A Tale of Two Trips: Disneyland and Hawaii July 2014 Long Way Home: The End 9/13 p.40

[luvpoohandcompany]

Pretty successful morning so far Dee. You got a lot done even with SM beig down

 

[natebenma]

You know, I am really starting to miss Disneyland a bit. Plus, it would be so much fun to see Brenda and Em on their home turf. Starting to get the bug...

Oh WOW, recognized in Disneyland!!! That is pretty cool.

Pulled a Fastpass. It's amazing how that already sounds ancient for WDW. And it's really only been a year.

Me too, Rob! Although WDW will always be our "home", we loved our visit to DL.

Seeing Brenda was so special.

That's the power of the DIS. Wasn't your first DIS encounter at DL or am I misremembering that?

RIP "Pulling a FP" - we have been very lucky. Our last family WDW trip in July 2013 still had FP and it was definitely familiar ground for us at DL.

Great pictures as you walked to you first destination.

No FP for Peter Pan? I won't wait more than 10 minutes for it.

Cool on someone recognizing you at DL.

Too bad the boys didn't get the sword up.

Great pictures around Big Thunder of all of you.

You had to bring up food. Now I'm hungry.

Thanks!

It was weird trying to keep track of which rides did and did not have FP! No FP for Peter Pan or Toy Story or Matterhorn! FP for Soarin' but most of the time we didn't need it!

I love that Nate still tries to pull the sword out.

That series at BTM is one of my faves. Especially since the family cooperated!

Yes, I brought up food. And in the next post I'm gonna show pictures!

That should help.

I love those murals at Peter Pan. How cute. Seems that the ride is just as popular in DL as it is in WDW.

Matterhorn, BTMMR, and HM seems like an excellent choice for the morning. And the carousel area is just so cute. Your pictures continue to do a great job of capturing all the fun details that make up DL!

This was the only time we got close to Peter Pan, so I'm not sure what the wait was at other times. But if it is 30 minutes at early entry, it must be long later in the day!

We are cruising along this morning, for sure.

Wow, what a great morning. And to think that is all before breakfast. Growing up Peter Pan was the highlight of my Disneyland visits. At least till I got to Jr. High, then it switched to the Mountains. Sorry Splash was down.

Peter Pan has a warm spot in my heart, but I'm a Mountains girl too!

So far, only Ben and I have been on Splash.

Rides went down a lot at DL- Splash, Pirates, Space, the monorail, IJ. That was one of the more frustrating things for us. We have well orchestrated plan in mind and too often we had to change our approach.

Pretty successful morning so far Dee. You got a lot done even with SM beig down

Fun morning! We did hit a lot. It is unusual for us to actually stop for breakfast, but that is actually what we did.

 

[Wood Nymph]

The murals for the Peter Pan ride are beautiful. I would love to see something like that at WDW.

I agree that your BTMR pictures are a very nice sequence, especially the one of you.

Are you holding the string bag that is in the BC thread? I took your advice about using string bags to avoid bag check and it has worked perfectly. First of all I found the string bag very comfortable to wear. And most importantly, I don't have to keep taking my cellphone in and out of my pocket every time I sat down. I also like to bring a refill mug with me into the parks.

 

[DisneyKid4Life]

Wasn't your first DIS encounter at DL or am I misremembering that?

WOW, you have an impressive memory Dee. My first DISer spotting was indeed in Disneyland, but there was no meet at that time. BUT, she ended up being my actual very first DISmeet in WDW last December.

 

[jenseib]

So was Peter Pan just about the exact same as WDW? I think I read it was, but the lines were usually 45- to over an hour while we were there so we never got on it.

 

[natebenma]

I went back and edited my previous update- I said that we did not ride Space Mountain early in the morning, but looking back at my notes, and the Photopass picture evidence, we actually did.

I'll do a recap of our DL morning at the end of this update.

9:30 am

We left off with plans for a breakfast break after a very busy early morning at Disneyland. Ben and I went to the Tomorrowland Terrace and ordered two breakfast platters while Mark and Nate went to the Holly Jolly Bakery for some baked sweets. We met back up and shared 2 breakfast platters, a cinnamon bun, a cream cheese Danish one coffee and one water. $33.52







Look! There goes the monorail. Can’t wait to ride it later…





After finishing our filling breakfast, it was time to cash in our Fast Pass for Space Mountain.



Trying to do the Hawaiian "It's Cool" hand gesture. Not sure what is blowing on our side of the car, but it is making both Ben and me close our eyes!"


Since we were in the area, we pulled a Fast Pass for Star Tours for later (10:55 to 11:55) and then used the standby line. I didn't make note of the scenes we got this time.




Our next stop was Pirates, and Ahoy! It reopened just as we were walking by.





I didn’t want to upset my family during the ride, so my camera stayed stowed for the voyage.

We were once again impressed with how incredible the DL Pirates attraction is!!!

We walked to Critter Country and were pleased to see that Splash Mountain was up and running, so we got a Fast Pass (1-2 pm)

On our return to Tomorrowland, we checked to see if we could take a ride on the Monorail, but it was not operating. Boo!

We used our FP for Star Tours, and according to my notes, we had the Wookie Planet, Yoda and the Death Star.

There was a little time before we needed to make our way back to make a splash in Critter Country, so we decided to kill some time on the Jungle Cruise.















Look, there’s our Jungle Cruise driver from our first day!




This is a picture from Day 1




























Continued in Next Post, Click Here or Scroll Down

 

[natebenma]

Noon

We made our way to Critter Country, but it was not quite time to use our Splash FP.

We stopped for lunch at the nearby Hungry Bear. The restaurant has a very rustic theming and great views of the Rivers of America and the DL train pulling into a station.

















Since breakfast had not been too long ago, we split 3 entrees, 2 cupcakes, 3 drinks and a cup of ice water. $53.70


Chili Cheeseburger


Chicken Sandwich


Big Al’s Salad




Lemon Cupcakes


Let’s follow-up our lunch with a little Zip-a-Dee-Do-Dah!

















The Many Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh is close to Splash and it was a walk on, so we did that next. The cars are a little different, but it is pretty much the same ride as WDW, although I can’t remember if there was a bouncing sensation.









Here’s a picture showing what the crowds looked like around 1:30.





Our energy level was starting to plummet, so we knew we needed to take a little break, go back to the resort and get ready for our morning departure and the next leg of our adventure.

We made our way out of the park, stopping by to see if the Monorail was running, but alas, it was not.

We went to Indiana Jones, and pulled a FP for 6-7 pm.

On our way out, I stopped by the photo store because with our AAA package, we got a free 5x7 Photopass print.

I chose this shot:





I mentioned earlier that we were trying to meet up with some friends from our hometown today, a couple of awesome teachers from our middle school and their two girls. For purposes of this report, let’s call him “Joe”. While we were at lunch I tried to get in touch with him to see if we could figure out a place to meet.

12:30 “Are you at Disneyland or California today? We are at DL right now. I can give you photopass badge to use for the rest of your trip”

1:09 “Hi Dee. We are at DL. Crowd was ok this am. Having a blast, headed to Pirates now and have lunch at 2. Maybe we can meet up after lunch.”

1:46 “We are leaving DL now. At Indiana for FP for later. Back this evening.”


We had a couple of disappointments on our last morning. No monorail and not meeting up with “Joe” and his family. But no complaints about how we spent our time from 7 am to 2 pm:

Peter Pan, Matterhorn, Space Mountain (2x), Big Thunder Mountain, Haunted Mansion, breakfast, Star Tours (x2), Pirates, Jungle Cruise, lunch at Hungry Bear, Splash Mountain, Winnie-the-Pooh and a FP for Indiana Jones.


I don’t really have great notes about what we did after leaving DL.

I know we stopped at La Brea Bakery to get a chocolate croissant and Danish and at Whitewater snacks for 2 yogurt parfaits and 2 boxes of cereal so we would be prepared for breakfast the next morning. We came back to the room and found that housekeeping had left a gift for us- a canister with a Giant Sequoia seed as a souvenir of our stay at the Grand Californian Hotel. Nate thought this was pretty cool, so we packed it.

We packed up everything we could. I don’t remember if we went to the pool, but since I don’t have any pictures, I doubt that we did.


Next up: Not So Magical Evening/At Least We Saw Fireworkshttp://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=52799561&postcount=364

 

[natebenma]

The murals for the Peter Pan ride are beautiful. I would love to see something like that at WDW.

I agree that your BTMR pictures are a very nice sequence, especially the one of you.

Are you holding the string bag that is in the BC thread? I took your advice about using string bags to avoid bag check and it has worked perfectly. First of all I found the string bag very comfortable to wear. And most importantly, I don't have to keep taking my cellphone in and out of my pocket every time I sat down. I also like to bring a refill mug with me into the parks.

I really liked the murals, and since I either didn't take any pictures on the ride, or they didn't come out, they are the only pictures in my photo album of the ride.

The 4 BTM pictures are some of my favorite of the trip. I make keepsakes of my trips with albums where you slide-in the photos. I get albums that have a 10 photo per page layout, with 4 portrait and 6 landscape orientations per page, so those 4 are perfect for my BTM page.

Guess who has been working on her photo albums the past week???

Yes, that is the bag from the thread. I have two that Lisa (mickeystoontown) has made for me. They are really the best for park travel. I'm glad you have found the advice to be useful, and I'll post the advice from the FAQ in the next post here in case anyone wants to read what we are talking about.

WOW, you have an impressive memory Dee. My first DISer spotting was indeed in Disneyland, but there was no meet at that time. BUT, she ended up being my actual very first DISmeet in WDW last December.

Not hard to remember a great story!!!

So was Peter Pan just about the exact same as WDW? I think I read it was, but the lines were usually 45- to over an hour while we were there so we never got on it.

Pretty much the same ride. Certainly not as significantly different as Pirates in DL vs. WDW. I believe some of the scenes are set differently, and I don't think the London scene was exactly the same, but the cardinal rule still applies- First thing in the morning for PP, or skip it.

 

[natebenma]

Can you explain "String-Bag Theory" to me?

Well, I am no physicist, but yes I can!

Some of you know that I have an unhealthy obsession with string bags and Ziplocs.

1) On days when we don't need ponchos, we try to only bring what we can carry through in our hands or pockets. Folded backsack(s) in back pocket. Cell Phones and small point & shoot cameras in shorts pockets or larger camera hanging around neck (no camera bag)- extra memory cards/batteries in pockets. Carry bottles of water.

Once you are through bag check, you can take the folded backsack out of your back pocket and empty the things in your pockets, plus the drinks, into the sack to make it easier to carry.

2) This is how we packed our ponchos for the Disney parks last July.

We rolled our ponchos into a large (2 or 2 1/2 gallon bag). Any other stuff we brought into the parks, like moleskin, extra memory cards, camera batteries and journals for notes, went into another, smaller plastic bag. We also carried another empty large ziploc to keep everything dry if it rained. We would wear the ponchos and then the string bag and contents would fit into the bag. When it stopped raining, we tried to wring out the ponchos, roll them up and place them back in their bag so they didn't get everything else wet.

It was great going through bag check. We had two clear see-through bags that the checkers didn't even have to open- just look and give a quick squeeze. Someone else carried the deflated string bag in their pocket. Once past that point, the two bags went back into the string bag.






PS- my bag was custom made by DISer Mickeystoontown. She often adds a Mickey Head outline decoration to the bag but I preferred to have mine without one.

PPS- the observant reader may notice that some of these bags are Hefty, not Ziploc. A rose by any other name...

 

[mickeystoontown]

How cool that you were recognized while waiting in line! It's like you said "power of the Dis".

You guys got a whole lot done that morning and early afternoon. Lots of attractions and two meals. Great job!

I know that I've said it before but it's so odd to see that most attractions start or actually take place outdoors at Disneyland. Odd but neat.

You are so sweet to post yet another picture of the bag that I made for you. I agree that string bags are THE way to go when traveling the parks.

 

[KatMark]

Wow...you got a lot done that morning.

The POTC outside looks awesome.

I didn't realize that Splash Mountain was individual seats. Is there something in front of you to hold on to?

I am in LOVE with those pots at the Pooh ride...so cute.

What an ideal spot for lunch...what a view!

Sorry you didn't get to hook up with your friends.

I love your idea for the bag. I will have to remember that for May.

 

[DisneyKid4Life]

Ah Disneyland Space Mountain. While I would be sad to see it down for an extended period, I really would love the same upgrade done in MK. I absolutely loved this ride in Disneyland.

Haha, one of the other things I found with DL Pirates is the end and how it feels like you're totally on display for the people waiting in line as you slowly sail by. Actually I found that to be the case for a lot of Disneyland rides. You're part of the show!

 

[natebenma]

How cool that you were recognized while waiting in line! It's like you said "power of the Dis".

You guys got a whole lot done that morning and early afternoon. Lots of attractions and two meals. Great job!

I know that I've said it before but it's so odd to see that most attractions start or actually take place outdoors at Disneyland. Odd but neat.

You are so sweet to post yet another picture of the bag that I made for you. I agree that string bags are THE way to go when traveling the parks.

I didn't expect to get randomly recognized at DL!

I have two favorite incidents when I have been recognized in the past. One was in Atlantis. A woman recognized me from my trip reports on the DIS. She posted after the trip because she thought it would be too weird to say hello, and besides, I was walking too fast for her to catch up. Yep. That was me.

Then, flying home from Miami from a cruise, one of the flight attendants recognized me. She lives in our town and knows me from school events.

I hate to say it, so instead I will sing it... "It's a Small World, After All!"

We rocked DL that morning!!! Unfortunately, our pixie dust had an expiration date.

It is strange that so many lines are outside. Fortunately, that area of California stays pretty dry, but it stinks when they do get rain. Eh, Jen?

I can't say it enough- I LOVE LOVE LOVE my string bags. I know that a couple of people on the FAQ thread or from past reports have followed my advice. Not sure if they are using bags you made or not, but I am a big fan and will continue to mention them whenever the opportunity arises.

Wow...you got a lot done that morning.

The POTC outside looks awesome.

I didn't realize that Splash Mountain was individual seats. Is there something in front of you to hold on to?

I am in LOVE with those pots at the Pooh ride...so cute.

What an ideal spot for lunch...what a view!

Sorry you didn't get to hook up with your friends.

I love your idea for the bag. I will have to remember that for May.

The queue for Pirates at DL is not very impressive, what I posted is really all there is, but the ride more than makes up for it. It is SO incredible!

We rode twice and I was never in the front, so I don't know if there is something to hold on to. I don't think so. The logs at Splash are individual seats, and the ride vehicle for Space Mountain are two to a seat.

The Pooh pots are cute (that does NOT sound right!)

The Hungry Bear was a nice find for lunch. Lots of interesting things to look at.

I was sad we didn't connect with our friends, but we still had the evening ahead of us.

Ah Disneyland Space Mountain. While I would be sad to see it down for an extended period, I really would love the same upgrade done in MK. I absolutely loved this ride in Disneyland.

Haha, one of the other things I found with DL Pirates is the end and how it feels like you're totally on display for the people waiting in line as you slowly sail by. Actually I found that to be the case for a lot of Disneyland rides. You're part of the show!

Space was awesome!

That's true- all the people who are waiting in line are glaring at you because you are on a boat and they are not.

We're part of the show!!! Does that make us all Cast Members?

 

[luvpoohandcompany]

Loving the headhunter cartoon. Food, especially at lunch, looks great! Sorry you didn't manage to meet your friends from home but other than that and the monorail being down it sounds like you had a great day and I love all the photos you've managed to either take or have taken for you by photopass people. Your boys are so grown up lookingin them-Nate is definitely catching up on Mark

 

[natebenma]

Loving the headhunter cartoon. Food, especially at lunch, looks great! Sorry you didn't manage to meet your friends from home but other than that and the monorail being down it sounds like you had a great day and I love all the photos you've managed to either take or have taken for you by photopass people. Your boys are so grown up lookingin them-Nate is definitely catching up on Mark

I still have some leftover cartoons from my previous report!

Missing the monorail and my friends were the two most disappointing things about that morning. We still had the evening to make up for it, so do you think we will be able to make up for it?

Situation: Doubtful

I'm happy with the pictures we got. The Photopass was relatively inexpensive ($69 I think) and we found a fair number of photographers. And most importantly, the boys did not complain too much about stopping for pictures.

The boys sure are getting tall, which they obviously do NOT get from me!

 

[MEK]

OK - let's see what I can remember!

Love your ride photos on Space and Splash. I just think those single seats on Splash looks crazy.

Both Pirates and JC look like they are really cool at DL. I can't believe you put your camera away. I hope your family appreciated it, because your DIS friends don't!



Beautiful view during lunch and the food looks super yummy - especially those cupcakes. Serious yum to the lemon cupcake!!!!!!

Sorry you missed your friend from school. Bummer!

You really got a lot done between 7 and 2pm. I don't blame you for needing a break.

Back to finish up reading.

 

[MEK]

Love your strategy for bringing your things into the park and that bag by Lisa is adorable!

 

[luvpoohandcompany]

I still have some leftover cartoons from my previous report!

I'm in awe of your ability to find suitable cartoons

Missing the monorail and my friends were the two most disappointing things about that morning. We still had the evening to make up for it, so do you think we will be able to make up for it?

Situation: Doubtful

I'm hoping you at least get to ride the monorail

I'm happy with the pictures we got. The Photopass was relatively inexpensive ($69 I think) and we found a fair number of photographers. And most importantly, the boys did not complain too much about stopping for pictures.


That's a decent price
The boys sure are getting tall, which they obviously do NOT get from me!

Speaking as someone who is also vertically challenged I will only say that good things come in small packages although a certain family member has been known to remind me (for some unfathomable reason) that poison also comes in small bottles!!

 

[jenseib]

Loving the updates as always!!

Lunch looks fabulous!

I like your string bag theory!

 

[KatMark]

To you and yours, Dee, a very

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