Disneyland

After spending a peaceful week climbing in Joshua Tree, where on a typical day we would see two or three cars and three or four people, we felt able to once again brave the freeways of LA to go to Disneyland.

Disneyland is about as opposite to our campsite as we could have imagined, with hordes of people, parking lots devoted to strollers and filled with every possible shape and colour of plastic… However it was more than a little entertaining. Although there were a few crowds due to the Christmas season, with the Disney system of “fastpass”, essentially the opportunity to reserve a spot on a ride and therefore not stand in line for more than a few moments, we were able to scoot around the whole park and enjoy the rides. Big Thunder Mountain and Splash Mountain were some faves for daytime. In the evening they had holiday fireworks (which shortened the ride lines) and so we spent the time riding the Matterhorn over and over until our tummies no longer agreed! We were afforded amazing views of the fireworks as we speed round steep corners on the ride, pretty cool. Although Dave was a little bit apprehensive about the Disney experience before we arrived, however, I took his hysterical laughter on many of the rides as a clear sign he was enjoying himself…We didn’t feel out of place as “grown-ups” without children as there were many other couples our age running through the park for their next shot at Big Thunder Mountain.

We didn’t meet too many Disney characters, even though we even went to Goofy’s house and knocked on the front door. He wasn’t home.

Our most visited ride was the Buzz Lightyear “Space Ranger” ride, where you are provided with a “space pistol” and told to hit as many targets during the ride as possible. You were able to see your running score and then given a space ranger “level” at the end, enticing you to return over and over to try and better your score. Of course we did just that. They also take very silly pictures of you and let you email them to yourself.

If I ever go to Disneyland again I would bring a pedometer and try to measure how far is walked during a long day there. In total, we spent about 13 hours, mostly running from ride to ride. We figure we walked at least 25km in total during those hours!