The Mouse and the Masks: A Journey to Mid-Pandemic Disneyland
When Disneyland announced its plans to reopen in a reduced capacity for California residents after a lengthy COVID closure, I couldn't help but think that said reopening might prove to be a truly unforgettable experience due to a confluence of circumstances unique to this place and time. For starters, the limited number of guests allowed at the park was sure to result in shorter wait times for the park's attractions, even taking into account that some of them (like the Matterhorn Bobsleds) would be out of commission. I was also very curious to see firsthand how the park would change its operations to accommodate current public safety restrictions. Of course, I was excited at the possibility of visiting the newest, Star Wars-themed land, which had not been open on my last visit, and of experiencing rides that I had either so far missed (the Cars racers ride in California Adventure comes to mind) or that had been changed/upgraded in the interim (like the Haunted Mansion). To be honest, though, my main motivation centered around Splash Mountain.
Splash Mountain has long been my favorite ride at Disneyland. It was the ride that showed a young me that perhaps my grandmother was wrong about roller coasters and the like being too scary and best left avoided. It's a lively and joyful experience without being saccharine, and though the drop into the briar patch at the ride's climax is hardly the largest plummet in the world, it still produces a thrill, especially when you're too busy figuring out what to do with your hands in the souvenir photograph to be bothered with holding on to the rails. But Splash Mountain is currently in a unique place, as it is soon to be re-themed, ditching its current, shall we say, controversial Song of the South aesthetic for an experience inspired by The Princess and the Frog. As such, this would not only be my last chance to ride the Splash Mountain of my youth, but also happened to coincide with a period in time where the ride photograph would reflect the pandemic (e.g. face masks; no one else riding in the same log with you outside of your party). So at the end of the day, my primarily goal was a simple one: get a Splash Mountain photo that would forever reflect a truly unique sliver of time. And when my wife revealed on my birthday that she had gotten us tickets to go to the park immediately post-Memorial Day weekend, I was ecstatic to know that this trophy would indeed be mine.
I should probably comment at this point about the Splash Mountain re-theming. At first, I was a bit sad about it, due to my fondness for the ride. To be clear, though, I don't have any particular attachment to Song of the South; I've never seen it and don't particularly care to. Some things are products of their time best left in the past, and even when the ride opened in 1989, it was an odd choice of property to base a marquee attraction around. No, my sadness comes more from the fact that my initial experiences with the ride made me go back and read the original Uncle Remus tales from which the Splash Mountain characters originated. Though they're certainly more graphic than one might expect given the Disney pedigree (the violence level can be more Itchy and Scratchy than Silly Symphony), they're a fascinating and essential part of American folk history, and I appreciate that Splash Mountain provided an opportunity for children to discover these stories for themselves. However, with that said, I'm completely fine with Disney giving the ride a makeover. Honestly, having a ride based on a movie people cannot even watch if they wanted to makes absolutely no sense, and the ride itself has hardly changed in the thirty-plus years of its existence. Many of the animatronics used in it even predate that, having been repurposed from the 70s attraction America Sings. Given all that, Splash Mountain is probably past due for a change, and I have no doubt the new theme will be lovely.
No worries, gentlemen...there's always Kingdom Hearts
It's not like the park itself hasn't gone through extensive changes since then, even in terms of the optimal way to experience it. In my youth, the formula was quite simple: get to the park at opening, hustle to the most popular rides first, knock them out as quickly as possible, then spend the remainder of the day meandering around, either jumping in whatever relatively short line you can find or just toughing it out in the excruciating lines for the big-name attractions. Either way, you were probably best served taking a break in mid-day, because you were going to want to stick around until closing, both for nighttime events and shorter lines after dark. The 2000s brought with them the Fastpass system, adding an interesting strategic element not unlike switching between credit cards to maximize rewards points. As long as you didn't mind frequent long walks all over the park, you could profoundly reduce your wait times for big rides. You still wanted to stay until closing if possible, of course, which often resulting in ending up at your hotel room around midnight, to squeeze in a shower and a few hours of sleep before repeating the process all over again. Let it never be said that the happiest place on Earth is not also more than a little grueling.
The script has been flipped once again in Disneyland's current plague incarnation. The park opens at 9:00 AM and closes at 9:00 PM, which given the time of year means there isn't much night to speak of. It also means that I was able to sleep more than usual, an unequivocal plus. And Fastpasses are eliminated as well, their dispensers roped off and hooded and their wait time signs empty and blank. Given the truncated hours of operation and lack of the usual ride-averting strategies, one might expect to experience less attractions in a single day than is typical. However, the park's limited capacity more than makes up for this, with even the most popular rides maintaining wait times of 40-50 minutes even during peak hours. In fact, the ride with the consistently longest wait time was the Disneyland Railroad of all things, which hit an hour early on and stayed there for the majority of the day. People must really love that Grand Canyon diorama.
The exception to all this is the newest ride in Disneyland, Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. Mere willingness to stand in line for extended periods of time is not enough to get onboard this one. Oh, no. If one wishes to partake in the majesty of Rise of the Resistance, one has but two brief windows of opportunity each day. At 7:00 AM and noon, a virtual queue opens for the ride on the Disneyland app, and if one is punctual and fortunate, they can be added to a queuing group for the ride. Basically, it's a lot of refreshing the app and mashing buttons as quickly as possible; anyone familiar with buying limited-edition sneakers and the like online are familiar with the process. Fortunately, we were awake and aware enough at 7:00 to reserve our spot in Group 11. God only knows how swift of finger and blessed of wi-fi you'd need to be to get into Group 1.
Armed with a group number, we started off the day by heading to Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge, the newest land at Disneyland and one which, pre-pandemic, I thought I might have to wait years to see, given its popularity and the corresponding overwhelming crowds. However, at the beginning of the day (it was about 8:45 AM...the park wasn't supposed to open until 9:00, as I mentioned, but we entered shortly after 8:30 and people were already free to disperse as they please throughout), Galaxy's Edge was empty, an eerie alien ghost town of abandoned starfighter ships dotted with the tracks of unseen otherworldly beasts. It was, frankly, amazing, its aesthetic a new benchmark for the always lush and detailed Disney park design. Between its looks, emptiness and nestled isolation from the rest of the park, it truly felt like we had been transported to, well, a galaxy far, far away.
Since we had a bit of time before Group 11 was called in, we wandered about Galaxy's Edge, marveling at the characters and structures, the elaborate rock formations and the way things had a brand-new yet still lived-in feel. We also realized we had enough time to try out the Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run ride, which like Rise of the Resistance I had purposefully avoided learning too much about before riding. I'm glad that I chose to avoid spoilers, as it were, because the ride was a very pleasant surprise (I'm also glad we chose the Pilot position when given the choice between Pilot, Gunner or Engineer). I'm going to avoid going too into detail about the particulars about any of these rides in case, like me, you want to be surprised by them when you visit the park, but it's not giving much away to say that it is very interactive and fun. It's actually kind of hard to imagine being a kid going to Disneyland for the first time and experiencing these rides and then comparing them to something like The Enchanted Tiki Room or what have you. There's certainly a sophistication gap that someone like me who grew up with the latter can find charming, but that kids these days may just find confounding.
Speaking of ridiculously advanced entertainment technology...Rise of the Resistance. Wow. I was telling my wife afterwards that the last time I can recall being so impressed by new ride technology was probably when Indiana Jones Adventure opened back in the 90s. Again, I don't want to give too much away, but trust me on this: if you get the chance to ride it, do it. It's a shame you can only ride it (at most) once a day, but I understand the limitation. Otherwise, I can only imagine how many hours long the line would be.
Beyond this door lies greatness. Of the Star Wars variety.
After Rise of the Resistance, it was time to hit Splash Mountain before the line got too long. I wanted to go on it twice (once during the day, once at night), and the mornings are ideal due to people being reluctant to be soaking wet and cold at the onset of their day. We basically walked right onto the ride, and Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dahed our way through our penultimate viewing of Br'er Rabbit's journey. And then had to figure out how the ride photo system is working these days.
It took some QR code scanning, photo number entering and one day photo pass buying, but in the end, we landed the coveted Mid-Pandemic Original Recipe Splash Mountain Mask Photo.
I'm not used to achieving my goals for the day by 10:00 AM, but there I was. So the next move seemed to be to head over to what was always the busiest part of the park back in the day: Tomorrowland. Surely yesterday's vision of tomorrow would entertain us! Besides, I was honestly curious how lonely, orphaned Star Tours would hold up now that there was an entire brand new land stepping on its toes. So we decided to hop on a planetary tour shuttle to compare the experiences. Again, there was very little wait; we stood six-ish feet apart from other guests in waiting outside for a few minutes, then mostly hustled through the interior queuing area. Then, off to...well, wherever we were going.
I'll say this: if you haven't been on Star Tours since Pee-Wee Hermanbot was piloting you through an icy comet on the way to Endor, things have definitely changed since then. And even if you have been on it, you may well not have experienced all it has to offer. You see, years ago, the ride was drastically changed to offer a variety of experiences, so that you would have to ride several times to see everything. And I'm not talking Indiana Jones-level differences, where the ride is technically different but in the subtlest of ways. I'm talking completely different planets visited, each with their own adventure. I had seen a few of these, but the one we saw this time (including the Hoth battle from The Empire Strikes Back) was new to me, and I'm sure there are many routes I have yet to experience. The remarkable thing is how well this all stacks up to the new Star Wars rides. Sure, the physical ride technology is not all that different than that wooden roller coaster flight simulator machine they had at Tilt Arcade at Vallco Mall in Cupertino, California back in the day (too specific?), but the video through which your flight is simulated looks fantastic, and even geriatric motion simulators can still produce thrills with the right footage accompanying them. And this, friends, is the right footage. What I'm saying is, go on Star Tours. As weird as this is to say for someone who remembers when the ride first opened and had two-hour-long lines throughout the day, every day...this ride is underrated.
Disclaimer: Not a photo of Star Tours
Everything had been running so smoothly at this point that there was bound to be a hiccup. Said hiccup came, of all places, at the churro stand in Tomorrowland. Now before I get into that, let me get into this. Dining at Disneyland in COVID times is a sparse, confusing experience. When the park is fully up and running, you can hardly walk twelve feet without stumbling upon a turkey leg/chimichanga cart, but in these lean times, most of the carts and restaurants are closed entirely. I'm talking closed to the extent that we had a hard time finding bottled water at one point. And when you're charging $4 and change for bottled water, it should at least be easy to find. But that's just the food and beverage carts. Normally, you're surrounded by a veritable plethora of restaurants at Disneyland, with the main limiting factor being what you specifically want to eat at any given point. If you want a lobster roll, you have to schlep over to the New Orleans Square/Critter Country border, but it'll be there.
During COVID times, you cannot be nearly so sure of anything. Many restaurants were simply closed, and the ones that were open operated by their own hellish protocol. A few of the more premium restaurant experiences (Blue Bayou, for example) were available by reservation only. By the time I realized that, of course, they were fully booked up. All the other open eateries operated by a mobile ordering system (some also allowed walk-up orders, but it was rarely immediately clear which; all others would turn you aside at the counter and ask you to order through your phone).
Disclaimer: Not a photo of a restaurant
By the way, DO NOT go to Disneyland without a smartphone and the Disneyland app. Seriously: if you're still operating off a flip phone or something for some reason, stay far, far away. You do everything through your phone at this point...in addition to ordering food, the app is the only way to ride either Star Wars: Ride of the Resistance or the Indiana Jones Adventure at all right now, the most efficient way to keep track of wait times and ride closures throughout the park, the way to purchase and save photos from rides...seriously, the app has become so deeply integrated into the Disneyland experience that I cannot really fathom a day at the park without it. If you're planning on visiting, do yourself a favor: download the app beforehand and familiarize yourself with how it works. You'll thank me later, if you're the thanking type.
Anyway, the mobile ordering at restaurants works like this: you order food through the Disneyland app for your chosen eatery, and then choose a window of time within which you will be picking up your food and drink. Depending on the popularity and staffing situation of your chosen establishment, the soonest window of time may be substantially further away than you might expect. We were able to get some skewers at Bengal Barbecue ordered around 11:00 AM within twenty minutes or so, for example, while a few hours later, the demand for Dole pineapple whips at The Tropical Hideaway was so massive that the daily ordering window had already closed entirely. So if there's something you absolutely cannot leave the park without eating, plan accordingly.
OK, back to the churro cart. Immediately post-Star Tours, we headed over to the only manned churro cart we could find in search of some fried, sugary doughnut stick goodness (and a bottle of water). Alas, we were confronted glumly by a staff member who bore grim tidings with the demeanor of a surgeon whose patient had died on the operating table: there were no churros. Not at that cart, nor at any cart. You see, she said through a pained grimace, there was a churro shortage going on, and until that issue was resolved, there was no doughy decadence to be had. We could get the bottle of water, though.
We wandered off, dazed at the news, immediately replaced by another party destined to be disappointed by this unfortunate purveyor of nonexistent deserts. Oddly enough, we were able to get a churro at the California Churro Company cart in Downtown Disney without incident later that day, so I'm not sure how deep this scarcity conspiracy goes. It was salted caramel flavor, and quite tasty.
Speaking of Tomorrowland...when we first entered the park, one couldn't help but notice how fresh everything looked. The lights of Main Street looked good as new, and Sleeping Beauty Castle had been repainted since my last visit, a visual that I captured in this action shot:
Shaky-cam
This sense of revitalization continued as we entered Galaxy's Edge, which as I noted manages to balance a lived-in, grungy feel with a beautiful, crisp newness. Yet Tomorrowland, the ostensible home of the future, leaves quite the opposite impression. Due to what I can only imagine is a combination of deference to the newest sci-fi land and best use of limited resources during an extended shutdown, Tomorrowland looks kind of...dingy, to be frank. This is most clear when waiting in line for Space Mountain. You start to notice dirty beige tiles that were once gleaming white, dents in metal siding, and saddest of all, the mini-tragedy of Alien Pizza Planet.
Alien Pizza Planet, for those of you that don't know, is a restaurant in Tomorrowland themed after the pizzeria from Toy Story (where all those little green cultist aliens come from). It, by design, looks like something you would encounter in a 90s shopping mall, like, say, Vallco Mall in Cupertino, California (two specific?). It also apparently has been closed throughout the duration of the pandemic, and has yet to reopen. This fact, combined with the fact that it is more or less outside (under the canopy of the Space Mountain building, but otherwise open), has left the booths and tables coated with a layer of noticeable grime. This is completely understandable (why waste maintenance resources on a closed restaurant?), but is also a bit jarring. Disneyland is, after all, about escapism, with Tomorrowland about as escapist as it comes. But when you're about to board a spaceship for a breakneck ride into the cosmos, the ruins of the Pizza Hut that once gave you a personal pepperoni in exchange for a coupon your elementary school gave you for reading a Three Investigators book doesn't exactly scream "FUTURE!"
On the other hand, Space Mountain still rules.
To bring us back to the present from the land of tomorrow, one inescapable element of our trip was the de rigueur uniform for downtrodden Disney dads of all stripes: a black t-shirt with text in the distinctive Disney cursive that read "Most Expensive Day Ever," usually accompanied by a child and/or wife and/or girlfriend wearing a "Best Day Ever" shirt in the same font. I admit that I had to check to see if these shirts were official Disney merchandise, because I wouldn't put it past the 21st century's preeminent media juggernaut to take the idea that their fans are spending beyond their means for the privilege to attend one of their parks and commercialize it, further squeezing them for a few more dollars, but alas, it seems like an unofficial Etsy/Amazon thing. Frankly, I'm a bit disappointed. You're leaving money on the table, Mickey!
The rest of the day progressed as you might expect. We were able to go on essentially every major ride with no exceptionally long waits, though I will note that New Orleans Square and Frontierland were a bizarre, confusing chimera of queues for the Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, complete with line monitors wandering around with signs to mark the new lines' ends and roped-off traffic crossings. Imagine the carnage if Fantasmic had also been going!
One amusing thing I couldn't help but notice is that costumed characters had to stay away from guests, with various methods of varying effectiveness. Tiana posing on the balcony in New Orleans Square definitely worked. Minnie Mouse acting like she had been imprisoned in her Toontown home for the past year less so.
Toontown was also home to the single biggest instance of theme-park-based gaslighting I've ever seen.
As night fell, we headed to Splash Mountain for what was likely our last ride on the original attraction before its repurposing. As it was getting a mite chilly out, the line was fairly short, absent those park guests that feared spending their last precious moments before closing shivering and soaked to the bone. As the haunting melody of "All I Want" played over the loudspeaker, Sheila and I settled into our little private log for one last tour through Br'er Rabbit's story. After the ride launched, we positively soared down the artificial waterways; had it always moved so quickly? Yet as we sped inevitably toward the Laughin' Place, I couldn't help but notice that certain parts of the ride had gone dark, certain bits of audio missing. Even Br'er Rabbit himself, upon closer examination, was a bit threadbare. The eponymous Song of the South had become faded and melancholy, an echo of an earlier era funneled to a last gasp delivered by mocking vultures jeering our demise in ignorance of our inevitable triumph on the other side of a fearsome drop.
Finding ourselves with some extra time before closing, we ended the night with a second trip through Galaxy's Edge to experience Smugglers Run one more time. It remained a brilliant harbinger of a bright, interactive future. And on the way out, I needed to take a moment to truly bask in the grandeur of the newest area in Disneyland. It's especially beautiful at night.
Postscript:
We went to California Adventure on our second day. Without drawing things out too much, here are some bullet points from that experience:
-Though I absolutely miss the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, Guardians of the Galaxy - Mission: Breakout! may have been the most purely fun ride we went on all weekend. Also, after a day and a half of nothing but Disney tunes and brass band jams, it was nice to hear some 10cc in the gift shop.
And here I thought I was the only one who owned a golden Benicio Del Toro statue.
-The Cars Radiator Springs Racers, which we passed on during our last visit due to the length of the line, is also a lot of fun. But is it "four hours in line" fun? Or even "two hours in line" fun? Eh, I personally don't think so, though I do look forward to riding it again some day.
-Avengers Campus was a few days away from opening when we went, though the crowd size in the park was not noticeably affected by this.
-The mobile order/counter order disconnect was so potent at the Sonoma Terrace that the angry wine moms in line with me, already incensed at the indignity of having to order a cup of warm cheese sauce as the cheapest possible entree that unlocked the ability to buy an accompanying glass of chardonnay, were openly threatening revolt.
-A weird family stood in line behind us for The Incredicoaster and not only had zero regard for the social distancing rules, but reminded me what it feels like to have a stranger's breath on the back of my neck. America is back, baby!
-Biggest disappointment of the trip: I didn't get any lobster nachos (or anything, for that matter) from Lamplight Lounge due to the reservation system, but don't even get me started on that.
Joey Marsilio is also irked that he was a little too early to hang out and beg by the trash cans for the soggy Pym-ini sandwich remains that social media influencers would be throwing away mere days after his trip.
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