PETER BUFFA -- Comments & Curiosities

Step in, quickly please. And keep your arms inside the car at all

times. Guess where we’re going, kids? We’re going on a California

adventure! Yaaaaay!! All right, settle down. And don’t make me stop this

car.

California Adventure, in case you haven’t heard (which is impossible),

is the latest addition to the bigger, cooler, better and, of course,

pricier Disneyland Resort.

Did you hear that? “Disneyland Resort.” Until further notice -- and

this comes straight from the Mouse -- it is the Disneyland Resort, not

Disneyland.

What does it all mean? Where do we go? What do we do? Where’s

Tinkerbell? Not to worry. Here is your official “Newport-Mesa Guide to

New Disney Stuff.”

What you fondly recall as Disneyland has grown, expanded, swelled up,

whatever, to what is technically referred to by professional planners as

a “really big thing.”

The Magic Kingdom is still magical but it now comprises three

countries. You’ve got the original Disneyland with Dumbo, pirates, the

haunted mansion, etc. As of last month, you’ve got Downtown Disney. And,

as of last week, you’ve got California Adventure.

My wife and I were fortunate enough to get a preview of both Downtown

Disney and California Adventure before they opened and, I must say, they

are very impressive. What Alan Greenspan would call “way cool.”

I say that with some surprise because I am wary of anything that has

been over-hyped and oversold. I wince when someone tells me that a movie

I want to see is the “best movie they’ve ever seen” and that I’m “really,

really going to love it.” Invariably, that means it isn’t, and I’m not.

But this time, I say it’s a home run for Mickey Mouse. And thus begins

our guided tour.

Disneyland you already know, so what and where are the other two?

Downtown Disney and California Adventure sprang up from that awesome

asphalt ocean that once was the main parking lot for Disneyland, and you

know exactly where that is.

But, if you haven’t been to the “Happiest Place on Earth” lately, you

will be mighty surprised.

The city of Anaheim and Disney have spent a bundle on streets, freeway

ramps, parking garages, etc. You’ll see plenty of signs to Disneyland,

Downtown Disney and California Adventure, to say nothing of parking

areas, freeway ramps, etc.

It’s a great system, but heed those signs well. If you make a wrong

turn -- which accounts for about every third turn I make -- you will end

up somewhere between Encino and Thousand Oaks before you can turn around.

Downtown Disney is a retail/restaurant/entertainment thing with a

House of Blues, Brennan’s Jazz Kitchen, La Brea Bakery and AMC Cinema, to

name just a few.

There are no rides and it’s not a little kid place, but admission is

free and there’s lots of stuff for everyone from teens to way beyond

teens. Think of Universal CityWalk or the Spectrum Entertainment Center.

Downtown Disney is CityWalk on steroids.

Parking is free for the first five hours, but make sure you get your

ticket validated or you’ll have to put a lien on your house to get your

car back.

California Adventure, the newest of the new, is an amusement park.

Sorry. We don’t call them amusement parks anymore. We call them “theme

parks.” How foolish of me.

It’s an interesting mix of high-tech, new-tech and old-tech. Like

Disneyland, it is divided into sections: Sunshine Plaza, Hollywood

Pictures Backlot, Golden State and Paradise Pier.

I know what you’re thinking: Disneyland is a theme park. Why build a

theme park next to a theme park? I don’t get it.

It all has to do with that “resort” thing. The Mouse used to like it

when tourists and locals spent the day at Disneyland, then went back to

wherever they came from.

The Mouse is bored with that. Now, the Mouse wants people to think of

Disneyland as the epicenter of the “Disneyland Resort,” where people stay

in one of his new hotels, spend a day at Disneyland, another day at

California Adventure and make a few visits to Downtown Disney.

Not just a trip to Disneyland, a complete vacation all within a few

hundred yards of Harbor Boulevard and Katella Avenue. Right you are. Just

like that Florida thing, Disney World. Spend a few days, spend a few

nights, spend a lot of money. The Mouse likes that.

The tariff for California Adventure is $43 per adventurer and, no,

that doesn’t get you into Disneyland too. There are single and multiple

day “passports” available that do, but I need a release from your

cardiologist before I tell you what they cost.

There are too many California Adventure attractions to mention all of

them, but here are the star players:

In the Hollywood Backlot, the main one is the Soarin’ Over California

flight simulator, a state-of-the-art visual and sound experience that

will have you convinced you’re para-sailing from San Diego to Yosemite

National Park.

In the Golden State, the ride du jour is Grizzly River Run, a

white-water ride that is not for wimps.

But Paradise Pier is the area that stole my heart. It’s a bigger,

cleaner, brighter version of the places where I spent large stretches of

my formative years -- Coney Island, Palisades Park and Playland in Rye

Beach -- complete with a boardwalk, midway and scary rides.

California Screamin’ is a wild and woolly roller coaster with a

360-degree loop around a giant, smiling face of the Mouse himself.

Maliboomer will lift your derriere 180 feet straight up in less than

two seconds, which is guaranteed to focus your senses.

The Sun Wheel is an updated version of Coney Island’s Wonder Wheel,

which opened in 1927, with a few diabolical twists and turns.

So if you have the time, the shoes and the cash, head north. From the

Land of Newport-Mesa, you’ll have to make the same decision you’ve

wrestled with for years: Should I go straight up Harbor Boulevard, which

means 10,000 lights and takes about a day and a half, or take the

freeway, which means 1,000,000 cars and takes about a day and a half? You

decide.

That’s why they call it “an adventure.” I gotta go.

* PETER BUFFA is a former Costa Mesa mayor. His column is published

Sundays. He may be reached by e-mail at o7 [email protected] .