Observations from Disney California Adventure: October 3, 2013

Guy here again with another “Observations” post. You may notice the pictures this week are slightly better quality. I’m going to keep it real with all of you, last time I did this style of post I forgot my camera. All I had with me was my cellphone so that’s where the pictures came from. This time I remembered to bring my real camera so the pictures will be slightly better! On with the post!

Golden Zephyr has been closed for almost 2 months now and as far as I can tell this was an unplanned closure. Disney has nothing to say on the matter but after asking around on Twitter a follower of mine informed me that they are waiting on some parts to replace some that had worn out. I want to stress that this is a rumor, but it does seem plausible. Either way having this attraction closed can ruin vacations. I guess people will have to settle for Radiator Springs Racers.

Enough about Golden Zephyr. After wiping away my tears I walked over to Soarin’ Over California. Crowds on this day were light and the wait times reflected it.

This was taken around noon and although the wait time is difficult to see it was posted as 15 minutes. I ended up waiting a little over 10 minutes.

Another low wait time for a marquee attraction. 25 minutes posted at Toy Story Midway Mania. By the way, our crowd calendar predicted a 1.9 for Disney California Adventure, the actual crowd level ended up being a 1.1.

I received a new camera lens in the mail the day before I was going to take pictures for this update. So I was dying to try it out in the parks. Here’s going into the loop on California Screamin’.

We are now upside down.

The best part of California Screamin’, the incredible view of the Disneyland Resort.

I’m not a huge Cars fan so I don’t regularly go into the shops in Cars Land but I was surprised to find Radiator Springs Curios Shop filled with land-specific merchandise. Here’s a rack of Cars Land post cards, magnets, and stickers. Pretty cool!

Cars Land mugs and shot glasses. Errr, excuse me “Toothpick Holders.”

Various Cars Land shirts.

They also have a wide variety of Flo’s V8 Cafe merchandise.

A car antenna topper for your car. The little car antenna topper should also have a little antenna with its own antenna topper. Then it would be a must buy for me.

Moving on, Blue Sky Cellar is now closed for the foreseeable future. The Cellar started out previewing the new DCA expansion back in 2009, and then displayed a making of Cars Land exhibit. Most recently it was used to preview the new Fantasy Faire area in Disneyland. This area will be used again in the future whenever Disney announces the next new expansion.

Something new has popped up in the area where Maliboomer once stood. Disney has not announced what is being built here but some assume it will be a meet and greet for Toy Story characters.

Paradise Pier Ice Cream Co. is currently closed. Those looking to indulge in delicious soft serve ice cream need to head over to the Cozy Cone Motel.

Pacific Wharf is getting a little love and is behind refurbishment scrims. Now that I think about it I don’t know if I’ve ever seen this area get a refurbishment.

Jumping back to merchandise for a moment. This is one of the Halloween shirts available this year. You may be asking “Why is there a USB cord sticking out of the shirt collar?” Well the reason for that is because this shirt lights up. I’m not exactly sure why a shirt would need to light up. I don’t know, maybe in the future all shirts will light up. If you would like to own this cutting edge piece of high fashion it will only cost you $40.

I can’t believe I’ve gone this far in to the post without talking about food! For lunch today I had the “Anti-Vampire Chicken Flatbread” from Boardwalk Pizza & Pasta. It’s one of the limited time food selections (which I am a total sucker for).

Disney describes this pizza as “lots of roasted garlic, of course, plus smoked Gouda cheese, mozzarella and a balsamic glaze.” Look, I enjoy the flatbread pizzas from Boardwalk, I really do. But my problem is that after about 5 minutes  the pizza starts to cool. During this time the cheese becomes plastic in both texture and flavor. You’re probably screaming “But food gets cold, Guy! THAT’S WHAT FOOD DOES!” I know, I know. But for whatever reason I don’t have that plastic tasting problem with most other pizzas I eat. Anyway, I do recommend you try this particular flatbread pizza. Especially if you like garlic.

My obsession with pumpkin flavored food is deep and everlasting. So naturally when I saw the pumpkin cheesecake at Boardwalk Pizza & Pasta I grabbed it immediately. How was it? It was good but not great. To be honest it tasted a bit chalky for some reason. Also the $4.99 price is too high for me to recommend.

Another thing about the Pumpkin Cheesecake was the alarming number of ingredients. Cheesecake seems like a simple dessert, does it usually have all these exotic sounding ingredients? L-Cysteine? Xanthan Gum? These sound like items from Star Trek. But then again I don’t know anything about anything, if you’re a culinary expert please correct me in the comment section.

I’m out of pictures for this week. Wave goodbye Fireside Girls!