A few thoughts, dining reviews and observations from 8/16 - 8/19 trip

Babybears

Mouseketeer
Joined
Mar 7, 2012
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231
Just got back from a great trip! I wanted to share a few observations we came across during our 4 days there.

Dining notes:

Café Orleans - Still the best fries around! Seasonal soup was back to Gumbo which made me very happy, so delicious! Mickey beignets were good, but they no longer have vanilla dipping sauce, only the berry sauce (kind of a bummer). But they did offer us free refills on our Mint Juleps (score!!)

Carnation Café - Everything is good here, we had potato soup, shrimp salad, fresh catch of day (salmon), bacon-cheese melt. Chicken fried chicken is amazing as well. Cannot go wrong eating here.

Flo's - Also very good Chicken Fried chicken (blue plate special) and at a lower price than CC. Also tried club sandwiches and mac and cheese! Ate here twice!

Lucky Dragon - Tried new menu and thought is was pretty good. Had Teriyaki chicken, pot stickers and ramen bowl (with side order of add ons). Ramen was a hit, add ons were enough to share among several bowls and it was filling. The broth was a tad bit fishy tasting to me, probably due to the seaweed, but you could totally order without it if that's not your thing.

Adorable Snowman - PP Frosty Parfait was surprise hit of the trip! Lemon sorbet with blue raspberry slushie layered and it was soooo good! Shareable for sure, as the portion was large! Again, Mobile ordering saved us a 15 minute wait in line! Was ready instantly.

Blue Milk - Had to try it. It was better than I expected. Kind of a slushie/smoothie type texture with slight fruity pebbles flavor? It's hard to describe lol

Dole Whip - Did I mention I LOVE MOBILE ORDERING! Huge line and mobile order was instant. I tapped "i'm here" and an instant message popped up that "your order is ready for pickup". It was crazy!

Crowds/Parks observations:

DL - Was there Friday and Sunday. Park was busy but doable, maxpass is the best. Sunday got off to a slow start due to issues with Space Mountain and having to exit twice after long waits due to it breaking down, but ended up with Anywhere fastpass due to it and was able to catch up with things after. MSEP was really great! So glad to finally see it! SWGE was pretty impressive! The theming was top notch and the posted ride time for Smuggler's run was always over-estimated. We rode twice Friday and once Sunday and it was about 15 min faster than posted wait times all three times (posted 55 -65 min). Averaged 40-45 min wait each time, but the line moves almost constantly and the scenery is interesting so it doesn't seem long. The ride is fun! We were able to do all the different jobs (pilot, gunner, engineer) and honestly all were fun for different reasons.

CA - Was there Saturday and Monday. Was there at opening each day and it started off great and not too crazy but by 1:00 each day was sooooo crowded! Saturday was probably the busiest day I have ever experienced there. Everything had a super long wait by afternoon (Mermaid 25 min). And with not as many fastpass rides, if was harder to keep ahead of the crowds (again Maxpass was a big help). Monday was better, but had several issues with big rides not running then once things got running, the back ups took a toll. There was an issue with Soarin (with only one theater operational) and fastpass scanner down, so the line for fastpass return was all the way to Smokejumpers grill. Also IC did not start running until around 10:00 and RSR was down during that time as well. But, again ended up with Anytime fastpass for RSR and got extra rides on Guardians so not a bad plan "B". Guardians ride is soooo much fun! We rode 5 times over the two days and got 4 different songs and loved the varied drop sequences. Great ride all around! Also that area is booming with characters all day long. Saw Spiderman, Captain America, Groot, and Dance off with Quill and Gamora was a hoot! If you are a Marvel fan, you should not be disappointed!

Overall a super fun trip! We came home exhausted but with awesome memories. DL really is a special place!
 
Yumm! You've got me excited for my trip, and December is ages away!
I def want to try the Frosty Parfait now, and maybe the new Lucky Dragon menu...

Gotta love Guardians, def one of my favourites now! 4/5 is quite good I think!

DL is indeed so special!
 
I was there same weekend as you and had a ton of DL food too and enjoyed every single one. Also HAD to try the colored milk. I also had blue and although many reviews say it's not so good, I kind of liked it, in a confusing kind of way. Had they called it a smoothie without the word "milk" anywhere, maybe it wouldn't have felt so weird.
 
I agree that Saturday was pure insanity. Such a change from Saturdays in August the past two years. Disneyland loves to keep us guessing with constant AP and promotional changes.

Mobile ordering is the best, and I am always shocked to see people who will wait in the long lines when I just walk up and get immediate food. I'm not complaining-- just surprised.
 

We were there too (8/15-8/18), and saw a huge difference in crowds on Saturday! Unfortunately our family came in that afternoon and only got to the park around 4pm. We had to wait at least 25 minutes for EVERY single ride, where we were walking onto them earlier in the week. Still had a great time on our first ever trip to Disneyland. Agree that mobile ordering is amazing! (Used it for the Mickey Beignets as we sat eating lunch nearby!)
 

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