Allons-y! UPDATED 6/18: This is the end...

[OhioStateBuckeye]

Yay for your report!!

"Offseason" crowds fascinate me. We did WDW once in the offseason (January) and I never will again. You get shorter hours (which I am a park closer not opener) and reburbs and a lot of time big crowds! I hope it is just Dapper Days and it thins out for you.

I am really excited to go on the Matterhorn again. In our last (and first and only) trip only myself and my oldest daughter went on it. I agree with the "meh" BUT I am hoping to possibly get my non-thrill seeking husband and youngest to give it a try. They will do BTMRR so if I recall this is tamer than that?

So is there a thread or place to read about vinylmation trading? We are going to give it a whirl this time and I bought a few BOGO's at the Disney Store for my girls. Are these ok? They are the hidden ones. Is it the ones you can see through the package that are bad? We got a few Phineas and Ferb ones that are like that. Are these still tradable just not ones people want?

Yeah I think the Matterhorn is tamer than BTMR. The only problem I can see your husband having is that the ride might be jerky or bumpy to him. It seems to be for taller people, I am not really sure.

I am not sure if there is a great thread on the DIS. There is a forum at Vinylmation Kingdom that focuses on vinylmation.

To be clear, you are allowed to trade any vinylmation you get, be it closed or open box. The thing I have an issue with is that most of the CMs will now enforce the 'you have to trade rule'. This just happened lately, before when you traded about 95% of the time you could choose to keep yours. Every once in a while on this trip I was allowed to keep mine, but the majority of the CMs enforced the rule.

The reason I had a problem was because I kept getting these vinyls that I knew were available at Disney outlets for $3 or $4. There are some people (locals mostly) who will buy the cheapo ones then trade them, hoping to get vinyls they can sell for a profit on ebay. So I was not pleased I was trading ones I'd pay regular price for and get one that was so cheap. Know what I mean?

But you are technically allowed to trade any you want, and I wouldn't worry if you want to trade a Phineas and Ferb, that will be fine.

And yeah, I know which BOGO you mean, those will be perfectly fine for trading.

Let me know if I scared you in regards to trading, it really is fun. Also, please let me know if anything I said confused you, and if you have any more questions don't hesitate to ask on here or send me a PM.

Thanks for reading

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

20 steps later we were there!

This time we had our portraits taken by the CMs. Mine looked ridiculous, as usual. I was squinting so hard it looked like I didn't even have any eyes.

This was our first visit to DCA after the big renovation so we took our time walking in and looking around Buena Vista Street. It was kind of weird being able to walk right into the park and not be immediately diverted with all the construction walls.

I did some more vinylmation trading here, I immediately traded back the junk one I'd gotten earlier and I ended up with a pig from space from the Muppets.

I'm not sure if I've ever seen that Muppets movie, but Brian loves the Muppets and was quite pleased with it.

Just a little side note with vinyls and Brian. He really doesn't love that I spend money on this hobby and he complains that I have too many, but he usually becomes attached to the vinyls pretty quickly and doesn't want me to trade or sell them on ebay.

We continued wandering down the Hollywood street (for some reason I thought this would be a quick way to get to Carsland) and we had our cutest moment of the trip!!

*warning* extreme cuteness

Jake from the Jake and the Neverland Pirates was walking down the sidewalk by Off the Page (the store). Not sure if he was on his way out or headed to his meet and greet area, but he had a very small boy by the hand and was walking with him. The boy may have been about 2...I am bad with ages but I don't think he had many words yet.

This little boy was letting out the most delighted ear splitting shriek I've ever heard. I feel like I need to pause here. Little kids doing ear splitting shrieks are hideous. You all know the shriek I'm referring to. But in this case, it was delightful.

The boy was so absolutely enamored with his life at that moment that I don't think he could do anything either than grin and let out this never ending shriek.

Adorable.

We moved on in our search for Carsland.

We passed by this because we were on a mission!

Geez, I musta taken the longest, most roundabout way to find this new land ever.

We were in Buena Vista street, then we moved on to Hollywood. We went all the way to the end of the street, down past TOT, into Bugs Land (this was our first time seeing Bugs Land by the way, we kind of forgot about it and didn't even walk through on our first trip)...

And finally, we saw it... *cue heavenly music*

Flashback: (this will be my only flashback, I promise, not going to turn this TR into an episode of Lost). I think Brian has only seen Cars once or twice a long time ago. I worked in a movie theater when it came out, so I was pretty familiar with it, but that was a long time ago too. We had rented the blu ray at the library on Friday and watched it with my mom that previous Friday night so we could get ourselves into the mood for Carsland.

Anyway...I can't believe Carsland! You hear everyone say that it really is Radiator Springs, but you really can't believe it til you get there. It IS Radiator Springs.



Cars isn't even my favorite Pixar film but this land is just perfect. I do appreciate all the little details in the movie, and the land definitely follows that up.

Examples of little details in the movie:
-the bugs are VW bugs
-there are little foot/tire pedals to pump the gas


Tons of little details in this land. Here are some pictures we took while we wandered and looking in all the shops:

The sign is made of old car parts!! Wooo old, rusty car parts!

Looks pretty military like to me

Cozy Cones!

We paused here and decided to try one of those Red's Apple Freezes. The line wasn't too long and then we found an empty picnic table where we could watch Lightning McQueen meeting with people.

He is such a generous car to take time out of his busy Piston Cup circuit to meet his fans.

Details!

I just remembered in time to take a picture.

We got this mostly because I'd read that it was Disney's answer to Universal's butterbeer, and we love butterbeer. This stuff?? Eh not so much, it was ok, bordering on good, but we didn't seek it out for the rest of the trip.

It was starting to get dark. We discussed our next move at the picnic bench. I suggested waiting around for the Carsland light up ceremony, so we decided to finish exploring in all the shops while we waited.

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

Then we discovered the RSR line, and realized that the ride had been down but was just now opening back up and we figured the single rider line would be super short. We debated for a few minutes, we were pretty sure if we got in line we'd miss the light up, but decided to go for it anyway and catch light up another time.

I think it took us about 15 minutes in the single rider line then we were on! We ended up being split into different cars.

I was going to take pictures but wasn't sure what the ride was all about so decided to wait for a later ride.

What a sweet ride! I thought it was cool that the window shield of the ride cars had eyes, but when you are inside you have an unobstructed view anyway. The start of the ride is very pretty and I like how they timed the music to the ride, when you come out from the overhang to see the waterfall the music swells.

And geez, those animatronic cars are at an all new level! Haven't seen anything quite like them. I describe them as looking 'soft', they have so many moving parts.

Brian's car got Ramone's paint shop and mine got Luigi's tires (yayayayay, I love Guido so much I can't even hardly talk about it. He is just the cutest best most special little car ever. And he had his wig on!!! Ok I need to stop or I am going to squeal out loud at work thinking about it. And that would be a tough one to explain to a room full of 7 guys...oh yeah, I'm just squealing cause this little animated car may be the cutest little thing I've ever seen in my LIFE).


Anyway...

Brian's car won and mine barely lost. Boo. We met up at the exit and I wanted to go to Flo's for dinner. Brian wasn't hungry. Wonder why...could it have been because he ate OUR whole chili burger? Hahaha, not that I'm bitter because Flo's was amazing and made up for it.

The line looked long, but was very organized and fast. We were handed a menu when we walked in. Brian let me pick the meal we would share since he wasn't so hungry. Then he went to scout a table and see which room was the best to sit in.

There were basically 3 areas to sit in (if I remember correctly). You could go right into Doc Hudson's space, which was very bright and had some interesting detail I have pictures of later. If you go left there is a little area, an indoor area with a big glass view of RSR, and outdoor seating.

It had really got quite chilly at this point so we chose inside. We went to the big window room hoping we could see RSR, but it had grown dark outside at this point so we really couldn't see past the reflection in the window.

That is the ceiling/wall of the room we ate inside.

We had decided to eat...

the pork loin with coca-cola BBQ sauce.

I was a little afraid of the menu. I am really more of a sandwich person and the thought of eating this type of meat without bread was weird to me. But it was DELICIOUS. Soooo good. Don't be afraid of it.

Also, when you get an entree you get to pick 2 sides. We chose the corn and the mashed potatoes, then got baked beans for a few dollars more. This was more than enough for 2 people, Brian was still a little full from earlier so he just had a few slices of meat and the mashed potatoes.

Oh, and Brian also tried the Mater's Tulsa Tea. He liked it, but it was a pretty regular drink that you could probably get at the store.

We then bundled up in our sweatshirts (I also had a winter hat which helped keep me warm pretty well) and headed back outside and got some more pictures.

We saw Lightning headed off to bed for the night

And his bevy of retainers...

The whole area just looked spectacular lit up at night:

As I'm copying and pasting these links I have the sha boom song from the light up scene from Cars in my head.

Life could be a dream
Life could be a dream, sh-boom
Life could be a dream, sh-boom
If I could take you up in paradise up above,
sh-boom If you would tell me I'm the only one that you love
Life could be a dream sweetheart

Hello hello again, sh-boom and hopin' we'll meet again, boom

Mater!! With his padiddle (one headlight). We decided we'd like to meet Mater at some point, he is one funny tow truck.

The backside of Mater! (little Junge Cruise joke there)

Groovy man.

Hippie.

We continued our wanderings and got a FP for Soarin that was good in like, the next hour. So pretty sweet. Then we continued back down to Hollywood.

We wanted to check out the Mad Tea Party that was in full swing.

The band playing was a lot better than I thought they'd be. They were really good actually, and there was a sizable crowd gathered to watch and dance along.

The bands' costumes were really cool.

We decided to do a quick ride on Monster's Inc. However, it broke down right before we got on.

Boo.

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

We went back outside and listened to another song.

Got a kick out of the 'drink me' bar, pretty clever.

Then it was back to one of our favorites, and a ride my mom specifically asked us to ride for her:

With a FP the wait was about 5 minutes.

Love that. Even those little beauties.

Ride was amazing like usual. It is weird to ride Soarin while you are in California and to think how close you are to all those places.

Our time for Space was up so we criss crossed the parks again (everyone Jump Jump. If you have no idea what I am talking about, there is a song, Jump, by Criss Cross. Its pretty bad, so anyway...)

On our way to Space we got a ST FP

The ST FP machines are Gonk droids!!!!

Hmm, I have in my trip notes that we walked onto POTC and HM, but I think that is a lie. I have no pictures of that and we were very tired by this point so I doubt we'd troop over there. Moving on...

We did have a little time before our Space passes were good so we got in line for Captain EO. I know a lot of people don't like this show but we love it. Its so campy and Hooter has to be the best muppet type character ever!

We had to sit outside and wait about 10 minutes for our theater to open and I was getting pretty grumpy. I think we'd had a debatable 5 hours of sleep the night before and it had been a long day of travel and running around. Plus I thought it was freezing.

Finally we were let in and we enjoyed our space voyage with the Captain and his crew.

Hooter!!

Use your trunk, Hooter!!

I searched through Google but could not find a picture of all his plastic food that falls out of his bunk and onto MJ when the ship crash lands. I'm talking, like, blatant fake plastic food that we all had when we were young for our fake kitchens. Like that plastic cooked egg.

And then one of the other Muppets yells battle stations!! And they all run to consoles and Hooter jumps into his bed to hide.

Also, I think George Lucas' creative well was running dry. Our good friend Hoots McGoots has a passing resemblance to another keyboard playing pachyderm...

Max Rebo, featured in Return of the Jedi in Jabba's palace.

Then there is Hoots' snazzy little dance at the end. And yes, we've also made up nicknames for Hooter if you haven't caught on. And I may have bought my little sister the last stuffed Hooter at the WDW outlet in Orlando for a steep discount, and given it to her when she joined us for the trip. She may have been delighted to receive him.

Oh Hooter, we love ya you smelly little dirty elephant.

I'm glad everything works out ok in the end and you falling into your 80s keyboard doesn't get MJ killed by Angelica Huston.

Oh yeah, the DL theater showing EO is crazy. The one in WDW only does the bouncing thing when MJ and his back up dancers are coming toward Angelica. The one in DL does it that whole battle sequence. Enough is enough DL, take it down a notch, we're all having trouble keeping our $10 churros down.

Space FP window was open!! I love DL Space, it makes me not want to ride WDW's. Brian is convinced WDW bought some pre made coaster for the WDW Space because it is just so different.

There was no wait for our FP. Ride was amazing as usual.

Our FPs for ST were still about 45 minutes in the future, and it was about 10 at the time and we were just beat. DL was open for another hour but we couldn't do it. 5 hours of sleep and in our time it was 1 am. We handed our FPs for ST to the CM at the entrance and said maybe he could pass them out.

We headed out. I think it was a pretty successful day. In retrospect, I wish we'd taken time to watch the fireworks. We were thinking of doing WOC but didn't feel like it at the time.

We trudged back to our Super 8. Got there around 10:30. Stopped by the front desk and got our room key/number. Brian moved the car to our room and we headed up to the second floor. We got the front building that has the lobby.

I don't even think we turned on the tv, we just zonked out.



Coming up:

Our second day at Disney! We have a Blue Bayou reservation, hopefully it turns out better than last time!!

 

[PHXscuba]

Great night pictures in Carsland! Looking forward to reading more

PHXscuba

 

[Velvetia]

Hey! really enjoying your trip report - I remember Criss Cross - I know exactly what you're talking about!

So glad you had an amazing time and looking forward to hearing more...

 

[stacy~**]

Wow...love all the Carsland pictures. We aren't big Cars fans but I am still sooo excited to check this out. I am already planning a Cars movie night shortly before our trip.

It really seems like you got alot done that night. I had to double check that you were still on day one. Can't wait for you BB reservation! For now anyways, I am planning that as our only table service meal.

Thanks for the vinylmation explaination. I don't think we are going to be hard-core traders. Just looking for something new to do (along with pin trading) and I was hoping to stock up on some leading up to the trip so they don't cut into our souvier budget so much when we are there!

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

Great night pictures in Carsland! Looking forward to reading more

PHXscuba

Thank you for reading! And even more for posting!! Can't wait to read your TR!

Hey! really enjoying your trip report - I remember Criss Cross - I know exactly what you're talking about!

So glad you had an amazing time and looking forward to hearing more...

hahaha I was hoping at least 1 reader would get one of my references.

Wow...love all the Carsland pictures. We aren't big Cars fans but I am still sooo excited to check this out. I am already planning a Cars movie night shortly before our trip.

It really seems like you got alot done that night. I had to double check that you were still on day one. Can't wait for you BB reservation! For now anyways, I am planning that as our only table service meal.

Thanks for the vinylmation explaination. I don't think we are going to be hard-core traders. Just looking for something new to do (along with pin trading) and I was hoping to stock up on some leading up to the trip so they don't cut into our souvier budget so much when we are there!

I would definitely watch the Cars movie before you leave. I wouldn't worry so much about Cars 2, there is not a lot there that is Cars 2. Also...we hadn't watched Cars 2 before a week ago, and I really didn't like it. It kind of felt like Pixar was phoning it in. I also sort of feel like they ruined Mater. It had a few clever things, like all the junk lemon cars being the bad guys but I dunno.

We got a lot done, especially since the park was so crowded. I really wish we had taken time this night to watch the fireworks (foreshadowing). Make sure you watch them!

I dunno about your vinyl trading thoughts...you might get hooked

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

EVACUATE!

whoop whoop

EVACUATE!

whoop whoop

EVACUATE MEDICAL EMERGENCY!

whoop whoop

EVACUATE!

whoop whoop

EVACUATE!

whoop whoop


...Wait a minute, we didn't order a wake up call?!

There is nothing more confusing or annoying than being forced awake on your first morning of vacation by the dulcet tones of a blaring alarm.

We did what any good vacationers would do and were able to successfully ignore the alarm for a good 5 minutes or so. Finally I picked up the phone and dialed the front desk.

'Is this something we need to be concerned about?'

'No ma'am, it is the parking garage next door doing a test'

'Wonderful'

Go to hell parking garage.


DL opened today at 10 am. There was no EMM available to us so we had wanted to sleep in for as long as we could. I believe this alarm went off around 8 though, so we had plenty of time to get ready.

We quickly got ready for a day at the parks then packed our bags and loaded up the car. We were moving to the Candy Cane Inn today.

Me and Figment and 00Sassy.

Regrettably, I left our room keys in the room and Brian was not able to get his cardboard doughnut complimentary breakfast at the Super 8.

We arrived at the Candy Cane after 1 or 2 U turns (oh how I love U turns, I really do, thank you California for encouraging them). I went inside to check in and we were given our room number, though the room was not ready yet. I got our parking tag and we left 00Sassy in her new home.

A picture of the Candy Cane parking, if anyone was curious.


We had missed the shuttle by about 10 minutes and I wasn't about to wait for the next one.

Besides, we were already about 5 minutes closer to DL's gates than yesterday, so the walk was fine.

And then....

I don't really use this term a lot.

but...

OMG.

The security lines were super, super long. I was immediately dismayed. We had about 25 minutes to park opening and this was going to be our 'run to fantasyland and finish everything' day.

Scratch that. As danimaroo would say, whomp whomp. (don't think she reads this trip report, but I read hers!).


We cleared security with 10 minutes or less to DL opening.

Hint: if the lines to get into the park are super long, head towards downtown disney, they are usually a lot shorter over there.

Not short enough, though. This line just would not move. I am not sure if everyone needed a picture taken or if lots more people than usual are able to get up and get there at opening when it opens at 10, thus making the lines to get in longer.

Geeeeez.

I do enjoy pictures of the monorail though! And lately whenever I say monorail I get the Simpson's monorail song stuck in my head:

Well, sir, there's nothing on earth
Like a genuine, bona fide
Electrified, six-car monorail
What'd I say?
Monorail
What's it called?
Monorail
That's right! Monorail

Monorail Monorail Monorail




Sadly, we didn't get into DL until it had already been open 30 minutes.

With hope in our hearts, we headed to Fantasyland just to see...

OK so maybe we took a slight detour to take a photo of one of the trolley horses

Castle isn't too busy, maybe Fantasyland won't be so bad...

Peter Pan had an already huge line. I love the Peter Pan ride at both WDW and DL, but WDW has FP and DL does not. I wasn't ready to wait in a huge line for it, so we sighed and sadly moved on, hoping we'd be able to get on it Sunday morning (our only other park day, Wednesday, we'd be doing a DCA early hotel entry).

I sent Brian off to get FP for Matterhorn and we had promised to meet at Mr. Toad's country mansion after I went on my first ride of the day: the bathroom.

Took this picture on the way, bathroom not pictured.

When I made it to Mr. Toad's I discovered that his Mansion was down for repairs (I heard a nasty rumor that he'd crashed his car through the front door, but I just won't believe Mr. Toad is capable of that sort of reckless driving).

I waited around about 10 minutes until I saw Brian. He had discovered what I'm sure all of you know...that Matterhorn does not have FP. Ugh.

We decided to head for Tomorrowland. The sun'll come out tomorrow, after all. Ugh, what is it with me and the bad puns today.

I just realized we did not ride these boats this trip I now has a sad.

We paused to take pictures in the stationary teacup.

This is the closest Brian will ever get to the tea cups, he was faking a vomit because he cannot stand them.

I wish they still had real mermaids in this lagoon. That would be sweet.

On the way Brian saw that the Jedi Training was going on so we stopped to watch that. Star Wars is pretty much as important as air to me, so I loved it. Brian liked Darth's entrance on the rising stage.

And then Darth Maul showed up!!!!!

Love him, I don't know what George was thinking when he cut him (hahahaha) after the first prequel.

Seriously now *warning, skip ahead if you don't want to hear a Star Wars rant*

If Darth Maul lives through the first movie (oops, spoiler alert), that gives the next movie so much more fire. Obi Wan has to deal with his feelings of wanting revenge for Qui Gon, and the movie coulda showed how Obi Wan took the jedi path with those feelings, and how Anakin succumbed to them
in his thirst for revenge. Plus Darth Maul is just the best.

*if you skipped the rant, please continue reading here*

After watching for a while Brian got our FP for Space while I traded a vinyl in the gift shop.

I traded a junk vinyl and got the Rabbit from the Alice in Wonderland set. I don't love that set, but hey, at least it is not another junk vinyl.

Remember when I said to always look up in gift shops?? This is a good example.

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

Then we headed to Buzz. Finally, our first ride and it had no wait.

I took a picture of the rankings so I could make sure that Brian remembered that I was a Space Scout and that he was just a Planetary Pilot. Whenever I win he accuses me of cheating. When I ask him how I could possibly cheat he says the DIS boards probably taught me how to cheat somehow.

I'm not sure what he thinks I do on the DIS but reading posts about how to score secret, high point targets is definitely not something I do on the DIS. We don't do that here...right? Hahahaha.

Buzz is interesting to me. I love video games but am never quite sure where my little laser pointer is pointing. Not sure if I'm shooting something or looking at someone else's laser.

We tried to email our picture home but we couldn't find it this time.

We had an 11:30 reservation at Blue Bayou, and I am a little sad to say it was time to head over there. So we'd got on one ride. Not exactly a banner morning.

We went through Adventureland, and we didn't ride anything but I took some pictures I like.

We were a bit early so we explored New Orleans a bit. It is a very interesting area and with the second story it really feels like you are in New Orleans and not DL.

Ahhh the alligator has flowers in his mouth. I have a weird thing with alligators. They are probably the animal I'd be most afraid to be face to face with, so I always have to point their representations out. And I was desperately searching for one on the last WDW trip. I never spotted one, but I did see a panther.

The Blue Bayou check in area opened at 11:15 so we were second to check in. I politely requested a waterside table and we sat in the waiting area.

Pretty stained glass exit area.

They began to seat precisely at 11:30. We were led to a wonderful waterside table almost right in the middle of the restaurant.

The atmosphere of this restaurant really is tough to beat (I can't say impossible to beat because I've been to San Angel Inn and Sci Fi at WDW). I love the background noise with the banjo player and the crickets chirping. Reminds me of nights at home growing up in the country.

That is a picture attempt without the tripod. Not great, huh?

We pulled out our handy dandy gorilla tripod (it is a mini tripod that can wrap around fences or other things) and Brian set up the camera to try to get some decent Blue Bayou scenery pictures.

That is a bit better.

Our waitress was lovely, she brought our bread out and I ordered a Pomegranate Lemonade (I loooove this drink and it's one of my signature Disney drinks). I am not sure what Brian ordered, probably a water or a pop.

No food pictures, sorry. Was a bit dark and we didn't want to use a flash.

This is the description of my food courtesy of allears.net menus:

Isla-Cruces Crab Cakes - Succulent pan-seared Crab Cakes, topped with lobster beurre blanc and mango slaw. With Blue Bayou potatoes and seasonal vegetables

And Brian's:

Royal Street Seafood Jambalaya - A robust combination of jumbo gulf shrimp, mahi mahi, tasso ham, andouille sausage and chicken, tossed with Cajun-style "dirty rice"

Brian chose the salad and I got the gumbo. I thought it was slightly chilly in there so I wanted something to warm up.

Brian liked his salad but I was in love with my gumbo. Pretty amazing.

I really can't describe our meals very well for you because I don't have the words. The Crab Cakes were just delicious. Look at that, I even capitalized it without thinking about it. That is how good. Capitilization good.

Unfortunatly, my stomach was small at this point in the trip and I couldn't finish so Brian 'had' to.

Then our waitress brought out some birthday mousse for me!

We were planning to splurge on a dessert anyway so this was great.

We tried for a few more pictures and enjoyed the atmosphere for a few more minutes then decided to leave so someone else could enjoy our awesome table.

By this time we had missed our FP window for Space, of course, that is the type of day we were having in regards to getting on rides.

We got FP for IJ

I liked this light fixture I saw on the way

Then we had to go back and ride Pirates in tribute to our dining experience.

I think we had about a 5 minute wait.


We paused for a minute near the end, this is the best I could get of Jack without using the flash.

At this point, I really can't say enough about other guests enhancing or destroying a ride experience. Last time at DL our first ride on Pirates involved guests snapping flash photos of every animatronic. It just destroyed the experience. I'd like to say I don't let other people bother me, but sometimes it is just impossible to feel that way. It doesn't go so far as to ruin my day, but yeah, I've had ride experiences ruined.

I've also had ride experiences enhanced by the other guests reactions. I'm pretty sure you all have these as well. Like on TOT, it is almost a bonding experience. There aren't too many of you, everyone shares fears and excitement on the way up, then everyone reacts together. The other riders
enhance it for you and everyone has a better time.

Ok side tangent over. No one ruined our ride experience this time and it was a fun time.

Yo ho yo ho it's time to get out of the boat.

 

[PHXscuba]

I totally agree how much other people can enhance/ruin the ride experiences. For example, on one of our Soarin' flights, everyone cheered when we got to the LA/Disneyland parts ... probably a lot of locals. We got lucky that no one was using their flash on our last trip.

Looks like you got a lot of good, unique photos despite the lack of rides!

PHXscuba

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

I totally agree how much other people can enhance/ruin the ride experiences. For example, on one of our Soarin' flights, everyone cheered when we got to the LA/Disneyland parts ... probably a lot of locals. We got lucky that no one was using their flash on our last trip.

Looks like you got a lot of good, unique photos despite the lack of rides!

PHXscuba

Completely. Like at WDW there is Mickey's Philharmagic, and there are lots of crowd reactions to the 3d or the songs. Same with TTBAB, everyone screaming and laughing.

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

It wasn't time for our IJ FP yet, so we meandered over to a part of DL that we hadn't explored this trip: Critter Country!!

We had a few minutes before we could get another FP, so we decided to ride Pooh!

It was very sunny out at this point, and visibility was low. We were almost into the queue for Pooh (haha queue for Pooh rhymes) when a mom shoved her two little kids in front of us to get in line first and I tripped over the girl, almost knocking her over. The family ignored this and powered by us to get into line first, dragging the poor girl along. I hadn't seen them coming and had no idea where they came from. Brian was behind me and said they practically ran to get ahead of us.

OK...

We then preceded to walk directly through the entire line and get into our Pooh honeypot vehicle with not another guest in sight. Guess it was super important to almost injure your daughter to get ahead of us.


The ride vehicles are super adorable for this. I love the little elephant bug things.

We got our own car to ourselves, and I decided to do the self picture taking that everyone in trip reports does:

Brian complied by making his prettiest smile.

Piglet is moving super fast! He is just a blur! Piglet is weird.

Gift shop ceiling again, wouldn't wanna miss that adorable little guy!

I was really into this bench outside of Splash

So we got our Splash FP and our window was now open for IJ! So back we headed. Never done so much criss crossing of the parks before the FP enforcement.

The line for IJ was pretty much non-existent, we didn't even need our FPs really.

There was one man behind us in line so we let him go by and tried to get some good queue pictures with the flash on the camera:

Brian's favorite part is making the ceiling fall.

Kind of recognizable picture of the ceiling over the well.

My favorite pre-show man, Sallah!!

I enjoy pulling this rope and messing up the archaeologist's day, I won't lie.

We got in our ride vehicle (still not the driver, I've always want to drive but am usually in the second row) and off we went!! I love the music when you enter the main room with the bridge and the skull. Just over all a very fun ride. I wish they did ride photos for this one.

And then a few more exit queue pictures:

I like that they let some natural light in at some points during the queue

We decided to choose wisely by taking another spin through the Forbidden Temple, but when we came out the ride was closed

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

It wasn't time to use our Splash FPs yet so we wandered onto Main Street, and who did we see?!?!

Beautiful Brother the horse!! I think we rode almost every trolley horse Disneyland has.

I just love that the horses have their own CM name tags, and I always like to take a picture so I remember who the horses are.

We enjoyed our stroll down Main Street

We'll be eating there later in the trip!

I see Donald!! Donald is my favorite!

Blurry picture but I kind of like it.

Brother stopped and I was able to see Donald right away.

After I said hello to Donald, we realized we didn't have anything else to do down here and needed to go back down Main Street. We decided to do it in style on the firetruck.

The only other passengers were a grandmother and granddaughter. She couldn't have been older than 2 but she was so well behaved with the bell!! You could tell she loved to ring it but she spaced out her rings so that it wasn't annoying. Good job bell ringer.

And before we knew it:

turtle!!

close up!!

I liked these carousel horses that were on a merchandise cart

That little guy has got to be hot. He is doing all that hard work in the heat with his fur.

We chose to explore the land of tomorrow.

Last visit the House of Tomorrow visit in Innoventions had been closed, so that is where we headed now:

It really wasn't that great. We like Epcot's house of the future in Innoventions because there are things inside that you can actually get right now and would make your house a little bit more green friendly. This one must think that to be the house of the future all you need are 10 computer
screens in each room. It did have amazingly cool kid's bedrooms, I would love the pirate one. They also did a little story time in the pirate bedroom.

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

Then it was time to criss cross again back to Splash. Ugh. Too much running around. Before that we did grab ST FPs.

Hello Mr. owl, there isn't any danger up ahead, is there??

We were in the back 2 seats of a log and there were 4 younger girls ahead of us. I felt kind of bad for the 2 in the front seats. The girl right in front of us would splash them with water, and then yell that they couldn't splash back because there were people behind her.

Brian and I managed to just get slightly splashed. The poor two girls in front were absolutely soaked.

Also, what in the world are the song lyrics to Splash?!

How do ya do, pleased to meet you. fine how are you, nice seein you. pretty good show us your bone?! I have no idea.

When we got off the ride we saw this silly old bear!

It was time for a drink! Brian's favorite:

Now last trip I really didn't like the Mint Juleps. I thought it tasted like toothpaste. That one must have been poorly made because this one was delicious. Looks delicious too...I'd like to have one right now.

We also got the 3 count of beignets. Which I can't pronounce. Even after 4 years of high school french and 2 semesters of college. Goooo School!! Actually, I had a really good french teacher. I just can't for the life of me pronounce words in a French accent.

aaand that was how much powdered sugar there was in the bag leftover. So of course I ate a few handfuls, I'm not going to lie.

Maybe sitting still wasn't the best choice, but we were headed out on the...

We asked one of the CMs if we could take our drink on and he said yes. He was happy we asked because he said he'd seen so many guests pitch drinks in the trash before they got on because they assumed they weren't allowed to take them on.

Here I am trying to get another self picture. Brian ruined that one.

Now I'm ruining it and Brian is behaving.

Just can't win.

I liked that the horse's tail moves.

Boo IASW with no water.

We walked by another Jedi Training and stopped to have a rest at a table and watch:

I like the jedi master's hair

Then it was time for our ST FP!!

I love C3PO and his british humor, he is my favorite.

Poor Rex from the original ST got marked 'defective'. Sorry buddy, for what it's worth I enjoyed your Star Tour.

On the particular Star Tour we got the droid opening, the Hoth battle, Leia and then Naboo. We always always get Naboo. Also, Brian is always chosen as the rebel spy. I am not even exaggerating, he was chosen at least 2 times this trip and I think we rode it 3-4 times. They are missing out on an opportunity with me, if I was the rebel spy I'd have to buy the tshirt.

Instead I tried this on:

And we purchased one of these:

I thought it was ok. Maybe we had a bad one but I really don't see what everyone raves about.

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

We then decided to head over to...

we only had a 10 minute wait until we were off to Monstropolis to help Sully and Mike Wazowski save Boo.

I like this ride a lot and am pleased that Disney is still designed new dark rides. For some weird reason I also like riding through the bathroom and hearing Boo singing, very funny to me.

I'm watching you Wazowski. Always watching.

After that we walked onto the Little Mermaid

Then it was high time to head to Carsland for attempt #2 at seeing the neon lighting.

Get 'er done Mater, get 'er done.

We confirmed with a Luigi's Tires CM that the neon lights up 3 minutes after official sunset. We also noticed that Luigi's was a walk on. Whaaaa?! I thought that didn't happen. So we stood by the entrance to Luigi's and sure enough in about 10 minutes the Sh-boom song came on and slowly, one by one starting with RSR all the neon turned on. Brian and I went for a 'drive' down the street than raced back to Luigi's Tires.

We walked right up to the CM who gave the ride explanation and were on the very next ride.

I know some people don't like this ride but we loved it. You could get up some pretty big speed if you start far enough away. We didn't think it was tough to steer at all.I am pretty bad at bumper cars, I usually get stuck in the corner. Loved these tires!!

We stopped to watch the DJ car for a few minutes:

Next it was time to eat and we had our most questionable meal of the trip: Lucky fortune cookery.

We got the orange chicken and a hot chocolate (it was getting cold again). It was ok food, nothing great.

Then it was time to head back to DL because I wanted to see the parade that we had caught glimpses of before. This was a good time for it since our feet were starting to hurt and we were tired.


We made it to Main Street around 6:30 and saw some open areas on the sidewalk on Main Street so we sat down next to a family with an adorable little girl. We were happy we still had our hot chocolate and took turns warming up our hands with it while we waited.

I've never seen a Disney parade on Main Street before, so I was pretty excited to learn what all the fuss is about. The only parade we usually watch in WDW is the special Halloween parade, and we always watch from Frontierland.

Then the parade began!

As I've said, I really enjoyed all the different movies and characters that were represented here.

Here are a few blurry pictures:

I had no idea these guys were going to be in the parade until I saw them and I was so excited!! For some reason the 3 Caballeros boat ride in Mexico in Epcot is one of my favorite rides and I even have the tshirt for it.

And my favorite, Donald!!

and this was the last picture I got before my camera died. I was not pleased. We figured the batteries died because of all the long exposure pictures that we took during lunch at the Blue Bayou.

Ah well, I quickly got over my sadness and watched the rest of the parade.

Loved it, good job Disneyland.

There was still a little under an hour or so left before park closing, so we fought against the exiting crowds and headed back for some rides!


This was probably our best experience with rides and waits all trip so far!!

We got on Snow White with no wait (I miss the one at WDW, wish they would have kept it), we had a 5 minute wait to suffer through Pinocchio (I am sorry, but that ride is terrifying. except for Gepetto's at the end, so at least there is a happy ending).

We hastened to Tomorrowland and got into the ST wait 3 minutes before park closing.

Our scenario was: droid opening, pod race, ackbar (its a trap!) and Coruscant (wooo, Coruscant has got to be the best ending). And Brian got rebel spy again. Really?!

When we exited ST all the rides were closed so we made our way to Main Street for some quick shopping.


I got a little bag of popcorn to snack on at the hotel and ooohed and aahhed over all the imagineering and art of the parks books (later looked them up on amazon when we got home, might purchase one there, but my local library had a copy of the imagineering one so I'm reading that now

I also stopped to get my birthday button. The CM asked if I wanted my age on the button, I said sure and Brian was like do you really want it on there?? The CM insisted and wrote a 3 and a mickey head for the 0, so I was pleased.

We looked for the Candy Cane shuttle but didn't know where it stopped so we just walked back to the hotel. We went into our room for the first time, we were located in the room nearest to the road on the ground floor. Which was great, no extra walking!

And found a birthday surprise for me!! (and new batteries for the camera)

Figment claimed his bed and settled in:

I think I fell asleep while eating my popcorn, so it was a pretty good end to the day.



Coming up:

Tomorrow we had a WB Studios Tour and we had standby tickets for a taping of the Big Bang Theory!!

Stay tuned to see if we actually get seats.

Also, don't worry, we return to Disney the following day and check into the DLH!!

 

[PHXscuba]

You got to do two things I didn't this trip ... go to Naboo (never been despite about 10 times riding at WDW and DLR) and eat a churro!

PHXscuba

 

[Jaina]

Enjoying your report - you're right, it's fun to read about being there at the same time! (Almost - we didn't get there until Wednesday!) I had no idea the horses had nametags! I used to be a horse nut (still would be, probably, if I didn't have kids to zap all my energy and time ;-) and have had my picture taken with several of them...)

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

You got to do two things I didn't this trip ... go to Naboo (never been despite about 10 times riding at WDW and DLR) and eat a churro!

PHXscuba

The churro really wasn't as great as I had imagine.

Ok, I guess if you've never seen the Naboo ending it is pretty sweet. We've managed to see all the scenarios between 2 trips to DL and 2 to WDW. We haven't seen the asteroid field one in a while.

Enjoying your report - you're right, it's fun to read about being there at the same time! (Almost - we didn't get there until Wednesday!) I had no idea the horses had nametags! I used to be a horse nut (still would be, probably, if I didn't have kids to zap all my energy and time ;-) and have had my picture taken with several of them...)

We'll be there Wednesday too! Just wait

Yeah we love the horses. I loved horses when I was little, so I woulda been right there with you.

 

[tbgmom]

Great trip report so far!

The words to the Splash Mountain song are "Pretty good, sure as you're born" if I remember correctly. Of course, my boys would sing your version just because it's wrong. They love the misheard lyrics videos on Youtube!