I got an Annual Pass to Disneyland (and DCA) for my birthday. (I also got this cake: )
My girlfriend Kim and I decided to go to TSMM on Opening Day. I had never ridden an attraction on the day it opened before, and I figured I’d finally get in on the discussion before it fizzled out 
(Little did I know I’d be undone in that endeavor by a combination of busyness and procrastination since the trip, which was 2 weeks ago) . My friend Tomas joined us. This was his first trip to DCA. We drove down and arrived about 2PM, long after the Opening Day festivities. But hey, it was still Opening Day!
Tomas and I on the tram, taken by Kim:
Tomas just finished college. Did he get an
No! He got an
!
We rode Screamin’ with Single Rider, then got in line for TSMM. By this time, the line was “only” as far as the bridge to Paradise Pier. (I read that earlier in the day, it went as far as Sunshine Plaza, near the enterance.)
But the ride went down, and the CM (Cast Member) said she couldn’t say when it would be back up again, but it was possible it would be down for the entire rest of the day.
Grizzly River Run had a two hour wait, with no FastPass left! I had never seen that before. And they were temporarily out of Single Rider passes (they said they didn’t have any of the actual paper passes left at the ride location). We decided to return later and headed for Tower of Terror, which we FastPassed.
While I was in the bathroom, Kim and Tomas took these pictures with the Off the Page store window display.
Tinkerbell is Kim’s recent character obsession. (She blames me, as she has never been obsessed with an animated character before )
Tomas pines for Ariel.
Maybe Aladdin can give him some tips on how to woo a princess:
My stepfather said that Kim is our family’s “Mary Poppins.”:
We checked back at GRR, but still no Single Rider (now they said it was because there were too many people in the Single Rider line…I didn’t know that many people even knew about the Single Rider line.)
We did Single Rider for Soarin’. This time I got a row somewhere in the middle, which was great – I couldn’t see the top or bottom edge of the screen!
FINALLY Single Rider returned to GRR and we got to ride . The raft I was in got splashed heavily by both drops and the geyser. I thought I was soaked last time (pictured below), but that was nothing compared to this .
Still dripping, we slogged back to Paradise Pier. The ropes for the queue on the bridge were still there, but the crowds were gone. I figured this probably meant the ride was still closed, but I hoped that it just meant the line was shorter. We got closer to the TSMM building - and found the new end of the queue under the awning alongside the California Screamin’ launch.
As we approached the building, I thought, “that wasn’t so bad of a wait.” Then, we turned a corner…
SWITCHBACK ATTACK!!!
A woman came over to the edge of the queue area to tell us she had ridden earlier and “it was totally worth it!” This raised morale in our part of queue greatly. She said the cause of the ride being down was a broken wheelchair ramp, and that they could technically have still run the ride without it, but they might have been sued. (This information comes from this woman, not me )
The Mr. Potato Head animatronic figure had already gone back into Andy’s toy box for the day, so we didn’t get to see him.
We got up to the overflow queue building (the one with all the game posters) and stood still for ages. The building emptied out, and we wondered if the ride was down again. The CM’s running around would smile at us, but didn’t say anything. Over the heads of the crowd I could see that ride vehicles were still moving, but I couldn’t tell if there were people in them. Finally, we got the attention of a very nice CM who told us that they were just emptying out the building because it was too hot in there (In effect, we had been moving forward in line, even though we were standing still.) Finally, we got our 3D glasses and boarded:
I’M REALLY HERE!
I had fun on TSMM, but I also have fun playing Wii, so I’m not sure what I think of it yet. I think that the ride aspect adds excitement that wouldn’t be there if you walked from game to game or stood in front of one screen, but it’s still much more of a video game experience than a ride experience. The 3D and “4D” effects (like the air blasts) were done excellently, but they are still basically the usual 3D gimmicks of things flying in your face. (Kim didn’t like the water effect during Woody’s stage. She said it felt like being spit on.) While the Toy Story characters make sense to certain degree in a play-focused attraction, I definitely did not feel as if I was in the world of the movie, in “Andy’s room” or “under Andy’s bed”. Still, it was definitely exciting to ride on opening day.
“California Sleepin’” – some guy fell asleep on the street with California Screamin’ roaring overhead every few minutes.
Tomas, I didn’t know you owned a franchise in DCA…
Kim and I imitating the Brawny paper towel billboard in Paradise Pier:
We used our FP’s for ToT, but one of the shafts went down and by the time we got to ride, we didn’t get out until after 9PM. I stand by the idea that ToT is much better after dark, as it was this time, for atmosphere. Kim contends that it’s better during the day, for the view.
Us: “Everybody put your hands in the air! C’mon everybody! Everybody? Oh, well ”
