WDW Vets Take on DL and Hollywood!

[dougsmom98]

Really enjoying the updates as we are big WDW fans and I am so afraid we will be disappointed.

I was REALLY afraid we were going to be disappointed too. I had read a few threads with complaints from WDW vets and that made me nervous. There were a few rides that I didn't like as well as WDW, but so many other things I liked as well and better than WDW.

 

[dougsmom98]

We exited the Hollywood and Highland Center and immediately gawked at the stars beneath our feet.

Mark with the Los Angeles Dodgers Star:

Douglas with Steven Spielberg's star:

Melissa with Christina Aguilera:

Grauman's Chinese Theater was literally several hundred steps away from Hollywood and Highland.

We got there at the SAME time as a huge Asian tour group, but we were patient. They were done quicker than us and then we could get to some of our favorites easier. All of us loved seeing the hand/foot prints and reading the messages the stars have left.

The guys with Sylvester Stallone's prints:

Melissa with Donald Duck:

Me with Johnny Depp:

My Godmother, Lynn, and her husband, Al, moved to California recently and they drove 1.5 hours to come see us. We were meeting them at Madame Tussaud's at 10:30. Madame Tussaud's is next door to Grauman's Chinese Theater, so we didn't have to rush to get there. Lynn and Al didn't want to spend the entire day with us because Al, is wheelchair bound with a foot injury and they brought their dog, but we had a great visit on the streets of Hollywood. They were excited because they haven't had a chance to do Hollywood because of Al's foot injury, but plan to soon after he recovers.

Here is a picture of my brother and I with Lynn, Al and their puppy Tigger.

We visited for a half hour. The plan was to go right to Madame Tussaud's but right next door to the wax museum was a store that sold everything for $10. Well, they had workers outside advertising that everything in the store was $5. I couldn't pass up a deal, so we went inside. They had t-shirts, mugs, bags, baseball hats... I ended up buying myself a Hollywood tote bag, I bought Melissa a pink Hollywood t-shirt, Mark bought a Hollywood hat, Matthew wanted a fedora type hat, I also bought Melissa a bracelet she really wanted. My DH didn't buy anything. While we were at the store, the price of everything increased to $6 per item. Anyone who was already there got the $5 price. Here are some of our treasures:

Mark's Hollywood hat:

Matt's fedora hat:

Douglas "in front" of the Hollywood sign:

Melissa's bracelet:

Up next... Madame Tussaud's (finally!)

 

[dougsmom98]

Madame Tussaud's - So after we got our treasures for $5 at the store next door, we headed over to Madame Tussaud's. Out front they had a Shrek to stand with and a Lucille Ball.

I had signed up for the Elephant VIP card prior to the trip. You sign up online and print off the card. Here is the link: http://www.hollywoodandhighland.com/vip

It gave us $5 off the entrance fee for adults and children. Up to 6 people could get the discount per visit. I thought it would end up being the same price as buying tickets in advance online, but I was hesitant to buy in advance in case we got sick and couldn't leave our hotel room or something. I am glad I didn't buy online in advance because I am pretty positive it was even less expensive than online. Looking at the web site, it would have cost us $108 online but it only cost us $99 for our group. So I highly recommend printing this card off. After buying your tickets, you walk up a ramp and an employee meets you to tell the rules before you enter. The only rules are that you may not touch the figures hair or face. Other than that, you may pose with them however you want. Next, they have you pose in front of a green screen for several photos and get a photopass type card because there are several other areas where you may get your photo taken by a photographer. The wax museum has 3 floors. The top floor is designed to be a Hollywood celebrity red carpet party. Here are some photos that we took.

The middle floor of the museum has classic Hollywood figures and movie characters. Here are several pictures from that floor.

The bottom floor was a little bit of everything and sports.

We had such a good time at this museum. If you go, make sure you have a cleared memory card on your camera and a full battery. It was so much fun taking pictures with the wax figures. We spent at least two hours here - but there are 6 of us and I can't tell you how many times I heard my kids calling out "Mom, take my picture." Smaller families may not need as much time. This was one of the highlights of our trip. I highly recommend it if you are willing to be silly.

 

[tessieg]

I love that last picture of your sons with Jack Nicholson!
Did your kids know many of the figures? That is the one thing I wasnt sure about---how many my kids would know and if it would be interesting to them if they didnt know the celebrities.

 

[SnowWhite09]

I'm really enjoying your trip report so far! Sounds like a great day!

 

[dougsmom98]

I love that last picture of your sons with Jack Nicholson!
Did your kids know many of the figures? That is the one thing I wasnt sure about---how many my kids would know and if it would be interesting to them if they didnt know the celebrities.

My boys knew a lot of the celebrities especially the ones on the top floor, the sports people, and the movie characters. They definitely knew more than my daughter. They are 13, 11, and 11 and she is 6 but she still had a blast. She still wanted to pose with the pretty ladies and the action heros. It was kind of cool because even with the actors that my kids didn't know, there tended to be fun props for them to play with and pose with so it made it interactive and fun.

 

[dougsmom98]

I'm really enjoying your trip report so far! Sounds like a great day!

Thanks. I am glad you are enjoying it. We did have a great day!

 

[dougsmom98]

To exit the museum, you go through a small gift shop. This is where you can look at your photopass type photos. We looked at them but didn't like any of them well enough to purchase them. We exited the museum and crossed the street to be on the same side as Disney's Soda Fountain. I knew Tinkerbell's star was out in front. Along the way we saw this star

A good view of the Hard Rock was across the street:

A good view of the Kodak Theater:

The Muppets!

Finally the star we had been looking for:

This guy was not too far behind.

Mickey Mouse was also right there outside the Soda Fountain, but there were people going in and out and I didn't want to block foot traffic. The soda fountain looked really cool and I would have loved to eat here but for a family of 6, we couldn't justify the budget.

In my original itinerary, I suggested eating at Mel's Diner if we were hungry, but I REALLY wanted to save my appetite for the Farmers Market. So, we went to McDonalds. McDonald's is right next door to Ripleys Believe It or Not. We split several 20 piece nuggets, several large fries, several drinks and then we each got an ice cream. You can't beat the price of a McDonalds hot fudge sundae.

Marilyn Monroe's star was between McDonald's and Ripley's:

Right behind Ripleys was our next stop, The Hollywood Museum.

This attraction was very quiet, but packed full of items to look at. I had read good things about it on tripadvisor and really enjoyed the attraction. I don't think the kids liked it as well as the wax museum, but it was still cool. There were lots of clothes from movies and famous actors/actresses.

Here is a Baywatch Bathing suit:

Sony and Cher's clothes:

Prom Outfits from High School Musical 3.

The original Training Gloves from Rocky:

Rocky's boxing robe:

Elvis Presley's robe:

The shoes that the kids from Harry Potter wore when they made their footprints at Grauman's Chinese Theater.

We got our picture taken in the lobby by the very helpful lady that checked us in. She was so sweet and clearly LOVED her job and was knowledgeable about the area an the museum.

I don't have a picture of it, but we got to take the elevator to the top floor because my brother's friend Diane was using a scooter for this trip. The elevator was so cool. It was a large wooden box big enough to fit a car. They had to make it specially to bring one of the cars on display to its location.

Another cool thing was when I used the restroom, there were signs indicating that these were the original bathrooms that the Max Factor make up artists used to use back in the day because this is the old Max Factor building.

Some accessories from Lucille Ball located in the red head's make up room:

The actual mirror and make up room for the red heads:

My daughter was pleased to see Hannah Montana's dress:

Darth Vader and C3PO

A picture of the original Hollywood Sign.

 

[dougsmom98]

Downstairs in the museum was the "horror" room. My daughter thought it was scary but no one else did. The lighting was dim, so my photos did not come out that well.

There were also some action film things like Indiana Jones' whip:

Indiana Jones' hat:

After a couple of hours, we left the Hollywood Museum. We enjoyed it and are glad we did it. It was not as fun as the wax museum, but very informative and educational. It also had a lot of cool props and was in a cool building.

We decided to head back to Hollwood and Highland Center so we could head to the La Brea Tar Pits and Griffith Observatory. It was probably around 4 pm. We ended up having to pay the $10 flat fee for parking at the Hollywood and Highland Center parking garage, which wasn't too bad given the number of hours we were there. We might of been able to pay less if we had validated our parking with a participating vendor, but we really didn't want to fool around trying to figure that out.

The tar pits were not very far away. On the way, we saw Pink's Hot Dogs. The line was super long and some day I would like to go, but we didn't have time today.

The grounds at the tar pits are free but it costs to park. The only parking we could find was $2.75 for every 15 minutes. So, we parked and tried to be as quick as possible. We crossed the street to the grounds and went to the right of the building. There were some smaller tar pits on this side and an excavation site that we couldn't see into. So, here are a few pictures of what we saw. It reminded me of a big dirty puddle that bubbled if you looked closely... I wasn't overly impressed even though I teach science. I think part of it had to do with the trash we saw in the puddles. There wasn't a ton, but probably 1-2 pieces per puddle. I just don't get some people.

We worked our way to the other side of the building (the left side). We should have gone to this side first because it has the "tar lake." It was much bigger, had a few stone statues in it to simulate animals getting stuck in the tar pits, and there was a lot more bubbling.

We left as quickly as we could because of the price of parking. It cost us around $8. The plan was to go to the Farmer's Market first, then the Griffith Observatory but the ice cream from lunch was still sitting in our stomaches, so we went to the Griffith Observatory. It was easy to get to. We started up the hill and saw small parks, picnic areas, trail areas... on the way up. Still a couple miles before the top, we saw cars parking on the road. We kept going because we had part of Diane's scooter in our van and the other part in my brother's car and we needed two parking spaces together. We also didn't want to walk two miles. The main parking lot was full and we were detoured. We went past the main lot and turned around. Apparently Griffith Observatory is a HUGE hit with the locals on a Sunday afternoon/evening. It was evident that we were not going to be able to go today. We had one day planned to stop at the beach later in the week so that we could say we put our feet in the Pacific Ocean, so we decided we would go there then. So, we went to the Farmers Market. Parking for the Farmers Market was tricky too. We tried two open air lots and they were both full. They would allow you to enter but finding a spot was rough. So, we ended up parking in a parking garage attached to The Grove shopping center. We walked through The Grove to the Farmers Market. We loved the atmosphere of the Farmers Market and were really looking forward to trying something unique to eat at one of the vendors. We started to walk around and noticed some of the vendors closing up shop. We asked what time it closed and they said 7 pm. Well, by now it was 6:45. Our second big disappointment for the day. So we rushed around and decided we would just get a snack.

Here is some of what we got.

I am a HUGE cake/cupcake fan, but these were just not as good as they looked.

So, we were pretty disappointed that we missed some of the other great vendors. So, we left and headed back to The Grove shopping center. Melissa had spied the American Girl store and wanted to check it out. Guess what??? They closed at 7 pm too.

So, we strolled around and looked at the store fronts on the way back to the parking garage.

It only cost us $3 to park which wasn't bad. Unfortunately, my brother lost his parking ticket. He looked everywhere and couldn't find it. They charged him $24 to park even thought we were only there for around an hour.

So, we headed back to Anaheim. There was not much traffic at all. We found a Little Ceasars Pizza place not too far away from the hotel. We got 4 pizzas for $5 each and took them back to the hotel to eat. After that, we packed up some bags with gear for our first Disneyland day and went to bed.

Overall the day was great. I would not recommend the tar pits except for a quick peek and I don't recommend going to Griffith Park late afternoon/early evening on a weekend, and we should have gone to the Farmers Market earlier in the day. Oh well, live and learn. After these disappointments, we decided we would definitely go to Griffith Park later in the week when we go to the beach. The Farmers Market looked cool, but we didn't want to take time out of week to go there again. We obviously planned too much in one day and if I were to do it over again, I would have stopped after the Hollywood Museum and went back to the hotel satisfied and happy. We had a great day overall, but it was disappointing to end the way it did. We will definitely go back to Hollywood again if we ever go to California. We loved it.

Up next our first day at Disneyland!

 

[PrincessInOz]

De-lurking to say hello and how much I've been enjoying your TR.

I had to laugh at your experience at the Farmer's Market/The Grove. We have a long flight from Oz to LA (14 hours) and we normally are out of the airport by about 10.30 in the morning. I ALWAYS plan for us to go get lunch at the Farmer's Market/The Grove as this is too early for us to check in to any hotel.

The last two times we did this, my DS (then 8 and 10) would be asleep on the back seat when we get to the parking lot.
DH and I have to do the tag team thing to go get lunch so that we can eat and also make sure that DS is okay at the same time. We both end up rushing around and not getting to check out the vendors properly.

I'm not sure which is worse....getting there right on when they close or getting there when everything is opened and not being able to properly explore.

There won't be a third time. Next time we head to LA, we are definitely planning a day OTHER THAN arrival day to visit.

 

[dougsmom98]

De-lurking to say hello and how much I've been enjoying your TR.

I had to laugh at your experience at the Farmer's Market/The Grove. We have a long flight from Oz to LA (14 hours) and we normally are out of the airport by about 10.30 in the morning. I ALWAYS plan for us to go get lunch at the Farmer's Market/The Grove as this is too early for us to check in to any hotel.

The last two times we did this, my DS (then 8 and 10) would be asleep on the back seat when we get to the parking lot.
DH and I have to do the tag team thing to go get lunch so that we can eat and also make sure that DS is okay at the same time. We both end up rushing around and not getting to check out the vendors properly.

I'm not sure which is worse....getting there right on when they close or getting there when everything is opened and not being able to properly explore.

There won't be a third time. Next time we head to LA, we are definitely planning a day OTHER THAN arrival day to visit.

Thanks for following along with my trip report. I think we will definitely plan on the Farmers Market next time we head out to California and plan to spend a couple of hours there exploring our options for food and then eating. I guess you can watch them make ice cream, decorate cakes in the window, make candy... I think we could have used more shopping time on this trip too. We obviously never made it to The Grove shops and we also never made it to Downtown Disney. I don't like to spend a lot of time shopping on vacation, but I would have liked a little shopping.

 

[dougsmom98]

Monday April 16th - First Day in Disneyland

The parks opened at 9 am on this day. I wanted to leave the hotel before 8 am because I wasn't sure how long it would take to walk to the entrance. We got up at 6:30 and had breakfast in our room. We were out the door by 7:50. We were so excited. About 1/4 of the way there, I realized that I had my camera, but the battery was still in the charger back at the hotel room. I told everyone else to go on without me and I ran back to the room. The walk from our hotel to the parks was literally 7 minutes. The longest part was waiting for the cross walk signal. I couldn't believe how quick it was to get there. We had purchased our tickets from Ares travel and got an email ticket voucher that needed to be turned in. I had read that I just needed to exchange the email voucher at the ticket turnstile. It was 8:15 and we were standing in line and I started to panic that perhaps the paper needed to be turned into a ticket purchasing booth instead. So I had everyone else stand in line and I went to the ticket booth. I am not sure if I could have done it at the turnstile, but the guy at the ticket booth gave me my real tickets and welcomed me to Disneyland. When he heard it was out first visit to the west coast and Disneyland, he gave us 6 First Visit buttons. That was so nice! So, with tickets in hand, I went back to the turnstile line. I expected to be standing there for a while longer, but within minutes, they let us in. It was only 8:30. We were allowed all the way to the hub in front of the castle.

Our first view of the castle.

The kids waiting for the rope drop. Mark thought he was too cool for his first visit button.

Our plan for the day was to go straight to Fantasyland. In WDW, it is imperative to ride Dumbo first and then Peter Pan. So we decided to do the same thing here. DH went to Space Mountain to get FP while we rode Dumbo.
Mark and Melissa wanted to ride together but when the worker came around, she said Melissa was too young to ride with Mark because he is only 11 1/2. She said he had to be 14 to ride with her because she is under 7 years old. So, Douglas switched with Melissa so she could ride with me.

Melissa and Mark before they had to swap:

From that point on, I told my 13 1/2 year old to say he was 14 so that Melissa could ride with him. The only ride I was really worried about was the tea cups because neither my DH or I can stomach that ride. I know that I broke the rules...don't flame me.

By the time we got off Dumbo, Peter Pan was too busy. We had a Magic Morning to use, so we knew we would have to wait on that ride until then. In WDW Peter Pan is a FP attraction so the line doesn't get as crazy as quickly. Oh well. Our goal was to ride all the attractions that aren't at WDW even if they looked "childish." So, we rode Casey Juniors Circus Train next. We thought this was a cute ride and we liked looking at the gardening and grounds around the ride.

Trey and Diane on the train:

Some of the kids and I on the train:

Next we rode, Snow White, Pinocchio, and Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. We LOVED these rides. Snow White is different than the WDW version and WDW does not have Pinocchio and Mr. Toad's ride. Maybe it just felt this way because we had never been on these rides before and there was so much to see, but I felt like the dark rides in DL go faster than they do in WDW. We knew we would have to do these again on our Magic Morning day so that we could look at the scenery and take them in again. We headed to Alice in Wonderland and let the kids ride the Tea Cups while the adults hit the restrooms.

Then we did Alice:

This was another great ride that is not found in WDW. So far, the wait times were non existent on any of these rides.

We headed to Tomorrowland.

On the way we saw where pictures could be taken with the Fairies. There was no wait so we decided to do it. We got to see Vidia and Tinkerbell. My son, Mark was NOT happy he had to get his picture taken with the Fairies. I don't get it because he LOVED posing with the "sexy" wax figures at the wax museum, but didn't want to pose with real live pretty girls

More DL to come.

 

[limace]

Loving your trip report so far! Also appreciate the Hollywood info, as we'll be down there for a week or so this summer and will probably tear ourselves away from the park occasionally to hit some other attractions.

Had to laugh about your plane ride....nothing sounds more heavenly to me than being forced to sit away from my family, all by myself . Of course, I have a toddler, so flying is probably more work than with your kids, but it's a dream come true!

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

Your trip report is helping me so much, I love it I'm headed out to Cali next Monday, and I am using your report to help me plan my Hollywood day. My plans were to start the day off with breakfast at Mel's Diner, then the paramount studios tour, then have lunch at Pink's Hot Dogs then head to Madame Tussaud's (all your pics made me sooo excited about it), then the Hollywood Museum with maybe a Grauman's Chinese Theatre tour thrown in.

I was also going back and forth on a visit to the La Brea Tar Pits, and your report helped me immensely, I think I'll just stop by real quick, hop outta the car and start to the left of the building with the lake.

 

[hildyp]

What a great trip report!!! We are going for our 1st vist in June and your trip report is very informative! Can't wait to read the rest

 

[dougsmom98]

After we met the fairies, we headed to Space Mountain. I was excited to ride the DL version of Space because I had heard it was better than WDW. I liked how you sit along side another person in the vehicle and I liked how smooth the ride was compared to WDW because it wasn't as herky jerky. I did not think it was a better version though. I literally scream the entire time in WDW because it seems faster, darker and there seem to be more sudden drops. This version was almost too tame for my liking. My kids couldn't believe how quiet I was on this version of space mountain.

Here we are on Space Mountain:

Here are Trey and Diane on Space Mountain. This was Diane's first trip to any Disney park and on Space Mountain.

After this ride, we did Star Tours. We have not been on Star Tours in Florida for 3 years. We don't go to Hollywood Studios often, so we were super excited to know that this ride is in DL. We LOVED this version of the ride. It was probably our second favorite ride in all of DL and DCA. The boys went on this ride 10+/- times during this trip and had a different experience every single time. I loved the ride but I felt sick after my first ride. I think it was because I was getting tired and hungry. We had another set of Fast Passes to use on the ride, but I passed it up a second time and had a snack while John and everyone else went back on the ride for a second time.

It was time to head to Adventureland and try the Indiana Jones ride. We have never been on this ride because they do not have it in WDW. We couldn't wait.

Here is Mark pulling on the rope in the queue:

This was probably our favorite ride in DL and DCA. The theming is top notch and it is a fun ride. I had read that it is just like the Dinosaur ride in Animal Kingdom but it is sooooo much better than that ride. My daughter, Melissa, did not enjoy this ride though. She was scared to death. I am not quite sure why because she knows it is fake and she loves space mountain, but we could only get her to ride this twice the entire trip and I had to bribe her the second time.

Next we headed to the Haunted Mansion. I thought the mansion was beautiful from the outside.

I liked how the queue is more organized here compared to WDW too. After the stretching room at WDW, guests are corralled down a hall in a big herd and then expected to split into two single file lines. I always have to make sure the kids stay right by my side so that we don't get split up, so I was grabbing for them here and telling them to stay close and then there was only one line. The ride is very similar to the one in WDW. I felt like the doom buggies went faster here though so I wasn't able to take in as much. I got the feeling that a lot of rides were faster at DL, but it could have been my imagination.

We went on Pirates next. I knew that this was suppose to be better than WDW too. We liked the extra drops in this ride and how the boat went by the restaurant. We liked how it was a longer ride. My only complaint is that while it was longer, there seemed to be more empty space. In WDW, it is a shorter ride so the scenes are right next to each other. There were times here that I felt like we were gliding in the boat past nothing. I still loved it though.

Next, we headed over to Splash Mountain. I had read that it wasn't quite as good as WDW and I agree, but we still loved it.

At this point we were really getting hungry. My DH ran to get Thunder Mountain Fast Passes to add to the collection he had been gathering through out the morning. We love that DL doesn't enforce FP return times like WDW just started to do. We saw that there were 20 minutes before the next Billy Hill and the Hillybillys show at the Golden Horseshoe. The menu looked like it would satisfy our picky crew and so we headed there. There were plenty of tables and it wasn't too busy. I couldn't believe we could easily find a table for a party of 8. At WDW, we always have trouble finding even a table for four. This was awesome. Half of our crew got the fish and chips and half of us got the chicken nuggets and fries. DH and I each got something different and we split our meals so we got both.

We really enjoyed this show. It was a nice way to eat lunch and still feel like we weren't wasting time. We decided we needed dessert so we each got one of these sundaes:

We should have split the sundaes instead of each getting one because we had a really hard time finishing them. The cookies were so good!

Next, we decided to do the castle walk through. Before we went in, we got a picture in front of the castle. It's not the best photo, but it's the only one we took here all week.

WDW does not have a castle walk through, so we enjoyed this. Especially my DD.

We got another picture of the castle on our way to Small World.

I think It's a Small World is just beautiful in DL! I think the ride is also better than in WDW. I loved that some of the characters are in the scenes of Small World. They didn't look out of place and I thought it was well done.

At this point, we started to use all of the fast passes that my husband had been collecting all day. We also rode Buzz Lightyear because we somehow skipped it earlier in the day. I could not believe that at 4:30 pm, we could get on Buzz with less than a 5 minute wait. This is unheard of in WDW. All week the wait times were really low for just about every ride. We rode Space twice and Star Tours. My DH and the boys went to ride Indiana Jones. My DD and I explored a few shops and then realized that people were starting to claim spots for Fantasmic. So, we got a front and center seats and spread out as much as we could to save spots for DH and the boys. Saving seats stresses me out and the Indiana Jones ride seemed to be taking forever. They finally got there but still had another set of Thunder Fast Passes that they wanted to use. They left their sweatshirts and headed off to do that while my DD and I saved seats again. As a reward, for sitting for so long and being good, she got a Mickey Bar:

The boys finally arrived and made themselves comfortable.

Finally, the show started! It was great. I loved that they used the pirate ship in the show.

We loved Fantasmic. I wish there were stadium seating like WDW, but it was fun to enjoy it in a different way.

After a long day, we packed up and walked back to the hotel. We had a great day and really and truly fell in love with DL today. Our plan for the next day was to go DCA for the first time.

 

[PrincessInOz]

WDW is great but Disneyland is really special, isn't it? I'm slowly planning my way round to the 5 castles; and have only seen 3 so far....DLR is by far my favourite. I do enjoy being at WDW and it is much more of a 'destination' and I totally immerse in Disney there...but there is something really special about Walt's park.

 

[dougsmom98]

WDW is great but Disneyland is really special, isn't it?

Yes, we loved it. When we go to WDW, we stay off site and choose 1-2 parks to visit per trip. Based on the way we travel, we thought DL was a better park. You get some much more park for your money. We also thought it was prettier. Everywhere I looked, I was amazed at how pretty things were - trees, shrubs, flowers... I can't wait to go back some day.

 

[PrincessInOz]

If you stay off site at WDW, then there is no contest. DLR, and SoCal, is a MUCH better option.

 

[KCmike]

Love Love Love your trip report!!!

Confused on how you didn't like Space Mtn more at DL though. The first time my son and I rode it we both looked at each other when we got off the ride and his hair was standing up. We laughed and both agreed that it was amazing. The ride was so smooth and the music just made the experience top notch. Oh well to each their own.

And Pirates is sooo much better too at least for me. I love the second drop and the beginning going through the bayou.

Completely agree with everything else. ISAM rocks in DL. Puts WDW version to shame. You should see HM with the overlay at Christmas time!

I also agree that some of the rides feel rushed. Case in point for me is Splash Mtn. I feel like we rush thru the animatronic scenes there at DL. WDW's splash is my absolute favorite ride of all in any park but DL is my favorite park ever!

Did you get to see the fireworks show? Remember Dreams Come True?

Can't wait for the next installment of DCA!