Three magical days

In July of 2011, I decided I'd had enough of being a sad, frustrated man who pined for women he couldn't have, and I created a profile on OK Cupid. Minutes after doing so, I got a DM from a young woman I hadn't heard from in a long while: "I know you from Twitter :)"

That woman used to go by a Twitter handle that used her full, real name; I knew she was a film student at Columbia College, and that she had a cute and kissable face. When she messaged me on OK Cupid, she went by the name @LostOnTheFringe, which explained why I hadn't seen her online in a while.

Soon after that message, we were IM'ing each other. Then calling each other. And then, on July 30, we were sitting next to each other in a D-BOX theater watching "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II" in 3D. The rest, as they say, is history.

I had always wanted to go to Disneyland for my birthday. In February 2012, that dream came true -- and @LostOnTheFringe was right alongside me. Here are some wonderful highlights from that trip, which happened to be her first to the Happiest Place on Earth:

 

We arrived in Anaheim on Jan. 31. We stayed at the Holiday Inn on Walnut Street, which is my favorite hotel in the area. It's quiet, it's clean, and it's a 15-minute walk away from the esplanade. We could have walked underneath the monorail tracks that run along the backside of Downtown Disney, but we opted to walk through the Disneyland Hotel campus every morning. On our last day, we had brunch at Tangaroa Terrace. Yum!

 

Here we are with our 3-day Park Hoppers. We look ridiculously happy, don't we?!?

 

We had breakfast at Riverbelle Terrace the first two days of our trip. The Mickey Mouse Pancakes are irresistible, mostly because they provide you with a photo-op :)

The Matterhorn was down for refurbishment for our entire trip; I dubbed it "The Sadderhorn."

In line for Toy Story Midway Mania. Aren't we sexy beasts?!?!?!?!

Lisa bought a pair a Pluto mouse ears at DCA, then we saw Pluto about an hour later after returning to Disneyland!

Oh, Toadie. How I love you. I wish you were still entertaining guests in Florida. That being said, I LOVE Fantasyland in Florida -- PhilharMagic is one of my favorites. We'll get to experience the new stuff in a few weeks :)
 

Here's my beauty pose on the Mad Tea Party!

 

Look who we ran into just outside of Star Traders! This seems like an awfully random place for these three characters to show up, eh? (Not that I'm complaining!)

Day 2, my 33rd birthday, began with a Monorail ride from Downtown Disney to Tomorrowland, where we defeated Emperor Zurg. @LostOnTheFringe absolutely LOVED Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters. (She also said this picture proves we were the happiest couple in Anaheim that day. I must agree!)

We really enjoyed the Pooh ride, which inexplicably has a bad reputation. @LostOnTheFringe wanted to take one of these Heffalumps home with her!

Yeah, we laughed our asses off at this. We are 12 years old, apparently. (But shouldn't everyone at Disneyland be 12 years old?)
 

 Cheers for Pooh!

You should have seen the look on her face when I told her Disneyland had a petting zoo! We met the goats on Day 2, and she was in heaven. I can't wait to take her to the Affection Section at Animal Kingdom!

@LostOnTheFringe is ready for Splash Mountain, or, as she called it, The Ride With The Stupid Hillbilly Animals.

We saw the ultimate showdown at Jedi Training Academy: Darth Vader vs. Superman! (The kid in the Superman get-up seemed to be totally unaware of what was happening to him, lol)

Yes, that's a real seagull next to the fake ones in the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage lagoon. How awesome is that?!?

@LostOnTheFringe's co-worker desperately wanted Goofy's autograph, and we obtained it after some waiting (or stalking) in Mickey's Toontown. Daisy totally photobombed them, though :)

 

This might have been the highlight of the trip: We stumbled onto a game of Red Rover conducted by Rowdy Hatter and starring Cinderella and her mice, the Fairy Godmother, Aurora and Ariel. At one point, a guest was asked to "come on over" while doing a Captain EO moonwalk. So, so awesome!

@LostOnTheFringe poses with her new friends!

 

Here I am making a "shady" pin trading deal with a CM on Main Street :)

As a superfan of both pinball and Indiana Jones, I was overjoyed to find this pinball machine in Adventureland.
 

 We had dinner here on our second night. @LostOnTheFringe had the filet, and I had the crabcakes. A wonderful dinner!

Aren't we just adorable?

 I cannot lie -- I LOVE the Ariel ride. @LostOnTheFringe loves it even more. We did this six times on our trip, the most of any attraction. It might seem like a C-ticket to you, but it's an E-ticket in our hearts.

And here's the parting shot of @LostOnTheFringe giving Pluto some love :) We had an incredible vacation, and hope to repeat it this year at Walt Disney World. Hopefully we'll have another great trip report for you in February!

RANK IT: My favorite attractions

"RANK IT" will be a regular feature, because every darn blog in the universe needs to have such a thing. (It's in the rulebook. What, you don't have a copy?)

I'm new to the parks blogosphere, so it's only natural that I introduce myself by telling you about my favorite Disney attractions. Mind you, I've never left this hemisphere, so you'll only see attractions from Anaheim and Orlando listed here.

So here we go!

1. Haunted Mansion (Magic Kingdom) -- The songs. The sounds. The smells. And of course the sights. This is Disney's masterpiece, a not-so-scary spookhouse whose old-fashioned visual tricks still impress. The Disneyland version is wonderful -- as is its controversial holiday overlay -- but the ghosts in Florida enjoy a grander facade, a grander queue, and an unparallelled experience in the realm of themed attractions.

2. Space Mountain (Disneyland) -- Every time I'm in line for this ride, I will inevitably at some point jump up and down like an excited child. I just can't help it. The idea behind Space Mountain is so simple, and executed so perfectly; how has it not been replicated by any other theme park company anywhere else in the world? The Magic Kingdom's queue is better, and the track layout is more exciting if you like your coasters to be a little rickety -- but the overall experience shines at Disneyland. (Big ups to Michael Giacchino's music. Is there anything he can't do?)

3. Jungle Cruise (Magic Kingdom) -- I love this ride because it looks like the coolest job in the world, even if the skippers keep insisting it's not. The MK version wins thanks to the dark temple scene, which, on one of my recent trips, gave one skipper a chance to "create some magic" for a young guest and let him man the wheel.

4. Horizons (Epcot) -- Yes, it really was that amazing. I would have been perfectly content to ride this over and over and over again every time I went to Epcot. I was very sad to see it go, but I also understand why it's not there anymore; it would have required a rather large refurbishment to keep up with our changing expectations of the future. All my favorite stuff, though, could have stayed put: the visions of the future by those living in the past. That cavernous display of neon signs, highways and cars; Jules Verne floating in his space capsule; the crazy kitchen robot ... that's Epcot at its best.

5. Pirates of the Caribbean (Disneyland) -- I feel like it's all been said about this attraction. I'll just add that nothing beats the atmosphere of the first five minutes as you float by the Blue Bayou and into the ominous blue caverns.

6. Star Tours: The Adventures Continue (Disneyland) --Hey, George Lucas got something right! I still haven't seen the pod racing sequence, but I hope to correct that in February. (I hope to be the Rebel Spy, too, but beggars can't be choosers.) I will never forget my first ride on the original incarnation: As Rex took us into the trench and exclaimed, "I've always wanted to do this," my then-41-year-old father yelled, "ME TOO!"

7. Journey Into Imagination (Epcot) -- Horizons aimed higher and was more impressive, but the original Journey Into Imagination left a bigger void. The current incarnation of the ride isn't the worst thing in the world, but it certainly suffers as a reminder of what once was.

8. Spaceship Earth (Epcot) -- We all know how great this ride is, but not all of us like the current ending. It may be tonally jarring, but I can't deny that every guest leaves that ride with a smile on his or her face because of it.

9. Indiana Jones Adventure (Disneyland) -- I did not see this until 2007, so happily I can't bore you with musings about how much better it was when it first opened. It seemed pretty darn perfect to me that first time. I honestly couldn't believe the size and scale of it, the details, the perfectly timed music, the breakneck pace ... it totally lived up to my wildest dreams of what an Indy ride could be. When that boulder came rolling toward us and our vehicle suddenly lurched underneath it, the whole EMV erupted in applause. Something tells me that happens a lot.

10. The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror (California Adventure) -- That's right, I prefer the shortened DCA version of this ride, mostly because it's the first one I experienced. I prefer the pop of that first drop, too, coming right after you see the ghostly elevator drop out of your view.

Those are my ten, and they're not very surprising, are they? (Some others I considered: The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Undersea Adventure; Mr. Toad's Wild Ride; Mickey's Philharmagic; Matterhorn Bobsleds; the original Test Track.) What are some offbeat or unloved attractions that you value more than any of these? Let's hear it.

To all who come to this angry place...

Welcome!

If you're here, it's most likely because you follow me on Twitter, a place where I've had a lot of fun and met a lot of great people -- 673 so far, to be exact!

Most of you don't know why I call myself @AngryDisneyNerd, or who I am, or anything about me other than my love of the Disney parks, film music, and @LostOnTheFringe.

A little less than a year ago, I was a total pixie-duster -- the kind of Disney fan who thought The Mouse could do no wrong, and who couldn't stand to read any criticism of the parks and the way they are managed. The legion of critical MiceChatters and tweeters whipped me up into such a fury that I started @AngryDisneyNerd specifically to lampoon the people I deemed to be Disney haters. My entire Twitter persona was sarcastic, mean-spirited, and altogether unpleasant.

This got really old. Quickly.

I realized my shtick was tiresome around the time I called Michael Crawford (@ProgressCityUSA) a "Disney-hater" on Twitter. Anyone in this fan community with half a brain knows that's completely wrong. I decided it was time to stop being annoying and start being me -- a sometimes bitchy but always enthusiastic Disney fan who loves way bigger than he hates.

So the persona changed, but the name didn't. I thought about changing it to @HappyDisneyNerd, or @NotAngryDisneyNerd, but ultimately I decided that I should own up to my faults and keep the name. It reminds me of the annoying guy I can be and the even more annoying guy I used to be. I don't wanna be that guy, but I have to own up to it.

So who am I, anyway?

I'm Sean, a lifelong nerd who lives in the Chicago suburbs and works as a copy editor and designer. My Disney nerdery is hereditary -- my parents love the Disney parks even more than I do. This past October, they went on their 29th trip to Walt Disney World (their 36th Disney Parks trip overall). A family friend once joked that I was conceived on Pirates of the Caribbean, and I can't deny that it's a possibility. (I've never really asked them about that special night, you know?) Nearly every conversation with my family comes back to Disney somehow. One of my sisters worked at Epcot as part of the WDW College Program, and I was supposed to go myself -- on Sept. 12, 2001. The events of the previous day kept me home, and I wound up getting a full-time job with the company where I interned that summer.

My life was park-free from 1994-2007. In that period, I went to Las Vegas for the first time and thought, "Well, who needs Disney?!?!" But when I made my triumphant return to Disneyland in January 2007, the mania came rushing back, and it's been full-steam ahead ever since.

Why do I love the Disney parks so much? The sounds. The smells. The laughs. The anticipation. The people. The bad jokes on the Jungle Cruise. The realization that yes, you actually are going to ride Space Mountain today. The odor of the Harbor House's food when you exit Haunted Mansion. The finale of Hallowishes. The cream cheese-filled pretzels. The ghostly caves underneath New Orleans Square. The ferry ride to Magic Kingdom. The smiles of all those kids riding their first roller coaster. The cast members who say "Happy birthday, Sean" as I walk by. The guests at Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party who wore DHARMA Initiative jumpsuits while riding Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. The day my best friend got his "My First Visit" button. The day my girlfriend got her "My First Visit" button. The day I shared a kiss with that special lady during World of Color. The days I shared with my parents, my sister and my co-worker at the Food & Wine Festival. The day my sisters and I held hands as we walked out of the park as my mother took our picture. The first, perfect ride on Star Tours in 1988. And so on and so on.

I expect the best of Disney, and I want to believe they will deliver the best. I've been to Universal Orlando, and they do have some wonderful rides, but nothing touches the atmosphere that Disney can create. Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey may be the best theme park ride in the world, but only Space Mountain makes me jump up and down with the giddy energy of a 7-year-old.

Am I angry? Sometimes. But mostly I'm a smiling, laughing, hopelessly idealistic nerd. And this is my blog. Hopefully you'll like it.