Disneyland Report Card

It's Spring Break for the Long Beach School District (which the schools on Catalina are in), so we decided to have a little fun. This mostly will consist of dentist appointments and camp physicals (which will occur next week), but Sweetie and I decided that first we would do something purely fun with the boys.

We chose not to tell the boys until we were practically at the park, and they were initially shocked into silence (I think), but quite giddy once we parked and got out of the car.

My first comment is that Disneyland seems much smaller acreage-wise than Disney World, which makes sense, since Disneyland is shoe-horned into Anaheim, while Disney World has the run of central Florida. Besides that, they look very much the same (duh). Everyone was happy to see us. We talked with the boys some about how Disney's close attention to customer service was a big factor in their success. (That's the kind of parents we are: suck the wonder out of everything.)

We started the day in Tomorrowland at Space Mountain. When we went to Disney World in 2010, we didn't get a chance to ride this one, so we decided to make up for that oversight. Maybe an odd choice for 10am, but there we were. When I was a kid, age 8 I think, we went to Disney World and rode Space Mountain. I was scared, so I closed my eyes the whole time. My mom commented that I didn't miss much, and who's idea was a roller coaster in the dark? This time I was determined to keep my eyes open. An my mom was right. Pretty dark, I have to say - and faster than I thought it would be.

On that same trip in 2010, Thing 2 was a little too freaked out to really enjoy the park, however this time he was game for just about anything. Over the day we did some intense rides like the updated Star Tours ride, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and the Indiana Jones Adventure and tamer fare like the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage, the Mark Twain Riverboat, the Jungle Cruise and the Enchanted Tiki Room. We stayed all the way through the (outstanding) fireworks display, and had a tremendous time. I would say thanks to Disney for a day of family fun, but I think I spoke with my wallet yesterday.

As before, here are attraction ratings. If you're curious about details as to the why for these ratings, leave a comment:

Attraction	Me	Sweetie	Hobbes	Calvin
Space Mountain	B	A	A+++	A
Star Tours	B+	C	A++	A+
Jungle Cruise	C	B	A	A
Enchanted Tiki Room	C	C+	B	A
Indiana Jones Adventure	A	A	C	A-
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad	A	A	A	A+++
Autopia	C	n/a	n/a	A
Mark Twain Riverboat	B	B	B	A
Big Thunder Ranch	D	n/a	n/a	A-
Pirates of the Carribean	n/a	B+	A-	n/a
The Mad Tea Party	A	n/a	n/a	A+
Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage	B	B+	A-	A
Disneyland Railroad	B	C+	A	B+
King Arthur Carousel	A	n/a	B+	A+
Pinocchio's Daring Journey	n/a	B-	B-	n/a

Oh, and the fireworks show gets a big A+. Tinkerbell flying around the castle was pretty awesome.