Chapter 176
A KOST-ly Event

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Toward the middle of November, we’d gotten a fun text from our friends Kathy and Jake letting us know that they had won a contest online from the radio station KOST 103.5 and had a pair of extra tickets to the company’s annual Christmas party at DCA. They invited us to come along on the 21st.

When the day arrived, Tracy decided to work from home so that we could head over to the parks in time for dinner. After parking and heading into DCA, we made a beeline back to Cozy Cone and got our usual Chicken Verde Cone to split.

We took our cone over to Flo’s (which we’ll often do when the weather outside isn’t perfect and we’d rather be indoors). While we were eating, I saw what I thought was a familiar face walking by. I’m still not sure how I knew what he looked like, but I was convinced it was Bobby Lopez—composer of Avenue Q, Book of Mormon, and (of course) Frozen. It was one of those “celebrity” sightings when you know it’s someone who probably doesn’t get stopped in public that often, so I was almost tempted to stop at his table and say hi, but I decided against it since he was with his family. I thought this was one of the best sightings we’d had in Disneyland because he and his wife Kristen Anderson-Lopez (who was there too) are the team behind Finding Nemo: The Musical—which I love. We hadn’t even seen Frozen yet at this point, but it was just starting to gain some mainstream attention.

We had a DAS time for Toy Story Mania, so we rode that next before hopping over to Disneyland, where we were planning to meet up with Kathy and Jake. We went back to “it’s a small world” and decided to ride since they were already somewhere within the attraction.

As we came out, we spotted them on the bridge to the gift shop. Since it was still a little early to head to DCA for the party, we all rode Pirates to kill some time.

Now that it was getting a little later, we hopped back to DCA and got wristbands to go along with our party tickets.

This seemed like it should have been an opportunity to ride Radiator Springs Racers without any wait, but everyone there for the event seemed to have the same idea, and the line was as long this evening as it would be during any normal day at the park. We decided to ride Luigi’s Flying Tires instead (which is always a fun alternative in my book).

Here’s a picture I snapped of Kathy and Jake enjoying the attraction.

We were kind of at a loss for what to do next. Paradise Pier was almost entirely closed in preparation for World of Color, so we went back to Hollywood Land—but Monsters, Inc. had closed for the day and hadn’t reopened for the party just yet. Finally, we found ourselves in “a bug’s land” and decided to do one of the few attractions that had no wait: Tuck and Roll’s Drive ’em Buggies. It was the first time for all of is because we usually pretend that Flik’s Fun Fair doesn’t even exist.

There really aren’t words for how terrible this attraction is. The “bumper cars” basically can’t even bump and they are so difficult to drive. I wish they would just level “a bug’s land” already and replace it with something worthwhile.

 By this point, it was already time for us to go try and secure spots for World of Color: Winter Dreams, so we started toward Paradise Bay. The show had only premiered about a week before, so this was going to be our first opportunity to see it.

Luckily, they were still doing to usual procedure for those of us who can’t stand for the entire show, and I was able to get a spot on one of the benches. If the show had started on time, it wouldn’t have seemed like too long of a wait, but instead, the folks from KOST 103.5 had to come out and give a bunch of speeches—which felt like they went on for an eternity.

Finally, the “hosts” shut up and the fountains began their actual entertainment.

Upon our first viewing, we were pretty impressed with this new holiday version of the show. There were a few segments we really enjoyed while others stretched on for a little too long (Olaf’s presence and the Toy Story Nutcracker could have both been cut down).

By far the most impressive part was the way they had incorporated the new lights that spanned the facade of California Screamin’.

On the whole, we were really pleased to have gotten to watch this performance without worrying about Fastpasses or any of that.

Once the show was done, we thought it might be a good opportunity to book it back to Cars Land, but the line for Radiator Springs Racers was still like 90 minutes, so we gave up on that idea once more. We successfully rode Monsters, Inc. back in Hollywood Land, but then we realized that even Soarin’ and other minor attractions had really crazy waits. Clearly they had distributed more tickets for this party than the park could really handle (we heard somewhere that they’d given out at least 9,000 tickets as part of giveaways alone), so there was no real advantage of being here now as opposed to any other busy day.

Kathy and Jake got discouraged by the crowds and decided to head home, and we followed suit just a few minutes later. On the way out, I did snap a few decent pictures of Buena Vista Street with practically no one around because all the hordes were in line for attractions.

Though the party was sort of a bust, we had at least gotten to enjoy World of Color in addition to spending some time with friends, so we were still glad we’d gone!

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