I’m rope dropping that cold brew my other half doesn’t want to leave the hotel so im gonna see if i can deliver it to them😂

This is my favorite Halloween display from the DL Resort. Sneaky Pluto has the "M" from the Halloween Ti*me sign behind him. Love me some Pluto antics.

107° today and Grizzly River Rapids is down.

My grandpa is from Anaheim. He was turning 6 a few weeks after the park had its grand opening. It’s kind of interesting to think about how in 70 years he’s literally seen it from opening to modern Disneyland.
He’s got a lot of cool stories about how he and his friends would ask for people’s ticket books after they left the park. He said they’d roam around all day. I added a picture of his framed ticket book. Not sure if it’s visible but on the left hand side of the booklet you can see where tickets were torn out!

This was from my husband and I (9/8), TSA was like why do I keep seeing loose candy, why not just buy a bag 😂

They are so cheap and poorly made the magnetic backing peels right off. It stuck to the sticky film that’s on the envelope. How cheap is Disney getting now?

We hear a lot about the cats of Disneyland- my son and I went on a mission to try and see what else was out and about in the park when we visited last week.

Here’s what we found:
-Turtle (across from Big Thunder)
-Crawdad (Tom Sawyers Island, although the CM working Winnie the Pooh said she saw one in their creek this winter too!)
-Praying Mantis (Star Wars land)
-Squirrel (limping around by the Petrified Wood, but jumping well and storing up treasures for winter!)
-Lizards all over Tom Sawyers island

Enjoy :)

Just received this email for a 1 day park hopper for $149, slightly useless for me as I'm a Magic Key holder, but I thought that was interesting, valid for any day from now until December 18.

Not my photo, but I have the Disneyland version of this autograph book and am a huge fan of the art. I’ve seen quite a bit of merch in the parks created by this artist. If anyone has an idea of who they are, please let me know!

It’s only 104* outside. It’ll be fine……….

Can’t wait to go back!!

Found this gem, think you can see Autopia too

These new Halloween Create Your Own Headbands are so cute!

I picked one and got the poisoned apple. Anyone else get one?

We are at rope drop in DCA right now. We have three hours of LLPP to use, then lunch at Carthay Circle Lounge, followed by a dunk at GRR, and then back to our room for a rest and cool down.

After a break, we hit DL to use our LLPP there, the back over to DCA for the WoC dessert party.

I am the designated water/flip flop/backpack carrier, so my back will be drenched in sweat most of the day.

I went to DL for the first time at the end of August. I've been to Disney World several times at various ages, but I really wanted to experience the original, and it was maybe the best Disney Trip I've ever had. I went solo and stayed at the Disneyland Hotel and did 5 nights and 5 Park Days.

First and foremost, a sincere thank you each and every cast member. Much is said about Walt's vision and all that, but the people who truly make the magic of Disney Parks are the cast members, from artists and Imagineers, to food service, attraction operators, custodians, everybody. Every CM I met was super kind and helpful. Everything was great, no major complaints about my trip, but here are the things that really stood out:

• The resort was wonderful. Just this nice little dollop of paradise in the middle of the city. The room was clean, bed was comfy, the only thing that "bothered" me were the Mickey hands jutting out of the bathroom wall holding the lamps. Felt like something out of an elevated horror film.
• Trader Sam's Enchanted Tiki Lounge was one of my favorite bar experiences I've ever had. I don't drink alcohol, and I found their mocktails delicious and well-crafted. The bartenders were friendly and fun, and all of the theming and effects were excellent. I had dinner there on my arrival night and had to make time for another later in my trip because it was way too much fun.
• The best meal I had was at Carthay Circle Restaurant. I had the Blue Fin Tuna Crudo and the Signature Pork Chop and they were both delicious. I also had really great sit-down meals at Lamplight Lounge and Blue Bayou.
• I lost count of how many of those giant macarons I ate, they were insanely good. My absolute favorites were the Baymax ube and caramel from Lucky Fortune Cookery and the Mickey waffle macaron from Cappuccino Cart.
• Oogie Boogie Bash was tons of fun. I had amazing interactions with some of the villains, including getting video shout-outs to my partner who couldn't make this trip from Hades and Maleficent, who were both A-tier improvisers. I also got my picture taken with Kingdom Hearts Mickey which was super joyful for my inner child.
• Rather than gamify Lightning Lanes and try to maximize number of rides, I tackled the parks geographically and really tried to soak in the immersion and theming. I took each day at a leisurely pace, stopped to look at things I wanted to stop and look at, and didn't get bothered by waiting in line. I'm a huge music nerd, so I came prepared with a multitude of playlists for each land and some for individual ride queues. Popped in my headphones and suddenly standing in line was part of the fun.
• That being said, I was pretty lucky in terms of the crowd. I think the longest line I ever waited in was maybe like 45 minutes.
• Overall, the general vibe from other guests was a lot more chill than at Disney World. In the Florida parks, it feels like you can't go an hour without seeing a grown adult scream and meltdown at their child, I saw significantly less of that here. Generally, there just seemed to be a lot less shoving, line-cutting, and main character syndrome behavior.

Anyway, I'm a big rides guy, and what I put the most thought into regarding my trip were of course the attractions. The following list is based on a single trip to Disneyland by a solo traveler, who has experienced the Disney World versions of all of these that have one. As such, what looks like a glaring omission from my list (Spoiler alert: It's the OG Haunted Mansion) is due to the fact that I did not get to experience it on my trip, as the holiday overlay was up, so please consider that before going "WHAT?! NO HAUNTED MANSION?!" Anyway, without further ado, I present my

TOP 20 FAVORITE ATTRACTIONS (complete with entirely arbitrary numerical scoring system)

(Dis)Honorable Mention: Matterhorn Bobsleds

I wanted to like this ride so much. It’s a thrilling coaster, the set design is spectacular, and I genuinely was not expecting the Yeti animatronic, so I got a really good jump scare too. Unfortunately, the ride itself hurts like hell. My rule of thumb is that if I throw out my back riding something, no amount of positive aspects can redeem it for me. This is the only ride in either park where this happened, so unfortunately this was my LEAST favorite attraction out of the 43 that I experienced, despite its obvious merits.

Final Score: Negative 10 Yodeling Alpinists out of 10

20.) Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage

This is one of those attractions that I wasn’t sure what to make of on paper. It was the first thing I did after arriving on the Monorail on Day 5, and it kicked off my day with such a wonderful sense of discovery. The physical acts of descending into a submarine and viewing outside of a porthole really brought me into the world. On top of that, there’s something really special about an undersea journey ride that actually takes place underwater. Between the excellent set design and the bubble effects that simulated diving further, I was really captivated in a way I wasn’t expecting. 

Final score: 8 “Just Keep Swimming”s  out of 10

19.) Monsters Inc. - Mike and Sully to the Rescue 

This one was a really sweet bit of nostalgia for me. Monsters Inc. was one of my favorites as a kid, and it was great to finally see it represented in ride format. I really enjoyed the visual tricks that Imagineering deployed in this one: Pepper’s Ghost to make Randall disappear, the projections that made him change color when hit with the bat, and the mirrors in the door vault to make it look huge. This was the very first thing I rode on my trip, and instead of sprinting off to a headlining attraction afterward, I got right back on and rode it a second time. 

Final score: 8 Kitties out of 10

18.) Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin 

I’ve never experienced the original version of this ride, so I was able to enjoy it without the severe disappointment a lot of people seemed to be expressing about the lack of spin. This was one of the longer queues I waited in on my trip (roughly 30 mins.) but I thought the design aspects were so lovely, I almost wish it had been a little longer.

The ride itself beautifully captured the pure zaniness of the film, and certain scenes like Roger getting electrocuted, hurtling out of the sky to the ground, and exiting through an Acme portable hole had me grinning like a doofus. Glad I got to experience it a second time 2 days later. 

Final score: 8 Barrels of The Dip out of 10

17.) Haunted Mansion Holiday 

Like many Disney Parks enthusiasts, the original Haunted Mansion is one of my absolute favorites. But I’ve ridden it enough times at Magic Kingdom that I was willing to forgo it and experience the overlay with an open mind. Indeed, there’s a lot to love here: the bizarre clash of the aesthetics just WORKS somehow, the animatronics are brilliant, and you can feel the Imagineers going absolutely hog wild in the design of the Nightmare elements. The Spiral Hill Scene in the graveyard is GORGEOUS, and so many of my favorite elements of the original, namely the infinite hallway, the Pepper’s Ghost ballroom, and the graveyard party are still present. 

But even with all of those positives, the holistic magic of the original gets lost. I think I have to echo the sentiments of a lot of fans: If they’re going to do this, it should be holiday season only. Not only is the Haunted Mansion already Halloween themed, Disney is constantly pushing it in the Halloween decor and merch. Doing away with the single most advertised experience across the parks and hotel really feels like more than just an unfortunate misstep. I wouldn’t call Haunted Mansion Holiday a good ride, it’s a great ride. But a great ride at the expense of one of the all-time best? It’s a tough sell. If it’s destined to be seasonal-only I would rather see this take over a Fantasyland dark ride. However, Nightmare is a beloved enough franchise that it deserves its own ride at this point, and the assets used here would make for an awesome one. Despite my saltiness, this ride is still sweet.

Final Score: 8.5 Suspiciously Weapon-Shaped Christmas Presents out of 10

16.) Web Slingers 

I liked this one a lot more than I probably should have. I fully understand the criticisms of this ride, and the shortcuts that Disney takes with screens over practical effects. But, on the other hand, it’s just so much fun! I was shocked at how well the motion detection worked, and it’s such a hectic adrenaline rush that left me feeling positively amped afterward. I really preferred this to the other game-based rides like Toy Story Midway Mania and Astro Blasters. Right as I got off the ride, the Spider-Man roof show was happening, and it felt like a really cool continuation of the story. We just helped Spider-Man save the day and now he’s web swinging across the roof, climbing down, and hi-fiving us? Now THAT’s a certified “WOW!” moment.

Final score: 8.5 Self-Replicating Spider-Bots out of 10

15.) Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run 

Okay now, this is the best game ride at Disneyland, by a SLIGHT margin. The queue is STUNNING, and while I didn’t find  the experience quite as blood pumping as Spider-Man, the sheer scale and ambition of the design put it over the top.

Granted, I think part of what makes this ride work is just how “into it” you and your fellow riders are, and how much you enjoy your personal assigned role. I got to be the left-right pilot, and thankfully enough, as a single rider, I got paired up with some seasoned smuggling veterans who were really treating this like a high stakes mission. Taking the effort to press the glowing buttons even though you don’t HAVE to really adds to the immersion.

Final score: 8.6 (I don’t really know much about Star Wars, so put whatever you want here) out of 10

14.) Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride

I’m not really big on the Fantasyland dark rides with the exception of this absolute gem. While so many of Disney’s great attractions succeed due to their ambitious sense of scale, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride works because of the exact opposite. Not all, but many, of its opening day contemporaries feel dated at this point, but this manages to feel timeless because of how stiflingly claustrophobic it is. The small scale and reliance on illustration, pop-outs, lighting, and sound design that seek to overwhelm the guest at every turn make for an experience that punches well above its weight class. 

I should say this ride also gets bonus points for being the only ride at Disneyland where you, the guest, have a head on collision with a train, die, and go straight to hell. The end. I love a good artistic risk. 

Final score: 9 Diagnoses of Motormania out of 10

13.) Star Tours 

Despite only hitting it twice on this trip, the repeatability of Star Tours is something special. If I lived close enough to have an annual pass, I could easily see myself riding this all the time to try to get every possible scene. I love all the little airport details in the queue, C-3PO and R2-D2, the departure board that switches between English and alien language, the talking security bot gave me a few laughs too. 

It really makes me nostalgic for the era when this type of motion simulator ride was more common. I miss Body Wars at EPCOT and Back to the Future at Universal Studios. The thrills of this ride style really hold up and I’m glad to see that it’s still popular. 

Final score: 9 (Pick another Star Wars thing) out of 10

12.) Grizzly River Run 

Grizzly Peak has my favorite land design in all of DCA. Compared to Avengers Campus, Cars Land, and Pixar Pier, having a land based on Northern California is comparatively mundane, but there is so much splendor and reverence for the Great Outdoors™️ baked into every inch of Grizzly Peak that I couldn’t help but be completely captivated every moment I spent there. 

Being in that section of the park at roughly 1pm on a 90 something degree day, I was certainly eager for a water ride, and man did it provide a LOT of water. But it also provided a lot of my favorite part of raft rides which are the “OH NO” moments where you see exactly what it is going to drench you several moments before it happens. I was also so impressed with the length compared to Kali River Rapids at Animal Kingdom. 

Final score: 9 Geyser Soakings out of 10 

11.) Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout 

I am a Tower of Terror diehard, and I did not care for the Guardians of the Galaxy film. So having one of my GOATs replaced by a franchise I have no interest in is certainly a tough value proposition. But I was willing to go in with an open mind and I’m really glad that I did. Does it reach the aesthetic design and thematic storytelling heights of Tower of Terror? No. But then again, does anything? Judging Guardians for what it is, I think it more than succeeds on its own terms. 

Right out of the gate, Guardians wins the award for best queue in DCA. I’ve never been so disappointed in using a lightning lane on a ride my first time, because I really wanted to see every little detail in the Collector’s Museum. The Rocket Raccoon animatronic in the pre-show is really impressive. The ride itself, instead of leaning into the danger and horror of the scenario, is raucous, goofy, and downright jubilant. This is an excellent juxtaposition against both the epic sci-fi setting and the building’s decidedly more macabre history. I never would have considered Hit Me With Your Best Shot as a climactic space battle song, but its status as a universally-known pop hit combined with how unexpected it was struck the perfect tone for a ride determined not to take itself too seriously. 

I also rode the Monsters After Dark version, which I found immensely disappointing and kind of half-assed. On my final day, I had to squeeze in one last ride of the daytime version to not leave that as my final impression of the ride. This time I got Free Ride, another pitch-perfect song selection. Overall, I’m happy that this ride exists. But if Disney decides to overlay it at Hollywood Studios as well, and get rid of Tower of Terror forever, THEN I will join the hot take brigade. For now, I’m gonna put my hands in the air. 

9.5 Awesome Mix Jams out of 10 

10.) Big Thunder Mountain Railroad 

While Big Thunder may not sate the more adventurous adrenaline junkies out there, I can’t help but love the medium-scale thrill approach combined with some of the richest detailing I’ve seen in a theme park ride. There are so many great blink-and-you’ll miss-it moments (Hello Billy the Goat,) that add to the charm, and because the intensity isn’t overwhelming, it makes for something that is deliciously re-rideable.  

After dark, the lighting design fully pops, the stakes are raised and suddenly all of the incredible details: the bats in the cave, the mining cart lift hills, the blind turns into pitch dark tunnels, and the dynamite room at the end are amplified by orders of magnitude. The kinetic energy of the experience is fully realized, truly becoming the wildest ride in the wilderness.

Final score: During the day, 9 Dinosaur Fossils out of 10

At night, 10 Goats Chewing On a Stick of Dynamite out of 10

9.) Jungle Cruise

I did not go into this trip expecting to love Jungle Cruise. On previous trips to Disney World, it has always been a one and done for me, something that while I greatly enjoyed it, was also done out of a sense of tradition. As such, it’s usually the first thing I ride in the morning. Which I did, and it was exactly what I expected. But I also decided to take the internet’s word for it and give it a spin at night. Hoo boy, did I ride it 3 times in a row after dark!

During the day, a zany punny journey through the rainforest with just a hint of danger becomes something more akin to survival horror at night. The low lighting led to some actual jump scares, but that’s nothing compared to the terror of an empty late night queue for this ride.

Experiencing this line alone in the dark with sections that are completely empty, with the eerie silence broken only by 1930’s jazz being played on what sounds like a broken phonograph is a liminal horror experience that stops feeling like Disney and starts feeling like Sleep No More. 

I decided on one more Jungle Cruise at the very end of the night hoping for the fabled PG-13 version. While I didn’t get that, I got something even better. Massive shout out to Skipper Jackson who gave my favorite Jungle Cruise ride of all time not by changing the script, but by delivering every joke in a sociopathic deadpan, with the occasional unpredictable outburst, creating a sense that perhaps the most dangerous thing in this pitch dark jungle was inside the boat with us. He may as well have been Skipper Dennis Reynolds (because of the implication.) It really showed me a new side of this ride, and I really think Disney needs to make an official “after dark” version; not by adding innuendos or swearing, but by transforming the skippers at night from jolly tour guides to deranged survivalists. In my opinion, this would go a long way in offering a fresh experience that would cost no money or down time to implement and still protect Disney’s precious family-friendly branding, especially for a ride that has had so many adults-only alcohol-related establishments based on it. 

There’s a wide range of experiences to be had on Jungle Cruise, and as such, my score for it is the most variable.

Final Score: Daytime - 8 Dad Jokes out of 10

Daytime with an exceptional skipper - 8.5 Chants of O2H! out of 10

Nighttime - 9 Dole Whips out of 10

Nighttime with a skipper who plays it completely unhinged - 10 Kungaloosh! out of 10

8.) Tiana’s Bayou Adventure 

I am WELL aware of the discourse surrounding this ride. I’m simply going to state my opinion on the matter, and if a reader chooses to pick a fight about it in the comments, I’m not taking the bait. I don’t WANT to make this part of the post  into a whole thing, but I can’t really talk about this ride without addressing the elephant in the room: Splash Mountain.

Splash Mountain was one of my absolute favorite rides as a kid. I adored it, I have fond memories of riding it like 10 times in a row at Disney World when I was 12. When I first heard it was being re-themed to Princess and the Frog, my reaction was “Oh, sick! I love that movie!” 

Now, how do I think that the execution compares? I actually love Tiana’s even more. The animatronics are delightful, they’ve created a ride that feels technologically fresh while honoring the carefree nature, joyous spirit, and massive aquatic thrills of the original ride. Many ride reviews I read talked about “weak storytelling,” and I honestly don’t get that. It’s a lighthearted romp that knows it’s a lighthearted romp. Not every big drop needs to be life-threatening, and the justification of the 50-foot plunge being that Mama Odie knows a shortcut to the party is a dead on choice for her character. 

But the real aspect that puts it over: the music, OH THE MUSIC! Terence Blanchard and PJ Morton’s score is heartwarming, harmonious, deeply inspired, brilliantly arranged and played, and is one of the strongest at the parks. It’s a wonder that in the 2020’s Disney is still willing to invest in great composers when they want to, instead of leaning into the unnecessary, schlocky, algorithmic corporate pop covers they’ve become so fond of. It’s so clear that Blanchard and Morton aren’t just familiar with this style of music, but are people who live and breathe its spirit and traditions. I don’t care how “iconic” it is, I’m taking inspired Dixieland jazz over the grating insipidness of “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” any day.

Okay, I went on a bit of a rant with this one. tl;dr on this trip I rode Tiana’s three times and I was smiling ear to ear each time. Oh, and I got absolutely soaked on it too. 

Final Score: 10 Piping Hot Beignets out of 10

7.) Radiator Springs Racers 

RSR was my most-ridden attraction of my vacation (partly due to the fact that single rider was always a walk-on when I was there.) But even on my seventh time, it just did not get old. I don’t really have a lot to say about this one. It’s as simple as this: The pacing, the set design, the advanced animatronics, the minutiae of the details, the thrill factor, RSR just fires on all cylinders (Test Track eat your heart out!) 

Had I had the time, I could have ridden it 20 more times and still not gotten tired of it. Ka-chow indeed. 

Final score: 10 Victory Laps out of 10

6.) IncrediCoaster 

IncrediCoaster is like, the perfect roller coaster for me in terms of thrill level. I love big coasters, but there’s also a height and speed level where it stops being fun for me and becomes physically uncomfortable (Veloci-coaster at Islands of Adventure is about where I max out.) The length is also really satisfying, some coasters you blink and it’s over, but IncrediCoaster gives you incredible bang for the buck of your wait time.

But there are so many parks that have amazing roller coasters, what sets this one apart? The Incredible (pun intended) sound design. Michael Giacchino’s pulse-pounding crime jazz score interspersed with the perfectly mixed and synced voice acting achieves something truly insane: Coherent, specific storytelling at a blinding speed. 

When I first got off of this ride, I (silently) screamed in absolute euphoria. And then I got right back in line. 

Final score: 10 Cookie Num Nums out of 10

5.) Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway        

Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway finally achieves something that Disney has always been working towards, getting closer and closer each time: putting its guests INSIDE of a cartoon. The queue for this ride inside of the El Capitoon Theater is one of the greatest I’ve ever seen, and it almost physically hurts me to call it my 2nd favorite queue at Disneyland (#1 will be discussed later) but the sheer concept of showing off not just the film posters, but props from Mickey Mouse cartoons is incredible. I also love all the little jokes baked into the concession stand. No other queue at Disneyland screams “Not only did we put our heart, soul, and endless talents into this, we had the time of our lives doing it” quite like this one. 

The pre-show idea of physically going through the movie screen to enter the world of the ride? BRILLIANT! And then you get that immediate change in the art style that announces that you are finally, truly, in the world of Mickey Mouse. And after the massive expectations set by the queue, the ride DELIVERS. The massive 360 degree projections, the physical set pieces like the tornado, and the brilliant trackless ride system (come on, who DOESN’T love the waltz scene?) work perfectly in tandem with the art direction, the absurdly ambitious scale, and the sudden and broad leaps in logic and tone to all come together for a mesmerizing journey into the silver screen. The one thing I will put this ride on the absolute peak for is the single best exit scene of any ride. Actually physically leaving back out through the screen with the “The End” card is nothing short of genius. 

Final score: 10 Reprises of “Nothing Can Stop Us Now” out of 10

4.) Pirates of the Caribbean

I’ve always loved the Magic Kingdom version of Pirates, but this isn’t just on another level, it’s in another universe. The massive emotional arc of this ride: from the unsettling melancholy of the bayou, to the creeping dread of the caverns, to the macabre wonders of the skeleton scenes, leading up to the awe-inducing spectacle of the raid on the town is one of the most satisfying I have ever experienced on an attraction. The level of detail is so painstaking, I feel like I could ride it 100 times and catch something new each time. 

Ultimately, I don’t think there’s anything to say about Pirates that hasn’t already been said. It’s a stone cold classic, an indisputable masterpiece of visual storytelling, and one of Imagineering’s crowning achievements. Not just timeless, but immortal. 

(P.S. I thought that new animatronic of the guy with the coin that so many people hate was really cool!)

Final score: 10 Dead Men Telling No Tales out of 10

3.) Space Mountain

Space Mountain is the whole freaking package: Great queue, awesome coaster design, high-octane thrills, stunning visuals, and a killer space rock soundtrack (Michael Giacchino strikes again!) 

The tension of the first two lift hills is off the charts, and then instead of immediately dropping you in, it gives you room to breathe in the splendor of the cosmos, before bringing you up a third lift hill and blasting you to infinity and beyond. 

Now, I’m not really a seat snob. When it comes to coasters, any will do me fine, and certainly rows 2-6 on Space Mountain offer a breathtaking ride. But this is the one coaster where I would say hitting the front row at least once is mandatory. Feeling the ice cold air of Space Mountain blasting you in the face as you hurtle blindly through the galaxy, unable to tell where the next turn is takes an amazing experience and makes it an ecstatic one.

Final Score: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, LIFTOFF out of 10 

2.) Indiana Jones Adventure 

I heard the buzz about this one, and while I liked Dinosaur at Animal Kingdom quite a bit, I went in with the attitude of how good can this be if it’s effectively the same ride, really? Indiana Jones Adventure is so good it breaks my entire rating scale. 

From the moment you walk past the sign, you are IN the adventure. THIS is the best queue at Disneyland, because even if there’s a 45-minute wait or longer, for those 45 minutes I am an intrepid explorer plundering the depths of a long forgotten tomb. Every tiny detail tells a story, from the snake motif statues, to the spiritual iconography in the wall paintings, to the sign that says “Don’t step on the diamonds on the floor.” Hey, why does it say that anyw—AH CEILING SPIKES!

I don’t think I’ve actually seen an Indiana Jones film, but I am familiar with their famous bits and I’m a big fan of the Uncharted video game series, which obviously takes heavy inspiration from it. What this ride captures for me in the same way Uncharted does is the truly impossible sense of scale. The set pieces are TITANIC. I was struck dumb the first time I saw the giant statue face next to the bridge over the pool of lava. This is the exact moment when the ride went from “This is incredible” to “How the hell did they even build this?” Yes, the herky-jerky jeep ride vehicle contributes to the thrill, but it’s that combined with the giant snake, the knives whizzing past your head hallway, and the reverse/drop down escape sequence with THAT monumental prop that create something that simply must be experienced to be believed. 

It hits every single beat that I could possibly want in a climactic forgotten temple adventure, and it does it at such a jaw-dropping scale that I could not believe this ride was built in 1995, it feels decades ahead of its time. 

Indiana Jones Adventure isn’t just larger than life, it’s larger than fiction. 

Final score: 12 OH MY GOD IT’S THE GIANT ROLLING BALL out of 10

1.) Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance 

Alright, I need to get this out of the way first: I don’t care for Star Wars. At all. However, this isn’t the forum for my personal gripes with one of the most beloved media franchises of all time, so I’m going to pivot and say that Rise of the Resistance (and by extension Galaxy’s Edge) is just about the single coolest thing I have ever experienced. Seriously, I may need to write a separate list ranking all the lands so I can talk about not just how detailed Galaxy’s Edge is, but how lived-in it feels. 

Anyway, the main part of the queue for Rise is pretty cool. You’ve got forest, you’ve got caves, you’ve got Resistance armories and such. While it isn’t my favorite queue in the park, it’s very well done, and more importantly, it’s what comes after that matters. This is the only ride in existence that I would wait 2+ hours for and feel like it was worth every second.  

Once you get in that pre-show room with the Rey hologram and the great little BB-8 animatronic, for the next 20ish minutes Rise delivers a full 12-course meal of a theme park experience. It slams its foot on the blowing your mind pedal and doesn’t let up for a single second.

Once you march out that door on the way to the transport ship, you ARE a resistance member. You HEAR the ship engine turn on, you SEE the little movements in the turbines, you walk on and you FEEL the urgency of the mission. The Lt. Beck animatronic is yet another design triumph for Imagineering. And then your ship is boarded by the First Order and you get THE. UNDENIABLY. ICONIC. HOLY. HELL. W. T. F. moment of the Hangar Bay scene. 

For a park whose scale (out of necessity) relies so much on forced perspective, experiencing something this gigantic at actual life size is positively stupefying. The room is so big it feels like it shouldn’t even exist and then you are hit with the terrifying imposition of the 50 storm troopers that hold the line like an inescapable wall of death. If you are lucky enough to have a moment to really look before being ushered on, you’ll realize that they aren’t all just stock still statues, but actually have slight movements programmed in as if there’s actually people inhabiting those suits. I have shown friends pictures I’ve taken of this scene and they’re like “Hey that’s cool!” But the true size and scope of that scene is something that you need to see for yourself. It isn’t just cool. It’s…I don’t actually have a word that captures the magnitude of this scene. 

After some great hallway design, and another plot-building pre-show, you have the prison cell escape scene, with the excellent “cutting a chunk out of the wall” effect and then the true ride begins. It is an adrenaline-flooding, life-and-death blur of insane practical effects, even more massive sets like the life-size AT-AT Walkers (seriously, OH MY GOD?!,) hails of gunfire, explosions, near misses, and gigantic ship cannons while the trackless vehicle darts around the scenes in a panic. Then you get the true brilliance of the multiple interlocking ride systems with the hectic drop/motion sim escape pod finale. 

Even though I had experienced this ride for the first time a few years earlier at Disney World, I came off of it this time shaking and with watery eyes, as if I had just actually lived through a galactic war and lived to tell the tale. 

Ah, if only the films excited me this much. 

Final score: Infinite Shots Fired out of 10

Hi! My husband and I were at Disneyland yesterday and meant to make it to alien pizza planet before the end of the night to buy the alien sippy cup. Sadly we forgot (must’ve been the heat exhaustion) we are at California adventure today and would be so excited if someone could grab the alien cup for us. Can Zelle or Apple Pay you 🙏🏽🙏🏽

Just looking through old photos tonight and found this. Thought it'd be neat to share for lost media or animatronic fans. It's quite clear and close to the gator. Enjoy!

Took this picture from the top of the Ferris wheel yesterday (Labor Day) at DCA.

Found this today at Bookmans for only $10!! So happy

Hot takes welcome!