Calling All Wilderness Explorers!

The Redwood Creek Challenge Trail in Disney's California Adventure has recently gone through a rennovation of its own. The changes are minor, but I think they bring the area into the present with the inclusion of the characters Russell, Dug and Kevin from the Pixar movie UP!

The camp notices board right at the entrance shows the new characters in some of the activities available to guests in the Redwood Creek area.

These are some of the Wilderness explorer badges that are displayed on both sides of the entrance. If you complete the activities in the Wilderness Explorer Guide, you could get them.

This is the Wilderness Explorer Guide you are given as you enter the Redwood Creek area.

It opens to tell you some of the activities you can get involved in (if you are a kid!)

You can see that this map has some silver circles on it. That is because as you complete the challenges, you get the rub off the silver and reveal the wilderness badge you earned for that station. Follow me and Mr. Diva as we tried to earn our Wilderness Explorer Badges.

Station 1 - Tracking! You have to find Kevin's foot prints.

Woot!! Found 'em!

Badge #1! We're on our way!

Challenge #2 - Bravery

This time we were to take on the tire slide.

Badge #2 - Bravery

Station #3: Rock Climbing

Badge #3 - Rock Climbing

Station #4 - Howl like a Wolf as you do down the slide.

Don't these look fun?

Badge #4 - Wolf Howl

Station #5 - Find your animal spirit.

You go into the Spirit Cave, press your hand on the screen and your spirit animal will appear.

Mr. Diva got a Salmon.

That is supposed to mean he is instinctive and strong-willed.

The have added a new animal spirit at the bottom. I think that is mine!

Badge #5 - Animal Spirit

Badge #6 - Puzzle Solving

This challenge directed you back to your Wilderness Explorer activity guide and you had to go to each of the statues listed and find which description matched the statue, then put the corresponding letter in the blank to see what it spelled.

HAWK

TURTLE

RAVEN

CATFISH

BUZZARD

DRAGONFLY

MOUSE

FROG

Badge #6 - Puzzle Solving

When you have completed all of your activities and earned your badges, then you proceed to the Awahnee Circle for the Wilderness Explorer ceremony to earn your Senior Wilderness Explorer badge.

You must raise your hand, and you must know the Wilderness Explorer call and motto.

"An explorer is a friend to all,

be it plants or fish or tiny mole."

"Caw, Caw, Raaawr!"

Once you have completed the ceremony, you get a Senior Wilderness Explorer Badge.

Here are me and Mr. Diva with Russell after getting our Senior Wilderness Explorer Badges.

And we met Dug too!

As you can see, this is a really fun, cute area for people to spend some time, especially if they have kids. But if you are just adults like me and Mr. Diva, it can also be a nice, fairly quiet corner of DCA where you can get a little respite from the crowds.

Boardwalk Pizza & Pasta

This is one of the two new restaurants to open in the Paradise Pier area of Disney's California Adventure. This is in the restaurant that used to house Pizza Oom Mow Mow.

As you can see, the decor has changed significantly from the surfer beach hut to more of a classic beach boardwalk feel. They have separated the restaurant into three areas, pizza in the middle,

pasta on the right side,
and salad on the left side.

Let's start with the pizza.
The pizza they served at this location before was that horrid stuff they serve at Red Rockett's Pizza Port in Tomorrowland. I always say it is hand's down the worst food in Disneyland and Pizza Oom Mow Mow was the worst food in DCA. I was interested to see if they had made any changes other than to the decor.
As you can see, just glancing at the pizza it looks much better! This is the portabello mushroom and spinach pizza with ricotta, artichokes and romano cheese.
Looks good doesn't it? This pizza is $8.99
These are the cheese pizzas, and the pepperoni pizzas looked exactly the same
but with pepperoni on them.
They are $8.49 for the pepperoni and $7.99 for the cheese.

I don't know what is wrong with me here, but I somehow managed not to get a picture of the BBQ chicken pizza, which is the one we got. It has BBQ sauce, chicken, bacon, red onion, cilantro, mozarella and smoke gouda. And it was good! I like the thin crispy crust on pizza. Kind of Boston style pizza. I'm not a fan of the thick breaded pizza. This pizza was good enough that we think it is as good as CPK's BBQ Chicken pizza, and that is CPK's claim to fame pizza.
This pizza costs $8.99
For dessert we opted for this fruit pizza, which is actually more like a fruit and cream cheese danish. They warm it up in a little pizza cooker thing for you. It was tasty.
Mr. Diva said he would definitely get one again.

Moving on to the pasta. The true test of Disney cuisine for me. I have yet to have a really good pasta at DLR, except for the chicken alfredo at the Plaza Inn in Disneyland. They had three pasta choices and they were warmed on the spot and didn't sit long at all.

We decided to split the Cheese Raviolis in pesto sauce with pine nuts. Sadly, it was just mediocre. I would not get it again. If they would let me, I might try the raviolis in their tomato cream sauce and see if I liked it better, but their pesto had pepper flakes in it and it was hot and just not really good. I finished my half, but Mr. Diva only managed one ravioli.
This dish is $9.49

I almost got the chicken and campanelle in sundried tomato cream sauce, but opted for the raviolis instead. I may try this next time to see how it compares to the Plaza's Chicken Alfredo. This dish is $9.49

Of course, you can't have pasta without spaghetti and meatballs. This is Mr. Diva's favorite meal and he orders it every time we eat Italian, so I didn't even consider it. This dish is $9.49.

Children's pizza and spagetti are available.

On to the salad station. I hate salad. I only eat lettuce or greens, carrots and celery dry with no dressing at all. I pick off tomatoes, cucumbers, etc, so this station held little interest for me, but I sacrificed and took some pictures for the salad lovers out there. (*yucky shiver*)

Not being a salad aficionado, I'm just guessing here, but I think this is the Boardwalk Field Greens - with tomatoes, blue cheese, cucumbers, craisins, pecans, raisins and a basil vinaigrette. This salad costs $7.49.

This one must be the Italian Chef Salad - salami, capocollo, ham, provolone, mozzarella, pepperoncini, red peppers, olives, cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce and red wine vinaigrette.
This salad is $8.49

They didn't have any of the Chicken Caesar made when I walked by but it is $8.49.

There is a self- serve drink bar, also a section with bottled water, milk, and juice drinks.
Warning though, the drinks are not free refills!

As you get ready to check out there are refrigerated stations with espresso brownies
and lemoncello cheesecakes for $3.29. Yum!
But we already had our fruit pizza, so we will have to try them next time.

As you can see at the check out stand, above the desserts are some small green salads
(more my style). I didn't see how much they were. We thought that for a light lunch sometime, we might split a pizza and each get a side salad (and a lemoncello cheesecake!)

When you exit the restaurant, they have made a really nice outdoor eating space.

There are lots of tables and chairs next to the restaurant, but there is a lovely plaza with covered eating areas that had overhead fans, as well as some chairs out under the trees and greenery.

They have even added a bandstand and had some live music playing on and off all afternoon.

It was great to have a nice eating area along the back of Paradise Pier.
It was so hot and sunny over there before.

All in all, Mr. Diva and I really liked the BBQ Chicken pizza and the fruit pizza. We are the type to eat only at the places we know we like, so it was nice to find another restaurant in DCA that we would frequent. And next time -- I'm all over that Lemoncello Cheesecake!!!

Goofy's Sky School

Part of the Re-themeing of Disney's California Adventure includes taking some of the current attractions and re-making them to fit some of the older Disney shorts. That is the case with Goofy's Sky School. This ride used to be Mulholland Madness, but they decided to take the 1940 short entitled "Goofy's Glider" and use it as the theme for this ride. Other than some new signs and a new paint job, the ride is essentially the same. I still scream like a little girl when I ride it too!

Student Pilots read for take off!

Glad we didn't have to use this parashoot!

And here is where I found the Hidden Mickey!

See it on the top of the wrench?

Now, for those of you who won't have a chance to ride Goofy's Sky School anytime soon, here is a video of the ride.


And if you haven't seen "Goofy's Glider," then you need to watch it. It's classic Goofy!