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End of trip: Disneyland day 2 and thoughts

Matt Haughey

• 3 min read

Some thoughts from this trip to Disneyland

  • Downtown Disney restaurants are almost all closed. This is good, since I never set foot in most all of them and why was a rainforest cafe even there in the first place? I saw Salt & Straw going in so that's a good sign they're taking food seriously.
  • They added geysers to Grizzly Rapids ride. It's random but you may get totally drenched, but it's fun.
  • On hot days, the drop in the dark middle part of Splash Mountain sends a wave of water over the first three riders' heads. You will get soaked to the bone.
  • Photo pass linking in the Disney iPhone app is still kinda buggy. Only one photo worked within 12hrs of a ride. The rest took 24hrs to appear.
  • The Pixar special food was fantastic.
  • The Disneyland app now has mobile food ordering and it's amazing. It's faster than any line. If you see a pickup window, pull out your phone and order food and you'll have food in a couple minutes and it's like jumping the line.
  • The inside line for Dole Whip is going to be mobile phone orders only, so that'll speed things up.
  • Disney finally added WiFi to most areas. It wasn't perfect coverage but my phone battery lasted all day thanks to having WiFi. Plus, those rides with no cell networking now had WiFi making standing in line a little more bearable.
  • Apple Pay RULES. Almost every concession offered Apple Pay support and it was instantaneous and smooth. I used it every time.
  • It was kinda weird to see people wearing shirts and hats from Pixar’s Up since that’s a depressing af film to me.
  • The Incredibles roller coaster redo is well done, lots of fun mid-century touches.
  • Star Wars land looks pretty far along from the views at the top of the climb on big thunder railroad. Looks like there are desert regions of Tatooine and some ice mountains for Hoth maybe.
  • There’s almost no Coco or Moana stuff for sale. No Inside Out or Bugs Life stuff either. Every other film is merchandised out the wazoo. There's so much Lilo and Stitch.
  • The Frozen stage show was Broadway quality in production and engineering. Also it has a diverse cast which was great to see.
  • They've really clamped down on security. We stayed at Paradise Pier hotel and weren't allowed to walk through The Grand Californian hotel next door. When we did walk through that hotel later, a few passageways were blocked off, seemingly to control crowds in the event of a problem?