Turk February
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2010
Hi folks! Another WDW vet just back from our first trip to DLR (well...we got back a few weeks ago but I needed some time to decompress). I know that when I was planning our trip, I loved reading about people in my position who had never been to DLR and what their thoughts were, so I figured I'd write a post about our experiences. Hopefully at least one person finds this helpful!
EDIT: So this was way longer than I had planned for it to be, but I guess I like to be thorough. Sorry!
Crowds/Construction
We found the crowds to be quite manageable. We were there from August 22-26 and expected some crowds with SoCal APs back, even though lots of local schools were in session again. We never waited more than 20 minutes for a ride, rope dropped a park every morning, and used Fastpasses to our advantage. Like many others, I highly recommend rope dropping parks. We got so much done each morning before noon that it allowed us to "relax" and take things slower in the afternoons.
The only time we really felt the crowd was after watching the 8:45 PTN parade near Small World and then trying to get over to Frontierland.
IMO, as someone who had never been to DLR, the construction did not bother me, nor was it noticeable unless you looked at it from BTMR. I didn't feel like I was missing out on anything, even though I know a lot was closed (Rivers of America, Fantasmic, the railroad, etc). Locals might have a different opinion since they're used to something else, but to me it didn't impact our trip at all.
Rides
We absolutely love how close the 2 parks are to each other. We wanted to ride RSR at night once, so I just kept checking the FP return times on the app, and once it got to nighttime passes, I walked over from DL and grabbed FPs and walked right back to DL. I loved it. Park Hoppers are 100% an absolute must. Everyone who suggests you view these 2 parks as 1 big park is totally right. You really limit your options without Hoppers. If I can really push one tip on people making their first trip to DLR, it is to upgrade to Hoppers.
Cars Land is perfect. It's the best theming I've ever seen. It was worth avoiding videos and photos for years and years and going in fresh. I can't write enough about how much we all loved it. Luckily we were with some local friends who took us around the long way to enter by Paradise Pier. That is definitely the way to experience Cars Land for the first time. And you absolutely must be there for dusk when they turn all the neon lights on and start playing Life Is But A Dream. I'm smiling just thinking about it. Cars Land shows you what WDI is still capable of, and everyone involved should be proud of what they accomplished. I also recommend riding RSR both at night and during the day for completely different experiences.
Indiana Jones - I have never experienced a ride that breaks down as frequently as this ride. We got in line at 10am on Thursday with a posted 20 minute wait. 45 minutes later we were halfway through the queue and the ride had broken down twice in that span. We cut our losses and left the line to not miss our Space Mountain return time, and went to City Hall later to voice our displeasure. City Hall had no issue offering a FP for Indy for any time that day. We decided to return at around 10:30 and use them. We got on the ride, and then halfway through (near the snakes), the ride broke down. We sat there for 30 minutes before we were walked out of the ride. Now, as a Disney Parks fan, this was admittedly really cool. I've never walked through an attraction, and even though we were REALLY frustrated (we had wasted a collective 2 hours trying to ride it that day), it was a fun unique experience. The CMs gave us FPs for any other ride for that day, but the problem was that by the time we were out, it was 11:30 and we didn't feel like doing anything else. We walked over to City Hall to see if they could honor our FP for the next day, and Marissa at City Hall was awesome and gave us 4 sets of FPs to use on any ride at either park for the next day. That was awesome and really helped on our final day.
I definitely noticed that rides break down far more often at DL than at WDW. We were always noticing something "temporarily unavailable" on the app. BTMR, Indy, Alice, RSR, Screamin'...always something.
Pirates...wow! No contest, this ride is SO much better here than at WDW. Absolutely loved it.
We also liked a lot of the differences at Pooh, but many of my favorite parts from the WDW version are missing here. I would rate this one as a draw since both of them have unique parts.
Splash was different but I don't think I really like one over the other. I was expecting to be disappointed since people had told me it was worse then WDW, but I didn't feel that way.
ToT though...what a letdown. Half the time I didn't even feel like we were moving, and what's up with them taking the ride photo while you aren't even dropping? I knew it was regarded as the lesser of the 2 in the US, but I didn't think it would be that bad. If I were a local I wouldn't be bummed this ride is going away.
Hyperspace Mountain is awesome, and I think we rode it at least once a day. I wish they did this overlay at WDW.
The one ride we did not do that we really wanted to was Grizzly River Run. It just never worked out for a number of reasons. Either the wait was too long, or the lockers were all sold out, or the wait was low but we were busy somewhere else...I'm kinda bummed we missed it, but there's always next time.
Nighttime shows/Parades
Loved all of them. World of Color was great. I have never seen the other ones so I don't how the Diamond Celebration version stacks up against them, but we loved what we saw and loved the Desert Party (which I speak more about below).
Paint the Night is incredible. I avoided looking at photos and videos before going, and I'm glad I did. It lived up to any hype I've read about and we watched it twice. If you can, go to the 2nd parade. It was way less crowded and we got a great spot on Main Street about 15 minutes after the fireworks ended. For the 8:45 parade, we saw people claiming their spots 5 hours early. That's just insane to me. I know it's a totally normal thing here compared to WDW, but I just don't get it. I'm glad to hear it'll be back eventually.
Disneyland Forever Fireworks were great. We watched from the middle of Main Street and feel like we had a good experience with the building projections and view of the fireworks. What they've done is so great and combining this with Paint the Night is just the best 1-2 punch of nighttime entertainment I can ever member a park having. Hopefully they bring this back in some form because it's really too good to not be used.
Characters
Yes, it's different here, and we are a big character family. We didn't see many roaming characters, but we did encounter many times where Mickey (or someone else) would be at one place and then leave and then return and be a different place. Nothing we couldn't handle, but don't assume that just because you saw someone in a certain place that they'll return there. The one thing I didn't like about meeting characters is that once it's time to cut the line the handler goes to the end of line to manage it, which leaves the character without a point person. This made it a little tougher to get family photos and we had to find other people in line to take our photo instead. Again, not a big deal, and nothing we couldn't handle, but a minor frustration and something we never dealt with at WDW.
The longest wait for anything all week was the Anna and Elsa meet in DCA. I don't understand why exactly it took so long (roughly 40 minutes around 12pm on a Friday) because it looked to me like they had multiple doors for multiple meets and the line wasn't insane. But even if they only had 1 meet going, the length of the line was not what a 40 minute wait should have looked like. I heard from others in line that Merida was an even worse wait, but we didn't go to see her so I can't comment on that.
Food/WoC Desert Party
We did 2 table service meals for this trip. The first was lunch at Blue Bayou. We had an 11:30 reservation and had no issues getting a waterside table (it was the main reason I booked an 11:30). We really enjoyed our meal and the portions are huge. The gumbo and monte cristo were amazing (yes, I know you can get it cheaper next door). The ambiance was awesome, we all loved watching the boats go by and waving to everyone and between the food quality and the experience as a whole, it was definitely worth the cost. A bonus of getting in at 11:30 is that the kitchen is ready and the food arrived fast. We were out within 45 minutes and never felt rushed.
Our other table meal was dinner at Carthay Circle. We enjoyed the meal, and we had a 5:40 reservation and were seated upstairs. This gave us an opportunity to watch the Pixar Parade from the balcony while we waited for our food, which was nice. I probably wouldn't spend the money to dine here again, but only because we're the type of family to try different things on each trip. I guess it's something everyone should try once, but I certainly wasn't blown away. The best part of our meal was our waiter, James. He was fantastic and everything a Disney Parks employee should strive to be. Personable, engaging, funny, great with our daughter...I could go on and on.
We had the fried chicken at Plaza Inn (amazing) and a corn dog from the wagon (yes, probably the best corn dog I've ever had). I would recommend both. My wife couldn't finish her fried chicken plate (yes, the servings are huge and totally worth the $17 or whatever it costs).
Our one big splurge (aside from the table meals) was the World Of Color Dessert Party. For us, this was completely worth the cost. After a long day, we were in no mood to wait for over an hour for a spot and stand and risk some jerks coming in with 10 minutes to spare and blocking our view. Between the seating, the desserts and drinks, the staff, and seeing the show for the first and only time, I absolutely recommend this if you can afford it. We weren't rushed after the show and were actually offered coffee or hot chocolate to take with us. If this is the only time we ever go to DLR, I'm glad this is the way we experienced WoC
CMs
There is definitely a different feel here than at WDW. It's obviously more of a local park (duh) than WDW and that's a good and bad thing. The majority of the CMs are local people/kids, and I feel like a majority of them treat their job as more of a "job" than CMs at WDW do. It's not that they're rude...they're just less magical.
I am the type of person who always uses a CMs name (Hi ___! Thanks so much, ___) and I really love the CM experience. I'm also the guy who will write an email after a trip praising the CMs who really went beyond what was expected of them. On this trip, there were three:
James, our waiter at Carthay Circle, who I spoke about earlier.
Marissa at City Hall, who gave us 4 sets of Fastpasses for our Indiana Jones troubles
Cody at Pixie Hollow, who interacted so well with my daughter and began a game of tag with her that continued with the fairies and was one of my daughter's best memories.
I love a good CM, and those three deserve public praise.
LAX transportation
We used Super Shuttle from LAX to our hotel, and Karmel from the hotel to LAX. We personally had no issues with either but I'll review both since I did prefer one over the other.
We waited about 15 minutes for our Super Shuttle once checking in, but I was really impressed with their accuracy. They knew the second our plane landed and sent a text with detailed instructions about checking in and where to go. Once we were in the van (7 total were picked up from our terminal), we stopped one more time to get 2 more people to fill up the van. What I didn't like was the amount of space they had in the back for luggage, and that the spare tire in their vans cuts off floor space and leg room in the last row. They only had enough space for our main luggage in the back, and had us bring our backpacks in with us. Throw in the lack of leg room from the back seat, and it wasn't the most comfortable ride. But, we were dropped off first, and the wait wasn't awful considering how busy LAX is.
Karmel was 5 minutes late from their scheduled pick up time, which wasn't an issue at all. Their van was cleaner, had WAY more luggage space, and the driver was far more friendly. There was a family of 4 already in the van, and our 3 made 7. Instead of picking up 2 more to fill the van, we went right to LAX. The driver dropped us off in the middle of our 2 airline doors. While I didn't have any serious issues with Super Shuttle, I far preferred Karmel and will use them again when we go back one day. It was about $15 more (one way) but it was worth it.
Lodging
We stayed at Howard Johnson, which was great. I absolutely recommend this hotel. The room was clean and ready when we got there at 12:30p. We were on the first floor in Building 1, which was a great location. The walk to DLR was less than 10 minutes, which felt like nothing (especially for a family of WDW vets). I would love to stay at Grand Californian one day, but I simply could not justify the cost. I did miss being in the Disney Bubble though. Walking past the beggars and homeless at the bus stop on Harbor Blvd. was a bummer after a great day in the parks. But, that's the trade-off for a really good $130/night hotel vs. Disney's prices. While I love the Disney bubble, I'll sacrifice seeing some reality for a reasonable hotel rate.
Photopass
I know it's not a big thing here since this park is more local, but I do wish there were more photographers around the parks, especially in popular spots like Main Street or near Paradise Pier and Buena Vista Street. I am no doubt spoiled by WDW and their abundance of photographers, where it's weird for a character to not have a photographer with them. It's the complete opposite at DLR (we knew that coming in). So with that being said, I feel like the price for their 7-day package ($70) is pretty fair considering it also includes ride photos.
Conclusion
I'm so happy we took a break from our yearly WDW trips to do DLR. I felt like this was a great year to break since there was not much new at WDW and the Diamond Celebration festivities were still going on. DLR is historic and I loved walking where Walt once walked. The park has a character and feel completely different than WDW, and that's a good thing. I didn't fall in love with the parks, but I did love them. We will return one day, maybe 2020!
EDIT: So this was way longer than I had planned for it to be, but I guess I like to be thorough. Sorry!
Crowds/Construction
We found the crowds to be quite manageable. We were there from August 22-26 and expected some crowds with SoCal APs back, even though lots of local schools were in session again. We never waited more than 20 minutes for a ride, rope dropped a park every morning, and used Fastpasses to our advantage. Like many others, I highly recommend rope dropping parks. We got so much done each morning before noon that it allowed us to "relax" and take things slower in the afternoons.
The only time we really felt the crowd was after watching the 8:45 PTN parade near Small World and then trying to get over to Frontierland.
IMO, as someone who had never been to DLR, the construction did not bother me, nor was it noticeable unless you looked at it from BTMR. I didn't feel like I was missing out on anything, even though I know a lot was closed (Rivers of America, Fantasmic, the railroad, etc). Locals might have a different opinion since they're used to something else, but to me it didn't impact our trip at all.
Rides
We absolutely love how close the 2 parks are to each other. We wanted to ride RSR at night once, so I just kept checking the FP return times on the app, and once it got to nighttime passes, I walked over from DL and grabbed FPs and walked right back to DL. I loved it. Park Hoppers are 100% an absolute must. Everyone who suggests you view these 2 parks as 1 big park is totally right. You really limit your options without Hoppers. If I can really push one tip on people making their first trip to DLR, it is to upgrade to Hoppers.
Cars Land is perfect. It's the best theming I've ever seen. It was worth avoiding videos and photos for years and years and going in fresh. I can't write enough about how much we all loved it. Luckily we were with some local friends who took us around the long way to enter by Paradise Pier. That is definitely the way to experience Cars Land for the first time. And you absolutely must be there for dusk when they turn all the neon lights on and start playing Life Is But A Dream. I'm smiling just thinking about it. Cars Land shows you what WDI is still capable of, and everyone involved should be proud of what they accomplished. I also recommend riding RSR both at night and during the day for completely different experiences.
Indiana Jones - I have never experienced a ride that breaks down as frequently as this ride. We got in line at 10am on Thursday with a posted 20 minute wait. 45 minutes later we were halfway through the queue and the ride had broken down twice in that span. We cut our losses and left the line to not miss our Space Mountain return time, and went to City Hall later to voice our displeasure. City Hall had no issue offering a FP for Indy for any time that day. We decided to return at around 10:30 and use them. We got on the ride, and then halfway through (near the snakes), the ride broke down. We sat there for 30 minutes before we were walked out of the ride. Now, as a Disney Parks fan, this was admittedly really cool. I've never walked through an attraction, and even though we were REALLY frustrated (we had wasted a collective 2 hours trying to ride it that day), it was a fun unique experience. The CMs gave us FPs for any other ride for that day, but the problem was that by the time we were out, it was 11:30 and we didn't feel like doing anything else. We walked over to City Hall to see if they could honor our FP for the next day, and Marissa at City Hall was awesome and gave us 4 sets of FPs to use on any ride at either park for the next day. That was awesome and really helped on our final day.
I definitely noticed that rides break down far more often at DL than at WDW. We were always noticing something "temporarily unavailable" on the app. BTMR, Indy, Alice, RSR, Screamin'...always something.
Pirates...wow! No contest, this ride is SO much better here than at WDW. Absolutely loved it.
We also liked a lot of the differences at Pooh, but many of my favorite parts from the WDW version are missing here. I would rate this one as a draw since both of them have unique parts.
Splash was different but I don't think I really like one over the other. I was expecting to be disappointed since people had told me it was worse then WDW, but I didn't feel that way.
ToT though...what a letdown. Half the time I didn't even feel like we were moving, and what's up with them taking the ride photo while you aren't even dropping? I knew it was regarded as the lesser of the 2 in the US, but I didn't think it would be that bad. If I were a local I wouldn't be bummed this ride is going away.
Hyperspace Mountain is awesome, and I think we rode it at least once a day. I wish they did this overlay at WDW.
The one ride we did not do that we really wanted to was Grizzly River Run. It just never worked out for a number of reasons. Either the wait was too long, or the lockers were all sold out, or the wait was low but we were busy somewhere else...I'm kinda bummed we missed it, but there's always next time.
Nighttime shows/Parades
Loved all of them. World of Color was great. I have never seen the other ones so I don't how the Diamond Celebration version stacks up against them, but we loved what we saw and loved the Desert Party (which I speak more about below).
Paint the Night is incredible. I avoided looking at photos and videos before going, and I'm glad I did. It lived up to any hype I've read about and we watched it twice. If you can, go to the 2nd parade. It was way less crowded and we got a great spot on Main Street about 15 minutes after the fireworks ended. For the 8:45 parade, we saw people claiming their spots 5 hours early. That's just insane to me. I know it's a totally normal thing here compared to WDW, but I just don't get it. I'm glad to hear it'll be back eventually.
Disneyland Forever Fireworks were great. We watched from the middle of Main Street and feel like we had a good experience with the building projections and view of the fireworks. What they've done is so great and combining this with Paint the Night is just the best 1-2 punch of nighttime entertainment I can ever member a park having. Hopefully they bring this back in some form because it's really too good to not be used.
Characters
Yes, it's different here, and we are a big character family. We didn't see many roaming characters, but we did encounter many times where Mickey (or someone else) would be at one place and then leave and then return and be a different place. Nothing we couldn't handle, but don't assume that just because you saw someone in a certain place that they'll return there. The one thing I didn't like about meeting characters is that once it's time to cut the line the handler goes to the end of line to manage it, which leaves the character without a point person. This made it a little tougher to get family photos and we had to find other people in line to take our photo instead. Again, not a big deal, and nothing we couldn't handle, but a minor frustration and something we never dealt with at WDW.
The longest wait for anything all week was the Anna and Elsa meet in DCA. I don't understand why exactly it took so long (roughly 40 minutes around 12pm on a Friday) because it looked to me like they had multiple doors for multiple meets and the line wasn't insane. But even if they only had 1 meet going, the length of the line was not what a 40 minute wait should have looked like. I heard from others in line that Merida was an even worse wait, but we didn't go to see her so I can't comment on that.
Food/WoC Desert Party
We did 2 table service meals for this trip. The first was lunch at Blue Bayou. We had an 11:30 reservation and had no issues getting a waterside table (it was the main reason I booked an 11:30). We really enjoyed our meal and the portions are huge. The gumbo and monte cristo were amazing (yes, I know you can get it cheaper next door). The ambiance was awesome, we all loved watching the boats go by and waving to everyone and between the food quality and the experience as a whole, it was definitely worth the cost. A bonus of getting in at 11:30 is that the kitchen is ready and the food arrived fast. We were out within 45 minutes and never felt rushed.
Our other table meal was dinner at Carthay Circle. We enjoyed the meal, and we had a 5:40 reservation and were seated upstairs. This gave us an opportunity to watch the Pixar Parade from the balcony while we waited for our food, which was nice. I probably wouldn't spend the money to dine here again, but only because we're the type of family to try different things on each trip. I guess it's something everyone should try once, but I certainly wasn't blown away. The best part of our meal was our waiter, James. He was fantastic and everything a Disney Parks employee should strive to be. Personable, engaging, funny, great with our daughter...I could go on and on.
We had the fried chicken at Plaza Inn (amazing) and a corn dog from the wagon (yes, probably the best corn dog I've ever had). I would recommend both. My wife couldn't finish her fried chicken plate (yes, the servings are huge and totally worth the $17 or whatever it costs).
Our one big splurge (aside from the table meals) was the World Of Color Dessert Party. For us, this was completely worth the cost. After a long day, we were in no mood to wait for over an hour for a spot and stand and risk some jerks coming in with 10 minutes to spare and blocking our view. Between the seating, the desserts and drinks, the staff, and seeing the show for the first and only time, I absolutely recommend this if you can afford it. We weren't rushed after the show and were actually offered coffee or hot chocolate to take with us. If this is the only time we ever go to DLR, I'm glad this is the way we experienced WoC
CMs
There is definitely a different feel here than at WDW. It's obviously more of a local park (duh) than WDW and that's a good and bad thing. The majority of the CMs are local people/kids, and I feel like a majority of them treat their job as more of a "job" than CMs at WDW do. It's not that they're rude...they're just less magical.
I am the type of person who always uses a CMs name (Hi ___! Thanks so much, ___) and I really love the CM experience. I'm also the guy who will write an email after a trip praising the CMs who really went beyond what was expected of them. On this trip, there were three:
James, our waiter at Carthay Circle, who I spoke about earlier.
Marissa at City Hall, who gave us 4 sets of Fastpasses for our Indiana Jones troubles
Cody at Pixie Hollow, who interacted so well with my daughter and began a game of tag with her that continued with the fairies and was one of my daughter's best memories.
I love a good CM, and those three deserve public praise.
LAX transportation
We used Super Shuttle from LAX to our hotel, and Karmel from the hotel to LAX. We personally had no issues with either but I'll review both since I did prefer one over the other.
We waited about 15 minutes for our Super Shuttle once checking in, but I was really impressed with their accuracy. They knew the second our plane landed and sent a text with detailed instructions about checking in and where to go. Once we were in the van (7 total were picked up from our terminal), we stopped one more time to get 2 more people to fill up the van. What I didn't like was the amount of space they had in the back for luggage, and that the spare tire in their vans cuts off floor space and leg room in the last row. They only had enough space for our main luggage in the back, and had us bring our backpacks in with us. Throw in the lack of leg room from the back seat, and it wasn't the most comfortable ride. But, we were dropped off first, and the wait wasn't awful considering how busy LAX is.
Karmel was 5 minutes late from their scheduled pick up time, which wasn't an issue at all. Their van was cleaner, had WAY more luggage space, and the driver was far more friendly. There was a family of 4 already in the van, and our 3 made 7. Instead of picking up 2 more to fill the van, we went right to LAX. The driver dropped us off in the middle of our 2 airline doors. While I didn't have any serious issues with Super Shuttle, I far preferred Karmel and will use them again when we go back one day. It was about $15 more (one way) but it was worth it.
Lodging
We stayed at Howard Johnson, which was great. I absolutely recommend this hotel. The room was clean and ready when we got there at 12:30p. We were on the first floor in Building 1, which was a great location. The walk to DLR was less than 10 minutes, which felt like nothing (especially for a family of WDW vets). I would love to stay at Grand Californian one day, but I simply could not justify the cost. I did miss being in the Disney Bubble though. Walking past the beggars and homeless at the bus stop on Harbor Blvd. was a bummer after a great day in the parks. But, that's the trade-off for a really good $130/night hotel vs. Disney's prices. While I love the Disney bubble, I'll sacrifice seeing some reality for a reasonable hotel rate.
Photopass
I know it's not a big thing here since this park is more local, but I do wish there were more photographers around the parks, especially in popular spots like Main Street or near Paradise Pier and Buena Vista Street. I am no doubt spoiled by WDW and their abundance of photographers, where it's weird for a character to not have a photographer with them. It's the complete opposite at DLR (we knew that coming in). So with that being said, I feel like the price for their 7-day package ($70) is pretty fair considering it also includes ride photos.
Conclusion
I'm so happy we took a break from our yearly WDW trips to do DLR. I felt like this was a great year to break since there was not much new at WDW and the Diamond Celebration festivities were still going on. DLR is historic and I loved walking where Walt once walked. The park has a character and feel completely different than WDW, and that's a good thing. I didn't fall in love with the parks, but I did love them. We will return one day, maybe 2020!
