I'd Rather Be Disney

I grew up on Six Flags. So to speak. The original one. The one that was built because Angus Wynne went to Disneyland and thought he would also build an amusement park, one that didn't require you to go all the way to the west coast, and, so, he built Six Flags near Dallas, kind of a halfway point in the U.S.

I only, actually, went to Six Flags a few times as a kid, but I went a lot as a teenager. A few times a year. It was only about two hours away, so, when we wanted a bigger trip, that's where we went. Not my family, my youth group. My family never went. See the "only a few times as a kid" (and that may be stretching it, as I can actually only remember going twice prior to being 15).

At any rate, I loved it. I thought Six Flags was great and the epitome of amusement parks. At this point in my life, I've been to several of the Six Flags parks, and, until last summer, I didn't think it could get better than that. Seriously. See, I'd never been to a Disney park, and, really, the only reason I even wanted to go to one was because of Star Tours. I mean, seriously, Disneyland couldn't really be that much better than Six Flags, right? Right? Well... how wrong I was, and you can read all about the trip to Disneyland starting here, if you're so inclined.

Still, at the point I went to Disneyland, it had been a good 10 years since I'd been to a Six Flags, so, although I knew Disney was better, it was kind of an abstract thing, because it had been so long since I'd been to a Six Flags, the memory wasn't really fresh enough to know why Disney was better.

My younger son received for his birthday, this year, a season pass to Six Flags: Discovery Kingdom. Actually, for his birthday, the entire family received season passes. This is, of course, a mixed blessing, because, on the one hand: yea! season passes!, but, on the other hand: oh, season passes; now, we have to go enough to make them worthwhile. This past weekend was our first trip (because we had to go by the end of the first week of April to activate our parking pass, which would have become void if we didn't (and can I just say, "What the heck?" I mean, it's paid for. It's not quite fair to put a time limit on when it can be activated especially since the park only opened for the season two weeks ago).

So what did I learn about why Disney is better after our first trip of  the season to Six Flags?

1. Everything at Disneyland is designed to make the experience better for the user. For instance, when we went to Disneyland, everything we needed was mailed to us ahead of time, and we had it all when we got there, so getting into Disneyland was smooth and hassle free. However, when we got to Six Flags, we had to go get IDs made for our passes, and that was the longest line we had of the day, nearly two hours just to get IDs, not to mention that the parking pass is specific to me, so, if my wife wanted to take the kids to Six Flags on a day that I couldn't go (which won't happen, but still...), she would have to pay for parking.

2. Disneyland is SO clean. It's clean for two reasons: If you have some piece of trash in your hand (like, you just finished a beverage), and you want to throw it away, there is a trash can right there for you. They make disposing of trash so convenient, it's almost more trouble to drop it on the ground. But, if you do, there are people walking around with brooms constantly cleaning up. It's not only the "happiest place on Earth," I would bet it's the cleanest. On the other hand, Six Flags makes it extremely difficult to get rid of trash. There are no trash cans at all in the ride lines, so, if you get in a line with a beverage and want to throw your trash away before you get on the ride, you CAN'T, because there are NO trash cans. But, yet, they have signs up everywhere saying "Please Keep Our Park Clean." I just want to know how they expect that to happen when the trash cans are hidden. And they have no people walking around on clean up duty.

3. There are ads all over Six Flags for EVERYTHING, the most annoying of which are the ads to upgrade. Upgrade your daily ticket to a season pass, upgrade your season pass to a gold pass, upgrade to a Flash pass so that you can get on the rides more quickly. Upgrade to a season pass for meals. Buy a souvenir cup that you can refill for cheap. Everything aimed and designed to get the customer to spend more and more money. There's none of this stuff at Disneyland. Maybe, Disneyland is enough of an ad in and of itself, I don't know, but there are not banners and ads all over the place trying to get you to spend more and more money. Okay, so they have gift shops everywhere, but so does Six Flags, and those aren't as obtrusive as all the banner ads.

4. Water. We all know that staying hydrated is important. I mean, really important. To help you with this issue, Disneyland does two things: 1. Water is pretty cheap, not more than $2.00 a bottle, and some of the places you can eat let you have free cups of water, rather like a lot of restaurants do. 2. You can bring things in with you, so, if you choose, you can bring in water or snacks or whatever rather than being forced to buy it in the park. Six Flags, however, charges $4.00 for a bottle of water, which is beyond ridiculous. AND they don't allow you to bring in anything from outside the park. Not even water. This just seems wrong to me.

5. Six Flags (all of them) is mostly a park of roller coasters. That's cool. I mean, you know, roller coasters are cool. They are the biggest attractions at Six Flag parks. There's not a lot there beyond the roller coasters, though. Not overall. Discovery Kingdom does have some animal shows and stuff, because it was a Marine World before Six Flags bought it, so there is still a dolphin show (which we missed because an employee WORKING AT THE DOLPHIN SHOW told me the incorrect time for the next show) and a tiger show, and you can (pay more money to) ride elephants (I guess that's the "elephant upgrade"), and stuff like that, but the main things, the big attractions, are the roller coasters (and let me just add that 2/3 of my children do not like roller coasters). I compare this to an action movie where the focus is on the explosions with just enough story to tie them together. Disneyland, on the other hand, has a well developed plot with plenty of action to keep it exciting, but it also has character development and cool settings and all the things you'd expect from a really good book. Although there are roller coasters, it's not about the roller coasters.

6. The lines. Disney knows that waiting in line is a dreary experience, and they do everything they can to make the experience better. There are things to look, environments to experience, all sorts of things to ease the pain of waiting in line, including being able to get "fast passes" to get onto some rides more quickly, and that fast pass thing is just an extra they offer to you. For free. None of that Six Flags. Six Flags is like the Soviet Union of amusement parks. Just drudging through the lines for hours. Nothing to see. Nothing to do. Only ads. And no trash cans. Oh, and their version of the fast pass, the "Flash Pass" (after the The Flash comic book character), costs extra money (see point 3).

And that's why, as a writer, I'd rather be Disney. Sure, roller coasters may be exciting, eye catching and all of that, and they may be fun (they are), but, at the end of the day, I was ready to leave Six Flags. And, you know, we'll have a good time when we go back, but it's really light fair. Surface. I was never ready to leave Disneyland. It was only with reluctance that we left each night because we were too tired to go on, but we were never just ready to leave. And we couldn't wait to get back the next morning. Of course, my kids can't wait to go back to Six Flags, even the ones that don't like roller coasters, and that's okay. They're kids. They're not quite able to differentiate yet. Which is not to say that they don't think Disneyland is better, because they do, but they still approach both experiences with approximately the same level of enthusiasm. Right now, the roller coasters work for them (or the butterfly habitat), mostly because they're young, but there will come a day when just the roller coasters won't be enough.

And that's okay. There are books I read when I was young, books that I enjoyed, that I can't go back to now. They were good for me at the time. However, when you continue to expand and deepen your reading, you find you can't go back to those other books with the same kind of enjoyment, just like I will never again be able to enjoy Six Flags in the way I did before I went to Disneyland. Disneyland is just better. And that's the kind of books I want to write, too.

The Happiest Place on Earth: Part 4

It's interesting how the Happiest Place on Earth can be accompanied by so much drama. There was a lot of drama. Mostly, it had to do with shopping. Or swimming. It was a lot more than we wanted while at an amusement park, though. Drama and whining are distinctly unamusing.

The hotel, the California Grand that I mentioned in part 2, had a big pool with a big twisty slide, and my daughter wanted to spend time at the pool. The boys didn't want to, and I'm not really a big swim fan, so I didn't want to, but it became apparent that my daughter just wasn't going to be happy if she didn't get to swim, so, initially, we decided to split up the group: the boys and I would stay at the park, and the girl and my wife would go to the pool. The grandparents would just go take a break, which, on Friday, involved a nap. I kind of envied the nap. Anyway, it became more apparent that she would be even less happy if we split the group up. Basically, we all needed to be on her page, which became the least painful option. But it all worked out. I used the pool time on Friday and Saturday to write (a story which should be available soon-ish), and, Saturday, we had lunch at the pool, all seven of us, and that was fun.

There was still the shopping drama, though. Oh My Gosh, the shopping drama! All the kids had money to spend that they'd saved up for the trip, plus they'd been promised some spending money from their grandmother. They didn't know how much or when it would happen, though, and that drove them crazy. And me. And my wife. Because they wanted to GO SPEND their money but also, especially my younger son, wanted to know what they (he) were getting from the grandparents so that they (he) could figure out what (Lego) to buy.

Yes, we went to Disneyland so that  he could spend money on Legos. Yes, Legos that he could buy anywhere. But they had this cool Lego store in the Disney Mall area with these huge Lego sculptures! And, oh!, how I wish I had pictures of these things, but it was after my camera went on vacation. There was a huge Lego dragon on top of the store breathing green fire down on a Lego knight just like in Sleeping Beauty. I think that was the sculpt that has over 1,000,000 bricks in it. And there was an Aladdin and Jasmine with Genie on a flying carpet hanging inside the store, and a life-size Sully and Mike (from Monsters, Inc) by the doorway outside, too. My sons loved that store, and we had to drag them out more than once. Even my daughter got into the whole Lego thing, and she's (mostly) uninterested in Legos.

At any rate, my younger son is always completely paranoid that anything he wants to buy will sell out before he gets to buy it, so he always wants to buy whatever it is NOW NOW NOW! But he didn't actually know what he was going to be able to buy, and the not knowing drove him (and us) crazy. Until Saturday, that is, when he finally got to do his shopping. To be fair, he did also construct his own lightsaber at Star Traders, and that is something he could only do at Disneyland.

And, then, there were the pins. In the end, everyone got into the pins. The pins are SO cool, and they have so many really neat ones. I wanted to buy ALL the Star Wars pins. The whole pin thing is its own saga, but (probably) I will never write that. However, here are some pictures of the pins we came home with.

Oh, on Star Tours, one rider each time gets pegged as the "rebel spy." I didn't know anything about this going onto the ride. Rather, I did, vaguely, because my oldest son (who had ridden it before) tried to tell me about it, but he's not always the best at that kind of thing, so I came away from that discussion with, actually, negative knowledge. Yes, he actually sucked information out of my head through all of that, but, then, I think my kids do that to me on a regular basis. At any rate, the fact that there is a rebel spy on your ship is the reason the Empire is chasing you, and, when we did Star Tours the first time, my oldest son was chosen as the spy, much to our surprise and his overzealous excitement. After being the spy, he felt the need to buy as many items related to being the spy as he could afford, so he bought a t-shirt and this pin (which is almost the same as the shirt except smaller):

And this is the pin that kind of actually catalyzed the whole pin craze (my father-in-law bought it for the younger son):

My daughter's favorite of hers:

There was this one theme at Star Traders that they had all kinds of items for. There was a mug, but it wasn't quite tall enough; if it had been, I would have bought it, because I need a back up mug, but, maybe, the shortness is appropriate. There was a t-shirt, an action figure, a bobble-head, and I don't remember what all else, and I had to have something with this on it, so, eventually, after cycling through all the options several times, I settled on the pin:

All of that to say that the pin collecting thing they have going is pretty fun, but it's fairly expensive, too, because there are just so many pins. They do have trading there, and you can get some really good pins if you know what you're doing, but you have to really know what you're doing. I did manage one fairly nice roundabout trade:

We each got a Fillmore pin (lower left corner) with our Disney package. It's a limited edition pin (a lot of the pins are limited edition, as most of them are only produced for one season), which is cool, but we had five them, so my younger son decided to trade his away. He actually made a bad trade with his pin from a collecting stand point, but he got one that he wanted, so I didn't say anything about it. However, I was later able to trade the pin he got in the poor trade (because I got him a duplicate of it in a set) for the Lightning McQueen (upper right corner) pin which is a highly sought after pin from Cars edition pins. The thing is, the employees have pins that they have to trade if they are a designated pin trader, so she had to trade it to me and actually commented on how good a trade it was.

But I've gone on for much longer than I intended about the pins, which I only meant to mention, but they actually became an important part of the trip, so I'm leaving all of this stuff in.

Other things that were really cool:

They have this light and water show at night which involves spraying sheets of water into the air and projecting film clips onto them. It was incredibly cool

We went to see the Aladdin musical, and that was incredible. I think it was better than the movie. The guy playing Genie was hilarious. The sets and props were magnificent. If you ever get down to Disneyland, you should definitely make time to go see it.

We also went to see the Muppets 3D show, and that was awesome! I suppose if you don't like the Muppets, it wouldn't be a big deal, but we love the Muppets, so it was great. It involved having the theater (yes, the one we were sitting in) get blown up around us. How can you go wrong when the Muppets blow up the theater you're sitting in?

The Haunted Mansion is amazing! We looked up some stuff about it later, and they do all of that with mirrors which just blew me away, because they have ghosts dancing around and stuff right through solid objects, and it was just WOW! I really want to go behind the stage and look at how that's done!

Pirates of the Caribbean was a lot of fun. It has a place where they do film projection onto a sheet of fog or water (I don't remember) which is like what they did at the light and water show. I know they've modified the ride since the movies have been out, so it made me wish I'd been on the original.

All of that aside, possibly the most interesting thing about the trip had nothing to do with any of this. As I've mentioned, we don't do a lot of eating out, and we don't (usually) do much sugar. However, this was an eating out trip. You don't really have an option. We did the equivalent of a couple of years worth of eating out in 5 days on the trip to Disneyland. But my daughter, well, my daughter is enamored with eating out. She always wants to do it and always wants store bought processed crap over the much healthy options that we make at home (especially when it comes to bread). Several times during the trip, my daughter ordered French toast for whatever meal we were having (yes, it's one of her favorite things), and, each time (and some of these were kind of expensive places to eat), she said "dad's is better." That was surprising and gratifying to hear, because stating a preference for anything I make at home over something we buy somewhere else almost never comes out of her mouth. The boys, yes, but never her. That, hearing that from her (more than once (or, even, twice)), may have been the best part of the trip for me. Yes, even better than Star Tours. Maybe.

As it goes with things like this, as we were leaving on Sunday morning and hanging out in the mall area and doing our last shopping and looking and all of that, the question came up, "What was better Trinity lake (see my Let's go on Vacation series) or Disneyland?" Even the kids had a hard time with that one. It's like comparing nectarines to apples. So the question became, "If you could pick just one to do again, which would it be." The kids did better at that one and immediately piped up with "Disneyland!" They like the apples, and, yes, Disneyland is the apple of amusement parks (Six Flags is only the pear). I do like apples, but I had to go with the nectarine, and here's why: when we got back from Trinity lake, I felt rested. It was a great, relaxing trip. When we got back from Disneyland, I felt like I needed a rest. At this stage in my life, as much as I enjoyed Disneyland (and I did), if I had to choose, I would pick the more peaceful and relaxing choice (especially since mornings at Trinity involved sitting on the deck with my mocha and writing). Still, if I want an apple, a nectarine is not a substitute; it's just that, more often, I want a nectarine.

We'll just have to wait and see what develops for next year.

The Happiest Place on Earth: Part 2

As I'm sure everyone knows, Disney bought Pixar a number of years ago. A few years later, they bought Marvel Comics. They own The Muppets. They own ABC. They own ESPN. I could go on, but, really, why bother? They own a lot of stuff. I sort of think, maybe, Disney plans to own the world. Just a couple of weeks ago, I would have said that was a bad thing; however, I'm not so sure now. I mean, if they were to do with the world what they've done with Disneyland, I think it might actually be a better place.

Of course, no one would ever have any money, because, my gosh, are they good at selling things!

But everyone would be happy, so, maybe, the lack of money wouldn't matter?

So... the trip:

The trip down to Disneyland was an even longer drive than the trip up to Trinity Lake, which is kind of weird. Well, at least, it's weird to me. Going up to Trinity Lake is like going to a completely foreign place in a lot of ways, so it feels like it should be farther away. We had all kinds of plans to be at Disneyland by early afternoon, but a late start and bad traffic around L.A. defeated us, so we got a much later start at the park than we had meant to. I learned a lot, though, about planning for the next trip if we ever go back.

I had nothing to do with the planning for this trip. As I said, I was sort of just instructed that I was going and didn't really have any say in the matter. But, then, you don't really argue, I suppose, when someone offers to take you to Disneyland. You don't turn down free, right?

To start things off, we stayed at Disney's Grand Californian hotel. That place was amazing. I wish I had pictures for you, but there was just no view of it from the outside that I could get that would have captured the hotel. However, I have some shots from our balcony into the park, because, yes, the Grand opens directly into California Adventure.

And this was in the hotel:

I really wanted to eat there or, at least, get coffee there, but we never did. We were pretty much at one park or the other for all of our meals. But, wow, I really wanted to go there! It was probably better, though, that we didn't; that place was expensive! Next time, though, coffee for sure!

Our first destination for Thursday night after we arrived was Tomorrowland and Star Tours! Just to say it, Star Tours is awesome! Even the line is awesome. There's all kinds of stuff to keep you entertained while you stand in line, which is true of a lot of the lines, but Star Tours most of all. We had fastpasses, though, so, mostly, we skipped right through the line, which was rather a disappointment. My younger son and I wanted to go back at some point and wait in the regular line so that we got watch the video presentation and listen to the droids banter, but we never got to. Unfortunately, I have no pictures from Star Tours, because we didn't get to stand still long enough for me take any (and, by the time we went back to ride it again, my camera had decided not to be compliant with the whole picture taking process).

By the time we got back to the hotel that first night, I was sold on Disneyland. Here are a few more pictures:

Sleeping Beauty's castle.

In Tomorrowland.

The parades were awesome!

They had floats!

This whole thing with the parades is significant, because my wife kept mentioning to me prior to the trip the fact that they had parades, but, you know, I thought she just meant marching bands and stuff. The kind of stuff they had at Six Flags (the real Six Flags) when I was younger. At some point, she mentioned something about the floats being lit up at night, and I had to do a double take. So, yeah, they have these huge parades through Disneyland with floats and everything, and  they are amazing! I wish I had more and better pictures of them.

Yes, I got swallowed by Monstro.

One other thing we did our first night was to go on the "It's a Small World" ride. No one could believe I wanted to do that. I can understand why they couldn't believe it, because, really, no one else wanted to do it, but, as I've said, everyone else had been before. However, Small World is just SO Disney, and I can't imagine having not done it. I'd have gone on it again, too! There's just so much to see in there; you can't do it all at once. Here are a few pictures:

And that was most of the first evening. Small World, Star Tours, a parade, the Star Trader (the Star Wars store), and lots and lots of looking at stuff. So much stuff!

Stay tuned for part 3... whenever that happens to happen.

The Happiest Place on Earth: Part 1

I've never had a huge attraction to things Disney. That's not to say that I don't have my movies: Robin Hood and The Fox and the Hound are still two of my all time favorites. But Disney was never a thing for me. That may have been due to the butchered versions of The Black Cauldron and The Secret of Nimh they released when I was a kid. It's hard to hold any special fondness for the butchers of two of your favorite books.

But that didn't stop me from wanting to go to EPCOT Center when it opened in 1982. I had absolutely no desire to go to Disney World, but I desperately wanted to go to Epcot. That never happened. In 1987, Star Tours opened, and I wanted, even more, to go to that! I mean, it was Star Wars. But, in 2010, they shut Star Tours down to re-design it. I was bummed about that. I'll never get to experience the original Star Tours  attraction. But I still had hope to go to the new Star Tours. That's the only reason I've ever wanted to go to Disneyland. That and the exclusive Star Wars action figures the Star Wars store there has.

Several years ago, the kids' grandmother took them to Disneyland, and they brought me one of these:

It's awesome! But it made me want to go even more (and get all of the figure series).

Earlier this year, my oldest son got to go to Disneyland to perform with his choir (where they received a gold medal ranking), and he got to go on the new Star Tours and brought this back:

I just have to say that I love all the collector's editions of the Potato Heads. I have, well, probably, more than I should. Spuda Fett filled me with a renewed desire to go to Disneyland just so that I could buy the whole Star Tours collection of them. My wife did not find it amusing.

I still had no real interest in Disneyland in general, though. I figured it was overpriced and overrated. Besides, I've been to Six Flags. I mean, I grew up within driving distance of the real Six Flags, which has a lot of attractions and Texas color and isn't all about the rides. Why would I need to "waste" money on a trip to Disneyland? You know, other than Star Tours. And the Indiana Jones ride, but that wasn't as big a deal.

Earlier this year, the grandparents (my father-in-law and his wife) decided to take the kids to Disneyland this summer. During the ensuing conversation, I mentioned that I'd never been to Disneyland. It was an innocent comment, especially so since their grandmother (not the grandmother that took them the previous time (that had been my wife's mom)) had asked me a question that I couldn't answer because I'd never been. It never occurred to me what kind of an uproar it would cause. As it turns out, I was the only one in the family that had never been to Disneyland, a fact my wife knew but neither of us thought particularly important as my wife had not much care for Disneyland, either, a fact that just reinforced my attitude toward the place since she had been there before.

At any rate, a whole new plan was conceived. A plan that involved the entire family going to Disney. People were excited. Well, honestly, 6 of 7 of us were excited. Even my wife got excited. I was looking forward to finally getting to go on Star Tours and going to the Star Wars store, but, really, I didn't have any particular care about the rest of the trip. It was a necessary evil to accomplishing my Star Tours goal.

That trip was last week.

I can't say how wrong I was. Sure, Disneyland is a big commercial enterprise, and they really do a good job of enticing people into spending money. I mean it's a massive money suck, but, oh! it's so much more. But you'll have to wait for Part 2 for the rest...

Oh! And I got this:

I wasn't able to get all of them, but I got the most important one!