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06/29/2003 Archived Entry: "Pirates!"

Oh. My. God! The whole event was just incredibly fantastic!! So we get there and check in to get our "credentials" that had to be worn on a lanyard around our neck. We enter Disneyland via the main gate and as soon as we stepped onto Main Street, we were on the red carpet. Really. The actual red carpet for the stars. We walked the entire length of it with fans and press lining both sides of the street. There were a couple of really cool archways to walk under as well. Finally we were in Frontierland. We decided to eat first so we wouldn't be rushed later. The buffet was pretty cool. There were a couple different pasta salads, breads, potatoes and asparagus. The real treat was the dessert table! There were chocolate treasure chests filled with pudding with an oreo cookie topping and gold pieces of chocolate; fruit boats with sails made out of a dough (probably phyllo); long stem strawberries that were HUGE! The centerpieces on the table were pretty fun and we were contemplating taking some of it. We didn't, but later, we saw someone with everything off the table wrapped up in the velvet cloth. Next was on to the activites. They were cheesy, but the whole thing was so fun that we didn't really notice. We went digging for buried treasure, I took a necklace and a jewel home to Tabs, we got pirate skull caps decorated, there were skull and cross bones tattoo booths, but I just grabbed one to take home to Tabitha, and also there were picture booths. We went on some rides and then went to sit down for the movie. There was a 40x90 foot screen set up on the Rivers of America in New Orleans in front of Tom Sawyer's Island. Our seats were off to the side, being lowly ticket winners, but we had no problem seeing the film. First, though, there was a band doing horrible covers, then Johhny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Jerry Bruckheimer, Keira Knightley, and Jack Davenport, were introduced and were taken across the river on one of the rafts before going up to their seats. The movie started immediately (with complimentary drinks, popcorn and blankets, of course) and was amazing. I just love, love, loved it! It was totally hilarious, which I didn't expect and just all around a fun movie to watch. I don't recommend it for very young children that are disturbed easily because rather disturbing scenes involving skeletons are prevalent throughout the movie. There is no language to be concerned with and the violence isn't gory, though. The movie is loosely based on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland (and I assume it's a similar ride at the other parks) and therefore had a few "in-jokes" that are freakin' hilarious if you are at all familiar with the ride itself. Some parts really seemed familiar to me because they looked just like a couple walkways that we used to use when I worked Pirates back in the day. After the movie there was a fireworks show and then we went on a few more rides. On our way out we received hats and a Pirates of the Caribbean X-Box game.
So, it was amazing, incredible, unbelievable, fantastic, fabulous and any other really good word you can think of to insert here :) Not something we'll forget anytime soon, I can tell you that.
Oh, and while we were certainly weren't rubbing elbows with stars, here is a list of "famous" people that we saw last night. It's not long because we didn't go out of our way to star watch. This is just who we happened to see.
The stars of the film as I mentioned earlier, though only from afar
Don Johnson (also from afar)
Ozzie Smith (wearing Pirates team gear, I might add)
Dave Winfield
Tommy Smothers
Chris Chelios
Cuba Gooding, Jr.
Cloris Leachman
Blink 182 (Travis was smoking weed off to the side)
Daryl Hannah (dressed as a pirate)
Eric Idle
Wes Scatlin with Rachel Hunter
Kenny G
Virginia Madsen
Jon Voight

And I think that's it. We got home about 1:30 and poor Chris had to be at work at 5:00. Plus we're going out tonight, so he's hoping to get his stuff done and come home to nap.

The whole thing was just too cool :)