheese? Go to the Louvre?" "Actually, could we leave Paris and go to Disneyland?" DLP is actually outside of Paris, for those who don't know or never cared to ask.

These squirrels are just freaky-looking to me. I don't blame them, though. They are practically hanging off the wall.

Duckies!

They are so freakin' adorable! The CM to the right of the screen (with the star hat) was gently escorting them to the woodsy area. She was explaining that a handler usually took them to water, but everyone was keeping their distance, while snapping pictures.

This time of year rocks.