Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters Articles
Postcard From Disneyland: Fave Rides
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Disney certainly knows how to tell stories.
And they know how to get us caught up in the stories they tell. That includes the hordes of little girls that I recently saw wandering the Magic Kingdom in princess dresses. And there were the young boys crying out to be chosen at the Jedi Training Academy (Star Wars isn't a Disney creation, but no one seems to mind.)
For those of us a bit older, we ...
There Are Ways To Beat The Line At Star Tours
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The revamped Star Tours attraction at Disneyland is subtitled "The Adventures Continue," which is appropriate since right now just getting in is an adventure.
Star Tours officially opened last week and has been generating lines that grow like the price of gold or oil.
On Monday, the wait in the standby line reached 210 minutes, which makes one wonder what it will be like on Saturday.
But ...
Wonderful Weekend Trip To The Magic Kingdom
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There is nothing quite like experiencing Disneyland through a four year-old or soon to be four-year old I should say!
The entire family got to share in grandson Samuel's amazing birthday celebration at the happiest place on earth. From the moment of arrival at the hotel when the staff presented him with birthday balloons and a distinguishing "birthday" button to wear to the time that "Terk" the ...
Reflections On My Trip To Disneyland
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I was a little worried about our trip to Disneyland, which took place last week.
Last time I went with my older son, then 4 years old, and misjudged the scariness of Pirates of the Caribbean by a factor of about 10. He didn't want to go on rides after that, pegged me as a complete liar (it was going to happen some time ) and stayed in the fetal position for the rest of the month.
Adding to ...
Wall-E Perfect Replacement For Captain EO At Disneyland
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Reports are surfacing that Disneyland is actively looking to replace Captain EO in its 3D theatre in tommorrowland. The park brought it back for an encore run after a 13 year run of "Honey, I shrunk the audience" made its home there. Now Captain EO's return has run its course as well and the park is looking for an upgrade.
Disneyland brought back Captain EO in January of 2010 after the death of ...
Disney's Do's And Don'ts
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Disneyland is often called "The Happiest Place on Earth". When you break it down, this claim has a lot of validity. Magic comes to life when your favorite childhood characters begin dancing in front of you. Suddenly Belle, Prince Charming and Mickey Mouse come alive in one location, forcing you to discover your pupils aren't big enough to take in the entire scene all at once.
You can fly around in a ...
7 Tips For Tackling Disneyland In A Day
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I've been to Disneyland hundreds of times over the last two decades and have been writing the Funland theme park blog for about four years now. As a result, people are always asking me how to do everything at Disneyland in a single day.
The short answer is you probably can't. It can be a struggle for even hard-core fans with military assault-like strategies. The longer answer is there's lots of ways ...
California vs. Paris: The Lands of The Future - Part One
This month and next, I shall be comparing the Lands of The Future found in the two Disneyland parks closest to my heart (California and Paris). In California, as per Florida, Tokyo and Hong Kong, this land is called Tomorrowland; in Paris this is called Discoveryland.
For the benefit of these articles, when I say Tomorrowland, I am only referring to the California one; I am also only writing about the ...
Cartoon Connection
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It's D-Day for Daniel Fallon as he fulfils a lifelong dream, his three children in tow.
Disneyland. This single word can evoke so many images. As a child I would dream about Mickey Mouse clowning about with his famous cartoon friends behind the walls of Sleeping Beauty's castle, as fireworks exploded above and visitors enjoyed fabulous rides.
Now, as a father of three, Disneyland evokes ...
Disneyland For Dads
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In the land of Disney, princess always reigned supreme. However, though Sleeping Beauty's Castle, the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique and those ever-popular princesses may get a lot of the attention, Disneyland and California Adventure offer a pixie dust-less world for the guys in your life too - all in time for Father's Day in June.
Cars Land
Route 66 comes to life for plain-old cars and animated ...
20 Surprising Things You Can Score For Free
While it may be the ''Happiest Place on Earth,'' Disneyland, in Anaheim, California, is definitely not the cheapest place on Earth.
A single, one-day ticket to the Magic Kingdom in 2024 starts at $104, with prices fluctuating depending on the time of year and demand. Once you factor in fare for the whole family, as well as meals, hotels, transportation and souvenirs that are ...
How Southern California Attractions Like Disneyland Cater To Theme Park Junkies
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Can theme parks become even more addictive? That's what parks in Southern California and around the country are hoping to do with their new crop of attractions for this summer.
Anyone in business knows it's more cost-effective to get your current customers to come back and buy more than it is to find a new customer for every sale. So park owners always design attractions with the hope that visitors ...
Why Star Wars Land Is Being Added To Disneyland
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Star Wars Land won't open at Disneyland for several years, but construction will start bringing changes to the park soon after the New Year. The changes Star Wars Land is bringing to Disneyland reflect much more than the addition of a wildly popular entertainment franchise to a wildly popular theme park; they represent a cultural shift that is affecting theme parks across the country.
When ...
Disneyland Ride Review Help Buzz Lightyear Protect The Galaxy
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Attention Space Rangers! You are called upon to go to infinity and beyond while visiting Disneyland to aid Buzz Lightyear in his battle against the Evil Emperor Zurg and defeat his plans to steal all the batteries from Earth.
Zurg needs the batteries to power his evil robots and more in his effort to take over the galaxy. You, as a Space Ranger, must venture inside Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters to ...
Unfinished Magic
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I guess it's a fact of life that not every idea for an attraction or Land can actually be built. Occasionally, the failed idea was a revamp or replacement of an older attraction that was shut down for various reasons. Other times, the idea was scrapped because of the success of another, similar, ride. There are a multitude of other reasons things can be scrapped.
After Submarine Voyage closed, it was ...
This Is How Disneyland Changed In The 2000s
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The new century started out with few changes inside Disneyland, as the company was focused on big changes outside the park, but things would liven up as the century progressed.
2000
Parking at Disneyland changed with the opening of the Mickey & Friends parking structure on the land that was a strawberry farm for decades. The more than 10,000-space structure was the largest one when it started ...
How To Solve Disneyland Stroller Problem
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If Disneyland is correct, the most popular thing in tomorrow's world will be, wait for it, strollers.
That's what you see most days when you enter Disneyland's Tomorrowland from the central hub: rows upon rows of strollers, clogging the pathway between Star Tours and Buzz Lightyear. Disney's cast members seem to be trying their best to keep the strollers organized and the crowds moving past them, but ...
Is MaxPass Worth The Price A Skeptic Puts It To The Test
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Perhaps you're planning your Disneyland summer vacation, noting how quickly expenses are piling up and making a list of snacks to take so you're not buying any $5 churros.
Then you see the MaxPass, a feature introduced last summer that promises to save you time by fetching FastPasses from your phone. Sounds good until you get to the price: $10 per person per day.
Hmm, family of four, at the park ...
Every Attraction Ranked By Three Disney Superfans
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While pretty much everybody loves Disneyland to one degree or another, for some of us, love borders on obsession. Three of us in particular at CinemaBlend have been to Disneyland so many times that we've lost track. Jessica and Mack are both former Southern California residents who used to frequent the park regularly and still make a yearly pilgrimage back. While I live a few hundred miles away from the ...
5 Types Of People Who Should Visit Disneyland At Christmas Are You One Of Them
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Anyone who visits Disneyland during the holidays knows that the theme park didn't invent Christmas cheer. It perfected it.
From a towering holiday tree to the wreaths and lights that drip from any real estate capable of supporting decorations, Disneyland is the center of the yule-niverse.
It wasn't always this way. In December 1955, workers put up a modest tree and a few wreaths for the park's ...
25 Things Walt Disney Never Wanted Visitors To Know
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Walt Disney himself lived a legendary and highly mysterious life. A man of many secrets, he worked hard to incorporate hidden features through all of his work. Up to this day, there are dozens of special Easter eggs hidden throughout the park. The Imagineer's that designed Disneyland in California have thought through every detail to make the parks as magical as possible.
Some of these secrets are ...
2 Nighttime Spectaculars Added To Premium Maxpass System
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Disney has added the "Fantasmic" and "World of Color" nighttime spectaculars to the MaxPass system which lets visitors book FastPass attraction times via a mobile app at its two Anaheim theme parks.
The $15 up-charge MaxPass system works with the free FastPass systems to allow visitors to set up return times for popular attractions in Disneyland and Disney California Adventure.
The popular ...
4 Disneyland Attractions That Desperately Need An Upgrade
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We've heard it again and again: "Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world." It's an inspiring concept and an appropriate, if overused line that Disney trots out in order to justify any number of closures, revisions, and expansions they want to tack onto the parks.
But Disneyland isn't a collection of new and shiny toys. It's a ...
Disney's Technology Grows Up
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At the Turtle Talk With Crush exhibit at Disney's California Adventure theme park, Crush the sea turtle makes a cameo like those at the start of most Disney rides. Nothing seems out of the ordinary as the character goes though the script with a cast member, until the Finding Nemo star takes questions from the audience.
"I want to talk to this little dude in the purple shirt," Crush says, "the one up ...
Sleigh Bells Ring, Snow Falls and Chestnuts Roast at The Merriest Place on Earth
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As its 50th Anniversary celebration continues in full swing, the Disneyland Resort has been transformed into a dazzling holiday wonderland (now through January 2) featuring an unbelievable array of spectacular entertainment, amazing decorations, festive foods and favorite adventures and attractions.
The fun is extended with expanded park hours for Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure for much ...
Disneyland Marks 50 Years Of Magic
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To build his dream theme park a half-century ago, Walt Disney borrowed against his life-insurance policy and cashed in property, including a vacation home in Palm Springs, to pay the $17 million construction bill.When the theme park opened July 17, 1955, on a sweltering day, toilets clogged, the food ran out and women's high heels sank into wet asphalt. Disney officials still call it Black Sunday.
...
Is Elvis In The Building?
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From a parade grand marshal who's a real turkey named Marshmallow to giant Christmas trees and Elvis sightings, both real and perhaps imagined, the holidays have arrived at The Merriest Place on Earth. And, along with nightly snow showers on Disneyland's Main Street USA has come a flurry of speculation as to what the future holds for Walt Disney's original Magic Kingdom.
What We Know
As the song ...
Disney Deal For Pixar Sealed
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The Walt Disney Co. will pay $7.4 billion in stock to acquire Pixar Animation Studios, the companies said Tuesday.
The deal has Steve Jobs, the new-media maverick who is CEO of Pixar and Apple Computer, becoming the 14th member of Disney's board of directors.
The transaction, expected to close in the summer after the release of Cars-the final movie under a previous partnership between Disney and ...
A Park With A Powerful Spell
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Disneyland opened on this day in 1955. For five decades, the Anaheim attraction has worked its magic on our culture and transformed the entertainment industry.
To build his dream theme park in Anaheim a half-century ago, Walt Disney borrowed against his life insurance policy and cashed in property, including a vacation home in Palm Springs, to pay the $17-million construction bill.
When the ...
Will Bring Great Stories to Life - And Expand To New And Different Places
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After a momentous 2006, Walt Disney Parks and Resorts is poised to unveil a full slate of exciting new attractions and entertainment in the coming year, highlighted by the continued rollout around the world of its groundbreaking Where Dreams Come True initiative.
"As proud as we are of all that we accomplished in the last year, particularly with the great, global success of Disneyland's 50th ...
Pirates Invade Tom Sawyer Island
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Disneyland officials are saying "Aye!" to pirates, but "Arrr!" to looting Tom Sawyer Island.
Officials announced Friday that live pirate characters and games will become part of Tom Sawyer Island, the classic Disneyland playground designed by Walt Disney himself.
Disney officials also announced plans to open the Toy Story Mania! ride next year in Disney's California Adventure. The interactive ...
