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As mentioned last week, I’ve recently spent significant time in Southern California, visiting old haunts like Magic Mountain, Knott’s Berry Farm, Legoland, La Brea Tar Pits, San Diego Zoo, and even Las Vegas. Naturally, I invested a large chunk of time—about five days—at the Disneyland Resort. Since I only visit once per year, at best, I figure it’s always worth a few words just to compare the “state of affairs” and measure how the DL and the WDW experiences measure up when held next to each other.


It’s a small world has been updated on the West Coast, but I didn’t mind the new characters so much. The Anaheim version is somehow prettier despite not having “flooded” sets – maybe the lighting is better?

Let’s start with merchandise. I was on the prowl for Disneyland-specific items—no need for me to buy things I could get in Orlando, after all. By and large, I’d have to say that Disneyland and DCA delivered on this count. We found t-shirts from just about every ride, and often there were trinkets like keychains and buttons for many attractions, too. While we didn’t buy everything we saw, that’s actually a good thing. It means there would have been too much stuff (and too much expense!) if we had. It’s not immediately obvious whether Disneyland had MORE stuff than WDW that is coast-specific; after all, Orlando has a lot too. I think it’s fair to say that both resorts are on the right track, by and large.


The Lincoln makeover was stupendous; just the right mix of nostalgia and history for everything that has ever been housed in this particular building.

That doesn’t mean there weren’t any wishlists and could-have-been moments. There were. The merchandise for Captain EO was adequate, though I could have used an even greater variety to choose from. The selection was much more problematic for World of Color. This was the marquee show for the year, which would be reason enough to expect a big, splashy rollout of merch, but even more importantly, the show was phenomenal from my perspective as a first-time viewer. Despite that, the selections were limited to a few shirts, with the best designs (and the best pins) reserved for annual passholders only. Too bad; I would have bought those for sure.


I was a skeptic going into this show, but it easily won me over.

On the upkeep front, Disneyland (and DCA, for that matter), looked as good as ever. That’s not to say the place sparkled. Tiny bits of old paint peeled off from floorboards here and there, but that’s to be expected, and was hardly the sort of thing the once-a-year visitor would notice (I don’t count. I may visit Disneyland only once a year, but I worked there for fifteen years, and I spend every weekend at WDW parks!)


Everyone enjoyed the new-to-us castle walkthrough.

We had a luxurious five days to spend between DL and DCA, and thought we’d be able to take in everything probably twice. Now that our child is seven years old and above the magic 48-inch threshold, though, we got to go on almost all the thrill rides, so our attention was diverted onto certain E-Tickets. Our three year old kept us ever focused on the small rides, too, so that we were hitting both ends of the attraction spectrum. Long story short, we ended up having to skip some of the rides we have on the East Coast (which is admittedly no big deal).

If I was surprised that it took so long to get on every ride at Disneyland, imagine my astonishment that DCA had somehow become a full-day park. And by that I mean nothing substantial had changed except for me: now I was visiting from out of town and had kids who had never seen this stuff before, so we had to hit everything in one day.


I want the zoetrope in Orlando!

When I last lived in SoCal (in 2002), there was no Flik’s Fun Fair yet, nor was Tower of Terror here. Or Toy Stoy Mania. Trying to see everything in DCA in a single day was way more difficult than I’d thought (again, because of my kids needing to see both ends of the spectrum), so we ended up having to parkhop on a second day to squeeze it all in.


GlowFest was new. You’d think a purist like me would object to the un-Disney dancing, the garish lights, the tons of alcohol. But you’d be wrong, especially if you asked me right after I ate that delicious beef gyro (Mmm-mmm! Gotta find me some Louks food trucks here in Florida!)

Part of the reason was that we had to dedicate most of the evening to holding down a spot for World of Color (which, by the way, we do not regret. That was time well spent). I can recall thinking that if DCA was now already a full-day park for the casual visitor, something I had not given it credit for when I lived nearby, then the park will really be something when the next two E-Tickets open up (Little Mermaid and Carsland).

I won’t bore you with the full details of my vacation—you’re here for Disney!—but it might be worthwhile to state a few highlights:

  1. Legoland seems to have more rides than I recall seeing when I last visited (which was in 1999, and it was new). It got me excited to have a Legoland in Florida. My sons liked the two versions of free-driving cars they got to experience—we’ll do that a lot. It’s refreshing to see folks not just mimic the Disney attractions.


The real Vegas came a day later than the Legoland version for us.

  1. Las Vegas has really backed off the family market. I knew this going in, having read up on it before the trip, but the scale of the changeover is still breathtaking. I got a little sad, and felt a little old, that a nighttime drive down the Strip revealed essentially no blinking syncopated lights like the Vegas of yore. And I’m glad I knew not to take my seven year old to the new pirate battle (er, I mean lingerie dance-off).

  2. Magic Mountain didn’t disappoint, with new coasters for us parents living up to the hype. Scream was just OK (I don’t like the bare and still-painted former parking lot below), but Terminator is loads more fun than Psyclone ever was. Tatsu is indeed more beautiful, and in my opinion, an all-around better ride than SeaWorld’s Manta. But the talk of the day in our family was clearly X2, which rocked my world and knocked my son’s sneaker off his foot (at the start of the day, natch!) I don’t think I’ve ever ridden a coaster before where I feared for my life. It was an irrational fear, of course, but that was a real sweat on my brow. Parks that want to go a different route from Disney could learn a lesson from Magic Mountain: if you’re going to chase thrills, then chase some of the “out of this world” variety. Half measures only make your customers halfway care about coming back. But X2 is enough to have me thinking about a return.

Still, for all the joy these other parks and entertainments brought me, none of them matched Disneyland. One late evening, I had fifteen minutes to myself, and I was as happy as a clam to just sit on a bench near the Hub, grinning (I’m jealous of the twinkle lights on the trees in Anaheim! I miss that!) while I felt the exertions of the day drain away. So many hours of my life had been spent in these 75 acres, yet I experienced the opposite of boredom while here. It was a comfort that exceeded mere familiarity, and transcended even homecoming. I have a great time in Florida and love living where there is so much theme park action, but it’s a real treat to spend time in Walt’s park again. Nothing compares.


It all started… here.

Kevin Yee may be e-mailed at [email protected] - Please keep in mind he may not be able to respond to each note personally. FTC-Mandated Disclosure: As of December 2009, bloggers are required by the Federal Trade Commission to disclose payments and freebies. Kevin Yee did not receive any payments, free items, or free services from any of the parties discussed in this article. He pays for his own admission to theme parks and their associated events, unless otherwise explicitly noted.

© 2010 Kevin Yee


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Kevin's Disney Books

Kevin is the author of many books on Disney theme parks, including:

  • Your Day at the Magic Kingdom is a full-color, hardcover interactive children's book, where readers decide which attraction to ride next (and thus which page to turn to) - but watch out for some unexpected surprises!
  • Mouse Trap: Memoir of a Disneyland Cast Member provides the first authentic glimpse of what it's like to work at Disneyland.
  • The Walt Disney World Menu Book lists restaurants, their menus, and prices for entrees, all in one handy pocket-sized guide.
  • Tokyo Disney Made Easy is a travel guide to Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySeas, written to make the entire trip stress-free for non-speakers of Japanese.
  • Magic Quizdom offers an exhaustive trivia quiz on Disneyland park, with expansive paragraph-length answers that flesh out the fuller story on this place rich with details.
  • 101 Things You Never Knew About Disneyland is a list-oriented book that covers ground left intentionally unexposed in the trivia book, namely the tributes and homages around Disneyland, especially to past rides and attractions.
  • 101 Things You Never Knew About Walt Disney World follows the example of the Disneyland book, detailing tributes and homages in the four Disney World parks.

More information on the above titles, along with ordering options are at this link. Kevin is currently working on other theme park related books, and expects the next one to be published soon.

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