Apologies in advance for the poor photo, but when you’re taking pictures in a restroom, you don’t always have all the time in the world. Anywho, we were mighty impressed with this subtle Big Hero 6 Baymax reference at the Grand Californian Hotel!
Archive for the ‘Photo’ Category
Big Restroom 6
Monday, December 8th, 2014Best cast member costume
Friday, October 31st, 2014We saved our favorite for last. This year at Mickey’s Halloween Party, we saw many Disney characters in costume, but this was by far our favorite — Donald Duck dressed up as Daisy Duck!
Best guest costume
Thursday, October 30th, 2014At Mickey’s Halloween Party, we spotted what we think was the best guest costume of the night:
If we are correct, it’s the bride from Mike Myers’ film So I Married an Axe Murderer.
Loki at Disneyland?
Wednesday, October 29th, 2014Even the Avengers are getting in on the fun this Halloween! We visited Innoventions during Mickey’s Halloween Party and what did we find? Thor dressed as his brother Loki! (Albeit minimally with just a cardboard helmet — but for Halloween it’s the thought that counts!)
Breast Cancer Awareness Month
Tuesday, October 28th, 2014It’s nice to see that Disney made a few subtle changes to some of their attractions for National Breast Cancer Awareness Month!
New Monorail Color!
Wednesday, October 8th, 2014Here’s an unexpected surprise! As Disneyland fans know, the park’s monorails are named for their color, such as Monorail Blue, Monorail Orange, Monorail Burnt Sienna, and the long-retired Monorail Flesh. Last month, Monorail Plumb went into refurb, and this afternoon it emerged from the roundhouse, newly rechristened Monorail Chrome!
Midway Movie Mania
Thursday, October 2nd, 2014What a surprise! With no prior announcement, Disney California Adventure today held a preview of a new limited-time attraction — an overlay of Toy Story Midway Mania featuring Marvel theatrical films!
Guests boarded the attraction vehicles as usual, but instead of playing the usual game they were whisked away for a private showing of a popular Marvel feature film in glorious, high-quality 3D!
Given that this is an entirely new concept for the park, there were both positive and negative aspects of the attraction.
Positive
- You get to see four full-length Marvel films (after the first finishes, you are whisked to a different screen to see another).
- Films are randomly chosen, so it’s a big surprise!
- Some films let you use the attraction vehicle’s gun to, for example, shoot cream pies at the Red Skull!
- Free (virtual) popcorn!
Negative
- Because the movies are randomly chosen, if you have bad luck, you might end up seeing films in the wrong order (e.g., Iron Man 3 before Iron Man 2) or the same movie more than once (e.g., The Hulk four times in a row).
- It’s rather a long time to go without access for a restroom.
- Lines for the attraction were lengthy (estimated weight times were generally in the 45 to 60 hour range).
Historic Spelling
Monday, September 29th, 2014We were working on photographs for volume 2 of That’s Not At Disneyland! (which you should definitely buy, particularly if you want a chance at a free skull juju), when we noticed something interesting. This is from the overhead theming in a store on Buena Vista Street at Disney California Adventure:
(You can click the image to see it better.)
Check out the horrible spelling of “Doctor” on the microscope kit!
At first, we were feeling all superior because of our advanced spelling skills, but then we got to thinking — what if Disney spelled the word this way on purpose?
To test that possibility, we found a random stranger who admitted to being a Disney Imagineer after we followed him around long enough. According to him:
The spelling is actually correct for the time period depicted in the store’s theming. You see, the store is set in an era before standardized spelling arrived in the United States, so what might seem to us like deviant spelling was completely common at the time.
Once again Imagineers have impressed us with their incredible accuracy!
The wonderful thing about fishing…
Wednesday, September 24th, 2014Not much going on in the way of Disney news today (aside from that big Star Wars announcement), so we thought we’d share one of our favorite photos from a recent visit:
It’s so nice to see the characters wandering the parks (and this definitely explains Tigger’s usually inexplicable odor!)
Disney’s Happiest Haunts Tour review
Saturday, September 20th, 2014Last night, the entire DisneyLies staff took the Disney’s Happiest Haunts Tour at Disneyland. The tour is a bit pricy at $600 (90% off with an annual pass or AAA discount), but it does include rides on many attractions and several treats over the course of its six hours, so the cost is justifiable (particularly if you are fabulously wealthy). We don’t want to spoil anything, but we thought we’d share a few highlights with you.
The tour provides guests with both “tricks” and “treats.” There are four Halloween-style treats over the course of the tour, including a “fun size” candy pumpkin on a stick, a “ginger-psycho” man cookie, a candy apple with a gummy razor blade in it, and a commemorative pin (exclusive to the tour and containing an actual piece of ectoplasm).
There were also several tricks. We don’t want to reveal them here, but we will say that there was something a bit unusual about one of the tour’s hosts. Here’s a picture:
See what makes one of the hosts different from the other? That’s right — she never smiles for the camera! Hilarious!
The most interesting and entertaining part of the tour, though, was the revelation of many Disneyland mysteries. Guests were taken to attractions and locations around the park, each of which had a “Halloween mystery” associated with it. They (and their associated mysteries) were:
- City Hall: Why do guests sometimes here echoes of ghostly gunshots in the distance?
- The Enchanted Tiki Room: What happened to Rosita?
- The Haunted Mansion: Why are the Doombuggies full of guests when they leave but empty when they return?
- Big Thunder Ranch: Why are we stopping here when it’s already closed for the evening?
- Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride: Why are we going on this instead of Snow White’s Scary Adventures?
- Chip ‘n’ Dale Treehouse: Why was it abandoned and left empty for all these years?
- Disneyland Monorail: Didn’t this used to stop at the Disneyland Hotel?
- Space Mountain Ghost Galaxy: What’s with the crabby space guy?
- Walt Disney’s apartment: Why can’t they turn off that lamp in the window, no matter how hard they try?
We learned a few interesting tidbits over the course of the tour, including:
- The Haunted Mansion only has room for 1,000 haunts, but it has accommodated many more since 2010 when it went timeshare.
- Ray Bradbury’s Halloween Tree in Frontierland was named after the famous author Ray Tree.
- Some cast members swear that, late at night when the park is closed and empty, they sometimes catch sight of a ghostly Peoplemover car sailing through Tomorrowland.
