#BeastOnTour: Disneyland & LA Solo Trip Day 3 - take me out to the ball game!

[mr-paul]

Index
Day 2

Day 3 - Tuesday 24th September

Another day, another fairly early wake up, but not as early as the day before! I was up at 6am, got myself ready and walked round to the nearby 7 Eleven to get something quick for breakfast. Now, don’t judge me too much, but I’m really indecisive and ended up with a Diet Coke and a bag of crisps…

That done, it was time to get to the park for rope drop at 8am. I was only spending a part day in the parks today, so had to get there early! My mission was to clear up a bunch of attractions I hadn’t done yet before leaving the parks mid-afternoon.

My first mission was to go to the Haunted Mansion. If you aren’t aware, from September to December at Disneyland it has a special overlay called Haunted Mansion Holiday, which rejigsthe ride into a Nightmare before Christmas theme. Because of this, it had one of the longest lines of all attractions throughout my stay, so definitely one to FastPass around this time of year.

I rushed straight there to see that it was unfortunately closed! Technical issues and they weren’t sure when they’d be opening for the day. I picked up a FastPass for 9:05 to 10:05 and had to change plans, heading instead for Indiana Jones Adventure.

This had a very small queue at this stage so there was no need to use the single rider line. But seriously, how good is this ride? A real underrated gem, I think. It reminded me of Dinosaur in Animal Kingdom, though I don’t really remember too much about that as it was 16 years since I last went to WDW!

Haunted Mansion was still down, so I headed to Fantasyland, as I hadn’t done any of the rides there apart from It’s A Small World.

Quickly enough with very little queuing, I’d ticked off Pinocchio, Snow White, the Teacups (love how these are completely open air, thanks California weather!) and Mr Toad’s Wild Ride. By now, it was time for my Haunted Mansion FastPass, but it was still down.

If you’re unaware of how the FP system works at DLR, it still issues you paper tickets, but on return to the ride, you scan your park ticket rather than swap in your FP. If you link your park ticket to the Disneyland app, you can manage your FastPasses on there. The app alerted me that Haunted Mansion was still down, but my FP was now valid for any attraction at any time. Nice!

I left Fantasyland and walked back towards Haunted Mansion in case it got back up and running, and went on Pirates of the Caribbean, which was a walk-on. Haunted Mansion was still down, so I went to Galaxy’s Edge despite having already spent plenty of time there

I spent more time playing on the Star Wars Datapad on the Disney Parks Play App, and browsed the shops looking at the expensive merch that I’d love but never would fork out for!

Dok Ondar's Den of Antiquities

I wish I could justify buying one of these...

I then decided to go on Smuggler’s Run again, but this time via the standby queue rather than as a single rider, as I wanted to be something other than the engineer!

The advertised queue time was 50 minutes, I got in the queue at around 10:40am and was off the ride at 11:20, so it was quicker than advertised. The queue wasn’t too bad, plenty to look at and the Datapad game kept me busy, and I got to be a pilot this time, so was worth it!

Was feeling thirsty now, so decided to pick up one of the special Star Wars Diet Cokes. What a rip-off, $5.92 (£4.79) including tax! But when in Disneyland, eh?

NOW! Haunted Mansion was back up and running! I returned to it and used my FastPass, and was swiftly on, finally!

Absolutely love how they've dressed it up for Halloween/Christmas.

Loved this! If you didn’t know what the traditional Haunted Mansion was like, you could genuinely believe this ride was always a Nightmare Before Christmas one, the overlay is so well done.

Now about midday, I went back to Fantasyland to tick off another couple of rides. Alice in Wonderland was a nice dark ride, I like the novelty of it going outside above the queue, and then had a relaxing ride on the Storybook Boats.

I now ventured into a park of the park I hadn’t yet touched - Mickey’s Toontown. Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin had a 30 minute queue, but I could pick up a FastPass that could be used in 5 minutes time, so I did just that. This is a fun twist on a dark ride, with your vehicle also able to spin like a teacup.

Following this, I was swiftly onto the other main attraction in the area, Gadget’s Go Coaster. This was so short. Pretty pointless. Yes, I know I’m not the target audience for this area, but it really is just for the small kids.

By now it was 1:30pm and I dipped into Tomorrowland and Star Wars Launch Bay for a bit of air con and time out of the sun. There’s not too much to see here unless you’re doing the character meets inside. I then went for another indoor attraction just across Main Street, the Enchanted Tiki Room. I’ve been in this once before in Florida I think, but my main memories of it are having the song on a Disney cassette in the car as a child!

I now wanted to make quick visit over to California Adventure, to do the one main attraction I hadn’t managed to get on the day before - Grizzy River Run. The queue was listed as 20 minutes, so I thought I could get it done pretty quickly. Sadly, I had my one bad queue experience of the holiday - it took double that. And I didn’t realise there was a single rider line I could use (through the exit!). To make things worse, the ride went down while I was on it, held at the top of a section in the blazing sun in a log-jam of rafts! Otherwise, it was a fun raft ride!

Now gone 3pm, it was time to leave the parks. I needed some food, and headed towards Anaheim GardenWalk, a shopping/entertainment district just outside the Disney complex, and halfway to where I was staying at Motel 6 Maingate. After a wander around, I decided on the Cheesecake Factory for my late lunch/early dinner. This was my first time at the restaurant in the US, having been multiple times in Dubai when I was working there for a while. One thing that was scary to read here though was the calorie count on the menu!

I think this was the most salad I ate all holiday

After the complimentary bread as a starter, I went for a meaty flatbread pizza and side salad off the lunchtime menu, with a refillable Diet Coke. This definitely filled me up and in total I paid $22.76 (£18.42). All done at around 4:30pm, I went back to the hotel for a rest before my evening activity - baseball!

I’m a big sports fan, though not particularly a big follower of American sports, but thought while I was over here it would be fun to try out the experience of visiting a baseball game. My first thought went to the Dodgers, who are based up in LA, but their match dates didn’t align with my plans, but I found the LA Angels played in Anaheim! Perfect! One of the good things about baseball is that tickets are quite readily available, due to them playing so many matches a year. As tonight was a Oogie Boogie Bash night in DCA, it was a good night to get out of the parks for LA Angels against the Oakland Athletics! Tickets were available through both the LA Angels themselves, their official fan resale platform, and other resale sites. I bought mine from StubHub for $28.56 (£23.88).

So at around 6pm, I headed out from the hotel to get a bus to the Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center (ARTIC) which is next to the Angel Stadium. I downloaded the Orange County Transit Authority app and bought a mobile bus ticket for $2. The bus took 20 minutes, and I was there by 6:30pm. First ball was at 7:06pm, so I had a bit of time to absorb the atmosphere, stand for the USA nation anthem etc.

I’ll spare the details of the game, it was pretty boring to be honest! Out of the 18 innings between the two sides, points were only scored in two of them. And they say cricket is boring! One thing that stood out as a difference from a UK live sporting event experience was the amount of variety of food and drink on offer, but also, how expensive it is! I had a Bud Light to drink during the game, which cost $10.50 (£8.46).

Pricey beer!

The match was done at about 10pm, and after a few photos, I headed back to the hotel.

They were giving out these tacky t-shirts with a player's face on for free, so thought why the hell not?!

Unfortunately, it was a while to wait until the next bus, and it was an alright temperature, so I decided to walk home! It was less than two miles, so it took less than 40 mins to get back.

A quick stop at 7-Eleven for a drink on the way back and I was back in my room by 11pm. Another fun-filled day complete.

Steps today: 29,399
Attractions: 15 + a baseball game!
Tomorrow: A full-on day at the parks with MaxPass!

[KayLouise]

Great day, thanks for sharing! Love the free shirt haha

[Tinkermom]

Brilliant t-shirt!
Fantastic day!

[Sparksy72]

What an action packed day. we love Cheesecake Factory however I do avoid reading the calories baseball looked great, that beer price is completely outrageous though! That shirt is a brilliant souvenir