It's a Whole New LAND! February 2016 Updated 2/8

wiscbugs said:

Love your live reports...makes me wish I was there right now

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Thank you! It has been fun for me to take 30 minutes at night or in the morning to get all the details down

Day 5: Hollywood Thursday 2/4
I woke up at my friend's apartment in West Hollywood and wrote up my prior day trip report waiting for her to wake up. I also got a facetime from Roger and Max and they told me we were doing a character meal at Ariel's Grotto on Saturday and that they were going to add on park hopping to our tickets! Yay! Excited for both things! Max hasn't wanted to wait for any characters so will be nice to stil get pictures of that and Roger let him choose which meal and he picked princess, love him.

By the time we were both up and ready it was about noon so we went to get pictures with the Hollywood sign. It took forever to get there as the GPS kept going out because of all the hills but we did finally make it and snapped some pics before heading back to her place.

I had secured Jimmy Kimmel tickets through 1iota and though they were priority I was very nervous about getting in. My friend's apartment is about 5 blocks away so we just walked down there and had plenty of time to stand in line and wait. Hollywood blvd is not what I imagined, it smelled so awfu and was so not glamorous.

After a few hour wait outside and going through security and an additional wait inside we finally were brought into the studio to be sat. They were very meticulous about where they were seating everyone. When it was our turn I was basically shaking with excitement just being in the studio and I told the seater how genuinely excited I was to be there and so he brought us to the front row! Eeekk!! It was amazing! For the monologue Jimmy was just a few feet away and then! It was after the monolgue while they were setting up his desk and he asked the audience how many people from out of town (cheers), how many people were on vacation (cheers), and then he looked at me and asked my name, where I was from, what I do, if I had a husband or kids, I said they were at Disneyland so he asked me about what Max was looking forward to the most and we had a nearly five minute long conversation. I found out when he first moved to California he lived at The Candy Cane Inn for a summer, lol. I love him so like making eye contact and chatting was pretty much more than my little fangirl heart could handle (sorry Rog)!

The show continued on with the guests Lionel Richie (we were all given two tickets to his show in vegas) and Jason Sudeikis. Elton John had pretaped something so we didnt see that but it was still really fun. Such a great experience and totally exceeded my expectations!

After the taping we made our way back to Anaheim where Roger and Max were already sound asleep so no idea how they spent their day.

Day 6: Disneyland/DCA Friday 2/5
So all week we had been annoyed about the parks having such short hours of 10 am to 8 pm...well be careful what you wish for.
On Friday Disneyland was open from 8 am to midnight and DCA was open until 10 pm. I will say we 100% missed our shorter weekday hours with getting up leisurely and going to be earlyish.

Anyway back to the day... we had to set alarms for this day as Max wanted to do Jedi Training so we wanted to get there at rope drop. We left our hotel at 7:15 and were maybe 5 groups back at the turnstiles. We were let into the park around 7:40 and went to wait at the entrance to Tomorrowland. The plan was for Roger and Max to go to signups and I was going to go on Hyperspace Mtn and then grab Star Tours Fast Passes (sometime over the previous decided this was the best ride in. the . world.) and then meet up. By 8:20 we were both finished with our stuff (Max was signed up for the 11:15 Jedi Academy) and we met up at Alice in Wonderland (I may have said this before but we all loved this ride, so cute and a little different than most dark rides), went into the Mad Hatter and picked up the sequin Minnie Ears I had been coveting for about 4 trips, took a spin on the Tea Cups, went on the Canal Boats, and then Mr. Toads Wild Ride.

By this time it was 9:15 and we were feeling pretty accomplished for only a little over an hour. Our Star Tours FP was good until 10 as was the Astro Blasters one I grabbed at the same time. I had been wanted to try the Pastry Menace from Galactic Grill so on our way from Fantasyland to Buzzlightyear we decided to stop by quick. I apparently didn't read the description of the Pastry Menace so was unaware of the chocolate CHILI filling...needless to say Max now has serious trust issues with filled pastries. Roger gladly finished our discarded pastry and got a tamale as well. I went and ordered Max a kids meal with the Bantha Bread French toast (he loved it). After we finished our impromptu breakfast we did our Fast Pass rides on Star Tours and Buzz (and then grabbed more fastpasses for each).

My memory and notes for this part is a little hazy...I think I went to Blue Bayou to see if I could make our lunch reservation for a little later (we had it for 2:20) so we would have time to go back and rest beforehand. They were fully booked so unable to get it changed. I also tried to ride Indiana Jones but it was down (seriously, I feel like the rides at Disneyland were down more than at WDW... probably not accurate but I swear Indy was down 60% of the time we passed it) but ended up just grabbing a bench in the hub and waiting until 11:00 am to grab some lunch (the boys ate breakfast at Galactic Grill but all I had was a bite of the spicy doughnut) and a good table to Max's Jedi Training. I have no idea what Max and Roger did for this hour away from me...maybe Star Tours? I do get a little ill from it so perhaps they went again without me?

Regardless, I got my Wicket's Wicked Veggie Sandwich and a Dark Side drink and snagged a great table to watch the Jedi show. The show was really good and Max did a great job fighting the Seventh Sister on the stage (glad he got her as he fought Darth Vadar at WDW last year so this was more exciting for him). There was some confusion at the end with them not letting the parents leave the sectioned off pavement and Max not hearing Roger call to him and then Max wandering off into Tomorrowland (even after this the cast member still tried to stop Roger from running after Max, seriously made me so mad. I get that they can't have parents crowding the kids but then they need to come up with a system that doesn't all a 5 year old to just wander out without a parent).

Okay and there is a good reason that I need to write my trip report live, here I am three days later and I have another 2 hour chunk that is gone completely. I think I went off again on my own as we knew I was taking Max back for a rest after lunch and I still wanted to do some rides Max didn't want to do...so maybe I did Pirate's? And who knows what else...

We checked in for our Blue Bayou lunch at 2:00 (20 minutes early) and told them I didn't mind waiting longer for a waterside table. We were seated about 2:20 right up by the railing. Roger and I did the split plate on the Monte Cristo, soup for him and salad for me. It was as delicious as everyone says and the ambience was lovely. Max picked at his mac n cheese but gladly devoured the slice of chocolate cake that we split.

After lunch it was about 3:15 and the park was getting crowded and hot...my two least favorite things. Max and I went back to the HoJo with plans to meet Roger at 6:15 pm at DCA. We went on Monster's Inc, Mater's Junkyard Jamboree, grabbed a Nob Hill Chill from Ghiradhelli, and made our way back to Disneyland. The fireworks were only done once so far on our trip (Tuesday) and we were back at our hotel as that was our DCA (pre park hopper upgrade) day, so we really really wanted to catch them.

First we made a bee line (well as much of a bee line as one can make when the parade route is closed off) for Small World. Just adore this ride, always have a top place in my heart thinking of how much Max loved it his first WDW trip. He really loved finding the characters on this one. Right when we got off they made the announcement about winds at higher elevations blah blah blah no fireworks. Max fell asleep in the stroller pretty quickly so Roger and I ended up taking turns doing the Matterhorn, Indy, and Big Thunder before heading back to the hotel around 11 pm.

Day 7: Disneyland/DCA Saturday 2/6
We got to the park shortly after the 8 am park open and grabbed FP for Star Tours and Buzz. We noticed right away this day was going to be a beast of its' own. Even with a FP I think we waited about 30 minutes for Star Tours and just getting from one place to another was proving to be impossible. I don't remember the order of everything but in four hours we managed one ride on Star Tours and Buzz and 2 rides on Haunted Mansion. Grabbing a burger for Max at the Galactic Grill and BB-8 sipper from the lemonade stand and then lunch for Roger and I from Rancho de Zocalo (I don't even remember if this was good as we had to wait in line for so long to get it I was just annoyed).

It was around noon and we decided to best salvage the afternoon we would head back to our hotel and swim. This was the perfect plan for us all and I think I might have even taken a short nap. We had a 4:35 lunch at Ariel's Grotto and we were now all feeling refreshed and in good spirits.

This meal was really good! The food was good and the service was wonderful (Max didn't care for his macaroni at all and our server brought him another octodog and tator tots instead). The characters looked good but the interaction felt a smidge rushed to me (perhaps because it was the end of lunch service) but it didn't seem to bother Max at all.

After our early dinner-lunch Roger and I wanted to get in a ride on RSR and in the past we had good luck with the single rider line. This time however when I went back for my turn the single rider line was looking as long as the regular line (which was at a 120 minute wait) and the cast member did say it was exceptionally long. So I decided to abandon that idea and met up with Roger and Max as they got off the Chew Chew train. We rode the ladybug ride together and then went to Soarin' as Roger smartly grabbed FP's for us on our way to the hotel for our break.

We were a little nervous for this as Max had refused to do this the year before at EPCOT and while I am not above putting my crying kid on a ride I know he will like I didn't want to do that here as it is a lot quieter than something like Pirates. But all that proved to be for nothing as he wasn't scared at all! He didn't even give us the stink eye when the seats clearly went up much higher than we had told him. He loved it! He just sat there all cute trying to look at everything. When he got off he was squealing with excitement and begging to go on again but the wait was 90 minutes and we knew we couldn't do that. However this sweet couple overheard him and offered us three of their Club 33 Fastpasses to use! So kind! So we hopped back in line and did it again! Yay!!

After that we went back to Disneyland in hopes of finally catching those fireworks but yet again they were cancelled due to winds at higher elevations...

Max fell asleep in his stroller and the park was still packed so we decided to head back and finish our packing as our airport shuttle was arriving at 4:55 the next morning.

We had a wonderful vacation but Roger and I have vowed to never do Disneyland parks on a Saturday ever again.

I'm so glad I changed my flight so we're in the parks Mon-Fri. We originally were flying in and doing Tues-Sat but we quickly changed our mind. I'm glad to hear from someone else and feel better about taking that extra day off work. I kept second guessing myself.

Sounds like a great trip! Too bad about the crowds at the end and missing the fireworks. I love the pixie dust moments, though, like the fastpasses from strangers and the cast member reaching out when you had a lower moment to check in and brighten it up. I'm jealous about the monte cristo. (I wanted to try one on our upcoming trip, but no one in my family is willing to split it with me. Oh, well.) Sounds like there are a lot of tasty treats to be enjoyed there, like that Nob Hill Chill (mmmm).

Thanks again for taking the time to share!

Thanks for the great report. I love how organized you were for the plane ride. We too love M&D products. Gave me some great ideas for our upcoming trip

Loved reading your report! We are WDW vets too and are planning a trip to Disneyland next year so I really appreciate all the details you included.
Did you like the Howard Johnson's?
I am still debating whether to stay on property or off. We always stay on property at WDW. It is hard for me to imagine a Disney trip and not staying at a Disney resort.