After the race, my crippled feet begged for a trip on the Monorail to go to the park rather than walking from the hotel. Wise choice! The orange Monorail whisked us into Tomorrowland; on the way, we saw the Disneyland Band welcoming guests into the Park.
I wanted to make sure I got a chance to check out the newly refurbished Snow White’s Scary Adventures attraction in Fantasyland. The improved lighting effects in the throne room and finale scenes were spectacular; photos do not do them justice. It’s really awesome that Disneyland continues to polish its attractions, even when it isn’t necessary. Ever notice these little critters in the attraction queue?
Improved lighting effects:
Note the downpour of “rain”:
For all you mural fanatics:
These patriotic banners on Main Street are a nice tradition that goes back to Opening Day:
Naturally, the celebration post-half-marathon meal was at The Plaza Inn. I couldn’t get my fried chicken and caramel apple pie fast enough!
Once I officially reached food coma level, I waddled over to Frontierland to catch a ride on the Mark Twain, as I hadn’t yet seen the recently spruced up Rivers of America. All aboard!
First thing I noticed was that it appears that a portion of Tom Sawyer’s Island has been de-pirated. Anyone know about this? Compare today and from 2007:
What happened to ol’ Lafitte? I’d like to think that the Tom Sawyer theme will return, but knowing that POTC 4 is around the corner, I’m sure that’s just a pipe dream.
Overall, the River looked beautiful and refreshed. From what I could see, all of the new animals appeared to be statues with basic/minimal movement if any. The Burning Cabin now has a Mike Fink theme. If I were a betting man, it would appear as if the River was poised for more impressive (and expensive) changes at a later date. Fingers crossed...
Welcome back to the Gullywhumper:
How the Gullywhumper appeared in her heyday:
Some of the new animals:
Ready for a nap, I headed back to the Hotel, but not after a quick visit to Abe Lincoln:
Yet more to come—stay tuned! See more vintage and current Disneyland photos at my main website.
6 comments:
Good update/trip report. Glad you had 'tired sore feet' fun.
2 things: I rode on Snow White's attraction and was blown away by the updates they did. So glad you took photos! I wasn't thinking! Also, when I saw your photo of the Gullywhumper with people in it, my jaw dropped thinking it was running again. You fooled me, LOL!
Love the Snow White photos, as always you did a great job in that low-light situation.
Oh man, it's not even 8 in the morning and I'm hungry for fried chicken!
That was fun.
LOVE your second photo taken from the monorail. Very reminiscent of the opening of "Disneyland Showtime" from 1970. I was looking to see if the Osmonds were down there dancing with the Disney characters!
It is disappointing that all of the new animals along the ROA are static except for the eagles...and I'm not so sure those figures are new. There used to a mother eagle and her babies in the tree next to the burning cabin back in the nineties. They may have just relocated them. The worst static addition is that smaller bird standing next to it's nest...you can see it's just a statue with a base! Makes me wonder if they just picked that one up at the local Home Depot.
Love the Snow White additions. I hope they make some changes like this to the other FL dark rides.
on the de-pirating. I can only guess that since Murphy had it's major technical catastrophe a while back they have since taken down the tarp and sign in order to get access to things - and not have to put it back up. The sliding rope has been gone for a long time.
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