Day 15 - Part 1 - Friends, Falcons and Friendly Ghosts
Today was an exciting day, because we were finally meeting up with the second pair of friends we made on our 2015 Disney Fantasy cruise, Todd and Kim. We left our room at 7:05am getting to Disneyland (after sneaking through the Grand Californian) at about 7:20am. Todd and Kim had beat us and were in line already. We saw them and, sneaking up on them, hug attacked them as a greeting, which was lots of fun! It was so great to see them again, and we got right to chatting and catching up.
We were feeling very happy today. Firstly, because we were finally seeing old friends, secondly, because the triumphant Soarin' soundtrack had played as we walked into the parks that morning. Music has a huge ability to impact my mood and emotions, and on this morning I felt so joyful and triumphant (which is weird I know, but that was how I was feeling).
After getting in and purchasing our Maxpasses for the day we made our first Maxpass for Space Mountain for 8:30am - 9:30am and made our way towards Galaxy's Edge. We were stressing a little about our 9:00am Oga's Cantina booking, which we knew would be tough to do with the Space Mountain Maxpass, so we decided to see if there was availability for any other time. Much to my surprise there was, so we changed our booking to 11am, which is probably a much more acceptable time to drink (you can say it's brunch drinking not breakfast drinking which sounds so much more acceptable!).
Waiting at rope drop, I managed to sneak onto a bench and sit with Kim to rest. The CM in the area was moving people away from the curb pavement (which is where the bench was) but he let me stay seated there (even winking at me as he told other people they couldn't stay in the area). I don't know why, but it made me feel special (perhaps he could see that my feet had been tested in the last week and a half and needed as many breaks as possible). My sitting down was as a preemptive strike to keep my feet happy for what we assumed would be a fairly long wait for the Millennium Falcon.
Once the rope dropped we made our way into Galaxy's Edge. On our way in we saw Chewy overseeing procedures again. We all waved and he responded with a resplendent Chewy roar! Todd and Kim were really excited, it was their first time in Galaxy's Edge, and they were particularly enjoying the themeing and seeing classic characters.
The wait was much less than I expected when we finally entered the line (25 minutes). We headed in, planning to let Todd and Kim be pilots and to see if they did better than us.
I heard a CM at the entrance, when asked by someone if this attraction had Fastpass, say "Fastpass hasn't quite reached our planet yet". I thought that was a cute and hilarious way to say no.
While in line, at 8:30am, we were able to make new Maxpasses, so we all decided to grab one for the Haunted Mansion as we'd seen the waits get as bad as 110 minutes on Sunday. The new Maxpass was for 9:20am - 10:20am. We were pretty pleased, we'd only been in the park about 40 minutes and we already had 2 Fastpasses under our belts.
Todd and Kim got to be pilots, and we enjoyed being gunners (which was the only position we hadn't yet tried). The gunner position is the easiest one to just "enjoy" the ride without having to do much. If you set the guns to automatic there is literally only 1 button to press. And you just press it over and over again. Jared choose manual control on his side, and it was a bit more complicated for him. I enjoyed pressing my one button though. Todd and Kim were good pilots and ended up with a score of 31%. At the time, as we thought this was the percentage you'd ruined the ship, we told them they'd done better than us (we'd ended up with 34%). Now that I'm fairly sure that this is the "health" status at the end of the ride I think we'd done a little better, but barely. Not that it mattered, we had fun!
After our smuggling run we saw some Troopers out and about. Todd and Kim really wanted pictures so we decided to chase them until we could get photos. I decided I would try bunny earring one, and this is me sneaking up on the trooper.
I was quickly told by his handler that what I was doing wasn't very "smart" as the Trooper may come after me. I didn't care, I had fun!
The Troopers finally paused to interact with a few people, and Todd and Kim got their photos. I was again asked if I was a resistance spy. I must look sneaky!
After escaping the Storm Troopers we made our way over to Space Mountain. As it turned out our fastpass wasn't really that necessary, as the wait was only 10 minutes. It was still a little quicker so that was something. Todd and Jared clearly had the most fun!
By this point Jared and I were ready for a caffeine and food break, and Todd and Kim wanted to head out of the park for a smoke. So we agreed to meet back in the park after having quick breaks and head towards the Haunted Mansion and our fastpass.
Jared and I headed towards the Jolly Holiday Bakery. Inside, there were so many adorable Halloween options to choose from.
Jared ordered while I waited outside, enjoying the magic views.
I choose a Mickey Mummy Macaroon, and it was delicious! Jared got a grilled cheese and we both shared some fruit. We got our standard coke and coffee caffeine jolts too.
After our food was consumed we messaged Kim and Todd hoping they'd be almost back so we could head to the Haunted Mansion. Sadly for them they had to exit past the bag check to smoke, and as a result got stuck in a HUGE line trying to get back through bag check. They told us to go on the Haunted Mansion without them and we tried coordinating with them to make a new Maxpass for Indiana Jones from 12:05pm - 1:05pm. They were able to but we couldn't, the Fastpass times available for us were different to the times available for them! This wasn't the first time we run into the problem when trying to book coordinated Maxpasses!
Anyway we headed towards the Haunted Mansion. The wait was already 35 minutes, and it was great to have the Maxpass, as we were in the stretching room in 5 minutes. We chatted briefly to a man in line who noticed my t-shirt (which I was inspired to purchase by the lovely Lesley Wake). It says "Chewy, we're home" and has the Batuu skyline along with the castle outline. He thought it was creative, but said he was a Star Wars purist so he couldn't agree with the sentiment. Fair enough, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, though I love that Disney owns Star Wars (clearly, I bought the t-shirt).
I much prefer the original Haunted Mansion to the Nightmare Before Christmas version, and was sad we hadn't managed to get on the original version at the Magic Kingdom when we visited. I did find myself enjoying the holiday version a little more this time around than the first time we experienced it. It did make pictures easier as there is a bit more light and colour. Still the photo I really wanted of the hatbox ghost did not really come out as I'd hoped (he is SO dark, it's really hard to photograph him!). Another question, do they move the Hatbox Ghost for the holiday overlay? I thought he was in the attic, which is lighter, but he was in a little alcove just after the attic, as you headed down into the graveyard. Maybe I was wrong about where he was in the first place (which is probably the most likely scenario).
Anyway foolish mortals, lets take a tour to a mansion filled with 999 Grim Grinning Ghosts. Don't forget your death certificates!
The ride actually paused for about 5 minutes just before the groaning doors, so we managed to get an ok shot of the endless mirrors!
And then Madam Leota called out the spirits.
The gingerbread house they create each year for the holiday version of the attraction is impressive!
And here was our best attempts with the Hatbox Ghost (you can't really make our his hat, it's so dark). Plus we didn't manage to catch his head in his hatbox!
We found Sandy Claws and followed him down into the graveyard.
Sally was the easiest to photograph!
Continued in Next Post...