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From: Petrea Mitchell on 24 Nov 2007 15:45
Part 2 of a trip report as published in Picofarad #11. The HTML version
is here:

http://www.bidalaka.com/picofarad/pf11/disney.html

========================================================================

Tuesday, bright and early, we had a solid breakfast, then headed out to
DisneySea. As it happened-- the reason we picked this park to go to
first-- it was the 6th anniversary of its opening. Just past the gates,
Cast Members were handing out commemorative clips to everyone. I stuck
mine on the belt of my beltpack, and I'm not sure I'll ever get it loose
again.

Everything you've heard about DisneySea is true. It is gorgeous, exotic,
beautifully detailed, imaginative, magical, absolutely spectacular.
Oriental Land Co. has out-Disneyed Disney, especially considering what
Disney was building at the same time was Disney's California Adventure.

The first few minutes we spent generally gawking at the scenery as we
walked to the center of the park, where Mount Prometheus, a huge,
partially operational volcano, encloses the Mysterious Island, after the
Verne work of the same name.

First thing I rode was Journey to the Center of the Earth, which I'd been
eagerly anticipating for months. The scenery in the first part of the
ride was fairly nifty, and the negative gees right toward the end will
give your thrill-seekers something to compensate for the wait, but the
eally overriding memory I have is how loud it was. I mean, LOUD. I mean,
you may think they have pumped up the volume at the Indiana Jones
Adventure at Disneyland, but that is absolutely nothing compared to the
pure shrieking decibels that this ride can put out.

Next we crossed the island for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which is
nothing like either the book or the other Disney submarine rides. The
submarines hold 6 people each and are suspended from an overhead track.
The ride rooms are actually dry, with water effects being produced by
the windows of the subs.

Next we went to Fortress Explorations, which is a walkthrough of a
vaguely Renaissance-style castle intended to be the fantastical residence
of Leonardo da Vinci. There you can view a Foucault pendulum, learn a bit
about European alchemy, play with an ornithopter, and engage in other
low-intensity amusements. Here I got the funniest picture of the trip: a
sign reading CAMERA OBSCURA, and another sign just below it, showing a
crossed-out camera. I *think* they just meant no picture-taking...

From the battlements, we watched "Chip 'n' Dale's Cool Service". There
may be a plot to it, but the basic idea is that people crowd the
shoreline of the Mediterranean Harbor area, and two boats with high-
pressure pumps on board combine to absolutely drench everyone. 10:30 in
the morning may seem early, but it was getting awfully warm for the
humidity already, and we stopped for lemonade before pushing onward.

We passed by the kiddie rides of Mermaid Lagoon and crossed to the
Arabian Coast to try out the Caravan Carousel, which is no different from
your typical merry-go-round, except for having a second floor, and, like
everything else in the park, being a work of art. Then it was over to
what would be my favorite ride.

Sindbad's Storybook Voyage is the Small World equivalent of DisneySea.
It's an indoor boat ride with an inspirational song that will remain stuck
in your head for months afterward. The story hits the familiar highlights:
Sindbad (who looks suspiciously Japanese for a guy from the Indus Valley)
sets out from his homeland with his mini-tiger sidekick in search of
adventure, encounters pirates and the roc, frees a giant, hangs out with a
sultan, visits a kingdom of monkeys, rides a whale, and returns home
fabulously wealthy. This ride just opened in March with the latest
animatronic technology, which has terrifically fluid and detailed movement.

Next around the corner was the Lost River Delta area, which is themed to
Mesoamerica. Remember what I said about important signs including a
translation in English? Well, just the make the theming complete, in
this area they're translated into Spanish instead. (In the Mediterranean
Harbor area, we would later notice, they're in Italian.) Luckily, if you
make it this far, you will have already discovered that the Japanese
characters for "entrance" and "exit" are easy to memorize.

Lost River Delta is the home of DisneySea's port of the Indiana Jones
Adventure, which is why the short film introducing you to the ride is
narrated not by Salah but by a guy named Paco, who wishes you bienvenidos
ahora as you move onward. The ride itself is exactly the same, and after
Journey to the Center of the Earth, the noise level is almost comfortable.

It was now getting very hot indeed, and we decided to head back toward
the entrance on the DisneySea Transit Steamer Line, which circles the
park like the railroad does at Disneyland, except you have to disembark
at whatever the next stop is and re-embark to continue on.

At the Mediterranean Harbor, we wandered through the shops to catch some
air conditioning, and I pondered aloud whether we should do a full circle
of the park by boat, or catch another ride or two in the immediate
vicinity, or maybe just mosey back toward the hotel now. Chris was
noncommittal, but after some prodding I finally got an opinion out of him.

"I want to go home," he said.

Come to think of it, he'd hardly said anything lately, his expression was
not one of anyone having the remotest amount of fun, and he was looking
several shades paler than usual.

"We're going back to the hotel," I said, suddenly working out that I was
watching a live demonstration of heat stroke.

Right back we went, and while Chris collapsed on the bed with a bottle of
Pocari Sweat, I managed a shower and determined that there was no way in
hell the T-shirt I'd been wearing through the morning was coming near me
again without a laundering it would never forget.

One long nap and a lot more rehydration later, we were ready to set out
again after supper. For variety, we tried the Chinese buffet. The hostess
at the front started to explain something to me in a concerned tone, and
the part I managed to understand was that she was explaining it was an
all-you-can-eat buffet, and was that all right? I said that daijoubu
des', and that seemed to clear the way.

Here we encountered very genuine Chinese food, with such ingredients as
soybeans in their natural state (a lot like lima beans, it turns out) and
a seafood dish that appeared to include whole baby octopi. Here was
another new Fanta flavor, lemon, which I also wish we could get in the US.

I planned to see how far I could get with chopsticks, then find a fork
when I was forced to give up. But an alert waitress spotted that we were
foreigners and brought us forks straight away, before we had even asked.
And then, I made it all the way to the Western-style dessert without
using my fork. I don't know if it just seemed easier, or the genuineness
of the food made it that much easier to handle with chopsticks.

Refreshed, we headed back to DisneySea. We strolled around the 1930s-ish
New York section of American Harbor, admiring the scenery, then got on the
DisneySea Electric Railway to Port Discovery, the futuristic area.

Our next ride was StormRider. This is a motion simulator like Star Tours,
but with added effects. In the pre-show, you get a spiel about how you're
going to ride along in an observation plane while the Port Discovery
Institute deploys its sufficiently-advanced-technology storm dissipator.
This of course goes horribly wrong, leading to the dissipator winding up
stuck through the roof of the passenger cabin. After that you get rained
on. It's also two or three times as loud as Star Tours.

The other ride at Port Discovery is Aquatopia, where you sit in a two-
person vehicle that takes a seemingly random path around pond with
weirdly lit random rocks and waterfalls. I'm not sure what the point is,
if there is one, other than to admire how the ride doesn't have a track
at all, just a floor, and yet the vehicles are very clear on where to go.

Back on the railway to American Waterfront. Chris wanted to see the queue
area of the Tower of Terror, but I steered him away, knowing my Japanese
vocabulary wasn't up to the task of explaining that we wanted to take the
chicken exit, or whatever it's called there.

Besides, the evening show, BraviSEAmo, was coming up soon, and the Tower
queue might take a while to get through, so we went next door to explore
the steamship S.S. Columbia for a little bit, before heading back to the
viewing area for the show. As we were walking along the along the
railing of the uppermost deck, Mount Prometheus started belching fire.
Flames cascaded down one side to the water, which erupted more fire
itself. Then something started rising out of the fire there, and ominous
music built, and-- hey! It was BraviSEAmo, starting way early!

We ran down the stairs and hustled over to the Mediterranean Harbor to
catch the last flourish of lights and pyrotechnics, and a really good
look at the dragon-thing that's the centerpiece of it all. The soundtrack
concluded with the voice of Mickey Mouse saying, "Bravissimo!" Right after
that was an announcement, first in Japanese, then English: "Ladies and
gentlemen, due to weather conditions, this show was presented in an
alternate form."

Mollified that we at least hadn't missed the full version, we started
back toward the entrance, when the illusion of an Italian cityscape was
broken by a good hard subtropical downpour. We finally had a use for the
rented cellphones as we got separated in the stampede for cover.


Next: Disneyland...

--
/
Petrea Mitchell <|> <|> <pravn(a)m5p.com> <mitchep(a)osm.com>
"Oregon, n: Eighty billion gallons of water with no place to go
on Saturday night." ---agora.rdrop.com's fortune program
 | 
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