The Disneyland Book of Secrets 2014: One Local's Unauthorized, Rapturous and Indispensable Guide to the Happiest Places on Earth (115 page)

If
you’re a
Disneyland Resort Hotel
Guest, take advantage of
Magic Mornings
; several times a week, resort Guests are allowed into the park an hour before other Guests, and if
Space Mountain
’s open during your
Magic Morning
visit, wait times can be as short as five minutes.

Space Mountain
is located in the southeast quadrant of
Tomorrowland
and the park, at the end of the
Tomorrowland
cul-de-sac
.  For Guests who enter via
Disneyland
’s
Main Entrance Turnstiles
, there are two ways to reach
Space Mountain
. You either take the
Disneyland Railroad Train
from the
Main Street
Station
, which will transport you to
Tomorrowland
in 15 to 20 minutes, or walk north on
Main Street
and then bear east into
Tomorrowland
and follow the walkway to
Space Mountain
, a stroll of about five to ten minutes depending on how spry you are and how crowded the park is.

Guests who board the
Monorail
at the
Downtown Disney
station are carried to
Tomorrowland
in about 5 minutes.  This saves a great deal of time, obviously, and is a good route for Guests who are mobility-challenged.  The downside? They’re missing out on
Main Street
.

However you get to
Tomorrowland
, as you draw near
Space Mountain
, you can’t miss it, that grand, gleaming white dome with its squashed top and a spiral that swoops in the opposite direction, creating an illusion of motion and torque.  The mountain is crowned with slender, jagged spires, as weightless and light-looking as meringue, drawing Guests’ eyes up toward the sky.

The dome’s sloped sides are supported by exterior beams, heavier toward the base and slender toward the crown.
  The slimming of the supports as they rise is part of the forced perspective, an illusion that makes the mountain seem even taller than its not insubstantial 118 feet, out-soared only by the
Matterhorn Mountain
.

The support beams are painted the same bright white as the dome
; they draw the eye and provide a unique, timelessly futuristic look that was a happy accident. 
Imagineers
originally moved the beams outside not to make the exterior look cool, but so the interior surface could be flat and smooth, the better to display the projected stars and celestial bodies.

When you approach
Space Mountain
on a sunny day, it’s dazzling.  At night, it’s coolly inviting, washed with jewel-toned blue and purple lights.  You enter via a long, gradually sloping ramp that parallels the
“Captain EO”
queue on your right and
Redd Rockett’s Pizza Port
on your left.

In the distance you see the entrance queues to the left and the
FastPass
dispensers to your right, staffed by blue-and-white uniformed
Tomorrowland
Cast Members.  It’s a long walk up that ramp, and it gives you time to think about the intergalactic journey you’re about to take.

When you finally reach the entrances, you either enter the regular,
Standby
queue on the right, or, if you have a valid
FastPass
, the
FastPass
queue on the left.  Note that
Standby
wait times can reach and even surpass an hour, and
FastPasses
tend to run out by mid-afternoon or by noon on extremely busy days.  You’ll want to plan accordingly.

Both the
Standby
and
FastPass
queues lead you up a steeply sloping ramp.  As you climb you catch the scent of pasta, spices, and sauces from
Redd Rockett’s Pizza Port
next door.  At the top of the ramp,
FastPass
holders turn sharply left and head directly toward the attraction entrance;
Standby
Guests bear right, and enter a series of switchbacks defined by posts and chains, that snake their way in a roundabout route to the building’s entrance.

The
Standby
line can be an hour or more and only part of the rooftop queue is shaded.  If you’re braving this line in the burning sun, be sure to apply sunscreen, and hats, and bottles of water to sip are recommended, particularly if there are kids in your party.

A Cast Member stationed at the building’s entrance, where brightly lit red and blue signs read “
Space Mountain,
” feeds small groups of
FastPass
and
Standby
Guests into the building every few moments, being careful not to overwhelm the line inside.  It’s exciting to inch closer to the building and the entrance, to get closer to those signs, particularly for first-time riders or former fans returning to
Space Mountain
after many years.  The air is electric with anticipation.  Guests
kibitz
about their experiences (or lack thereof) at
Space Mountain
, their understanding of its history and lore.

When you finally enter the building, you find yourself in narrow, confusingly angled and configured hallways lit by blue and red light.  Everything looks metallic and plastic and classically sci-fi
.  Periodically you hear electronic chirps or beeps and muted, disturbingly calm voices paging someone or making announcements. 
Disneyland
makes attractions compelling via immersive stories, and the story here is that you’re entering a space station–
Space Station
77, to be specific.  The “77” is a nod to the year the attraction launched.

Diagrams on the wall, hatches
, and gantries all support this illusion.  The corridors, with their otherworldly red-blue light, make sharp turns and (although many Guests don’t notice this at the time) they’re carrying you ever
downward
into a sublevel of the building.

Along the way
, small video screens present a space station employee delivering safety instructions about the importance of stowing loose items (always a must on
Disneyland
coaster attractions) and outlining who shouldn’t ride.  Posted signs also indicate that Guests who are expecting, prone to motion sickness, etc. shouldn’t board this attraction.

Keep your eyes open along the route for an overhead bay hatch that reads “Space Station 77 Captain J. Hench”.  This is a tribute to
Imagineer John Hench
who was so instrumental in the design of both the
Orlando
and
Anaheim
Space Mountains
from their earliest incarnations.

Soon you’re at a nexus with doors leading to fictional gantries.  Some of the
doors are dummies, and some of them lead
backstage
.  The single open door leads to
Launch Port Gamma
.  The launch port is impressive.  It’s part of the
Imagineers
’ exquisite showmanship to guide you through the narrow, disorienting corridors and then suddenly place you in a wide space where a walkway wraps around and down to the launch pad, beneath a large space craft.

At the far end of the walkway is a
n enormous video screen that looks like a window into outer space; you feel for all the world as if you’re really in deep space, rotating around that orange-red planet, although you’re really deep under
Space Mountain
at good old
Disneyland
.

Once you enter the launch port, it’s only about five minutes until you’re loaded into your space ship.  For
Guests of any age who are frightened of
Space Mountain
or of roller coasters in general, this is where they start to get the heebie-jeebies.  I’ve seen and heard kids start to freak out or get angry or verge on tears, telling their parents that no, they
don’t
want to ride
Space Mountain
after all.  Sometimes grown-up Guests are the apprehensive ones.

I
f you or anyone in your party decide not to ride, you can tell a Cast Member at the loading zone. They’ll let you step aside and explain how to meet up with your companions after their ride concludes.

A
n adult needs to stay with any children that aren’t riding while other members of the party experience
Space Mountain
, but the adult who stays with the little one can immediately hand off the child to a returning group member and then immediately board a rocket.  This is called a
Baby Switch
.  It’s an option for parents and guardians of any child, not just infants, at the more thrilling attractions like
Indiana Jones Adventure
and
Space Mountain
where children might be too small or too frightened to ride.  Ask Cast Members at the attraction for details.

When I rode
Space Mountain
in March of 2006, on my very first visit to
Disneyland
, I was pretty nervous.  My last
Space Mountain
flight had been in 1976, on that family trip to
Walt Disney World
, thirty years before, when I was a lot younger and a lot more reckless than the 38 year old businesswoman I’d become!

Many times during that long
wait of about 45 minutes I considered asking where I could find the “chicken exit” but pride and curiosity kept me in the line.  How would the
Disneyland Space Mountain
compare to the one in
Walt Disney World
?  Had I grown too old to enjoy roller coasters?

When you
reach the loading zone, a Cast Member asks you how many are in your group, then calls out the row numbers, one through six, that you need to stand in.

Each rocket vehicle has two linked coaster cars
; each contains three two-person rows.  That sounds like an algebra exercise, but it just means that each vehicle has a maximum capacity of twelve Guests.  My brother-and-law and niece climbed into one row and lowered their restraint bars; my sister and I climbed into our row and followed suit.

There are black mesh pouches in front of each seat.  If you have anything loose in your hands or in your pockets, or if you
’re wearing a hat or carrying small bags, place them securely in the pouch.  You don’t want to have to tell a Cast Member after the flight that your car keys or money belt or wallet flew off into the pitch darkness of this 118-foot tall ride, and can they please find it for you!

Once your loose gear is securely stowed and your restraint bar lowered, you’ll notice your rocket car is lurching forward
.  It pauses below a control room window behind which a Cast Member sits in front of a console.  Most of these Cast Members look serious and preoccupied (which is fine by this author, as they have a serious task in terms of managing the tempo of the launches) but some are friendly and even smile or wave to Guests before they depart.

At this point
, launch point, my heart was pounding like crazy.  What had I gotten myself into?  But it was too late to turn back–our rocket ship was launched!

Your
vehicle turns sharply right and is immediately chain-pulled up a succession of short inclines at steep angles.  This is when, if you have coins and keys and wallets and credit cards in your pockets, they might slip right out and disappear into the mysterious galactic darkness.

Tense music punctuated by eerie
Theremin notes builds the anticipation as all around you lights blink and strobe in different colors, mostly whites, reds, and blues.  What’s a Theremin?  The classic sci-fi instrument.  Think of a sci fi movie from the fifties, and the eerie, high-pitched “oooo-oooo-oooo-oooh” notes–that’s Theremin music.  Composer
Michael Giacchino
(
Ratatouille
,
Up
, the
Lost
television program) crafted the unique score that synchs to the coaster’s every twist.

In
a steeply angled tunnel, lights and stars spiral rapidly around you, and ahead of you, projected on a patch of black sky, a galaxy swirls–it all combines to make you somewhat dizzy.

Then you’re out of the tunnel, in the vastness of the starry universe, with little crystalline
diamond chips of light whirling about.  You hear a disembodied mission control voice deliver a reverse countdown, just like a real astronaut hears; on “nine” your rocket ship is caught hard and chain-pulled up the final rise.

By now you’re very high up in
Space Mountain
, and you feel, in the near blackness of space, with only the twirling stars and occasional tumbling asteroid, that you’re miles away from anywhere.  “One,” says the disembodied voice, and the lively soundtrack leaps into overdrive as your rocket ship freefalls down the first incline!