Every five-day park hopper pass purchased at Disneyland comes with admission to one of their magic mornings; where you can enter the park an hour before opening. In this case it meant that only Fantasyland and Tomorrow land were open to the public early, but that’s still a nice chance to wander around in a park that’s only perhaps half occupied. Granted, a few things didn’t open until the park itself – for example the Matterhorn Bobsleds remain elusive (they’ve had an insane line all week, mostly because Space Mountain is closed, meaning that the Matterhorn is the only real coaster in the park other than Big Thunder Mountain), and despite my wish to the contrary the Storybook Land Canals remained stubbornly silent at their docks until the crowds came at 8.
Also, no characters were out that early, but the fact that I was there before (most of) the throngs of children meant that the wait for Pixie Hollow when it did open was relatively short, so I got my picture with Tinker Bell, and also the wait for Merina from Brave was only 20 minutes compared to its usual 45, so two more checked off my list!
We only stayed in the park in the morning. In the afternoon we went to Knott’s Berry Farm – which has long been a favourite of my Mum and Dad’s though I hardly remember it from when we went when I was little. I wish I did remember it, because it’s a neat place. Very old west for the most part, including a saloon style show where the stage is right behind the bar. Sadly, the lines weren’t working in our favour (this was partially my fault, because there was one ride I was committed to going on that had a near two hour wait..), but Mum and I went on the River Rapids (and I got soaked), and then I braved the Ghost Rider…
Wooden coasters are….an experience. I came this close to losing my glasses, and I’m still not 100% sure it was worth the near two hour wait! But hey, at least now I can say I’ve done it!
And then there was dinner…
We almost didn’t go to Medieval Times. Almost. I mean, I’m not a kid anymore, and the 12 hour days do take something out of all of us, and today was particularly long since it started so early. But as I’ve said many times before, some things are important, and this is one of them.
When I was 8 years old I ended up standing on my chair at Medieval Times screaming “Kill him!!!!” at the top of my lungs in a vain attempt to give our particular patron more courage (I failed, our knight ‘died’ in the first joust that night)…now that I’m a little older, I can appreciate the actual skill behind the show a lot more. That said, it still brings out the…rather bloodthirsty…side of people. Bread and circuses! The concept hasn’t changed all that much! Of course, this time we sprung the extra $10 each and paid for “Royal Seating” which put us actually ring side. I could have reached out and touched the horses! And the horsemanship is truly incredible, those horses do things you would normally only see if you were lucky enough to view the real Lippizan stallions, or if you’ve the misfortune to be on an actual battlefield! At one point the horse was literally all four hooves in the air.
And then there was the falcon. She was a peregrine by the look of her, and her handler had an immense amount of skill…
Ladies and Gentlemen! The sport of kings!
Freya but that bird was beautiful. And the handler was letting her bait against the glove so you could see her wings.
It was about at that point that they served dinner, and because I totally forgot I almost asked for cutlery, until Mum turned to me and said
You are not asking for a spoon!
Y’see, you don’t eat with cutlery at this place!
And that was all at the beginning. This is one of those places where you kind of forget to eat (despite the fact that they serve you WAY more food than you’ll ever be able to eat in the first place!) , because you get so caught up in cheering for your knight that you forget there’s even food in front of you. Despite the fact that we had the largest section, our patron knight lost, slashed by a battle axe during a “dispute of honour”
NO! Not the battle axe!!! No one EVER survives the battle axe!!!
Your majesty, I feel it safe to say that the dispute has been…settled?
The green knight won, which surprised the heck out of us because for ages Green was the vested evil-doer in the script.
SO AMAZING!!!!
Oh, and one more thing (As there always is) when I was 8 and we last went, they chose the “Queen of Love and Beauty” from amongst the whole audience – it could be any woman in the arena. After nearly 19 years I still remember the name of the woman the winner chose; lovely willowy thing of perhaps 25. This time I sat in the front row and waited for what I knew wasn’t coming – and I wasn’t all that surprised when someone from the winner’s section received it…but …it was a kid! It’s really hard to begrudge that kind of thing to a 6 year old! And as it turns out, they’ve put in a really good rule in the arena, the honors have to go to a child. Have to be under 12. So some little girl will get a really good memory out of that night.
Oh, and as a result of all this, I have ended up the proud owner of a shirt that reads “Show Me Your Chivalry”