“There may have been a technical situation where the rides might not have been available for a time,” he speculated.

In other words, the rides probably broke down.

He stressed that guests frustrated by ride closures visit City Hall, which acts as a de facto customer service center.

My companion came to Disneyland to see Mickey Mouse. However, if you don’t know his schedule, tracking him down can be difficult. We spent an entire afternoon walking around the park and never ran into him. I mean, we didn’t even see traces of him. No entourages, no parades, no cameos. In short, no buzz.

We found out from a guest services representative that Mickey hangs out in Toon Town, a sort of ethnic enclave that separates the animated world from the rest of the park.

A visit to Toon Town was trippy. At the entrance, we walked past park benches on which several people were sprawled out, asleep. At first, I thought Disneyland had its own homeless problem. It really looked that way. We stepped past this urban realia and entered a two dimensional world where storyboard sketching came to life. And that was about it, because there weren’t any characters walking around.

Mickey and Minnie stay indoors, tucked away in their respective houses. To see Mickey, you have to wait in line (I didn’t mind this.), and work your way through his house until you come, literally, to a holding pen. There, you’re kept in a “barn” behind Mickey’s house, where you wait your turn to see the mercurial character.

I have to admit, there was an air of anticipation as we stood in the barn. We’d gone the whole day without seeing Mickey, waited in line outside his house, then funneled into our present position, where a loop of Mickey cartoons played before us. Our time came and we entered a yellowish room to find the mouse standing on a little platform. His handlers encouraged us to join him on the platform, where we could have our photos taken. I gave my camera to a cast member and my friend and I took our places beside the character.

“Yo, Mickey, how’s it going?” I asked.

No speaking. Nodding. He extended a hand. We shook.

A cast member snapped a photo with my camera. Another took a photo with a Disney camera. We were ushered off the stage, given a receipt for the Disney photo, and led out of the room.

“He’s smaller than I imagined,” my friend said, once we’d gotten out of earshot.

“He’s pretty aloof,” I added. “He ought to be walking around the park more.”

“We try to have our characters as visible as possible,” said Aguirre. Before Toon Town was established, he explained, Mickey and Goofy used to walk around on Main Street. Guest feedback, however, indicated that park visitors wanted a reliable location where they could always find their favorite characters.

“Toon Town has provided a home for Mickey,” Aguirre said succinctly.

As for the food, I ate one snack during my six hours at Disneyland, a Tollhouse cookie ice cream sandwich, and it was an inedible, freezer-burned piece of crud.  I gnawed on it for twenty minutes, perplexed that the thing never thawed. It seemed to defy the laws of physics, going from solid to…solid.

I mentioned this to Aguirre, and he explained that freezer burn occasionally occurs when products are stored next to dry ice.

“In the future, if anything like that happens,” he stated, “feel free to go to the location and let them know. They’ll replace it.”

There’d been a long line at the cart where I bought the ice cream sandwich. Neither the notion of waiting in line to return a bum snack, nor the idea of cutting to the front to explain the freezer burned state of my food appealed to me at the time.

So, I asked about those folks, like me, who are apprehensive about complaining in the midst of the Magic Kingdom—where happiness and fulfillment are civic responsibilities—as well as in front of other guests.

“Guests who feel reluctant can always send a letter to Guest Communications,” Aguirre stated. “The address is on our web site.”

What Disneyland needs is about a hundred million dollars worth of renovations, a complete overhaul of its attractions. I won’t get into other disappointing places, such as “Innoventions”, an expo of household technology supposedly just around the corner. (Truth is, we’d already passed most of the technology on display.) The park is just plain outdated. Neither adult nor child over the age of six can really be that impressed with it.

As for our visit that day, hanging out at the beach in La Jolla would have been better. Unfortunately, my friend, after having spent the day at Disneyland, agreed.

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