by Nathan Stout (of AccordingToWhim.com)
Welcome to the next part of my Christmas 2012 California vacation. We will wrap up our experience at Disney’s California Adventure this post and move on to Disneyland after that. Enjoy!
Animation Academy:
We also attended the Animation Academy where you get to sketch out a Disney character with the guidance of an animator. Our sketch was Jack Skellington. There were also various animation type attractions there at the Animation Academy including a really (and I mean REALLY) neat stop motion Toy Story display that STUNNED me. I really wasn’t expecting it and never knew you could do that (in real life, not on paper). Check this out and be amazed!
Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree:
We visited this ride on one of our Disneyland days. The CityPass tickets we bought let us get back to California Adventure so one evening we decided to ride this (since the lines were non-existent). It looks like a teacup-type ride at first but when you get on it you do something very different. There are 3 large round areas and your towtruck car actually transfers from one round area to another as the ride goes around and around. It was pretty fun but check out the video to figure out what I am talking about.
Luigi’s Flying Tires:
This is a ride that I think will be replaced very soon. The whole cars land was new for 2012 and I give Luigi’s Flying Tires a year or two. The ride is based on a much older concept. You sit on a disc and the ground has holes that shoot air up, making your disc float about a bit. In this version you are sitting on a big tire. The ride is clunky and hardly works well. I don’t recommend waiting more than 15 minutes to ride this. Here is the video.
World of Color:
This final ‘attraction’ isn’t an attraction but a show put on at night. It’s the World of Color. It takes place over the lake and involves water, projected video, lights, fireworks, explosions, and sound. It’s like a fireworks show on steroids! I have never heard such perfect sound out of doors. It was amazing. It is basically a collage of different Disney songs set to all sorts of effects and has to be seen to be believed. Here is a video but it simply can’t do justice to actually being there…
Pixar Parade:
Disney doesn’t do thing half-assed and this parade is a perfect example. The Pixar Parade uses Disney’s state of the art GPS tracking-thingy-technological-do-hickey to have the soundtrack of any of it’s parades follow the action of the floats/performers. This parade features characters from Pixar movies. Kids go nutso for it. Here it is…
There were several rides we never got around to (anything in A Bug’s Land) as well as the Silly Symphony chairs (another Disney re-branded ride… which looks terrifying actually), Jellyfish ride, etc… I fully believe that you can get to every ride in California Adventure in one day and have a little time for eating, shopping and such (as long as you utilize Fast Passes).
Join me next time for our 2 days at Disneyland (which is just a couple hundred feet across from California Adventure). Until then, later!
Click here for Part 1
Click here for Part 2
Click here for Part 3
Click here for Part 4
Click here for Part 5
Click here for Part 6