Disneyland Trip - Day 3: California Adventure - Pt. 1

How time flies, it was last day of the trip already. Just like yesterday, we packed our clothes, had a quick breakfast, and headed to Disneyland. But today, we were not going to the original Disneyland Park, we were going to the new California Adventure Park. The park opened in 2001, and it is the second of two theme parks built at the Disneyland Resort Anaheim. I think there are more "old-kids" rides in California Adventure such as California Scearmin' and The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. Just as usual, both Disneyland park and California Adventure entrance were very crowed, we had to wait for a while to get into the park.

One of the most popular attraction in California Adventure: The California Screamin' Ride!

Our plan today was kinda like yesterday, Jason would help us to get FastPasses of the most popular and the latest ride in the park, Radiator Springs Racers in Cars Land, and other people will go do something else. The Radiator Springs Racers ride is really popular, Jason told us that he waited for half an hour just to get a FastPass, and if he didn't get a FastPass, we would have to wait 2 hours to get in it. The crazy thing is, the park just opened, and there were already so many people there!

On the way to California Adventure

It was just crazy! So many people!!

The first ride of the day was "The Little Mermaid - Ariel's Undersea Adventure", it was ride for small kids like Elisa, and yeah, Elisa really loved it and enjoyed it. We didn't even need to wait to get on this ride, and there were basically no one in the ride, which is a good thing since we would have more time to do other attractions. We than went to the Paradise Pier section and do some other kids ride. Since there were not too many people there, we didn't need to wait for most of the attractions. The two rides we went on it were "Golden Zephyr" and "Goofy’s Sky School". I especially like Goofy’s Sky School, it is a small roller coaster, it's pretty fun but its turn are pretty sharp, I felt not really comfortable on it. About Golden Zephyr, it is just the Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon style rocket ships, not too special, guests could be pretty relaxing riding on it, though. And the view on Golden Zephyr are good.

In The Little Mermaid - Ariel's Undersea Adventure. Elisa loved this ride.

Golden Zephyr

The view on Golden Zephyr

Waiting area of Goofy’s Sky School

One of the most famous rides in California Adventure is the Mickey’s Fun Wheel, it is not a normal ferris wheel, on Mickey’s Fun Wheel, there are two kinds of gondolas, one is stationary just like other ferris wheels, but another is the "swinging" gondolas, it will swing while the ferris wheel turns. It sounds scary but it's actually lots of fun! (Well... also pretty scary...) Ethan and me went on the weinging one, Brennan, Karen and Elisa went on the non-swinging one. Ethan was pretty freaked out when it started to swing, he was worry about if this gondola will fall down. Although it was kinda scary when it was swinging, but the awesome, fantastic view on Mickey’s Fun Wheel will definitely makes you feels better, we could see the whole Anaheim, including Space Mountain which is pretty far away, on the ride!

California Screamin'

Mickey's Fun Wheel!

The view on the Mickey's Fun Wheel

Ethan!

Looking out from the Mickey's Fun Wheel

The birds-eye view of California Adventure

California Screamin'!

Jason finally got Radiator Springs Racers ride's FastPasses for us successfully after we finished Mickey’s Fun Wheel, it really took a long time. Thanks to him, or we could not have a chance to experience this new awesome ride. But the return time of these FastPasses were 4:00 to 5:00 PM, so we got to do something else before going on it. We decided to try California Screamin', probability the biggest, scariest, and longest roller coaster ride in California Adventure, also one of the longest-waiting-time rides. According to Wikipedia, California Screamin' is one of the park's original rides, and is the only roller coaster at the Disneyland Resort to feature an inversion. Its top speed of 55 miles per hour makes it the fastest ride at the Disneyland Resort and one of the fastest rides at any Disney theme park. See? Sounds really awesome, isn't it?

The waiting time of California Screamin' when we got there was 40 minutes, since it was actually not too bad (to this really popular ride), we decided to go waiting in line. I was very looking forward to riding but also a bit worried when we were waiting, the ride looks really long and it has an inversion, but I told myself that I am already here, I got to try this! After 40 minutes wait (felt like a hour...), we of course have to sit in the best seats of the train: front row. I asked for sitting in front row but it seems many people have the same thoughts as me, so we would have to wait additional 5 minutes, but it was totally worth every second of waiting. The ride was really awesome, when the ride first started, we would wait on the track beside Paradise Bay for few seconds, you can see all people on the bay are looking at you, and the voice started countdown. "Ready Screamers? 5, 4, 3, 2, 1", and the train speeds up to 55 miles/ hr in 4 seconds. Other parts of the ride are awesome as well, especially the loop. If you would like to do a "virtual experience" of California Screamin', one of my favorite rides in California Adventure, please take a look at the POV video below. (not filmed by me)

Waiting, waiting, waiting... 

Almost there!

Ethan and me on screaming California Screamin'!!! Ha ha

Video

After riding on this awesome California Screamin', Karen, boys and I went to the Grizzly Peak area and waited for the Grizzly River Run ride. But before going there, Karen brought boys and me to buy some ice cream. Karen told me that this is the only place where she can fine tasty soft ice creams, so I also bought some and tried them, I had a vanilla-chocolate-mix flavored ice cream, and I thought they are really good, especially when the weather are hot and you have to wait forever for a ride. Grizzly River Run is the longest, tallest and fastest river rapids ride in the world, and It was really fun! The wait time of the ride when we visited was about a hour, but we are not boring at all since we were chatting with two high school girls, they said that they are not from California but really love Disneyland. We had a good time chatting with them, now I think chatting with random is a really good way to kill time (I think that's what they thought, too)! The Grizzly River Run is absolutely a must-ride attractions, it is really awesome, not only because it is fun, but the whole landscape of the ride are really good, too. Just like the Cars Land (I will mention it later), Disney really did a good job making those artificial landscape such as faux rocks, mountains and rivers. The ride is not too fast and it is not scary at all, but you might get wet on the ride! I was pretty lucky that I didn't really got wet. Since Grizzly Peak is designed as an early 20th-century California state park, riding it was just like rafting in Yosemite national park which my family and I am currently planning to visit there in June, this makes me even more looking forward to going there!

Yummy ice cream :))

Grizzly River Run

Waiting area of Grizzly River Run

Beautiful!

Me...

We then went to another really popular attraction immediately after when we finished the Grizzly River Run ride, this super popular ride is called Soarin' Over California. It was actually noon already by the time we got there, but since Karen, boys and I have some ice creams, we decided not to have lunch. About Jason and Elisa, they went have lunch, and they would come back to Soarin' Over California later today since Karen would ask for "Rider Switch Pass", so they could come back later on and not have to wait. The waiting time of Soarin' Over California was actually not too bad, it was about half an hour wait. Soarin' Over California is a simulator attraction, it has a lift system, a film presentation on a large concave projection screen, and artificial scents to simulate the flight, it was kinda just like the "I-RIDE" by Vekoma (world-famous amusement ride manufacturer) in Taiwan's EDA theme park. When we first got in, we would sit on a lift chair, and when the ride starts, all the chairs would be rose as a simulated "hang glider", and the huge OMNIMAX (IMAX Dome) started playing movie. That was just awesome, this ride a so well done that you will feel just like you are looking out from a airplane, not only because the 180 degrees screen are so huge that would never be out of your sight even if you turn your head, but also because you could "smell" the scene, like when we were flying through the citrus farm, we could smells the citrus. You would have to try it yourself to understand what I am saying!

Soarin' Over California

The waiting area of Soarin' Over California

Video

(CONTINUE READING - There are too much awesome stuffs to talk about, so I have to separate this post to two "blog posts". Please read the second part of this post by clicking here: Disneyland Trip - Day 3: California Adventure - Pt. 2.)