We went on a Friday, and we thought the school kids had one more week to go before spring break. Oh, how wrong we were. No grow-up ride had less than a three hour wait, and even the dinky ones had waits of 45 min and up. It's a Small World had a 50 min wait, if you can believe that.
We started with high hopes and headed straight for Big Thunder Mountain (as I'm slowly overcoming my fear of roller coasters, that's a recent victory). The wait was three-and-a-half hours. It took thirty minutes just to get a ferry to Tom Sawyer Island. The canoes looked possible, but the wait for that was 45 min.
We wandered around for four hours and finally, crestfallen and defeated we decided to call it quits and go home, taking in Pirates of the Caribbean on the way out. The wait for that was down to 40 min, oh boy. The line snaked through parts we'd never even seen before. Once on, all the disappointment was forgotten and we were having the fun we'd come for...until they started making announcements that there were problems and that they'd be running the boats at half-speed. By the time we got to the part with Jack popping out of the barrel, the boats came to a dead stop. Lights on and sounds off. They announced that there was a warning light blinking and that we should please remain seated for our own safety.
We remained safely seated for the next half hour.
It got kinda creepy with all the animatronics scuttling around, silently, endlessly. We started cutting up to kill time. Even the Japanese girls behind us started goofing on the endless announcement.
Finally staff in waders started coming around and pushing our boats back to evacuation points. It was too cool, getting to step off the ride and go backstage. They were amazingly professional and competent. Exiting backstage through a Spanish castle, everything looked like an industrial theater. Up some steel stairs and into the backyard. It looked a lot like a movie studio, with the sound-stage-esque buildings and trailers. We were wondering if they'd offer some compensation like a free ticket for another time. They gave everyone a pass for a ride of their choice. Without deliberation, we headed straight to Big Thunder Mountain where the wait was up to four hours...except for us! And what I didn't dare tell them was that we had so much fun evacuating that it was like being offered desert after having cake & ice cream.
What started out as the worst ever trip to Disneyland turned out to be one of the best.
Here's a video of us stuck on the Pirates ride:
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