Bragging Rights

I have literally been a regular Disneyland visitor as long as I can remember. In fact, one of my very earliest memories is of visiting Disneyland! With as many visits as I've racked up over the years—it must be in the hundreds by now—I've also picked up, well, some stories. Anyone with the money can walk in the front gate, ride some rides, and leave. That's a typical Disneyland experience. I've managed to have some fairly atypical experiences there—incidents that were enviable, or especially memorable, or just plain silly.

Here, in no particular order, are some of the Unusual Things I've Done At Disneyland:

The Time I Won a Return Visit In a Special Event

April, 1984. I was all of six years old, and super-excited about this trip because they were doing a special thing for Easter. Every kid entering the park got a scratcher card where you scratched off one of six eggs, which told you which station to go to, and when you got there you chose a plastic egg, like the kind you get at the grocery store, with another scratcher card inside it, and this one would tell you what your prize was!

Only...we were barely ten feet past the turnstile when I lost my card. Just dropped it somehow, and couldn't find it. I was appalled at my clumsiness, and extremely grateful when they gave me another one. (My life experiences at that point had not prompted me to expect second chances, even in the role of a customer.) Anyhow, we went ahead with the event, and my prize was...free popcorn! Huzzah!

The surprise twist came that night, as we were leaving. There on the ground, by the turnstiles, was another six-egg scratcher card. Of course, to my grade school mind, it could only be my first card, the one I dropped. It was Fate, man, and my mom actually let me take the universe up on the offer.

My second prize was...a ticket to Disneyland. At that age, with a wonderfully fun day behind me, I could scarcely imagine a bigger windfall.* It was the Best Day Ever.

The Time I Took a Free Sort-of Tour

One of the things I have never actually done at Disneyland is take a guided tour. I just haven't gotten around to it, I guess. With what the place charges for, well, everything, it's hard to justify slapping down another 100+ bucks for the privilege of following someone in a plaid vest around and hearing fun facts I already know.

But on one occasion, my sister and I were there with a friend from out of town who had never been to Disneyland before. So we got her a First Trip button at City Hall, and they asked if we would be interested in taking a free guided tour. Well, mini-tour. Just from Town Square to the Hub. They had a brand-new trainee tour guide on deck and needed volunteers for her first ever gig. (It was a day of firsts, apparently.) So we said: Sure!

As it turned out, our little party was the only one to sign up, so we had her all to ourselves. I think Sis and I taught her more than she taught us. It was an ideal situation for the two of us, because it was free and we got to try something new, a rare occurrence for veteran parkgoers like us! And it was an ideal situation for the guide because she could not have hoped for a less judgmental group as her first outing with actual guests.

To be honest, I don't remember much of the actual content of the mini-tour. Like I've said, there's not much a tour guide—especially a raw trainee—can tell me about the park that I don't already know. But what a stroke of luck to get when introducing a friend to the place for the first time!

The Time I Conga'ed Through the Enchanted Tiki Room

There's not really much to say about this one. It wasn't very busy in the park that day, our Tiki room showing was less than half full, and my party—unusually for us—were sitting in the front row of our section. So during the title song, we got up and formed a conga line. A few kids joined in, but for the most part, we were the entertainment. And we managed to time it so we arrived back at our seats right as the song ended.

Look...I was in my 20s, okay?

The Time I May Have Experienced a Ghostly Prank

I've told this story—another from my early Passholder days—on this blog before, but it's been a couple years, and it's a great story. I was there with a large friend group, and we were silly. We rode Haunted Mansion early in the day, and I got Phineas (the carpetbagger) as my Hitchhiking Ghost, so I promptly claimed to have stolen his big top hat. I asked everyone in the group to admire my new ghost hat. It was just a dumb joke.

Until we went on Haunted Mansion again that night, I got Phineas again...and his hat was missing. I swear this actually happened and I am not making it up. It was the dangedest thing, the sort of thing that makes you wonder if magic and ghosts are real after all. Sure, you can make the argument that it was a coincidence, but why would you want to?

The Time I Ate At Club 33

I guess this is the big one, the one that would have almost anyone writhing on the floor with the sheer envy. Yep, I got to eat at the Exclusive Rich People Restaurant once. It was a friend-of-a-friend situation, obviously—I'm sure not a member, and neither is anyone else I know directly.

This happened about ten years ago, by the way. I don't think I'd want to go back nowadays. The remodel that resulted in awkward huge windows overlooking New Orleans Square, the redesigned logo that lacks all the panache of the original, and the closure of the Court of Angels to the public, has me pretty soured on Club 33 as an institution. (To say nothing of how it's a symptom of the larger issue of Disneyland increasingly wooing the 1% at the expense of ordinary guests.) But at the time, it was about the coolest thing I had ever been invited to do.

It sure was expensive, though. Seventy bucks per person, and that didn't even include drinks. (The wines started at something in the neighborhood of fifteen dollars a glass.) I'm positive it's even pricier now. It was legitimately good food, however, even to my unrefined palate. I recommend the desserts. Like, all of them.

Souvenirs? Of course I snagged a few. Have a look:

Sweet, sweet swag...

For the record, that's three embossed paper towels from the restroom, a sandwich spear or possibly coffee stirrer, a plastic cup out of which I ate chocolate mousse (non-branded for some reason), two after-dinner chocolate mints which have, yes, been stored in my freezer for a decade, and a keychain. Everything else was sort of swipe-at-will (I'm sure they know people do it, and equally sure that they don't care, since all that stuff is disposable anyway), but I paid extra money for the keychain.

It was thirty dollars.

Club 33 is swanky.

The Time I Rode in the Wheelhouse of the Mark Twain

On most theme park blogs, the above would be the finale, the ultimate aspiration. Once you have eaten at the Exclusive Rich People Restaurant, there would seem to be nowhere left to go. What story could top that?

But I left it second-to-last for a very good reason: bringing this post full circle. My first story took place at an Easter event. This last one also takes place on Easter, specifically Easter of 2015. I...wasn't six anymore.

But I was still, under the right circumstances, as playful as a child. So on that trip, accompanied by my sister and our aunt, I let my fun flag fly. One of the first things we did was head back to Big Thunder Ranch—still open at the time—and dive into the Easter crafts. By which I mean, we made ourselves some bunny ear headbands. And we wore them all day.

Apparently, three grown-ass adults in paper bunny ears is a rare enough sight, even at Disneyland on Easter, to gather attention from Cast Members, because we got a lot of it—from attractions operators, parade characters, you name it. But the best part came when we rode the Mark Twain, and a CM walked right up to us, unprompted, and asked if we'd like to ride in the wheelhouse.

Well, duh.

See, when you ride in the wheelhouse, you don't just ride. You get to “steer” the boat. You get to ring the bell. You get to blow the whistle. The steam whistle of the Mark Twain is one of the most iconic individual sounds in Disneyland, if you ask me, and I have made it do that. You don't know how cool it is until you get to try it.

If there's a moral to all this, I guess it's...say yes. Say yes when a Cast Member (or a friend of a friend) offers you an unusual opportunity. Say yes to the harmless little whims that pop into your head. Say yes to your own second chances.

And say yes to Disneyland magic.

* It was not, of course, the biggest prize being offered during the event. That was a vacation for four to Walt Disney World. But what did six-year-old me know or care about that?