The Disneyland Book of Secrets 2014: One Local's Unauthorized, Rapturous and Indispensable Guide to the Happiest Places on Earth (191 page)

Jumpin’ Jellyfish
 
Must be 40” or 102 cm tall to ride.

[
FastView:
 
A mini-parachute jump just right for daring tots and their elders.
]

If you and your little ones found the now-defunct, 180-foot tall
Maliboomer
towers daunting, you strolled instead to
Jumpin’ Jellyfish
, a junior parachute-drop ride perfect for kids and adults who prefer mild descents. Located on the western shore of
Paradise Bay
between the
Golden Zephyr
rockets and the
Silly Symphony Swings
,
Jumpin’ Jellyfish
was one of
DCA
’s opening day attractions and it’s been safely lifting and dropping Guests for more than a decade.

Composed of two 50 to 60-
foot tall towers, each of which holds six jellyfish-shaped vehicles,
Jumpin’ Jellyfish
is a study in bright purples, oranges, and greens meant to evoke the phosphorescent colors of deep-sea creatures and foliage.

Guests queue amid a sculpted setting mimicking the bottom of the sea.  Tots and their parents can pretend that they’re underwater.  The towers are meant to be enormous kelp stalks.

When it’s your turn to board, pick one of the jellyfish vehicles.  The jellyfish have different colors–purple, orange, or yellow.  It’s always fun to nab the particular gondola that you want, but remember that there’s no running at
Disneyland
; it’s not worth trampling another Guest to get that yellow jellyfish!

Each gondola seats two Guests.  Take your seat and secure your own restraint and your child’s.  If you need any assistance,
just signal a Cast Member.  Although the ride itself is mild, you’ll be high above the ground, so better safe than sorry.

Like
Soarin’ Over California
, this is a high-flying experience where those wearing flip-flops or loose sandals might lose them.  Yet another reason to wear sneakers (tennies) or comfortable shoes at the resort rather than flip-flops!

You’ll want to stow hats and loose items so that they don’t fall or slip from your grasp while you’re aloft.  If there are members of your party who aren’t riding, your best bet is to entrust them with your loose gear prior to boarding.

A Cast Member checks your restraints to be sure that you’re safely secured.  Once all Guests are ready, the jellyfish gondolas are drawn smoothly up the kelp tower to a height of 40 feet.  That’s as tall as a four-story building, and the views you see as you look around are wonderful, particularly if you’re facing
Paradise Bay
and all the colorful, kinetic attractions that skirt it.

You’re 40 feet up but
from the air it looks like you’re far higher off the ground.  If you left loved ones below, you’ll probably see them waving up at you and capturing snapshots or video footage of your daring ascent!

Even though you’re secured within the gondola seat, your legs hang free.  Guests with fears of height or falling might not be able to handle this attraction.  After holding for a moment at 40 feet,
your gondola plunges gently toward the ground, halts, rises up again, plunges again.  Before you know it you’ve made an incremental series of lifts and falls, as gently buoyant as an underwater journey, until you’ve returned to the ground.

Follow all Cast Member instructions, as always, when releasing your restraints and those securing your little one, and make sure you and your kids have all your belongin
gs before exiting the area.  Don’t be surprised if younger kids want to ride again!

Jumpin’ Jellyfish
isn’t a thrill ride, nor is it intended to be.  The ascents and descents give you a faintly giddy, fleetingly weightless sensation that echoes the feeling of floating up and down underwater.  Guests of all ages enjoy it, which is one reason the attraction has survived since
DCA
’s opening day.

Jumpin’ Jellyfish
has no official
Disney
story, but one can easily stretch the point and say that the jellyfish and underwater environment give it a connection to
The Little Mermaid
and
Finding Nemo
films.  Thematically, the
Jumpin’ Jellyfish
attraction fits with its neighbor the
Little Mermaid:  Ariel’s Undersea Adventure
attraction.  Perhaps that’s why, after initial talk about eliminating
Jumpin’ Jellyfish
, it was spared and remain a part of the new
Paradise Pier
landscape.  For tiny tots who like the thrill of parachuting, that news is welcome indeed. 
Did You Know?
  Another
Disney Theme Park
offers
Jumpin’ Jellyfish
. 
Jumpin’ Jellyfish
was one of
Tokyo DisneySea
’s opening day attractions when the park launched on September 4, 2001.
Did You Also Know?
  Unlike roller coasters, which can be traced back to prototypes developed in Russia centuries ago, the parachute drop is a relatively recent amusement park invention.  Interestingly, it too had its origins in Russia.  Commander James H. Strong, a retired U.S. naval officer, had seen Russian paratroopers using towers as training devices in the 1920’s.  He used the Russian parachute-drop towers as the basis for a safer and more elaborate design that he patented in 1936.  Strong’s towers had armed-forces training applications and over the years were installed at military locations like Fort Benning in Georgia.  But the most famous of his creations was the Parachute Jump he built for the 1939 New York World’s Fair.  It stood over 250 feet high.  It had twelve arms to hold parachutes, but only eleven parachutes were installed.  The parachutes were always open, and guests were attached to them via a canvas swing that could hold two riders.  Adults paid 40 cents each and kids 25 cents each to be secured to the swing, lifted to the top of the tower, and then dropped to the ground.  Because of its height and the dynamic motion of the parachutes lifting and falling, the Parachute Jump commanded a lot of attention and was one of the big hits of the fair.  A couple actually got married on the Parachute Jump.  When the World’s Fair ended, Steeplechase Park bought the Parachute Jump and moved it to Coney Island, where it carried paying customers up and down from 1941 until sometime between 1964 or 1968.  (Steeplechase Park closed in 1964, but some experts contend that the Parachute Jump continued to operate as part of a smaller operation until 1968.)  Although it hasn’t carried riders since the 1960’s, the Parachute Jump tower still stands, a proud Coney Island landmark.  Over the years different preservation and restoration initiatives have resulted in enhancements like the computer-programmed light show unveiled in 2006.  Even when he was in his early 80’s, my late father clearly remembered the Parachute Jump at the 1939 World’s Fair, and shared those memories with me.  A native New Yorker, he and his family attended the fair in 1939 and 1940. It was during the second visit, when he was ten or eleven years old, that he rode the Parachute Jump with his much older teen brother.  His brother teased him before the drop, spinning tall tales about the dangerous things that would happen during the descent.  Dad clearly recalled sitting on the seat, which was no more than a narrow strip of canvas, and being very slowly hoisted to the top of the tower.  “It was the most tremendous view,” he said.  He and his brother were sitting practically on air, more than two hundred feet above the ground, with incredible vistas of Manhattan and Queens below them.  The parachutes didn’t drop right away.  Part of the experience was the anticipation, not knowing precisely when the chute would drop.  When it did, Dad recalled plunging quite quickly almost one hundred feet, then stopping, and then gliding very slowly the rest of the way to the ground.  He wanted to ride again, immediately, but his brother demurred, citing the incredibly long lines.
Hidden Mickeys:
  While you wait to board, you and your little ones can pass the time by trying to find
Hidden Mickey
patterns among the bubbles painted on the attraction’s towers.
Night Vision:
  The
Jumpin’ Jellyfish
gondolas look particularly gorgeous at night when they light up in luminous yellow, orange, and purple colors.  The darkness and the colorful glow enhance Guests’ illusion of drifting up and down in the currents deep under the seas. 
FastPass:
No.  Guests board
Jumpin’ Jellyfish
en masse
, which makes this attraction, like the mass-boarding
Fantasyland
attractions, a poor candidate for the
FastPass
system.  However, except on peak days lines are typically short, rarely exceeding 20 minutes.  Like all mass-loading attractions
Jumpin’ Jellyfish
loads slowly, all the more so since many of its riders are little children and safety is a big concern.  But since the ride is so brief, rider turnover is frequent and relatively rapid. 
Kid’s Eye View:
I don’t like
Jumpin’ Jellyfish
.  It’s kind of weird.

King Triton’s Carousel

[
FastView:
 
Gentle, nostalgic fun, and if you look closely at the wide variety of California fish and sea creatures on which Guests ride, it’s educational too.
]

A modest-sized merry-go-round on the southeastern shore of
Paradise Bay
,
King Triton’s Carousel
stands between
Toy Story Midway Mania!
and the entrance to
California Screamin’
.  Its full name is
King Triton’s Carousel of the Sea
, and, indeed, Guests who board it don’t ride horses but instead select a mount from among a legion of sea creatures.  There are 56 different dolphins, fish, otters, seahorses, seals, whales, etc. among which Guests can choose.  All of the creatures are part of California’s marine ecosystem.  Guests who can’t ride one of the sea creatures can sit in one of two chariots.

Unlike most of
Paradise Pier
’s
Opening Day
attractions,
King Triton’s Carousel
was actually themed to a
Disney
character. 
King Triton
is lord of the deep and
Princess Ariel
’s protective, peppery-tempered father in the 1989
Disney
animated classic
The Little Mermaid
.  In this attraction, the
Imagineers
neatly meshed a
Disney
character with a celebration of California’s ocean life, no mean feat in a park which was roundly criticized for focusing so completely on the California that
DCA
seemed to be a
Disney Theme Park
without any
Disney
in it.

Although s
maller and less majestic than
Disneyland
’s
King Arthur Carrousel
,
King Triton’s Carousel
is impressively unusual and detailed.  It’s something you won’t find at every amusement park and carnival; it’s unique to
DCA
.  The
Imagineers
did an immense amount of research on California sea life, resulting in carousel mounts that are whimsical and appropriately cartoonish but that accurately reflect the real marine creatures upon which they’re based.

Another interesting detail
:  The series of ocean park emblems adorning the carousel’s crown.  Representing 16 of the most famous of the original California seaside parks, the shields bear each park’s name, location, and the year it was established.  There’s “The Pike” in Long Beach (established in 1905), “Venice of America” (established in Venice, California in 1904), and so on.  The information is lettered on pretty, vintage paintings of each park.

Although ultimately
Walt
had little use for many boardwalks and seaside resorts, except in learning from them what
not
to do (
don’t
have a seedy midway;
don’t
build by the ocean;
don’t
have multiple entrances and exits; etc.), he and his team did draw upon some of their better flavors and virtues in some elements of the construction of
Disneyland
.  It’s appropriate that these classic fun parks have received a tribute on the canopy of
King Triton’s Carousel
.

Guests who ride
King Triton’s Carousel
will enjoy a jaunt of less than two minutes, but the good news is this:  Lines are generally short, so Guests who want to ride again shouldn’t have to wait too long for their second journey.

Guests who don’t ride
the carousel can relax on the nearby benches or sit on the stone wall surrounding the carousel’s small fountain display, shooting snapshots or video footage of party members whirling around on the sea creatures.  Or just zone out to the carousel’s music.