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Disneyland
Aug. 22nd, 2006 05:56 pmI did say that I was going to post about the honeymoon eventually, but I had the problem that I didn't know how to write it without being phenomenally boring. Nevertheless, I'll do my best. At the moment we're watching a judge show on TV, which is like a zoo of the stupid being shouted at by a ghastly Home Economics teacher, so it's something to distract me from that.
The most memorable thing about the flight over was the entire plane singing "Happy birthday" for a six-year-old a couple of rows in front of us - complete with the blinds closed and the overhead lights on to create a candley mood. That took an hour, then there was a further hour in a taxi delivering people to various hotels.
Our hotel was the Hilton Anaheim, and I had never stayed in a hotel quite that upmarket before - a large fountain and pool stood in the middle of the foyer, and there were a couple of floors with balconies looking down on to it. Interestingly, there was no tenth floor on the lift, but I eventually asked them about this and the disappointingly normal answer was that it was the floor that held the telephony system.
The first evening, we went to collect our tickets from Downtown Disney, a shopping centre-like place between the two parks. After an unsuccessful search for an Abu doll for my sister, we went to the Build-A-Bear factory. I couldn't help but feel the place had a Frankenstein-like sinisterness underneath the fluffy exterior. After putting together a rabbit that was made in my image, we were given a printed and signed birth certificate and read a large pledge on the wall that was even worse than our wedding vows. It felt like we'd just had a baby.
The next morning, we went into the Disneyland park for the first time, and I'll make a separate entry about the attractions that we visited. It was pretty much what you would expect from a large park - a lot of children, many hours of standing in queues, and spraying each other with a water bottle to prevent death from heat exhaustion. We went back and forward between the parks, and ended the day by watching the large firework show.
The second day was spent in the California Adventure, a slightly less child-oriented park opposite the main Disney one. We didn't get there until about noon because we stopped for breakfast at the IHOP, which I nearly spelled iHop. It was rather like the worst-named restaurant in the world (The Eating Place), but more American.
That night, we used the hotel's on-demand film service and watched Silent Hill. Unfortunately it was coloured blue, and after calling the front desk we found out they had been installing a new system that day. I convinced them to allow us to watch the film for free, but it wasn't that inspiring. It felt like two independent directors had stuck two halves of a film together - the first wasn't terribly good at filmmaking but wanted to stay faithful to the game, and the second one had got the idea of Silent Hill exactly right but wanted to make a new storyline. I had thought it would be the first good game-to-film conversion, but it was just mediocre. And blue.
On the third day, we had an early pass, which meant we could get into the park for 7am - an hour before the queues formed. We spent this time going on a couple of the more popular rides, then Whitney took me round the children's rides for a couple of hours. By far the most memorable of these was "Small World".
I had thought that it was a normal slow boat ride. When you float into the tunnel you're greeted with a lighthouse bobbing in the water with a flag saying "HELLO THERE", which made me laugh out loud for some reason. Then the song begins. "It's a small world, after all" is played at you when you turn the corner, and keeps repeating over and over. As you go through the ride, various puppets trill the words to you - again, over and over - while dressed up in some outdated or just plain offensive national dress. (Scotland is represented by tartan hills and a man on a tower playing the bagpipes). The song is played on various instruments throughout, culminating in a room with puppets from every country singing it together and spinning around in a perpetual dance of the damned. Once you've finally escaped from it, the same tune is blasted at you through a set of speakers above the ride until you're halfway across the park. And it stays with you for the rest of the day.
That night, as the last thing to do on our honeymoon, we visited the Blue Bayou restaurant, which is situated in the middle of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride - the boats sail around you as you eat. It's extremely expensive, but at least you get to keep the menus - and apparently the crab is amazing.
After that, we looked in the glass shop across the road for a moment. A music box caught my attention, so I picked it up and wound it. It played "It's a small world". And I fell over dead.
The most memorable thing about the flight over was the entire plane singing "Happy birthday" for a six-year-old a couple of rows in front of us - complete with the blinds closed and the overhead lights on to create a candley mood. That took an hour, then there was a further hour in a taxi delivering people to various hotels.
Our hotel was the Hilton Anaheim, and I had never stayed in a hotel quite that upmarket before - a large fountain and pool stood in the middle of the foyer, and there were a couple of floors with balconies looking down on to it. Interestingly, there was no tenth floor on the lift, but I eventually asked them about this and the disappointingly normal answer was that it was the floor that held the telephony system.
The first evening, we went to collect our tickets from Downtown Disney, a shopping centre-like place between the two parks. After an unsuccessful search for an Abu doll for my sister, we went to the Build-A-Bear factory. I couldn't help but feel the place had a Frankenstein-like sinisterness underneath the fluffy exterior. After putting together a rabbit that was made in my image, we were given a printed and signed birth certificate and read a large pledge on the wall that was even worse than our wedding vows. It felt like we'd just had a baby.
The next morning, we went into the Disneyland park for the first time, and I'll make a separate entry about the attractions that we visited. It was pretty much what you would expect from a large park - a lot of children, many hours of standing in queues, and spraying each other with a water bottle to prevent death from heat exhaustion. We went back and forward between the parks, and ended the day by watching the large firework show.
The second day was spent in the California Adventure, a slightly less child-oriented park opposite the main Disney one. We didn't get there until about noon because we stopped for breakfast at the IHOP, which I nearly spelled iHop. It was rather like the worst-named restaurant in the world (The Eating Place), but more American.
That night, we used the hotel's on-demand film service and watched Silent Hill. Unfortunately it was coloured blue, and after calling the front desk we found out they had been installing a new system that day. I convinced them to allow us to watch the film for free, but it wasn't that inspiring. It felt like two independent directors had stuck two halves of a film together - the first wasn't terribly good at filmmaking but wanted to stay faithful to the game, and the second one had got the idea of Silent Hill exactly right but wanted to make a new storyline. I had thought it would be the first good game-to-film conversion, but it was just mediocre. And blue.
On the third day, we had an early pass, which meant we could get into the park for 7am - an hour before the queues formed. We spent this time going on a couple of the more popular rides, then Whitney took me round the children's rides for a couple of hours. By far the most memorable of these was "Small World".
I had thought that it was a normal slow boat ride. When you float into the tunnel you're greeted with a lighthouse bobbing in the water with a flag saying "HELLO THERE", which made me laugh out loud for some reason. Then the song begins. "It's a small world, after all" is played at you when you turn the corner, and keeps repeating over and over. As you go through the ride, various puppets trill the words to you - again, over and over - while dressed up in some outdated or just plain offensive national dress. (Scotland is represented by tartan hills and a man on a tower playing the bagpipes). The song is played on various instruments throughout, culminating in a room with puppets from every country singing it together and spinning around in a perpetual dance of the damned. Once you've finally escaped from it, the same tune is blasted at you through a set of speakers above the ride until you're halfway across the park. And it stays with you for the rest of the day.
That night, as the last thing to do on our honeymoon, we visited the Blue Bayou restaurant, which is situated in the middle of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride - the boats sail around you as you eat. It's extremely expensive, but at least you get to keep the menus - and apparently the crab is amazing.
After that, we looked in the glass shop across the road for a moment. A music box caught my attention, so I picked it up and wound it. It played "It's a small world". And I fell over dead.
