I have a soft spot in my heart for Disneyland… I’m not an obsessive like some, but my paternal grandparents lived in Orange County, so I went every other year or so as a kid. I’ve always been coaster-phobic, too, and Disneyland is a great theme park if you don’t like roller coasters.
My two favorite attractions, as a kid, were Captain Eo and the submarines. Both of those are gone now, replaced by “Honey I Shrunk the Audience” and, eventually, a Finding Nemo ride. Thankfully, Star Tours is still there, and it still features the voice of Paul Reubens, aka Pee-Wee Herman. The combination of Star Wars and Pee-Wee was enough to send me into space as a kid, with or without the ride itself.
There are two things I’ve always wanted to do at Disneyland, though, but have never done. One of them is to visit the secret dining club. Jordan Morris, “Boy Detective” grew up in Orange County, and had never been until college, when he dated a lady whose grandfather was a bigwig at Kodak. He said it’s as great as you might imagine. He went to the bathroom, and they refolded his napkin while he was gone. Someday I’ll get in there. Someday.
My other Disneyland dream is to ride the Monorail. It used to be that in order to ride the Monorail, you had to stay at the Disneyland Resort. Now, my family had very little money when I was a kid, and I certainly wasn’t staying at the Disneyland Resort. More like my grandparent’s living room, or maybe the Motel Six in Mission Viejo. So all I could do was admire the monorail from afar.
But I just went to Disneyland with my sweetheart and her family this weekend, and I’ve got great news… anybody can ride it now!
Well, anyone can make the short, one-way trip from Tommorowland to “Downtown Disney,” they Disney mega-mall between Disneyland and California Adventure. But dammit, I rode the thing! MAXIMUM FUN.
What does it say about me that my favorite part of a three-day vacation was a five minute trip on a forty five year old monorail? Well, anyway…