Theme Park Review- Disneyland

So of course out of the three park days in California, the Disneyland trip was the best. Even though it isn't set in the wonderful Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, FL, the Disneyland Resort is definitely the second best place to go for overall experience.

It was my second time to the park and Jack's first. The most obvious (and substantial) difference between the Magic Kingdom and Disneyland is size. Everything in the California version is smaller. Sleeping Beauty's Castle is probably a third of the size of Cinderella's. It's pathetic as far as castles go. You literally cannot see it from anywhere in the park other than Fantasyland and Main Street. Just to its right, the Matterhorn Mountain towers over it.

Everything from Space Mountain, Tom Sawyer's Island, the Railroad Station, and even the buildings on Main Street USA are much smaller in stature. As far as a ride-by-ride comparison, Disneyland is right on par, if not slightly above Magic Kingdom. The atmosphere doesn't compare though, and therefore is still behind all four of the Orlando parks.

Indiana Jones Adventure was the highlight of the park. To me it is a much better Dinosaur. The theming and story is obviously better and on my second time through it seemed faster and with more movements than it's Animal Kingdom counterpart.

The big draw of Magic Kingdom is the triple mountain medley. Of the three, Thunder Mountain is the one that is almost exactly the same in both parks. Disney World definitely gets the edge for Splash Mountain, but Space Mountain was re-done and is fantastic at Disneyland. It's got music pumping in your ears, is darker and seemed faster than the Florida version.

While the theming at Disney's California Adventure is nothing to write home about, it's still a fantastic park. It has a bunch of big guns, including Soarin' and Tower of Terror, but what won the voting of all four parks of the week was the Aladdin Show. This Broadway style musical was worth the price of admission all on its own. The quality of acting and singing was fantastic, but it was the pop-culture comedy that put it over the top. When I saw the same show three years ago they were using Britney Spears and Facebook jokes. This time around it was Twilight and Hannah Montana. It's an ever-changing show.

We ended the night with the highly touted new night time spectacular, World of Color. Quick review: It's no Wishes. Longer review: A spectacle of water and color, it tried really hard but didn't succeed. They put video and picture on the water that shot up from the ground, but they were very difficult to see. Fantasmic works a lot better because they just use a sheet of water instead of spraying all over the place. Also the soundtrack left a lot to be desired. Unlike Wishes, World of Color didn't flow together well. They just went from Disney Classic to Disney Classic, and leaving out some (Monsters Inc., Lion King) was a travesty.