Chapter 48
To All Who Come to This Happy Place, Welcome

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(Originally posted July 23, 2013)

Since I was still waiting with no idea when the Matterhorn would come back up, I decided to head back over to King Arthur’s Carrousel and take another ride. It still wasn’t too busy in Fantasyland this evening, so I was able to walk right on.

Finally, while I was on the Carrousel, I think Tracy texted me saying that the attraction was back up and she’d be going shortly. I meandered back over near the Matterhorn and took a seat on one of the benches. It still took a little while, but soon she was done. Her verdict was that the ride wasn’t as bad as it had been on our last visit, but it certainly wasn’t smooth either. She didn’t know if I’d ever want to go.

Reunited, we made our way out of Fantasyland and past this beautiful fountain.

We were jonesing for a snack, and Tracy knew just what she wanted. This was right after Jess (Disneyfreak508) had started her college program at WDW, and she kept Instagramming pictures of the Cinnamon Rolls at Main St Bakery (which no longer exist now…). Tracy thought they looked delicious, so she NEEDED a Disneyland cinnamon roll ASAP.

Looking it up on the Lines app where they sold them, we ended up at Jolly Holiday Bakery. This spot had been under construction during our last trip, so it was our first time here. It looked quite pleasant from the outside though.

Inside, it was covered with references to Mary Poppins, and since that is one of my favorite movies ever, I was very happy with it.

The line wasn’t too long, but it seemed to take forever for us to get to the front.

Finally, Tracy was the first one to succumb to tired legs, so she had to go find us a table. I was very proud of myself for having been able to stand this long today. Usually, I would have started feeling dizzy after even a fraction of this amount of time on my feet. Luckily, however, I always do best in the evening after dinner, so I was still feeling okay.

Eventually, I made it to the front of the line. The Signature Cinnamon Roll looked delicious in the case.

I ordered one (and some water cups), and before too long, our pastry was ready.

Looks delicious, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, the sign failed to mention one thing. That icing is cream cheese icing, which neither Tracy nor I particularly enjoy. I’ve never in my life had a cinnamon roll have cream cheese icing, so I know that’s not a normal occurrence, and we were unpleasantly surprised when we took our first bites.

I didn’t mind it too badly. The cinnamon roll itself was okay (though not particularly fresh), and in some bites the sweetness of the icing drowned out the taste of the cream cheese. Tracy really didn’t like it, however. Honestly, we couldn’t believe we were zero for two on our first night of in-park Disney food… If it were a different day, we might have taken it back and asked for something else, but we weren’t really in the mood to do that this evening, so we ate our cinnamon roll and vowed never again. Does anyone know if the (now extinct) cinnamon rolls at the Magic Kingdom had the dreaded cream cheese icing? We never had one to find out…

After our slightly unsatisfying snack experience, it was almost time for the fireworks to start. We love Remember… Dreams Come True, and we knew our first night in Disneyland wouldn’t be complete without watching the fireworks, so we staked out a last-minute spot on Main Street.

The show began with the inimitable voice of Julie Andrews, and we immediately remembered why we loved this spectacular so much!

While I always cry during Wishes (and Remember features the whole Wishes song sung by the children), I was doing pretty well throughout the fireworks this time. Then Walt’s voice began reading Disneyland’s dedication, and tears sprung to my eyes instantly. There is something about Disneyland being Walt’s park that makes you feel very close to the man who started it all. I don’t pretend to be a huge Walt Disney scholar. I know less about the man than I sometimes feel like I should. But when one man is responsible for dreaming up this place that unites this enormous group of fans, I think there is something special about remembering his personal contributions.

The fireworks continued, and I feel like I was able to appreciate the show as a whole more than I had done the last time we saw it. All the salutes to the different lands are spectacular, the soundtrack is beautiful, and the fireworks themselves are expertly timed.

Not quite sure what to do when the fireworks concluded, we joined the masses going over to New Orleans Square for Fantasmic! We arrived with the crowds and were able to get seats on the ground. After waiting for a few minutes, however, we realized it was still almost 45 minutes until show time. We were already uncomfortable and weren’t really in the mood to wait. We decided, therefore, to give up our spots and go ride more attractions instead.

We headed over to Tracy’s favorite attraction, Indiana Jones, and got single rider passes. When we got to the front of the line, the regular queue hadn’t caught up with us yet, so we got to ride together anyway. We love Indy, and it looked great (having just been refurbished not too long before we got there).

We followed up Indiana Jones by walking back through to Fantasyland and admiring our castle once again.

We decided to take a trip on the Storybookland Canal Boats.

Always a great attraction that feels like a hidden gem, I think this was our first experience riding at night. Here’s a poor quality picture of Agrabah.

Next, we headed to Tomorrowland and rode Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters. I don’t think I have any record of our scores on that first night, but I’m sure mine was awful!

Time was running out before the park closed, but we decided to ride Star Tours since it didn’t have any wait. We said hello to our best friend, R2-D2.

On our very first ride, I was chosen as the Rebel Spy! I began trying to keep track of all of our Star Tours destinations so that we could see how long it would take us to get all the possible combinations. On this first trip, we had Storm Troopers at the beginning, then visited our Wookie friends on Kashyyk, were given instructions by Admiral Ackbar, and faced off against Boba Fett and his sonic bomb at the Death Star. It was all quite fun.

When we got off Star Tours, we tried to race over to Space Mountain in case we could get in line right as it was closing. Unfortunately, it must have been about 12:01 as the ropes were already blocking our entrance.

All told, it was a fantastic first afternoon/evening in the parks. We exited and took the tram back to the garage. We were already making plans for the full weekend ahead of us, during which we could really start making the best possible use of our annual passes!

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