iHEARTflorida
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jun 18, 2006
Cheeky day trip
Just came back from a cheeky daytrip to Disneyland and wanted to give my insights, observations, thoughts and ramblings. I am a big Disney parks fan and love to meet the characters so came out as I wanted to meet Oswald and Ortensia - having met neither of them in the past. It also worked out that the 100th celebrations just started.
We got a cheap flight out to Long Beach using points on Southwest, we did have a connection in Denver, but landed in Long Beach by 9:30am - which wasn’t bad, however I’d prefer a direct flight next time but don’t complain about arriving at 9:30am!! We took a rideshare to the parks and were in DCA by 10:45am. The journey did seem to take awhile, looking at my ride history it was a 34min drive from LGB to Disneyland whereas SNA back in October to our Anaheim hotel was 16-20mins. I thought LGB was closer!
Sadly we didn’t get a paper ticket, I asked for one and the CM said we’d have to go to the ticket booths on the esplanade. We attempted when leaving the parks on the evening but our rideshare arrived super early. I’m cheap and did wait and save for 15 minutes but got connected to a driver straight away!!
((
Of course, the main aim of the day was to meet Oswald and Ortensia. So we headed straight over to Paradise Gardens Park. I should have taken this opportunity to get the Mickey Purple Sweet Potato Macaron as the line was short but atlas. I’ve been trying to get the Raspberry one for years from Jolly Holiday and they never have it when I’m there, I did get the alien one on my last trip in October from Pizza Planet.
Anyway, when we arrived Mulan and Mushu were meeting and the line was quite long. The Cast Members don’t like to tell you who is coming out next. But I hedged my bets and got in line as I knew the character would change by the time I got to the front of the line. The CM did let us know Ortensia wouldn’t be meeting that day - which I was pretty bummed about but you can’t control those things. Annoyingly on the DL App, it says she’s meeting today!! The risks you take on a one day trip
Thankfully Mulan switched out with Oswald, so I finally got to meet Oswald. I’ve always missed him when he used to meet at the front of DCA, still need to meet him in his OG outfit though!!!
I got back in line again after Oswald, as Ithought it would either be Mickey & Minnie or Pluto in the rotation next, as I’d only met M&M in their lunar outfits socially distanced last year and never Pluto. It was Pluto next, which made me happy, a lot of people left the line when he came out.
So that was it for our Lunar NY characters, I would have liked to have met M&M again, but it had already been a long morning for us, and we were ready to ride some rides.
I love that Disney now give you the ride photos for free, though I think it’s only part of the 100th celebrations.
We hit up Toy Story Mania, Incredicoaster, and Guardians while in DCA as well as riding the red trolley car, which we’ve never done before. I did want to to Animation Academy but wanted to get over to DL as well. Webslingers was down when we were in Avengers Campus but I prefer Toy Story Mania, thought the graphics weren’t that great though on Toy Story.
We used Lightning Lanes for the day, I felt Toy Story Mania took a long time to board, and Guardians took 30mins, I don’t think they were running at full capacity, it took forever but I really like this ride, one of my favourites and I avoid Tower of Terror!
We split the Asian Burrito from Studio Catering Co. , I believe it’s a seasonal offering for Lunar. It was good, but a little mushy. We wanted a beer from the Hollywood Lounge to go with our burrito but the line was huge and mobile order was a 30min wait!
Mobile order well ahead of time if you want food from Jolly Holiday as well. I think i tried to MO food around 5pm and they didn’t have anything available til 730pm! I ended up selecting a 830-9pm window so we could try the Birria grilled cheese on our way out the park! When we got our food later, finding seating was a struggle as people were camping out for the fireworks, but we got something after standing up eating for a little bit. The beef was good in the sandwich but there weren’t no cheese!! Lol. Nice bread. Got the chimney sweep cold brew but wasn’t a fan.
We did try the Almond Cookie Churro from DCA, which was a good. And of course we got a classic churro later in the day from DL. Didn’t manage to try any of the Disney100 food, I wanted to try the special churro and the pretzel, but we didn’t even step foot in Tomorrowland. I think Tomorrowland in WDW is my favourite and unfortunately DL doesn’t live up to it.
They had the 100th popcorn buckets and Mickey Sippers. A family member asked me for the Poison Apple Cup but I never saw it anywhere. They did have the iridescent popcorn bucket in DCA which I was very tempted to buy.
So yeah we had a great time in DCA, rode the big rides which we didn’t get the chance to do on our last trip in October. Rode the red trolley for the first time. Had some new food, and my husband had to hit up Ghiradelli, which didn’t have a line thankfully. Ended up getting a drink from Sonoma Terrace. Saw the huge 100th medallion, is there not one in DL? I didn’t see it. I saw the new Minnie statue, but Mickey still isn’t back out, I was kinda hoping they’d put the Valentines Hearts back up for Valentine’s Day.
We ended up park hopping into DL just before 4pm. I wanted to meet all the characters in their 100th outfits but knew it wouldn’t happen park hopping later in the day. We did meet Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Pluto in theirs. My Mickey photo came out terrible though as the sun had already set and CM videoed our interaction, and took the photos through the video
I haven’t seen what dates the 100th celebrations are running though, if it’s anything like WDW 50th, I’ve got 18 months so hopefully I’ll be back to meet the rest of the gang. Tbh we wouldn’t say no to doing the day trip thing again. I’d prefer a direct flight next time into SNA or LGB. I didn’t mind flying the red eye out of LAX, we left the park at 9pm, and we got to LAX in about 35 minutes , security took less than 20mins and we had plenty of time at the airport, too much tbh. We could have most likely stayed and watched a nighttime show, and left by 10pm. I really like watching WOC and have only seen it was few times. But also don’t want the anxiety of missing my flight, getting stuck in traffic or long security lines! Lol
When I checked in for the Spirit flight, it said the flight was full and looking for volunteers, however the flight was maybe 50% full, so we got to spread out on board, weird. I also got an email from Spirit days before the flight, stating security lines had been extremely long at LAX and to get their early!
However we needed to have brought more layers as our sweaters weren’t cutting it once the sun set. If we did do a day trip again, we do it in the warmer months preferably!
Our other main goals at DL, were to ride Splash before it closes and Thunder. Which we did. I’ve never rode Splash at DL before as I’m not a fan of water rides but we had a great time on it, it’s such as classic.
We tried to do Rise but it went down and we did Smugglers instead and got Engineers. We got the plant based Ronto wraps - WDW don’t have these but they didn’t taste as good to me as on our last trip.
I wanted to see the night show on Its a Small World but it was too cold for us, we ended up mooching around the shops on Main St. Wanted to pick up some of the confectionery goods but the lines were huge!! They did have the Oswald candy apple over at DCA.
We did the virtual queue for Mickeys and Minnie’s at 1pm, I wasn’t planning on riding it, as I’ve done it in WDW. I’d heard it had an extra room but it didn’t. The theatre theming and queue are different. We were group 230 or something and got called back around 7pm to ride and walked straight on.
Overall we had a really great time. Tired today!! Not sure when our next trip to either DL or WDW will be. Would like to do Tron and see Happily Ever After when they open/come back in April. But don’t really have any immediate plans. It was a crazy idea to do a day trip from Texas but I don’t regret it!
Just came back from a cheeky daytrip to Disneyland and wanted to give my insights, observations, thoughts and ramblings. I am a big Disney parks fan and love to meet the characters so came out as I wanted to meet Oswald and Ortensia - having met neither of them in the past. It also worked out that the 100th celebrations just started.
We got a cheap flight out to Long Beach using points on Southwest, we did have a connection in Denver, but landed in Long Beach by 9:30am - which wasn’t bad, however I’d prefer a direct flight next time but don’t complain about arriving at 9:30am!! We took a rideshare to the parks and were in DCA by 10:45am. The journey did seem to take awhile, looking at my ride history it was a 34min drive from LGB to Disneyland whereas SNA back in October to our Anaheim hotel was 16-20mins. I thought LGB was closer!
Sadly we didn’t get a paper ticket, I asked for one and the CM said we’d have to go to the ticket booths on the esplanade. We attempted when leaving the parks on the evening but our rideshare arrived super early. I’m cheap and did wait and save for 15 minutes but got connected to a driver straight away!!
(( Of course, the main aim of the day was to meet Oswald and Ortensia. So we headed straight over to Paradise Gardens Park. I should have taken this opportunity to get the Mickey Purple Sweet Potato Macaron as the line was short but atlas. I’ve been trying to get the Raspberry one for years from Jolly Holiday and they never have it when I’m there, I did get the alien one on my last trip in October from Pizza Planet.
Anyway, when we arrived Mulan and Mushu were meeting and the line was quite long. The Cast Members don’t like to tell you who is coming out next. But I hedged my bets and got in line as I knew the character would change by the time I got to the front of the line. The CM did let us know Ortensia wouldn’t be meeting that day - which I was pretty bummed about but you can’t control those things. Annoyingly on the DL App, it says she’s meeting today!! The risks you take on a one day trip
Thankfully Mulan switched out with Oswald, so I finally got to meet Oswald. I’ve always missed him when he used to meet at the front of DCA, still need to meet him in his OG outfit though!!!
I got back in line again after Oswald, as Ithought it would either be Mickey & Minnie or Pluto in the rotation next, as I’d only met M&M in their lunar outfits socially distanced last year and never Pluto. It was Pluto next, which made me happy, a lot of people left the line when he came out.
So that was it for our Lunar NY characters, I would have liked to have met M&M again, but it had already been a long morning for us, and we were ready to ride some rides.
I love that Disney now give you the ride photos for free, though I think it’s only part of the 100th celebrations.
We hit up Toy Story Mania, Incredicoaster, and Guardians while in DCA as well as riding the red trolley car, which we’ve never done before. I did want to to Animation Academy but wanted to get over to DL as well. Webslingers was down when we were in Avengers Campus but I prefer Toy Story Mania, thought the graphics weren’t that great though on Toy Story.
We used Lightning Lanes for the day, I felt Toy Story Mania took a long time to board, and Guardians took 30mins, I don’t think they were running at full capacity, it took forever but I really like this ride, one of my favourites and I avoid Tower of Terror!
We split the Asian Burrito from Studio Catering Co. , I believe it’s a seasonal offering for Lunar. It was good, but a little mushy. We wanted a beer from the Hollywood Lounge to go with our burrito but the line was huge and mobile order was a 30min wait!
Mobile order well ahead of time if you want food from Jolly Holiday as well. I think i tried to MO food around 5pm and they didn’t have anything available til 730pm! I ended up selecting a 830-9pm window so we could try the Birria grilled cheese on our way out the park! When we got our food later, finding seating was a struggle as people were camping out for the fireworks, but we got something after standing up eating for a little bit. The beef was good in the sandwich but there weren’t no cheese!! Lol. Nice bread. Got the chimney sweep cold brew but wasn’t a fan.
We did try the Almond Cookie Churro from DCA, which was a good. And of course we got a classic churro later in the day from DL. Didn’t manage to try any of the Disney100 food, I wanted to try the special churro and the pretzel, but we didn’t even step foot in Tomorrowland. I think Tomorrowland in WDW is my favourite and unfortunately DL doesn’t live up to it.
They had the 100th popcorn buckets and Mickey Sippers. A family member asked me for the Poison Apple Cup but I never saw it anywhere. They did have the iridescent popcorn bucket in DCA which I was very tempted to buy.
So yeah we had a great time in DCA, rode the big rides which we didn’t get the chance to do on our last trip in October. Rode the red trolley for the first time. Had some new food, and my husband had to hit up Ghiradelli, which didn’t have a line thankfully. Ended up getting a drink from Sonoma Terrace. Saw the huge 100th medallion, is there not one in DL? I didn’t see it. I saw the new Minnie statue, but Mickey still isn’t back out, I was kinda hoping they’d put the Valentines Hearts back up for Valentine’s Day.
We ended up park hopping into DL just before 4pm. I wanted to meet all the characters in their 100th outfits but knew it wouldn’t happen park hopping later in the day. We did meet Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Pluto in theirs. My Mickey photo came out terrible though as the sun had already set and CM videoed our interaction, and took the photos through the video
I haven’t seen what dates the 100th celebrations are running though, if it’s anything like WDW 50th, I’ve got 18 months so hopefully I’ll be back to meet the rest of the gang. Tbh we wouldn’t say no to doing the day trip thing again. I’d prefer a direct flight next time into SNA or LGB. I didn’t mind flying the red eye out of LAX, we left the park at 9pm, and we got to LAX in about 35 minutes , security took less than 20mins and we had plenty of time at the airport, too much tbh. We could have most likely stayed and watched a nighttime show, and left by 10pm. I really like watching WOC and have only seen it was few times. But also don’t want the anxiety of missing my flight, getting stuck in traffic or long security lines! Lol
When I checked in for the Spirit flight, it said the flight was full and looking for volunteers, however the flight was maybe 50% full, so we got to spread out on board, weird. I also got an email from Spirit days before the flight, stating security lines had been extremely long at LAX and to get their early!
However we needed to have brought more layers as our sweaters weren’t cutting it once the sun set. If we did do a day trip again, we do it in the warmer months preferably!
Our other main goals at DL, were to ride Splash before it closes and Thunder. Which we did. I’ve never rode Splash at DL before as I’m not a fan of water rides but we had a great time on it, it’s such as classic.
We tried to do Rise but it went down and we did Smugglers instead and got Engineers. We got the plant based Ronto wraps - WDW don’t have these but they didn’t taste as good to me as on our last trip.
I wanted to see the night show on Its a Small World but it was too cold for us, we ended up mooching around the shops on Main St. Wanted to pick up some of the confectionery goods but the lines were huge!! They did have the Oswald candy apple over at DCA.
We did the virtual queue for Mickeys and Minnie’s at 1pm, I wasn’t planning on riding it, as I’ve done it in WDW. I’d heard it had an extra room but it didn’t. The theatre theming and queue are different. We were group 230 or something and got called back around 7pm to ride and walked straight on.
Overall we had a really great time. Tired today!! Not sure when our next trip to either DL or WDW will be. Would like to do Tron and see Happily Ever After when they open/come back in April. But don’t really have any immediate plans. It was a crazy idea to do a day trip from Texas but I don’t regret it!
