Los Angeles Basin

To those of us of a certain age Disneyland has a mystique about it. I recall watching the Disney cartoons on The Mickey Mouse Show after school and every Sunday at 6.30pm Disneyland on channel 9 was an institution. It was good wholesome stuff!

Thursday was Disneyland day.

As expected the place has changed somewhat. There are actually now 2 Disney Parks facing each other - the well-known Disneyland is on your right as you are walking up and the Disney California Adventure is on your left. After being to both I can say Disneyland is for the whole family whereas Adventure is intended to be for families with older kids. Your tickets allow you to hop between either Park so we decided to do Disneyland first and then if we had time we would do California Adventure.

The entrance to Disneyland hasn't changed and once through the gates you are walking up Mainstreet USA. Interestingly the temperature in LA was in the high 20s but there was a lot of artificial snow on all the buildings. It was really well done and spotlessly clean.

Disneyland is divided into different 'Lands' - Adventureland, Frontierland, Fantasyland, Tomorrowland - and the first one we went into was Adventureland. There are various rides and activities sort of related to the same theme within each Land and the first ride we went on was the Indiana Jones Adventure. This was well done, you are in an old car that jumps and bumps its way through caves and caverns based on the Indiana Jones stories.

We worked our way around the Park going to key rides including Pirates of the Carribean, Haunted House (I went on both these rides in 1975), Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, the Matterhorn to name a few. It soon became apparent the thrills just weren't big enough so we had a bite for lunch and headed across to California Adventure.

While Disneyland had been crowded we didn't have to wait much more than about 30 minutes to get on any particular ride but in California Adventure we were waiting for up to an hour to go on a ride. California Adventure park is about 80% complete so it didn't have the same impact as Disneyland but it was still very well done. The boys went on the Tower of Terror (big drops), and the roller coaster called California Screamin'. We all went on the Grizzly River Run which is sort of like a small roller coaster on water and yes we all got wet.

There are some pictures below of the various attractions and like I said both parks were very well done. Not to miss an opportunity there is a section between Disneyland and California Adventure called Downtown Disney where there are lots of souvenir and other shops all very clean and well presented.

By our 8pm pick up time we were worn out. It was good to be able to to both parks as I think just Disneyland on its own might have been a bit dull after a while as the boys were a bit old for a lot of it - though Trace and I enjoyed both Parks immensly. In my view Dreamworld and the other parks on the Gold Coast comes close to offering a similar experience as Disneyland for a lot less cost ... but they just don't have the same mystique Disneyland now do they?

Tomorrow we Getty on down and Getty on out!

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