Chapter 136
Limited Time Darkness

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(Originally posted January 23, 2014)

Pluto showed up outside Starbucks right after we finished our drink, and they actually checked our bracelets to make sure we were there for the AP event before letting us meet him. It was extra special to see our favorite character because today was his birthday!

World of Color had just ended (which is why they had started adamantly checking wristbands). We went over to the lagoon and saw that the fountains were still going strong even though the show was over.

The fountains are just so pretty. I love the energy they add to that whole area.

We quickly found that the downside of this AP event was that it made the park much more crowded than it ever would be on a normal off-season evening. As we walked around to Paradise Pier, we saw that California Screamin’ had a 50-minute wait, for instance.

We got a GAC return pass for Toy Story and then had about 20 minutes to kill before it was good, so we went to ride the Silly Symphony Swings. We noticed that the swings were much bouncier today than usual, so they were a little nausea-inducing but still fun… We followed them up with a ride on King Triton’s Carousel. Even THAT attraction had a decent number of people on it, which shows you how busy it was this evening.

When we rode Toy Story, it was our first time on the attraction in more than two months, but I still got one of my best scores ever!

We decided we were ready to leave and started making our way out of Paradise Pier. It was about 10:15 at this point, and suddenly the lights around Paradise Pier all dimmed the way they do when World of Color starts. Apparently no one noticed that they were on some sort of automatic timer, so it all adjusted as though another show was starting even though there was only one show this evening.

It was definitely a little jarring, but we were able to navigate out without any issues. Once we reached Buena Vista Street, we saw Donald wearing this outfit I’ve never seen before. I’m still not sure what it even was.

We got our Little Mermaid magnetic frame—the souvenir we had been promised for the event—and then we made our way back to the tram. On the way, we saw that they were installing the Mickey and Minnie Halloween decorations onto the tram route, so we saw it when it was only halfway in place. We ogled for a couple minutes from the parking structure, but then we headed home after a much longer evening in the parks than we are used to on a workday.

On Friday, we went to Pieology in Irvine after work. They have a whole wall of inspirational quotes there, and we noticed that the incorrectly-attributed “Walt Disney” quote was among them.

Saturday was a bit interesting. Once of Tracy’s coworkers, Soc, was going to be going out of town at the end of September, and we had volunteered to watch his dog while he was gone. Before committing, we decided to have a “play date” with the pup (named Biscuit) to make sure he wouldn’t bug my allergies too badly. We spent Saturday morning trying to get Biscuit used to us and get him to stop crying at the door, but the important thing was that we realized I did fine with him, so we officially signed on to watch him later that month.

Play date over, we decided to head over to Disneyland in spite of the fact that the heat wave still hadn’t broken. After parking, we rode the tram and saw how the decorations we’d seen them putting up the other night actually turned out.

I still just wish that we would have had our tram stall momentarily so I could ever get a good picture of all those special adornments.

As we got to the esplanade, it was easily the emptiest we’d seen the resort in months. Obviously, the heat was keeping people away.

We started off at DCA.

We bolted straight to Starbucks and got what any sensible person would drink when it’s 100 degrees outside—a hot beverage. I should explain that we were hankering to try the new Chocolate Chai that they had just gotten in for fall. We DID drink it inside, and the cool A/C in the building made us feel less foolish about our hot drink.

We also had one of these delicious Pumpkin Scones that I fear are now a thing of the past since Starbucks switched the supplier of their baked goods—say it ain’t so!

Though we’d come to DCA, it was mostly just for Starbucks, and now that our drink was gone, we decided to hop. Right on schedule, we collided with the parade heading down Main Street.

Drummer Mickey always makes me laugh in Soundsational because he has to be at least a foot taller than any other Mickey Mouse you ever see in the parks.

We had to wait a while to cross, and the Aladdin floats went by while we were still stuck.

Once we were allowed over to the other side of the park, we stopped into Frontierland and saw that they’d put up several Halloween decorations at some of the shops over there.

We were trying to make it across New Orleans Square but we only made it halfway before the heat got the best of us. Rather than exhaust ourselves quite yet, we stopped to ride Pirates—and it felt heavenly inside the attraction! Coming out of the ride, we stopped in the Cristal d’Orleans shop so Tracy could try on a few tiaras.

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