Finally, I headed over to Disneyland towards mid afternoon.
Here is the castle as seen from the train station. You can notice all the decorations on Main Street, for the Celebrate promotion.
Built in 1979, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is still very popular with guest today.
We headed over to Frontierland and took a ride on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Built in 1979, this ride has become a classic and a hit with guest! The ride was originally developed for Walt Disney World, however with all the money being sucked up over there for Space Mountain, Disneyland grabbed the opportunity to put in yet another thrill ride (Space Mountain opened just two years before in 1977).
Big Thunder Mine was a spurring mining mountain however natives warned them of the mountain being gaurded by spirits. Miners didn’t believe them and continued on with their journeys until earthquakes started to rattle the the mines, and the trains seemed to take out of the station without a driver, sending its passengers on for the wildest ride in the wilderness.
Big Thunder Mountain in Disneyland is what some say is the most tame, however, just speeding through all the turns and admiring all the man made rock work is a journey in itself. Let alone the pops of airtime that you get through out the ride. Big Thunder seemed to age very nicely as compared to Space Mountain and Matterhorn, both in need of some rehab.
Guest waiting for Fantasmic!
By 6:45, most of the seating for Fantasmic! was full. This just goes to show you that even after 17 years of operation, Fantasmic! is still a huge success with guest at the Disneyland Resort.
While walking towards Adventureland I also noticed alot of the preperation that goes into making Fantasmic!
In this picture you can clearly see the door that hides the projector in the day that opens prior to Fantasmic! This projector is what shoots imagery onto the waterscreens.
These are the barges that is used for Fantasmic! each night. It serves the boat for the Jungle Book monkeys scene as well as the Princess scene. You can see how the leaves are just neon colors that are shot with UVs to create the glowing effect and then the LED flowers under it that are lit up during the Princess. King Loui's thrown is also Aierel's rock.
Riders taking the 52' plunge into the briar on Splash Mountain.
My Fastpasses were now good so we hopped on Splash Mountain, the best themed log ride in America. The ride tells the tale of Brer Rabbit, and his desire to go on an adventure. We join Brer Rabbit in his quest as he goes to the laughing place, but little does he know that Brer Fox and Brer Bear are behind him and have an evil scheme. Brer Rabbit’s wife and children are worried sick because they got word that he was captured by the evil duo. You begin the final climb as two evil voltures warn you of finding your laughing place. We see Brer Rabbit captured and a shadow of Brer Fox in the background, we slowly level out before dropping straight into the briar patch below. Finally we go back into the mountain where Brer Rabbit finds that home is the best place.
This ride combines a great deal of story telling, with ground breaking log flume technology. My only buff on the ride is that they reused the animatronics from the old America Sings show. While I am all about recycling, I wish that some of them got a bit of touch up, by adding new eyes. A few of my Splash Mountain friends are a bit cross eyed and I think they need a make over.
We stayed to watch Electrical Parade and Fantasmic! again this night but my camera died. So this is the end of the trip, thanks for reading! Be sure to leave your comments and park thoughts.