5, 4, 3, 2, FUN! 02/28 - 03/04 Disneyland Trip Report *Completed 4/18*

[cheshiregoofy22]

Can't wait to hear your decision! DH feels similarly and says there's no way I'm getting him on that thing! ha....

 

[missangelalexis]

Love all your Cars Land pictures. It really is such a well done area!

Isn't it great to make TSMM your third ride of the day and only have to wait 5 minutes?! That would NEVER happen at WDW!

 

[OregonMomToWDW]

Please tell me you didn't ride Mickey's Fear Wheel, or Mickey's Hurl Wheel...lots of names for it. I hate those types of rides too, but I went on it. The kids talked me into the swinging car. Lord have mercy! I survived but never again. My son took my daughter on it last time, this time one of the non-swinging cage, and he came off saying he never realized how scared of heights he was. So, it was a never again ride for him too.

Glad the Steakhouse 55 was a good meal. RSR is a cute ride. I would say most of my kids (ages 20, 19, and 12) like the Test Track better.

 

[mindylee847]

Can't wait to hear your decision! DH feels similarly and says there's no way I'm getting him on that thing! ha....

I don't blame him!

Love all your Cars Land pictures. It really is such a well done area!

Isn't it great to make TSMM your third ride of the day and only have to wait 5 minutes?! That would NEVER happen at WDW!

Thank you! That area was really just amazing. It's like it is straight out of the film! I especially loved it all at night. I can't wait to see the new lands coming from the Imagineers. After seeing this and New Fantasyland in Magic Kingdom, I'm sure it'll all be amazing.

And for reals - I would never be able to get that quickly on TSMM at Hollywood Studios. I just expect to never ride it without a fastpass nowadays. Crazy!

Please tell me you didn't ride Mickey's Fear Wheel, or Mickey's Hurl Wheel...lots of names for it. I hate those types of rides too, but I went on it. The kids talked me into the swinging car. Lord have mercy! I survived but never again. My son took my daughter on it last time, this time one of the non-swinging cage, and he came off saying he never realized how scared of heights he was. So, it was a never again ride for him too.

Glad the Steakhouse 55 was a good meal. RSR is a cute ride. I would say most of my kids (ages 20, 19, and 12) like the Test Track better.

Haha, I'm so normally okay with the heights thing. I don't know what it is about ferris wheels but they just don't seem very trustworthy to me!

Steakhouse 55 was so amazing. My husband has brought it up every single day about how we can't eat there whenever we want now so he convinced me to go out for Mexican last night. He was addicted to those Huevos Rancheros!

 

[mindylee847]

Day 2 - Part 3: The Ferris Wheel of DOOOOOOM

Welp. It was time to face my fears. I don't know why I decided to do this, but I got in the swinging gondola line. Mike didn't really pressure me or anything, but I knew he wanted to do it. I think I just wanted to do it for myself. Figure out if my fears were justified.

Here is a picture of a peaceful stationary gondola.

This is me horrified in the queue while they were loading. There was a very short wait so I was willing to do this. If it had been more than 5 minutes, I probably would have panicked and ran out.

Oh good, I may need this.

Someone was excited. Here's a hint - it wasn't me!

The face of true fear.

Okay so... it wasn't too bad at first... we got up to the top so I tried to focus on the scenery. Oh look, World of Color seating!

I tried to get as many mountains as I could in this shot.

And then the wheel started to go down and we went through the most horrifying swing of my life. I was literally crying, holding onto the seat white knuckled. Mike asked to hold my hand and I said "No!!" How am I supposed to hold on for dear life and why on EARTH would I move???

Clearly I lived to tell the tale. The entire time I told Mike how much I hated him and that I get to do whatever I wanted next. He agreed since I obviously deserved it!

On the way around the water, we came up to one of my favorites.

There was a five minute wait for The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Undersea Adventure. Since this is one of my favorites from WDW, I was hoping it would help calm my nerves after our death-defying experience.

We even got stopped for a little bit near my favorite part!

Clearly, this wasn't enough for me to relax so we swung around to The Cove Bar!

There was still about 20 minutes before it opened. We noticed the CMs setting up a queue line so we perused the shops in the area. Eventually after a few minutes, I just asked if I could start the line under the umbrella near the beginning of the queue. I was looked at like I was crazy like, "Lady, you have plenty of time to go do something more fun than stand here on the pier but whatever." But they said it was fine so I took my spot in the shade. My pale white Wisconsin skin couldn't handle me standing around in the CA sun.

I had heard this place can have pretty crazy lines so I didn't want to risk it and we were already in the need of a taste of food and a DRINK! Shortly after I started waiting, a line began to form. At least another 7 groups of people so I was glad that I decided to look silly.

We were sat near the water and given a menu pretty quickly.

After a few minutes, someone came around and started taking orders with our table being last on our list which was fine. I told Mike about the "Secret Menu" drinks I read about on the Food Blog so we placed an order for The Fun Wheel (in honor of me, of course) and The Zombie. Mike apparently wanted to try every Zombie he could this trip.

Mike was considering the Lobster Nachos as I told him that everyone says they were great, but I'd want the lobster on the side since I don't eat any shellfish or fish (if I can avoid it). He decided against it. So we also placed an order for the Spinach and Artichoke Dip.

Our view was amazing. The shade and the breeze were perfect. I was really falling in love with this place... until I realized that our drinks were just sitting on the bar getting really watered down. Then the people next to us all had received their drinks, a couple had even gotten the nachos and left by this point. And out came our food.

When the waiter dropped off our food, we mentioned that we still didn't have our drinks. We had gotten our waters right away, but the alcohol was no where to be found. We started digging into the dip which was AMAZING by the way. Probably the best spinach and artichoke dip I've had.

A few minutes later and we had our drinks.

As you can see, a few colors were missing from my Fun Wheel drink as it had been so severely watered down and sitting there. There are small hints that they existed between the blue and yellow... but not much. I guess I could have asked for a new one? But I really hate to be too much of a bother so I drank it as it was. It was alright, I don't think I'd order it again. It was mainly ordered for the namesake anyways. Mike enjoyed his Zombie and he let me eat some of the fruit from it.

Mike and I decided that we'd have to try The Cove Bar again. I'm assuming it was just a weird, off day for lunch time. The guy that initially took our orders had said that our actual server was on lunch (already??) so that probably played a large role in the miscommunication and lack of attention. We closed out our bill and headed to one of my favorite rides!

What's that you say? I guess you'll just have to *drop in* tomorrow to find out!

​

 

[lwanthony]

I was so excited to see you were going to face your fear and go on the swinging gondolas!!! My wife won't go on with me, and of course I won't ditch her to go on a ride without her so I have never gone either, and I was hoping to use your experience to show her that it is no big deal and she can do it. It doesn't look like that was the case...... Booooooooo.......

I'm glad you tried it at least..... I can't even get my wife to think about it.......

(Ps: how did you like that ridiculous run on sentence!) lol

 

[cheshiregoofy22]

Agreed. No way DH will try that. Heck even I think I'm okay with enjoying it from a distance. "Such a pretty wheel....let's go THIS way..."

 

[mindylee847]

I was so excited to see you were going to face your fear and go on the swinging gondolas!!! My wife won't go on with me, and of course I won't ditch her to go on a ride without her so I have never gone either, and I was hoping to use your experience to show her that it is no big deal and she can do it. It doesn't look like that was the case...... Booooooooo.......

I'm glad you tried it at least..... I can't even get my wife to think about it.......

(Ps: how did you like that ridiculous run on sentence!) lol

Haha! I'm sorry! I think I'd go on it again but in the stationary gondolas because the views really are amazing up there. I think that I could handle, but the swinging will NEVER happen again.

Agreed. No way DH will try that. Heck even I think I'm okay with enjoying it from a distance. "Such a pretty wheel....let's go THIS way..."

It's even more pretty at night from the distance!

 

[mindylee847]

Day 2 - Part 4: Shopping, Meeting, & Greeting

To continue on to whatever I wanted to do, we headed over to one of my absolute favorite rides: Tower of Terror!

The line was about 25 minutes long at this point, so we opted to grab our first paper Fastpasses of the trip. Sorry the picture came out blurry! It just would not focus.

We had about 20 minutes to kill so we decided to stroll around the shops and check out what Hollywood Land had to offer when we weren't busy partying it up at night at the Mad T Party. We swung by the Animation Studios and noticed that at 1 PM we could draw Baymax, Oswald, and I believe Steamboat Willie. Amazing line up!... but I wasn't sure it would work out since that's quite a bit of time to dedicate.

I loved this painting!

I also noticed all of these fun comic books that were available! When I was younger I collected the Ducktales comics - no idea where they are now... probably were tossed in a move when I was younger.

After that we decided to walk over by where the sing along was and see how the line was for one cool dude! There was NO one in line for this meet and greet so we quick ran through the queue. This was our first Photopass stop of the trip. Hey, Olaf!!

We gave him some warm hugs and told him all about how we left winter to come over to summer from Wisconsin.

After that, it was time to check in to our new hotel!

It was crazy how fast we got on the ride using the fastpass system here. In Disney World, even if you have a fastpass you could be waiting quite a while but we were immediately put into the room where they tell you the story. Crazy!

I didn't realize that you could write down the numbers on your ride photos and have those available in your Photopass so no shot of us on Tower of Terror... I'm going to ask my husband to call to ask about a magic shot anyways so maybe they can help us find them based off of the time stamps on some of my photos. Here's to hoping!

At this point, I believe we already missed the time to head into the animation studio by literally, three minutes. It just wasn't meant to be. So we headed up to meet with one of the luckiest guys I know - Oswald!

We saw that a special Mouse had been meet and greeting off the side of the street and it wasn't yet time to get into a line for him since he was busy delivering papers on the trolley so we swung by the Fiddler, Fifer, and Practical Cafe. I picked up a refresher and Mike got a caramel macchiato.

We got in line for Mickey Mouse and waited about... 15 minutes or so I believe, that includes the bit of extra time until he was even at his location.

He was so ADORABLE!!!

After that, we decided to check out Cars Land again to see how it was without the massive crowds entering the area and to look around the shops. I received a Piston Cup!

And so did my husband, but he's so modest and covered up the "Best" part - silly.

We checked out the cute model they had in one of the stores. I loved all the details!

After perusing the shops, we walked through Bugland to check out the details here, too.

I love these lights!

We didn't stop to see the Zootopia sneak peek - just yet.

So what did we do next? Coming up - more fun photos and a really great meal! ​

 

[Sazzo'sMommy]

Love your report!

 

[mindylee847]

Love your report!

Thank you!!

 

[mindylee847]

Day 2 - Part 5: Life Could Be A Dream

On our way around the park in areas we hadn't gone yet, we saw a great photo opp so we stopped!

We ended up back by the Monsters ride again - Mike and Sulley to the Rescue! The cast member there mentioned that we should go meet Sulley so we ran over there and of course, there was a line attendant who told us that he'd be back in about 30 minutes. To kill the time, we went on the ride again - it was about a 15 minute wait and this time we had a vehicle with a working screen!

We went over to Sulley's spot and snagged a seat on the curb to wait for him to come back. We had about 10 minutes to wait and we chatted with a nice guy who was a local and was also waiting to meet Kitty! A few people swung by to take pictures in front of the spot that Sulley M&Gs because apparently this was "Walt's door from his house" according to him? I hadn't heard that before but thought it was definitely cool if it were true. Maybe it's just a replica?

Sulley came out and gave us a monster of a hug! So much of a hug that my ears popped right off! The mouse ones - not the real ones!

After that, it was finally time for food!! I initially didn't have a World of Color package or dinner booked at all for this day. I figured we would Fastpass WOC and just snack around the pier since there were so many great veggie options. Thanks to a TR I saw by @missangelaalexis, I was convinced that this was a must do - mostly based off of the dessert sampler!

The outside seating here was amazing! One of the best patios. And being from Wisconsin, it certainly isn't patio weather just yet so I was really excited to get to dine outside somewhere so beautiful!

At first, our waiter gave us the standard menu so I quickly asked about the WOC package that we had booked and were given the proper menus.

I don't remember offhand what the type of bread was here for the bread service. It was delicious though. I limited myself to two while Mike finished off the whole basket. We were pretty hungry.

One of the featured soups of the day was Minestrone, so that was my selection. This was delicious!

Mike chose to have the salad. He said it was fine, nothing really special. He does love feta though so that was a nice touch.

Mike had the fish of the day which turned out to be salmon - his favorite type of fish.

I snuck a bit of the sauce which was great... and later we traded over part of my dish so that I could eat his potatoes! The potatoes were done SO well in this dish. Major yum! (Note: I'm a potato and pickle fanatic.)

I ordered the pasta dish, sans cheese. I probably should have went with the cheese on this dish. It would have complimented the pasta so well. I try to stay away from it as I'm lactose intolerant and even with the pills I still just don't want to risk it.

We did both order the white wine pairings to go with our dishes. They were absolutely perfect and refreshing.

Then came the part I had been waiting for! Dessert!

I wasn't too wowed with the lemon cream puffs - we do cream puffs like crazy back here in Wisconsin so these were just okay. The macaroons were good. but the real stars were the panna cotta and the tiramisu!! YUM! And this dessert was a perfect size for us and not too crazy rich either.

I just asked Mike his favorite part of Wine Country and he said the whole thing! But then he mentioned the atmosphere was great with the outdoorsy feel of a vineyard and the music, but also that the food aspect was on quality and not quantity here. Definitely a place we would go to again!

After that, we headed back over to Carsland since I wanted to see them turn on the neon. We hadn't gone on Mater's Junkyard Jamboree yet and the line was less than a 5 minute wait so we went in!

We then went around taking some Photopass pictures and some more window shopping.

After that, we noticed there was a bumpin' party happening in the street with DJ!

This was really cute! A ton of little kids got to go out and dance in the street.

After that, we found a bench to sit on for a while as we waited.

After a few minutes, it was time! They played "Shboom" and everything. It was amazing. I was in awe.

As we were leaving, I grabbed a Dinoco souvenir cup with Sprite.

We walked through more of the Pier area and Mike grabbed the seasonal beer from the Karl Strauss stand. It was a dark brew which he likes a lot more than the lighter ones. He enjoyed it.

We made our way over to start lining up to get into the WOC dining reserved area. We were behind two groups of people so it wasn't too bad. We had about 45 minutes before the show was going to start so not too long to wait to get into the viewing area.

We went in and down to the railing area that is right behind the "Wet Zone". This was PERFECT.

We both played the Fun Wheel game for a while. It didn't work well on my phone and it kept giving me zero points so I was over it pretty quickly. Mike on the other hand, was playing and almost got 15,000 each time. We are assuming that is the highest you can get - but he never got control of the colors. Oh well! Good way to pass some wait time.

I didn't take any pictures of World of Color. I didn't think they'd turn out that great just from prior experience with my phone. Just know though, that it was amazing! I'm sure you already know that. I would absolutely do this package again for this viewing spot. It was amazing. I felt like the Frozen and Star Wars stuff was a bit out of place in the flow of the show, that is my only thing, but it was still done amazingly well. The Frozen part was probably my favorite just because of that water burst and then it looked like snow!! I'm babbling now.

After the show, we moved along with the ridiculously large crowd of people out to the exit as the park had closed at 8 and the show was at 8:15 or 8:30. I can't remember which right now.

We stopped at Oswald's on the way out for some souvenirs. And then headed back to the hotel to get some much needed sleep because tomorrow was our first day in Disneyland!!


​

 

[OregonMomToWDW]

Congrats on riding Mickey's Terror Wheel. You can now say you have done it. You know it is bad when they supply motion sickness bags.

Hopefully, you tried Cove Bar again and it was better. I wanted to try it.

I have yet to see WOC, so I am hoping to talk the kids into that. Loving the trip report so far.

 

[missangelalexis]

I can't believe you did the swinging side! You are brave!

Smart of you to start the Cover Bar line! I'm sorry your drinks took so long, but the dip looks really yummy.

Great pictures with Olaf, Oswald and Mickey!

I'm so glad you decided to eat at Wine Country and that you enjoyed it! Looks like they changed the presentation of the Tiramisu and Panna Cotta since I was there!

Love all the Cars Land pictures! I wish I could've seen them turn the lights on, looks like a fun thing to see.

Yay I'm glad you loved WOC and found the viewing area to be worth it!

 

[mindylee847]

Hopefully, you tried Cove Bar again and it was better. I wanted to try it.

I have yet to see WOC, so I am hoping to talk the kids into that. Loving the trip report so far.

I wasn't able to get to Cove Bar again this trip, but I definitely would go back. The location and ambiance are enough alone for me to not write this place off. Definitely go if you get the chance!

And please go see WOC! It was so amazing.

I'm so glad you decided to eat at Wine Country and that you enjoyed it! Looks like they changed the presentation of the Tiramisu and Panna Cotta since I was there!

Love all the Cars Land pictures! I wish I could've seen them turn the lights on, looks like a fun thing to see.

Yay I'm glad you loved WOC and found the viewing area to be worth it!

Thank you for posting such a great review about Wine Country in your report! I decided to do it really just because that swayed me. It was such a great experience and the viewing area was totally worth it.

And next time you go, you should definitely check out when they turn the lights on! It was really amazing. It made me feel like I was in the movie!

 

[mindylee847]

Day 3 - Part 1: Our First Disneyland Morning

This morning I was up too early again! I tried to waste time since our breakfast reservation wasn't until 8 AM and there's no way they could take us early since the Downtown Disney restaurants didn't even open until 8! I believe we headed out about 25 minutes early. I was getting antsy. I decided to take pictures of DTD on the way to breakfast.

Mike swore he saw one of the Stormtroopers move, haha!!

We arrived at our destination maybe ten minutes early.

We weren't exactly sure where to go as the podium wasn't set up for check in and a sign said to check in with the hostess before getting in line? We decided to stand near where I thought the entrance was and a young girl told us that we would have to move since that was where the podium was going. I asked where we should be waiting then and she said "I don't know. Anywhere, just not here. Maybe by the fountain?" and then actually shooed us with our hand. Well, this breakfast wasn't starting out right.

She got the podium out and then of course, a line started forming in front of it so we were the third group in line now instead of the first. Oh well... no big deal. Just kind of disappointing with the lack of service and we hadn't even sat down yet!

Here is the menu:

We were sat down outside and they turned on the heaters so it was a bit cold for a while before they kicked in. We ordered water and coffee and my spoon was covered in what looked like old, heated chocolate??

The coffee here is bad. If you don't need coffee first thing in the AM then I suggest you skip it here.

I ordered the pancakes. These were really good if you love blueberries, but alright if you just find blueberries to be okay. I'm in the later category.

Ricotta Blueberry Pancakes - blueberries, maple syrup

Mike ordered the mushroom feta frittata. This came with a salad for breakfast? I suppose they list breakfast as "brunch" so that makes sense but it was a little weird.

Mike enjoyed this and I snagged a bite of the frittata. To me it was really only good because of the cheese. Apparently that's a theme for me and food - if you can have cheese on it, that's always better! It must be the Wisconsin in me.

While we were eating, the security line was insane. It went down to World of Disney. I was a bit freaked out, but eventually they opened more lines and it went away rather quickly. I believe this is the morning that Mike was stopped and asked to go through a metal detector. It only happened one morning. It was quick and painless.

There was quite a big line to get into Disneyland and we were there a bit after the magic hour had begun. We were in within 10 minutes. Our plan for this morning was to head to Tomorrowland.

On our way in, we noticed Goofy and just had to get a picture with him! He's Mike's favorite and look how dressed up he is!

There were other characters out and meeting - I believe I remember seeing Minnie coming out but I was too excited to get to our destination!

SEASON OF THE FORCE!!

Ahsoka Tano!

We went straight to Hyperspace Mountain. We walked almost through the entire queue and were stopped when we got inside the loading area.

This was AMAZING!! This is exactly what Space Mountain should be from now on. I don't want to go on it ever again any other way.

After that, we headed to Star Tours.

I love this queue so much. I especially love the droid checking out luggage. There's one where you can see Chip and Dale as stowaways! So adorable.

On our mission we went to Jakku and then had the fight with Boba. I've had that one quite a few times in Disney World so I was a little sad it wasn't something I haven't seen. Oh well, still fun!

Next up... Launch Bay! and some awesome Super Heroes!! Stay tuned.

​

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Glad you conquered your fears and did the swinging cars ... but I assume once was enough

We loved the Cove Bar! I must say though that they messed up my wife's drinks too (the first one so badly she had to send it back, and the 2nd was ok, but not great) so wonder if that is a bit of a trend there. I just got beer and no issues with that. The Lobster nachos are amazing - but yeah, definitely not for someone who doesn't like shellfish

Bummer about not getting to do that drawing class - that was a great line-up of characters to draw! But great you got to meet Oswald and Newsie Mickey! Those were definitely two characters I would have liked to meet (but no one else in the family had interest so I lost out)

Your meal at Tratoria looks great! I had read mixed (or even below) of that place prior to our trip but based on your review and some others I now kinda wise we did that instead of Carthay as our WoC package. Oh well - another reason to go back!

That is great you got such a good spot for WoC - it really is a great show (though I agree with you about Star Wars and Frozen parts not flowing as well - that is one complaint I hear from people that have seen the new and older show is that the older one flowed better as a complete show)

Wow, I can't believe that hostess shoed you away with her hand! definitely not the best start to the morning

So glad you enjoyed Hyperspace Mountain. having gotten to do Ghost Galaxy I now really want to do the Hyperspace version!

 

[missangelalexis]

I like your Downtown Disney pictures! We didn't really get to explore there that much.

Wow, that hostess sounds so rude!

Yay for getting to meet Goofy first thing! Love all your early morning Disneyland photos.

Sounds like a productive morning so far!

 

[lwanthony]

I can't wait to see the "new" space mountain! I'm so glad you liked it. Sounds like a good morning so far. Of course morning time in Disneyland is just the best any way you slice it!

 

[wehrengrizz]

I'm headed to DLR for the first time ever, and my first solo trip too, I'm solid with planning WDW but this is a whole new ball of wax for sure! Thank you for your TR it is making it much easier to figure some things out for sure!