I had the day off yesterday. Now this is a truly wondrous thing in its own right, as I get to see the weekday sun about as often as my pale, Casper-white backside. But even better than the mere fact that I didn’t go to work, was where I ended up going instead. The Lady and I decided to go to the Zoo; we love the animals and I wanted to get my hands on those awesome colored-plastic moldings that my older brother and I used to collect as kids. I got off the freeway (curse the 5) and was making my way past Train Town when I suddenly had the urge to stop the car. You see, I had been having an unstoppable craving for steak gumbo. And the ONLY place to have steak gumbo in Southern California is at The Blue Bayou, which is located in the French Quarter, which is located smack dab in the heart of the happiest place on Earth. So I turned around, got back on the freeway, and headed south.

We were going to Disneyland!

I’m about to barrage you with the details of my day, and it will probably be tedious for most of you, so let me sum it up thusly: Disneyland rules. Nothing brings the kid out of me faster than a set of black Mickey Mouse ears (except maybe one of those Goofy hats with the ears that flop over). The Lady and I spent eight glorious hours in the Magic Kingdom, and a day later I still have a smile on my face. Here’s how it went down…

If you’re gonna go to a theme park, go during the week. The crowds are smaller, the park is cleaner, the lines are infinitely quicker and the people (customers and employees) are much nicer and more patient. Overall, it’s a just a better theme park experience.

Disneyland has revolutionized itself and the city around it, and has somehow become this mystical land of complete convenience. Immediately after exiting you are offered an express bridge straight to the parking garage, no street lights needed. My mighty Corolla touched not once inch of Anaheim street soil. And let’s talk about the parking garage. It used to be that Disneyland had this serious of interminably large parking areas, which were almost completely unnavigable, and you always forgot where you parked. Even if you knew you had parked in Dumbo 4 that only narrows it down to about 47 rows of cars. Then you had to walk the entire length of the parking lot in order to catch the tram. Now, you go into this self-contained parking garage, the attendant gives you a paper map of the garage, where you can write down your specific spot (in case you forgot to bring paper, or have a terrible memory), then 14 parking attendants wave you to a specific spot in the garage. It was fantastic. The whole parking procedure took five minutes. We took one escalator down to the ground, and the tram was there waiting for us. Man alive, does Disney knows how to park people!

So the tram takes us to the Disney centerpoint, where to our left is the park, to our right is Downtown Disney (think Universal CityWalk but nicer), and straight ahead is the inferior California Adventure theme park. Since we’re gonna do Downtown last, and we’re thankfully gonna skip California Adventure, we opt to stick with the traditional Disneyland. We breeze through ticketing, grab our cool map, and walk in and sit in front of the flowered Mickey Mouse face lawn to plan our strategy. I want to do Tomorrowland last (with Space Mountain as the climax to the day), so we decide to go left-to-right and start in Adventureland and begin our day with what is easily my favorite ride, The Jungle Cruise.

Before I begin, let me just give a shout out to the brain trust at the park: great job on all the recent changes in modernizing the park. I went the whole day without ever needed to use cash, and that may have been the highlight of the day. Well played, Disneyland.

We put blinders on through Main Street, for if I see souvenirs this early in the day, I may be too broke to buy dinner (and also I plan to splurge on a Jungle Cruise attraction poster and I don’t want to carry that around all day). We veer left, enter a land of African culture, and quite literally walk on the Jungle Cruise. I’ve done this ride so much that I’m cracking waterfall jokes while we’re still boarding. Seriously, I could have been the guy on the microphone, I know the script THAT well. The cruise was great, and they even added a new bit, the jumping piranha, which totally made The Lady jump in fright. The boat operator told a few of the staples, not all of my favorites, but still succeeded in cracking me up. Already a happy camper, we hopped over to the Indiana Jones ride (one I’m not too fond of), where the wait was only ten minutes, and was mostly taken up by the time it actually takes to walk through the line to the ride.

Top 5 Jungle Cruise Jokes

1. We’ve got a dock on the right, and a dock on the left. We like to call it… a paradox.

2. Wave goodbye to the people in line, you’ll never see them again.

3. Look to your left, it’s the back of a waterfall. There something you don’t see everyday… but I do.

4. Aww, look at those lions, watching over that sleeping zebra. So sweet.

5. Thank you for riding the Jungle Cruise. If you had a good time, my name is Ron. And if you didn’t, my name is Dave.

After Indy we were hungry, which meant only one thing: steak gumbo. We booked it over to the French Quarter, stopping once to show The Lady the infamous Club 33. Walking past Pirates, who did we run into? None other than Timmy and Alyse, my fellow Grunt Talkers and two of my favorite people on the planet. I’m surprised, but not too surprised, as they have season passes and most days its even money they’re at the park. We decide to lunch it together, so I got to have my best friend, my best girl and the best steak gumbo in a bread bowl, west of Bourbon Street, all at the same time. At this point, The Jay = HAPPY.

We join Tim and Alyse for Pirates, and I forget just how long that ride is. So long, in fact, that I fall asleep. It’s still a cool ride, with great old-school animatronics, but Disney should definitely think about either speeding it up or adding some new stuff. After the ride, we check Haunted Mansion, but it’s closed while they revamp it for Halloween. I’m bummed because it means I don’t get too make out with The Lady in the mirror room (a Disney couples tradition). Our foursome splits up, because they wanna hit Buzz Lightyear, and we want Great Thunder Railroad.

A little drag-ass after the food, and a little groggy from the Pirates nap, we lounge through Critter Country stopping to ride Winnie the Pooh and Great Thunder, and then motor into Fantasyland. Fantasyland rules, and we hit up Pinocchio, the Carousel, the Teacups (where the Lady promptly gets sick and yells at me for twisting the tea cup too much), and opt to skip Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride (which makes me a bit sad). She’s feeling competitive, so we book it too Tomorrowland and make way to Autopia. This is such an old-school favorite that I’m giddy at the thought of bumping her car, while going a speedy 3 mph. She decides to take the car in front of me, so I know the bumping is imminent. And it happens. And it rules.

After Autopia, I take some time to look forlornly at what used to be the Submarine Voyage ride. Disney is retooling it to be a Finding Nemo ride, which is a good idea, but I’m gonna miss the giant squid and kick ass multi-colored coral. Matterhorn’s line is a mile long, so we vow to come back later, and instead speed up the climax and go straight to the re-imagined Space Mountain. We move quickly through the line, hop aboard and scream our heads off. They did a great job on the ride; it does not disappoint. Still high off the Space, we hit the decidedly dated Star Tours “ride”. The line is slow, but I’m over-jazzed from Space Mountain, and on a sugar high from a Chocolate and Caramel marshmallow-piece of heaven I got in Adventureland after actively avoiding the debacle that is Splash Mountain, so I don’t mind the wait too much. Star Tours is still pretty good, but for that type of ride I prefer Back to the Future at Universal. I wonder why they didn’t update the attraction for the prequels. Having Jar Jar as the pilot would have added a fun sense of disaster. Plus, I would get to rip Lucas for twenty minutes straight. Always good times.

Still waiting on Matterhorn to die down, we hit the brand new Buzz Lightyear ride, where you get to spin in this little ship and fire lasers at targets. This ride rules! You compete with the person next to you, and your ship tallies the scores. The spinning is an awesome and perfectly executed device, it’s like being in a souped up Afterburner arcade game. Best yet, when you finish, they have these computer monitors where you can see the picture taken of you during the ride, then e-mail it to yourself for free! We went on the ride twice just to get a second free picture! I’m so excited, I can’t stop using exclamation points! Whammy!

High from Buzz, we finally ride Matterhorn, and enjoy it so much we go again. The Lady is now dizzy and overloaded, and I’m completely satisfied. So we go be tourists and take some pictures in front of The Castle and also in front of the Little Mermaid fountain. We dance on Main Street while a Jazz Band kicks one out, then head straight for the souvenirs. Ten minutes later I’m like the Great Cornholio, and The Lady has to steal my credit card and drag me out with the promise that I can get all my souvenirs at the great World of Disney store at Downtown Disney, before I go nuts and inadvertently raise my interest rate to 50%. So I calm down, we watch a few black and white Mickey cartoons in the little theater where the Hall of Presidents used to be, then decide to call it a day.

Final Talley Time in the Park: 5 ½ hours. Total # of Rides: 15 Average wait time: 9 minutes.
The Jay: Thrilled.

We walk over to Downtown Disney, listen to a few mediocre street performers, get nauseous walking past Sephora, grub at Cantina Joe’s, then hit the World of Disney store, where I score The Jungle Cruise attraction poster I wanted so badly, as well as a totally rad ultra-detailed hand-drawing of the park for only five bucks! The Lady scores an adorable plush Eeore doll with a detachable tail. We pay for our Disney booty (me only slightly upset that The Jungle Book DVD is still on moratorium), and head back to the Tram. We get back on the perilous Interstate 5 and wave goodbye to the Magic Kingdom.

Thinking back over the day, I couldn’t help but revel in the fact that the park was so easily able to catapult me back into the mindset of a five year old. I don’t what it is… maybe nostalgia. But the emotions that Disney brings out in me are almost primal. So happy does this entity makes me that whether it be through their movies, or their characters, the rides or the shows, or maybe just the idea of Disneyland itself, I can trigger memories from my childhood in a heartbeat.

I spent my tenth birthday at Disneyland, and stayed overnight at the neighboring resort. To this day I can remember Goofy bringing me a birthday cake for breakfast and taking a picture with me. I can remember the fireworks that I watched from the balcony of the hotel room, my eyes wide open at a world that was only beginning to offer itself to me.

I spent my high school graduation night at Disney, walking in stunned awe at my accomplishment, and sharing that experience with thousands of other teens whose lives would never be the same the next day. I went to sleep that night, the way I did when I was ten, and again last night, as if all was right in the world, for Disneyland had made it all better.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go frame my new Jungle Cruise poster and hum the lyrics to A Whole New World.

Thank you for reading, if you liked this column, my name is The Jay. And if you thought it was boring, well then my name is A-Train.

Bangarang, Magic Kingdom!