SU
M
T
W
TH
F
S


JAN FEB MAR APR


MAY JUN JUL AUG


SEP OCT NOV DEC
2024
28
  Home :: Blog :: Saddest Day At The Happiest Place On Earth Skip Navigation Links
Saddest Day At The Happiest Place On Earth      
  9/11/2009 11:11:43 AM

The other night, a friend asked for us to babysit their kids.  We decided that it would be fine.  We can just take the kids to Disneyland.  After all, we have annual passes.  They also frequent the park.  It would be a more familiar place for them.

The parents arrived with the kids at about 6:10pm.  After a small bit of getting ready, we were off.  When we got there, the boy, recently turn 3, commented that there were more people leaving the park then going.  This was a keen observation for just getting on the tram.  We, however, were still clueless.  While on the tram ride, we kept on asking the little boy, which park would you like to go first?  Which ride do you want to get on today?  He started to list a series of rides, the parade, and topped the list off with the fireworks show.  By the time the tram reached Downtown Disney, we started to notice that something didn't look right.  By the time we got to the security check, it was 7:11pm.  That was when we found out that California Adventure closed at 6:00pm.  Disneyland was closing at 8:00.  We were determined to get in.

We scrambled for the entrance, and got in.  We just caught the tail-end of the Celebrate parade.  We told him, we at least made it to the parade.  After watching the parade, we had to work our way to Dumbo.  It was quite tough because we had to wait for the parade to inch up the park.  By the time we reached Dumbo, the line was quite long.  We opted for the Mary-go-round.  I have to say, that was my first time on that ride ever.  After the ride ended, they wanted to stay on it.  They know that if no one is waiting, they can stay on as long as they want.  Well, today, people were waiting.  I told them that we couldn't.  We got out of the ride, and realized that it was almost 8:00.  Not wanting to break the news to them, we put them in the stroller, and proceeded towards Main Street.  The 17-month-old sister, who could barely form 1-2 word phrases, kept pointing to Peter Pan as we walked by, as if she was telling us that she wanted to get on.  We slowly worked our way through the castle, and down Main Street.  We purposely went through the stores just so they don't recognize the way.  By the time we reached the fire house, the 3-year-old knew exactly where we were.  He looked at us with disappointed eyes, and said, "we're going home?  We've only been on one ride.  We haven't even gotten on Small World.  We still have to watch the fireworks."  As we were filing through the exit, he knew the inevitable had happened.  His feet were kicking and stumping.  He did manage to hold in the screams and tears.

When we reached Downtown, we decided to visit the stores a bit.  We must have spent at least 30-40 minutes in the Disney store there.  By 9:20, we decided that it was time to go home.  On the tram to the parking lot, the 3-year-old still mumbled, "we only got on one ride.  We didn't even get to go to Small World.  We didn't see fireworks."

When we got back, we were chatting with the parents in their driveway.  We told them of the evening, and how disappointed the kids were.  Towards the end of the conversation, the flood of emotions and disappointment finally burst out in tears.  As sad as it sounds, Disneyland made a 3-year-old sad.  It was like the bank commercial where the little girl got the bike but could only ride in the little boxed area.

I do think it's a pretty sad thing Disney is doing.  They recently raised the price of the tickets.  About 1/3 of California Adventure is blocked off for construction.  Even the famous "C-A-L-I-F-O-R-N-I-A" in the center was blocked off.  Many of the rides in Disneyland were also closed.  Even the bathroom next to the Plaza Inn was closed.  They almost made a little boy wet his pants!  I do understand that they have to keep up with their renovations.  However, they raise the ticket prices, close 1/4 of the park, and kick everyone out early.  I feel sad for the family that saved up whole year, and traveled across the country to be let down.  I think Disney should give a partial refund proportional to the number of things that are closed.

After all, it's bad enough that we are being ripped off by the government.  Now, we are bing ripped off by "The Happiest Place On Earth."


 
Blogs
General
#DailyThanks
Some Things Were Never Me...
The Vegas Sandwich
Thankful Perspective
Chick-Fil-A and Swimming
Rude People Are Not Born ...
Time for Some Calcium
Cat Lovers Beware! The Re...
An Eventful Day
Making Iced Coffee
Brakes are underrated
Perpetual Victim
Cellphones and The Cancer...
Smoke and Mirrors
How to put a gash on the ...
How does one spot the ice...
Awesome Grape Candy From ...
Recommended Vendor for Ca...
Trying To Figure Out If A...
Last Showing of Disneylan...
Free HotSpot Wifi Interne...
Bribing The Mexican Polic...
Vacation? Go fly a kite
Common Courtesy
Facebook Site with Google...
Water Damage Phase 5 - Fu...
Water Damage Phase 4-Furn...
Water Damage Phase 3
Water Damage Phase 2
Water Damage Phase 1
Home Sweet Home... Buyer...
Where Is America Going?
Taiwan, One Of The Jewels...
What's With These "Social...
Why Am I Still Up At This...
The Reason For The Season
Generation Of Mediocrity
One of the Strongest Typh...
Pouring Buckets
Familiar Sticky Feeling
Whatever Happened To Cust...
Software and Medicine
Lifetime Student...
All is well
Father's Love
Old Friends
Ant Problems (Round 3)...
Getting old...
Ant Problems (Round 2)...
Ant Problems...
Technology
Da Vinci 1.0 Stepper Moto...
The Infinite Wisdom of We...
Android 4.2 Battery Drain
VPN Using Cisco SOHO Rout...
Chinese IME for Android
Two Excel Documents Side-...
ASP.net Calling passing p...
Facebook "Like" Button
VS 2008 TFS TF30177 Error
Microsoft Updates Killed ...
Host Department No More!
Microsoft Updates Killed ...
I Am LinkedIN
Traditional Chinese Suppo...
BlackBerry Enterprise Ser...
VMWare Virtual Machine Im...
URL Rewriter Blocking Res...
Missing XP Desktop Taskba...
Obout HTML Editor
Google Web Accelerator?
Working with Classes...
Slow Service... No More!
Slow Service...
Slow Service...