Disneyland
Disneyland was a ton of fun, and was definitely closer to that classic Disney feel I was looking for while visiting the California resort. For this day we went with my brother-in-law and his wife, with this being the first time for both at Disneyland. My brother-in-law and I seperated from the rest of the group later in the day so we could ride some of the more thrilling rides in the park. Here's how the park compares to its Magic Kingdom counterpart.
Peter Pan's Flight
So the biggest difference between the Peter Pan ride at California vs. Florida is the lack of Fastpass. This ride needs a Fastpass, but due to the way the queue is built, there is no way to accommodate an extra lane. This ride is massively popular in both parks, and if we didn't have Fastpass when we visited Florida, I'm not sure we could have rode it. We entered Disneyland pretty soon after the park opened and already the line was up to 40 minutes. Since the ride typically stays busy all day, we had to bite the bullet and stand in the line. Fortunately, this was the longest we ever had to wait for a ride, and it wasn't even that bad. Goober was still bright eyed and bushy tailed, to a degree. Two year olds aren't great at waiting for anything, so any line was not great for him. As for the ride, it appears to be the exact same as Magic Kingdom's.
Mr. Toad's Wild Ride
I had loved this ride when it was still at Magic Kingdom, so I was excited to ride this one again. Since it had been over twenty years since I had been on the ride, I didn't remember every little detail of it, so when Goober and I got to the exploding barrels part, he got a bit upset. This ride was definitely a learning experience on what is appropriate for your child, as each one will be different. I wasn't sure if sudden noises would actually bother him or not, but yes, they absolutely do. Dad of the Year over here. While the ride may have freaked Goober out, I thoroughly enjoyed my journey back to Toad Hall. If you're looking for a ride with a happy ending, this is not it, as you end your journey in Hell. Yup, you read that right. Why did I think it was a good idea to take my son on this ride?
Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters
This ride was surprisingly not very busy in the morning, so we were able to go on twice in row. The version in Magic Kingdom was always too busy to ride, and plus it seemed a little bit too much a kiddie ride by the time it replaced Dreamflight. We had a lot of fun with this ride, as it was a lot easier for Goober to operate the controls for this vs. Toy Story Midway Mania. The only gripe I have with this ride is the fact that you can barely see where you are shooting. I don't know if Space Ranger Spin is the same way at Magic Kingdom, but I was mostly shooting blind. Midway Mania has somewhat the same concept, but a much better ride system. Goober had a good time, though, so that's all I cared about.
Star Tours: The Adventure Continues
This is identical to the Hollywood Studios version, but we got one of the experiences that was from The Last Jedi, so that was cool to see recent footage used in the ride. My wife and I rode the Hollywood Studios version and loved that one too, but weren't able to enjoy multiple ride-throughs to see the difference scenarios. Captain Rex from the original ride is indeed part of the queue, but you have to look for him.
Jungle Cruise
This ride was a necessity, as I had not been on it since I was a kid, and my wife was intrigued by the idea. The ride was as good as I remember it, though some parts including the natives were a little bit outdated and almost cringe-worthy. It was also raining when we went on, so it was a wet experience altogether. Goober got a huge kick out of all the animatronic animals, and I'm sure he could have only gone on this ride for the rest of the day and he would have been completely happy. This ride doesn't seem to be as popular in Disneyland as it is in Magic Kingdom, and I'm not sure why, as it is completely the same.
Pirates of the Caribbean
This is about the only ride that I saw a very noticeable difference between itself and its Magic Kingdom counterpart. Disneyland's version is much longer, with most of that coming from the beginning leg of your journey. The beginning reminded me a lot of El Rio del Teimpo in the Mexico Pavilion at Epcot, which also has you in a boat and going past a restaurant. Something I wasn't expecting, and neither was the rest of my party, to their chagrin, was the two drops before the ride starts proper. In Magic Kingdom I remember there being the one drop, but even that one seemed a little less intense than the two in Disneyland. After the drops the ride is very close to the Magic Kingdom version. I would definitely say that I enjoyed this version much more than Magic Kingdoms, something I didn't think would happen at this park at all.
The Haunted Mansion
The Haunted Mansion is my favorite ride of any kind ever. That being said, I've only been on the Magic Kingdom version. Paris's Phantom Manor is said to be a more intense version, while Hong Kong's Mystic Manor is completely different from all the others, focusing on exploration and evil spirits.This, the original version of The Haunted Mansion is different from Magic Kingdom's in a few ways. The "Stretching Room" is there to disguise the fact that you are being taken below ground to a different showroom that houses the actual attraction. This was not necessary in Florida, but they kept the beginning scene anyway. I did enjoy having the changing portraits in the hall while going to the "Doom Buggies", as opposed to in the first hall while on the ride. The legendary "Hatbox Ghost" is also only in this version of the ride and the attic scene is a little bit different from Magic Kingdom's, but overall it's the same stuff. The queue is not as interesting, thanks to the somewhat recent refurb at Magic Kingdom, but it still has the pet cemetery. Overall I would still give my preference to the Magic Kingdom version. I like the look of the mansion better and it's honestly the one I grew up with, so if I had to choose, I would go with the mansion in Liberty Square vs. New Orleans Square.
Matterhorn
This is a very popular ride at Disneyland, probably the most popular. Wait times were around an hour when we rode, but we got on in a short amount of time thanks to the single rider line. This is the only version of this ride, so I was excited to finally ride it. All I have to say is that this ride is rough! I felt a little banged up after I got off the ride, something I didn't feel after any of the other roller coasters we rode that day. It's still a fun coaster, what with two yeti sightings and everything! Still, I may consider skipping it altogether if we end up at the park again.
Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Forbidden Eye
My brother-in-law and I rode this one and went into the single rider line, but it basically just put us in the regular line, so I'm not sure what that's about. The queue for this ride is extremely long. I thought we were near the end of it about five times. The wait times get pretty long for this ride, so I can definitely see the queue filling up all the way. This ride was one of my favorites in any of the parks. I'm really glad I got to experience it. It's definitely not an easy-going ride. You will get a bit jostled around, but you'll have a blast.
Casey Jr. Train
Please note that if you have a very impatient child and one that also loves trains, this may not be the ride for your family. I had shown Goober video of this ride a few times, and he was super pumped to finally ride the "Mickey Mouse Train". Unfortunately, the loading time for this ride, plus only having the one train causes the wait times to be much longer than posted. The sign said 5 minutes, but the other half of our group probably waited more than 20 minutes to get on, and every time the train would leave without Goober on it, he would freak. You may have much better luck if you decide to ride, but in this case, it wasn't worth the hassle.
Disneyland Railroad
Some use the train for transport, others for the ride. We did it because we knew Goober would get a kick out of it, and we didn't have to wait in a maddening line like with Casey Jr. The ride is very pleasant with some animatronics and set pieces installed near the track to add a little flair. The real fun happens when you ride the train from Tomorrowland Station to Main Street Station. You enter a tunnel and are then treated to some museum style displays of the modern day Grand Canyon and then to the prehistoric age. Each area is very cool, but the storm during the Grand Canyon scene had an unexpected flash of lightning and crash of thunder. It not only scared the crap out of Goober, who we had to coax into watching the dinosaur scene, but also most of the people in the section with us! Overall a fun, easy ride, but the stops are too frequent for it to be too restful.
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
OK, so I may have had a small grudge against this ride due to it being the one that replaced Mr. Toad's Wild Ride in Disney World. I can now say having actually going on it, I enjoyed it a lot. I do enjoy Winnie the Pooh, especially the 80's cartoon, The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. This ride is base on 1977's The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, and it is pretty darn charming. It even employs the "pepper's ghost" effect leading into Pooh's dream sequence. This ride still has its detractors, as some are still sore that it took over Country Bear Jamboree. This ride is not very popular in the park, but I think that has more to do with it not being in Fantasyland, and instead at a dead end in Critter Country. Goober loves Tigger so this would have been a good ride to do again, but it was late in the day (for him) and we decided to call it a day.
We rode other rides at the park, but those were clones of Disney World's (yes I know most of Disneyland's came first) so I don't need to go into them here. Unfortunately I missed a few of the dark rides, including Pinnochio's Daring Journey, Alice in Wonderland, and Snow White's Scary Adventure. Both Pinocchio and Alice in Wonderland are specific to Disneyland, while Snow White was previously at Magic Kingdom. Altogether it was a great time and I enjoyed myself just as much as I would have at Magic Kingdom. That being said, the Magic Kingdom is still the best park. It's bigger, feels more thought out, and I feel like it has a better collection of rides, even if Disneyland has Indiana Jones and Matterhorn. Also, Sleeping Beauty's castle looks teensy-tiny compared to Cinderella's Castle. If you have the opportunity to go to Disneyland, I would still recommend it. If you are on the fence about Disney California Adventure, I would maybe skip it, especially if you don't have kids with you. At least wait until Pixar Pier is up and running. If you are considering taking a small child to the park, I would say that even with some of the trouble we had, it was worth it. Goober was free since he is under 3, so that was a big plus, but he had a great time on most of the rides. Sure he won't remember it, but my wife and I will, and we'll always remember the look on his face when he saw some of his favorite characters.
Carousel of Progress is seemingly a ride that will never close. The ride was Walt Disney's baby and many of his close friends and associates claimed that it was his favorite ride that he ever had a hand in, and that it should never cease operating. If that was Walt's wish, it has been fulfilled so far. While it may not be drawing the same kind of crowds it was when it first debuted, it is still a mainstay in Disney World and offers up some prime nostalgia for the early to mid-20th century.
After Disneyland came into its own after a tumultuous opening, Walt set his sights on expanding Main Street U.S.A. in the late 50's. Walt planned to split the expansion into two distinct districts: "International Street" and "Edison Square". Edison Square would have show that starred an animatronic man named "Wilbur K. Watt" who would talk about the history of electricity in the home. Guests would go from showroom to showroom, with each one depicting a different decade, and look at all the new electrical wonders. This would culminate in a showcase of some fine electric appliances that just so happened to be made by General Electric. This plan fell through mostly due to technology limitations, though GE still wanted to work with Walt on something.
GE approached Walt a few years later to see if he would like to develop a show for their pavilion at the 1964-65 New York World's Fair. Walt leapt at the offer, especially since GE was fronting the bill for the project. Walt brought up his idea for the history of electricity show that he had planned for his park, and they loved it. Luckily for Walt, his imagineers had finally perfected the audio-animatronic technology needed to make the show come to life. Early on, engineer Roger E. Broggie came up with the idea to have the show instead be a ride of sorts, with the audience moving on a carousel from scene to scene instead of having them walk to each one. The decades used for the ride would be the late 1890's (Valentine's Day), 1920's (4th of July), 1940's (Halloween) and 1960's (Christmas). Rex Allen, famous singing cowboy and frequent voice-over artist for Disney, was pegged to voice Father, the main character of the show and narrator. Walt went to the trusty Sherman Brothers to provide a song for the show, something to bridge the gap between the different scenes. Walt explained to the brothers what the show was all about, and with that they came up with a song full of enthusiasm and hope in the future, "There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow". The show opened in GE's Progressland in 1964 and was one of the most-visited pavilions at the Fair. With the ride moving every four minutes from each of the six fixed stages, they had 200 people entering and exited at each increment. Even with this steady pace and large capacity, it wasn't unusual to see over an hour wait to get into the show. In the 1965 season, a canopy was built outside the ride to help keep the waiting crowds from burning up in the sun.
The show was such a success at the New York World's Fair, that the decision was made to make it part of the New Tomorrowland expansion at Disneyland in 1967, with GE sponsoring for ten years. Walt unfortunately didn't live to see the attraction open at his park, as he died seven months prior to its opening day on July 2nd 1967. The actual attraction was on ground level and a new theater that was near identical to the Progressland one had to be constructed to house the show. There were some slight modifications to the show itself, including getting a new voice for the mother, updating the "Christmas in the Home of the 1960's, as new technology had come out since it's first incarnation. Any mention of GE's campaign to promote their "Medallion Homes" which were houses built with everything hooked up to electricity (no coal/gas power), were also removed. In this incarnation, after guests were done with the show, they would go to the second story and watch a short presentation narrated by Mother and Father about Walt's Progress City, including an enormous model of the envisioned land. Progress City was based on Walt Disney's original concepts for EPCOT (Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow) and the Walt Disney World property. While the show was popular at first for all the people who didn't see it at the World's Fair, attendance started to dip in the early 70's, making GE feel like they weren't getting a good return on their investment. GE correctly surmised that the people going to Disneyland and seeing the show were mostly Californians and they had probably seen the show several times already. GE requested that Disney move the attraction to Walt Disney World in Florida to reach a wider group of people. Disney agreed, and the last showing was on September 9th, 1973, thus ended the six year run of the show's stay at Disneyland.The empty theater was quickly filled up in 1974 by America Sings!, a salute to America and its music.
Walt Disney World's Carousel of Progress debuted alongside Space Mountain on January 15th, 1975 in Tomorrowland. GE again agreed to sponsor the ride for ten years. Extensive changes to the ride were implemented this time around, including a kaleidoscope effect projected on the screens in the loading/unloading rooms being discontinued, a new song by the Sherman Brothers, "The Best Time of Your Life," Andrew Duggan took over the voice role of the father, and the final scene being changed to better fit the home of the 70's. GE looked at the original song and thought it was too much about the future, and they wanted people to buy GE appliances right now! In 1981, the last scene was changed to reflect the future according to people living in the 80's. I've seen enough 80's visions of the future in film, so I imagine the last scene was looking a lot like Blade Runner. GE's contract expired in 1985, and they decided it wasn't worth the investment anymore, so they bailed. Disney had to close the attraction for a short time so they could remove as many references to GE as they could. No free advertising! In 1993, the attraction had its final (so far) refurbishment. Tomorrowland in the Magic Kingdom was changing the theme to "The Future That Never Was," so the whole area took on a more retro-futuristic look. Gears and other mechanical symbols were featured throughout the land, so Carousel of Progress's outdoor sign was redone to feature gears to have it fit. The name of the attraction was also changed to Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress. The biggest changes of the refurbishment was the last scene, which now showed "Christmas in the House of 2000," and the voice cast being somewhat re-done (Mel Blanc is still noticeably part of the cast as Uncle Orville). Jean Shepard, best known as the adult voice of Ralphy in A Christmas Story, now voiced Father, and Rex Allen, who had originally voiced Father, now voiced the grandfather in the Christmas scene. The song, "There's A Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" returned as the main song, making the focus of the attraction fit more into the promise of the future. A 4-minute pre-show video was also added to show guests how the attraction was built.
After the 9/11 attacks, Disney noticed that attendance was down all over the parks, but especially in Carousel of Progress, so they closed the attraction in October of 2001, saying that it would open seasonally from then on. This caused many frequent park-goers to panic about the ride's future. Luckily, the ride has been consistently open since 2003 and Disney claims it has no current plans to shutter the ride, though it is still listed as seasonal. The most recent change to the attraction was in 2016, when the gears in the front of the ride were changed and replaced with a newer, more traditional sign for the ride. Carousel of Progress is a conundrum in the parks. Disney has shown that they are not afraid to shutter fan-favorite rides in favor of "synergy," otherwise known as putting a Disney character as the main attraction of the ride. Carousel is becoming one of the few in the parks that is not tied to any characters and thus its existence will always be near the cutting block, no matter what Disney says to the contrary. Carousel is not a popular ride anymore. It is a fan-favorite, but you will definitely not see long waits to get inside. The issue with the ride is how fast it becomes outdated, and especially now it will get worse every year. The "Christmas in the House of 2000" scene features such "futuristic" gizmos as VR Games, HD Televisions, Flat Panel Displays, LaserDisc (HA!), and voice-activated ovens. All of those things are now reality, with voice-activated ovens being the newest, thanks to smart homes. About the only thing they could do now is make the last scene more in tune with the "Future That Never Was" theme and make it out there kind of things that are maybe(?) far into the future, but who knows. The likely reason that this ride hasn't been refurbished since 1993 is because no one outside of Disney is helping pay for it. Many a ride has been shuttered due to a loss of sponsorship, but Carousel is inexplicably still here. I've always made it a point to go to this attraction, mostly because I really enjoy the look back into the past, but I think I feel the same way about it as most: if I was pressed for time at the park, I wouldn't bother. That being said, Tomorrowland wouldn't be the same without this attraction, so I hope this is one that will stay open forever, as Walt would have wanted.
