Friday, January 01, 2016

Magic Morning at DCA, Pt. 1



Staying at one of the Disneyland Resort Hotels typically gives you the bonus of Magic Morning, which gets you access to at least one of the parks one hour before the rest of the world can enter. This is a dream for me, as it gives me a bit of time to shoot photos before the onslaught of the masses get in the way of my compositions! On this particular November visit, it took about 30 minutes to wait in line to get INTO the park. Not so magical. Still, I had some time to snap away in the Hollywood Land section of DCA.

You've probably seen this mural near the Hyperion Theatre at least a dozen times.



But I'll bet very few of you have noticed the scandalous "Hourly Rates" hotel sign!



A nice clean shot down the main drag.



Beautifully detailed facades:



Anyone else sick of Frozen or is it just me?



A final shot for today of the Red Car Trolley, one of my favorite additions to DCA.



More DCA Hollywood photos at my main website.

4 comments:

Joey said...

Not sure if you're being facetious but that looks like WEEKLY RATES to me. :)

Daveland said...

No facetiousness on this one; check it out in person, Joey.

K. Martinez said...

Hourly Rates!? I love it!

Dave, I'm not sick of Frozen because I don't pay much attention to it. I also don't go to the park enough to be exposed to it at the rate you are. Still, I'm sure there are many in your camp.

I thought of you immediately when watching the Tournament of Roses Parade today. Along comes the Disneyland 3-unit float with the 60th Castle at center and at one end it featured all "Frozen" and on the other end it featured all "Star Wars Land". I thought to myself "Dave must just looooove that!

Anonymous said...

I really like the changes to this area, it feels much more like a real street than before. Still wishing there were more things open behind those storefronts, not that we need more shops, but it would help improve the illusion of a city street.

On the whole, DCA felt much nicer than our last visit, maybe I'm just more relaxed now. Buena Vista Street, Cars Land, Paradise Pier, all very enjoyable. I'm looking forward to a return, which is a real switch for me.

Like Ken, I'm not sick of Frozen yet. Since my little ones are now grown and gone, there's no continuous barrage, so I can still enjoy the wisecracks of my buddy Olaf.

Don't start me with the Lion King, however. I still can't stand to watch that film or hear the music, since it ran in a nearly continuous loop in our house for years. I can completely understand your feelings. I'm really grateful that this film was not integrated into the Jungle Cruise the way Tarzan took over the Tree House.

Thank you for the pictures, Dave. I don't really try to get documentary photos in the parks anymore, since I know you will have much better ones than I could produce. I focus now on tiny details and pics of my family instead.

Best regards for 2016.

JG