AntSol Travel

See my Instagram post at the end of this post to see pictures I took of the park.

This blog post of AntSol Travel is informative but would get low viewership on YouTube as videos of me babbling on about things don’t get viewers and subscribers for some reason. Today will be on virtual queues of Mickey’s Runaway Railway & World of Color One, as well as the kick-off for the Walt Disney Company’s 100th anniversary, which was October 2023 to start the new celebrations. *Orginal video notes, left in for comedic effect.*

To get the virtual queues of Mickey’s Runaway Railway & World of Color One is to first is to make sure you have bought tickets and made reservations for Disneyland Resort for either Disneyland to start in the morning only, or California Adventure if you have a park hopper in the afternoon. According to Disneyland’s website, on the day of your reservation for Mickey’s Runway Railway, you can do what I am doing at the crack of dawn to confirm the party at 6 am and then try to make reservations at 7 am. If that did not work, at 1 pm at Disneyland, you can try a virtual queue again. I am attempting the earlier one, I just confirmed the party of one, just me since many of my coworkers are working today and I happen to be off today. Okay, just confirmed the party, now time to get ready for my morning and until 7 am. 

*Cut to clip just before 7 am.* Okay, it is just before 7 am, and I am ready on my phone. My group is confirmed and just turned 7 am and… What! I did not get it, it just closed out!!! I tried a billion times to click on and it closed out! Oh well, I’ll try again for the afternoon slot at 1 pm. *Cringes*

When it comes to World of Color One, a World of Color show depicting all the movies by Disney, is also a virtual queue. To do that, a virtual queue starts at noon, either located at California Adventure starting at noon on the Disneyland app or like I am, have a park hopper at Disneyland. So we will get there before then. 

*Cut to a couple of days later.* Future Anthony here, it did not go as planned and I did not narrate it well there, so I’ll narrate from here. At 10:30 am, I took the taking the ART bus to Disneyland from the Toy Story parking lot. I started filming for my video about Anaheim Resort Transportation, which will be a future How to Orange County YouTube video. I tagged @rideART on my Instagram Story that I would make a video, and they were excited for me to do so. Yea, exposure of my content!? They better like it. We all disembarked at the Disneyland bus bay to go through security at Disneyland. I had to clarify to the security personnel that the GoPro/gimbal setup does not extend like a selfie stick as those types of things are banned being an obstruction to the attraction operations and could hurt fellow guests. 

Then I went through Downtown Disney to take the monorail in as the blue monorail has a reflective iridescent skin for the 100th Anniversary, which I happen to take. However, the skin has Mickey & friends covering the windows from the inside. The most optimal view is from the inbound monorail view from the Tomorrowland Lagoon where Finding Nemo Submarines are located. My eyes burn!

Then I went to take a look at Sleeping Beauty’s castle where they added banners, bunting, a 100th-anniversary medallion, and a fountain feature. Many guests and media covering the event were taking pictures of and with the castle. There was even a media table to the left of the castle for the media to get pictures and information from Disneyland public relations. 

It was still 11:30 am it’s a Small World, was a 15-minute wait, so it was still 30 minutes to get to the virtual queue for World of Color One, so I should be done with the attraction when it strikes noon. However, at 11:45, the It’s a Small World boats came to a grinding halt, and we waited to see if the Cast Members can do a quick fix. While that was happening, I put in my mobile order for lunch at Tomorrowland Terrace for a mushroom Philly Cheesesteak, a limited-time entree, with a pickup time of 12:35 pm. 

Many clamoring guests, including me, were anticipating the opening of the World of Color virtual queue. Right before noon, we all kept pressing refresh, and I got the 9 pm showing for World of Color One! 

Right after that, the It’s a Small World cast member said that the attraction will be down for an indeterminate amount of time, so most guests and I left. I walked around until my lunch order was ready at 12:35 pm. Mickey’s Toontown was only open to guests with a Mickey’s Runaway Railway virtual queue, so I could not go in. However, the rest of the land would open on March 6th. 

At 12:30 pm, my mushroom Philly Cheesesteak was ready and I picked it up from Tomorrowland Terrace. It’s like a regular Philly Cheesesteak sandwich, however, it uses mushroom instead of steak, along with regular onions, bell peppers, fried red onions, and provolone on a sourdough bun. It was delicious for me as the sauce kind of covered the taste of the mushroom to make it more palatable to that taste. However, it is not a real Philly Cheesesteak without cheese sauce, not just provolone. Then I waited for the virtual queue for Runaway Railway at 1 pm. 

Before 1 pm, I hastily refreshed the Runaway Railway virtual queue and I somehow did not get it…. How? I tried clicking it but it would let me get it and said it was full in milliseconds. This makes me want to rip out my already short hair already with this virtual queue system. *Attempts to rip out short hair without any success.* At least I got a pass for World of Color One, the first guest showing! To cool off a bit, I walked around a bit more. Then I remembered that Disney was doing their 100th-anniversary live stream on YouTube, so I went to that. 

Filming for the live stream was by the flagpole on Main Street, they had camera crews finishing setup. Guests were flanking the sides of the camera view to get a glimpse of guest hosts and Disney executives talking about the new attractions for the year and the celebration. The camera faced looking down Main Street, so I was behind the camera crew. I did reconfigure at the time but they had guests hosts: 

When filming started, they had black drapes covering the back, so I could not see anything. To make it worse, they did not have any loudspeakers, so we had to watch the live stream online. However, after a bit, I decided to leave to go to California Adventure to do coverage of the Lunar New Year festival. That post will be coming soon, if posted, you will see the link here.

One thing I forgot to go to was the new Disney Gallery exhibit in the waiting area for Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, where they have an exhibit for the 100th anniversary of the company. The Magic Happens parade will make its debut later this year as well. 

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After doing all of the activities and eating at the food carts for the Lunar New Year, I got a notification at 7:30 pm that my return time was ready to stake my spot for the 9 pm showing of World of Color One! I got very front of the second tier of the World of Color standing area, perfect for recording the show to post on YouTube, however, I have to wait an hour and a half before the show starts, which is fine for me since I already ate & completed I wanted to do, so I wrote out my blogs in the meantime. 

At 9 am, the World of Color starts with the Lunar New Year preshow, Hurry Home: A Lunar New Year Celebration, where a lantern returns home to its family for the Lunar New Year, where it meets Mulan on the way there. The pre-show only shows during the 9 pm showings only during the Lunar New Year Festival. 

After that, World of Color One began! I got the honor to film and share with you the first public viewing of World of Color One at 9 am on January 27, 2023. The video was filmed on iPhone 14 Pro Max at 4K resolution at 60 frames per second! 

World of Color One’s story is about the character’s one ripple can effect on making a huge change in the stories of Disney, Pixar, Marvel, and Star Wars movies. It also celebrates the storytelling of Walt Disney set out a century ago to make the company and its influence on the world today. Likewise, you can make your own ripple in your life to make a wave difference!

You can check out the video below! 

After World of Color One, I headed home and the new fireworks show, Wondrous Journeys, which started right after World of Color. However, I saw that the ART shuttle was still at the bus bays to go back to the parking lot, so I rushed over to catch it before the post-fireworks crowds descend on the bus bays. 

It was a long day and would have been even longer if I was able to get the morning virtual queue of Mickey’s Runaway Railway. At least I was able to get to see the new monorail skin, Sleeping Beauty’s castle decorations & fountain, the filming for the 100th-anniversary live stream, able to do full coverage of the Lunar New Year celebration, World of Color One, and get to experience the chaos that is everyone wanting to on Mickey’s Runaway Railway but most are not successful. At least the Disney Parks YouTube page was the walkthrough of the queue.

I have seen many people post whether they got it or not, it is really just lunch of the draw, which I failed twice that day. One of my coworkers said that the virtual queue is to keep guests spending money & go to other attractions outside of the virtual queued attraction line, like how Fastpass & now Lighting Lane does give you a return time so you would not be in line as long as you return… I fell for their trap by spending a good amount of money at the Lunar New Year Festival. They got me, oh well. I’ll never get the virtual queue for Mickey’s Runaway Railway for the foreseeable future.

Thank you for reading! Consider liking the post, and consider subscribing to my emails as well for more Disneyland & Southern California content. I have content in the scripting phase about the Anaheim Resort Transportation System & the Lunar New Year Celebration that I mentioned earlier, along with Irvine Regional Park for my pick for cheap family fun in Orange County for my How to OC series.

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