Cabel Profile picture
10 Jul, 23 tweets, 9 min read
🌠 Notes on a trip to Disneyland

• First, COVID. Masks weren't needed if vaccinated. Three of us are very lucky to be, but Violet is too young so she kept her mask on and we masked indoors with her. Seeing nearly zero masks freaked me out big time! Soon, it felt 100% normal? 😵‍💫 Image
• It's an AMAZING time to go with very little waiting. Why?

✅ Reservations only. No walk-ups.
✅ No FastPass. Just smooth-flowing standby lines. 😍
✅ Virtual queues for the biggest rides. Easily got "in line" at 7AM.
✅ No APs, limited capacity.

I hope some of this stays. Image
• This was my first time on Rise of the Resistance. I was going in spoiler-free (at great effort which was worth it), so I'll just say as a dark ride fan I was a physical electric vibration the whole ride. Imagineering at their peak.

No spoilers so here's Violet + Blue Milk Image
• Another thing I hope never changes: for physical distancing, characters are kept separate from guests. It's way better and leads to great scenes like Chip & Dale in the woods of Grizzly Peak. People are still taking selfies, there are no lines, and it's a lot more fun. Image
• Oh, one other Galaxy's Edge note. It's a minor (retail?) spoiler but we were all obsessed with this little friend in one of the shops. I'd like to take it home???? I feel like Zwardo would get along with them
• And if you’d like a brief moment of zen: put on your headphones and experience the phenomenal transition from Critter Country to Batuu.

Think of all the separate creative endeavors, from landscaping to sound design, firing together to make this work
• On to Disney's California Adventure. Nicole was waiting for us to ride Junkyard Jamboree. The whole time she was waiting, she kept hearing someone with a HORRIBLE loud hacking cough nearby. It was making her incredibly nervous. Eventually she found who was coughing: Mater. Image
(Maybe they can remove the engine rev and hacking cough from Mater's audio program for a little while, lol)
• WEB SLINGERS: A Spier-Man Adventure® (these names) just opened up and was super fun. But all I could think about was the set dressing in the pre-show.

So authentic! 100% exactly Dave's desk when he was designing the Playdate! And a real Tektronix scope! 😍 ImageImage
• Also in the Spider-Man pre-show set-dressing was a crane game in the corner, just packed with easter eggs.

But seriously though, a crane game with capsules containing boards and resistors and an Arduino is a great idea!

Ok I've nerded out enough ImageImage
• The new Avengers Campus was nice, but a little barren/hot, and was visually dominated by a giant building that was essentially empty — it's rumored to be the entrance for a future E-Ticket ride that was cut due to COVID budget problems. Sigh.

But still, how beautiful is this? Image
• Oh, and the Spider-Man conceit is that you're in an educational facility that was once a Stark Motors plant, so I thought they did a great job making these very real ride control panels look like old automobile manufacturing control panels. ImageImage
• There's a Doctor Strange show that I think is real unique — it takes place in a small, intimate, standing-room-only courtyard that fits ~200. I can't think of another Disney show done this way. It was a great setting

(Good thing I was used to the lack of masks at this point.) Image
• But a cool part of the Doctor Strange show for me is that the courtyard was strung up with PHYSICAL BELLS overhead that could ring as part of the show audio. It's hard to explain how unique this sounded — more three dimensional than speakers! Here's a small vid:
• The Pym Test Kitchen restaurant at Avengers Campus is Ant-Man-themed, so they play a lot with scale. Giant chicken with a tiny bun. Enormous meatball* with an extra-small fork. I love it when the food has fun.

* And it's Impossible meat! 99% of guests will never know ImageImage
• But I was absolutely delighted with this show effect in the Pym Test Kitchen lobby. I keep wondering what it took to so perfectly sync the physical belt with the pre-rendered footage. 🥰

Can you tell I really love these parks
• Wrapping up, I swear. It's the best that this Tiki Room sign is not only hand-painted, but the faint guidelines for the type are still on there. ImageImage
• But I thought it was also cool that even a brand-new mural for Jesse's Critter Carousel is still hand-painted! Ya just can't beat the classic techniques. ImageImage
• The ceiling in the extended queue for Space Mountain tells me that it's impossible to source classic 60's ceiling tiles anymore. They did their best, but…

(Joby thought they should make a cool pattern with old/new tiles to hide the difference. I agree!) Image
• Speaking of Space Mountain, this room is still cool as hell Image
• And Cars Land remains maybe the most beautiful, photogenic piece of theme park work in history, I think. Image
That's it for now. Thank you for tolerating this thread and I hope to see you at Disneyland someday! Image
PS: if you go to Avengers Campus and see Spider-Man goofing around on this building, stick around. You’re not going to want to miss this moment. (Can’t beat the combination of creativity and technology.)

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Cabel

Cabel Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @cabel

25 Jul
The snacks have piled up! The Frito-Lay strike has ended! So, forgive me: I'm gonna destroy your feed this Sunday with all #new products I've found this year. Go!

• Pillsbury Soft Baked Cookies 🤨*
• KitKat Thins 😀
• Hawaiian Kettle Way Out Wasabi 🙂

*they're kinda gritty ImageImageImage
• Pop Chips Grain-Free Cajun Heat 😁
• Pop Chips Corn Chips Perfectly Salted 😕
• Tim's Cascade Special Batch Cajun 🙂
• Poppables Southwest Ranch 🙂
#new ImageImageImageImage
• Kroger Kaleidos: Sparkly Unicorn 😐
• Lay's Kettle Cooked Extra: Extreme Cheddar 😐
• Pepsi Mango 🙂
• Chips Ahoy! Chip's Got Talent 😒
#new ImageImageImageImage
Read 18 tweets
22 Jun
A moment of appreciation for some peak 90’s industrial design.

First, the LJN VideoArt. The angled, dockable controller is so good. The plastic slider to select your color is so good. The blue cord is so good. The system itself not so good. But great work, designers.
Second, and this is maybe as good as it gets: the View-Master Interactive Vision, which overlaid on your VCR and even downloaded rudimentary games from VHS tapes.

What can I say. It’s a work of art that belongs in a 90’s museum. The controller alone. My god.
The dots actually serve a purpose: they have vent slits in them to passively cool the insides. And that green square is the power button — just slide it down.
Read 4 tweets
4 May
I got my second vaccine JUST as they were putting out bags of Lay’s Wavy Limited Time Jerk Chicken??? My god. A day for the history books Image
Cc @thatbilloakley (Walgreens)
• Lay’s Wavy Jerk Chicken 😀 #new Image
Read 4 tweets
26 Mar
Friends… have we solved a theme park mystery? Do we now know What Happened To Rosita?

Ok, let me back up.

In Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room, José drops this infamous line, and it has haunted me, and many others, forever.
Let's be honest. This "joke" makes no sense. After naming a bunch of fancy birds, José blurts out "I wonder what happened to Rosita?"

I often wondered if learning the meaning of the joke would make me cringe (a bit like José's accent). It didn't add up. It was clearly SOMETHING.
Imagineering answered the question in their own way by expanding the Tiki Room into the new "Tangaroa Terrace". Besides being a wonderful place to eat a Bao (the perfect theme park food), it added a new outdoor animatronic: Rosita!

Clearly, this is now the official Rosita.
Read 10 tweets
24 Feb
And with that, the ghost of Incredible Universe will be finally laid to rest
Here's a thread where we visited a Fry's specifically because we knew it wouldn't be around much longer.

Also, trivia: these two logos are similar… because Fry's was a spin-off of Fry's!

"The [original] store billed itself as 'The One-Stop Shop for the Silicon Valley Professional', as one could buy both electronics and groceries (computer chips and potato chips) at the same time."
Read 4 tweets
19 Feb
Speaking of Firewatch's 5th anniversary!

Here's a secret that almost nobody knows about.

• In the Nintendo Switch — only! — version of Firewatch, when in Free Roam mode, you may come across this post-it note. Look at it…

[captures via Super Nintendad on YouTube] Image
• And you will notice a new location on your map… Image
• Which has a special cache box that contains something truly important…
Read 9 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(