Gringo Tour 08/09 Part 6

After the racist boat ride - we decided to test our wits and sanity by going on the Old Wild West roller coaster - the very same coaster where someone died a few years ago. Last time I was in a Disney-related themepark (the Magical Kingdom @ Disneyworld to be exact) -this ride had been closed for maintenance not that long after the death at Disneyland at California. However - this ride was back in action and after a short queue (5 minutes) - we were off and rearing on the ride. Of note - they were letting people with broken legs on the ride. They were also letting trailer park trash on as well (complete with "Jesus Rocks" t-shirts).

We got one of those quick passes to the Indiana Jones ride - where you get a quick pass ticket to come back to a certain ride during a certain time and you get to by-pass the queue. As the Indiana Jones ride is probably the most popular ride at Disneyland (probably due to its relatively newness) - we had to come back at around 2:45-3:45 for the ride.

We quickly popped on board the "Jungle Cruise" - Disneyland's second most racist ride (complete with "stewpid" native people getting poked up the poop shoot by rhinos). Ahhh those colourful natives! Also - the ride mysteriously seems to go through Cambodia, Africa, South America and Central America - all on the one boat ride. Not like Disneyland to let some facts to get in the way of a themepark ride... Also the attendant was fairly animated. Although I sort of get the vibe that most people who work on these rides and repeat the same jokes 1000 times a day could be potentially sucidal.

We were sort of feeling a bit peckish - so we headed of in the general direction of Tommorrowland - Walt Disney's skewed vision of the future with rocket ships and plastic houses and such... We got some expensive crappy burgers from a place where a "Light Saber Jedi Training" Show was on. I couldn't see it but I heard dodgy Darth Vader pre-recorded voices appear over the PA. When I peered over some shrubbery to see the show - it looked fairly lame (some 3 year olds with those plastic light sabers pretending to battle Darth or something).

We then checked out the "Innoventions" building which is in a big circuluar revolving building - which was not so subtly disguised as a bit of marketing for several companies. As you enter the exhibit - you are placed in a kitchen with an overweight (and very camp) Disney attendant (half of the people who work at Disneyland are gay) who takes you through various "dream" houses (colonial style, modern psychofrenia style) but all were really "nightmare" homes with no taste or style. It was a 5 min presentation that none of us could escape and it was all just a shameless plug for some american building company. You are then forced to watch another camp dweeb who talks about what sort of entertainment he likes to do or something - which was another 4 minute shameless plug for some electronic company. After the detainment of guests for 10 minutes (where you start to wonder why I paid $69 US to go to this stewpid themepark) - you get let loose in a technology gadget room (which was more tolerable but still just shameless plugs for Microsoft). They had these flat coffee table computer things - but Ant was trying to find the direction to the Amtrak station from our hotel for tomorrow's trip to San Diego. I tried to ward off little brats who attempted to move the map on the computer. There was this other screen where you could write things with your hands. I wrote "FUK" and walked away. Ant said that he heard some middle-aged woman going "How mature!!".

After that we checked out "Honey I Shrunk the Auidence" - you know - one of those movie-tie in 3D films at Themeparks - although this one was tied in with those kinda forgotten "Honey I Shrunk/Blew/F##ked the Kids" series. I'm not sure what happened to Rick Moranis (did he die of a coke overdose - or is his career just dead) but I'm sure all of the tweens and tots would have no idea what the fudge this film is about. We were put into a holding pen for 10 minutes before the film started - where we were subjected to more toture techiniques (aka shameless kodak promotional videos). These were all absolutely corny - with all of these middle-america kodak moments. One story was about this black kid looking for his lost dog called "Champ" and he took his picture around the neighbourhood - but before you could say "Child Rapist" - he knocked on the front door of what looked like the neighbourhood rapist. I was screaming out "run away kid - he is going to touch you inappropriately!" (in front of shocked families and such). I swore I was going to get kicked out... The 10 min Honey I Shurnk the Auidence movie was pretty hokey in a themepark sort of way. It had all of the requisite "fake rats under people's seats" and "wind effects" to make it seem more realistic. Although I'd wish they bring back the 3D Michael Jackson film (Captain Eo - from the disturbed minds of George Lucas and Michael Jackson) which was much gayer and cheeser.

Speaking of distrubing George Lucas - we then went on the "Star Tours" ride. Although the indictive queue time said 10mins - our queue took about 20 mins because the queue splits off into two and there were two simulators for one queue and just the one for our queue (hence our queue moved at half speed). We were subjected to the ad-nauseum repetivtive robot story - where a couple of robots who were lazy (and possibly mexican) were kept getting shut down by the main computer for not being productive enough. Idiotically - they just reboot the robots (instead of blowing them up) so they repeat their laziness routine - just to be shut down again - just to pish off all those who are standing in the queue). Star Tours was one of the first simulator rides (that I can remember) - but I don't think it has really stood the test of time. Maybe Disney could use some of my $69 USD entrance fee to redo the ride and make it more violent and agressive... raaahhh!@

We headed back over to the other side of the park (Adventure Land to be exact) for our Fast Pass onto the Indiana Jones ride. It was sweet passing all those suckers who had lined up in the long queue. The Indiana Jones ride is pretty sweet (a sort of on rails ride going through some random Inca/Aztec/(Insert Ancient Civilisation here) cave thingy) - but my favourite ride of this kind was the Spiderman ride in Universal Studios - Islands of Adventure (over in Orlando) - which was a similar sort of deal except you had 3D glasses and some of the effects on the ride were pretty amazing (like being flung off a skyscraper only to be caught in a spider web at the bottom).

We treked over to the cheesiest place in the world - "It's a Small World" ride in Fantasyland (not to be confused with Fantasy Lane - the adult shop in Canberra). Because of the vicinity to Xmas - the It's a Small World ride had been "remixed" into a xmas version - so instead of repeating that annoying "It's a small world after all" song for 10 minutes -they intersperse it with "Jingle Bells" and other xmas songs to make it a little more bearable. Although I found the "Xmas" remix to be a little more racist than normal - because it had everyone (including those who don't believe in Santa Claus or Jesus) singing xmas carols. Ohhh Disney and your somewhat "Nazi are our supergods" mentality.

We did a couple of Fantasy Land rides including the Dumbo flying thingy (I got to sit in the pink dumbo yay!) but avoided the Teacups - as they had almost made Ant throw up last time we were at Disneyworld.

We headed back to Frontierland (aka Racistland) for our next fast pass at Splash Mountain - which ended up not being such a hot idea to go on at 5pm at night (LA was dark by then and it wasn't warm). The ride attendant had Ant and myself sit at the front of the log (big fat mistake) - which had meant all of the weight in the log was at the front which meant that the splash down was going to be 10 times worse than having some light kiddies in the front. Before we set off - Ant made a comment saying - because we are at the front - will mean that we won't get that wet.... Wrong. On the first little splash down (in the middle of the ride in the dark) - the front of the log started filling up with water (I had water around my ankles). On the drop down - I did a "America's Next top Model' pose (which actually worked quite well on those photos) but Ant and I were drenched, cold and miserable after the ride.

We headed back to Main St USA (the fakest place on the planet - maybe just behind Rodeo Dr) and Ant attempted to get a hot chocolate - but it had looked like you needed a fast pass to get one because all of the queues where 20 minutes long. We headed back in the vague direction of Racistland / New Orleans Square (which was sort of a half decent attraction now since the real version had been washed away or something) and hopped on the Pirates of the Carribean ride (which was really heated and warmed us up. It had looked like the ride had been tweaked just a little bit with a animiatronic version of Johnny Depp appearing in bits of the ride - in a shameless attempt to cash on the movie.

We then went on the Haunted Mansion ride - which had been re-worked (now includes Nightmare before Xmas characters) and re-mixed for Xmas. There was some bizzare plot (something about a cross-dressing trannie named "Sandy Claus") and nothing made much sense. To be honest - I think I preferred the old cheesy Haunted House sin movie characters I haven't seen before. I was a bit surprised Disney didn't try and cash-in on the "success" of their "Haunted Mansion" movie with Eddy Murphy. I would have loved to see an animatronic version of Eddy - swearing at the kiddies on the ride doing break dancing to Axel F music from Beverly Hills Cop.... or something.

Ant and I then headed back over to Tomorrowland - where we had Fast Pass tickets to some Toy Story shooting ride. Although when we rocked up - the ride was broken. Yay. We went instead on the Autopia ride (which had been rejigged with "Cars" characters - again another movie I haven't seen). The queue was quite long (this is one of Disneyland's more popular rides) but it is sort of funny driving little gas guzzling cars around a fixed track. Although Disney needs to convert these babies into electric cars to make them somewhat more green (think I was overdosing with exhaust fumes around the pit area.

We then headed on (I know this sounds lame) the monorail. But this was again another ride which had been reworked since the last time I had been here (15 years ago). It was the Monorail version 4.0 or something and it went through the new California Adventure land and Downtown Disney. It was also a lot faster and sexier than the previous slow cluggy monorail. The track was different than before (I seem to recall the monorail used to cut through space mountain - but it doesn't do this anymore).

After the monorail - I thought we might as well try our hand with queuing up for Space Mountain (the "scary" ride... cough) but as soon as we got there - the ride was broken (getting flash backs of being there 15 years ago and queuing up for 3 hours at Space Mtn only for the ride to break down... yay!).

However that Toy Story shooter ride was open so we went on that one. You basically sit in a little "haunted mansion" style wheely thing which you can control and you both have laser guns and shoot aliens or something (not of the mexican variety) - maybe some of the Walt racisim is rubbing off on me). There is a score depending on how many aliens you kill - I was blasting my guts off and put Ant's score to shame. But as we left the ride - my score was pretty shameful according to the high scores painted on the exit door.

It was about 9ish pm and we both decided to call it quits (I was still wet from Splash Mountain). I think we had a pretty good day - I can always go to Disneyland and enjoy myself (part cheese, part childhood memories) and I think we did a pretty good recovery given that it would have been pretty dire to go to Knotts Berry given the masses and its clientelle.

We headed back to the KBF resort - where there were the reminents of the white trash leaving the park. We collected our bags from the front desk and went to our modestly furnished room on the sexy bottom floor. KBF Resort was kids central - and Ant and I did look a little out of place. Gays normally do at themeparks - but we do visit them (take a look at "Gay Day" at Disneyland - where the park is overrun by drugged out queens mixed up with the normal families... it would be a blast). Till next time...