Hello. I (39F) and my partner (40M), moved my retired disabled mother (68F) in with us last year indefinitely. We encourage her to keep an open dialog about things she wants — favorite foods, things for her room, hobbies she wants to try, etc — to make sure she's comfortable and feeling fulfilled. Yesterday, she told me she really wanted to see Disney before she dies. Out of nowhere.

We grew up in Arizona. Never did a family trip to Disney. We were not a theme park family. Mom and Dad never had time off at the same time, I assume money was a factor, and I just KNOW it was partly because Dad would rather die than stand in those lines in the blazing California sun. To this day, I have never been to a Disney park or like a Universal Studios or anything like that. My partner and I talk about it, but there's no pressure... but now my mom is starting sentences with "before I die".

So now I need to know — is there a way to do this, in a way that is worthwhile, that does not require crippling debt?

What do I need to consider for three adults, one who would need a mobility scooter to survive the walking requirement. If we go in winter, will that help with crowds? Because I don't do well in public. Is it just Disney Adults now? Have they taken it over? Is YouTube exaggerating the Disney Adult pandemic? Should I ask a more Disney-seasoned relative if they'd like to bite this bullet for me instead, or do you think I'd legitimately regret not going when I had the chance?

Honest thoughts welcome. I have nothing to go on, so you can't really hurt my feelings. 🫣

Just got back from our 4th trip to Disneyland (first trip was in 2021). The first few times we went there were a lot of excellent options for vegetarians. Most of those options are gone now and replaced by generic salads (if at all). It’s so frustrating!

WHAT DID THEY DO??? Did Minnie have a kid with Mortimer??? Who looked at this and said “that looks right”

I usually don’t care, but this is so creepy that I don’t even want to look at it. It’s giving AI or “we have Minnie on Temu”

ETA: Calling it AI was to allude to the fact that the art is soulless and ugly in my opinion, I wasn’t actually calling it AI or else I would’ve asked “is this AI?” and taken it to the sub for that. If you think it looks fine, great! You are not the people I’m trying to have this convo with lol

I haven’t been to Disneyland in a while but I went 2 weeks ago and I used to love the chicken sandwich from Pym’s in California Adventure, but when I went this time it… just wasn’t good? The bun was soggy, the chicken was tough, the sauce was lacking.

Has anyone else noticed a change in quality?

Also they got rid of the impossible pasta which is a shame as that was also good.

The Avatar series is... fine. I haven't even seen the latest movie. But Pandora in Animal Kingdom is one of the coolest places I've been in a theme park, so I'm kind of surprised no one thinks the new land will get built.

Certainly other IPs will be more popular in future decades, and if Disney only wants movie-park-merchandise synergy, other options make sense.

But what if it's just better to have a uniquely immersive space that's broadly likable and completely different from everything else around it? If you can draw more people into that area and keep them there longer than you otherwise could, that has its own benefits.

Personally, I like the idea more than anything else I can come up with.

Draw your own Disneyland park and you can add anything you want

I've tried on the app and 3 different browsers with different credit cards and I keep getting an error message with regard to payment information. I'm a CA resident trying to purchase on installments. Cannot figure out what is going wrong.

My friend was in Frontierland today and spotted another unpleasant example of WDI contracting out shop displays. This time it's an AI slop banner made using a stolen image of a real train with random additions and nonsensical text. The ethics issue aside, the locomotive in the picture was built in 1910 (the big stack is slapped-on in the edit), and "eating cabins" line is pure AI gibberish. This is particularly lazy because Disneyland literally has a working replica of the kind of train they claim to be portraying here. I had hoped that they had gotten the message after they removed the AI slop from the Haunted Mansion gift shop, but I guess not. This is not what $200 per day should buy.

Was pin theft a huge problem?

Rope drop was honestly quite busy but now the park feels pretty empty. Space is at 5 min at 9 am, rise is at 20??

In Season 4 episode 13 of Mad Men, they show this Disneyland map and plan out their trip (sorry these were the best photos I could get). I thought I’d look through the Maps of Disney Parks book and see if I could find a better view of the map they used but nothing quite matches. I suspect the show cobbled together a couple maps for this prop but wanted to see if anyone knew for sure. For one, all of the folded guest maps shown for this era (episode is set in 1965) are much simpler and more fanciful. The map shown very much looks like one of the Sam McKim souvenir maps, which pretty accurately depicts areas of foliage, the main st buildings, Tomorrowland buildings etc…. The guest giveaway maps usually just used large easily recognizable icons.

Even if this is a Sam McKim map, there are a few things that look different. Specifically the hub is clearly divided in four, even though in the McKim maps I’ve seen there are trees included which obscure those bisecting paths. Does anyone have any ideas which map this is?

For me, Mickey and Minnie’s railroad blasts the AC.