*August 2019 check in*

[gerilyne]

Thank you for your good thoughts. She is in for surgery on her shoulder this morning so I anticipate that she is going to be on the road to recovery soon.

As they say: "bad things happen in 3's" and right now my son's middle school and our community is dealing with a tragic loss of a student after an accident at an end of school camping trip. I am really quite overwhelmed with all of this sadness.

I am so sorry for all that you are going through. I wish there was more I could do than offer you my sympathy. Sadness is difficult to process for all of us. I am sending my good thoughts to you, your mother and community.

 

[swimchick1984]

My husband (hopefully), myself, and my lovely daughter will be going to universal studios on 9-10 aug and then switch to disneyland 11-15 august.

Booked
10 aug - steakhouse 55
11 aug - Blue Bayou with fantasmic
12 aug - catal resturant dinner (thought i need to get the kiddos opinion it is her birthday
13 aug - Breakfast with mInnie; tortillla jo's diner
14 aug - Would like desert party

 

[swimchick1984]

World of color desert party or dinning package? Which is better?

 

[Aladora]

World of color desert party or dinning package? Which is better?

It really depends on what is more important to your family, food or seating. We've done WCT dining once, CCR dining twice and the dessert party once with our second dessert party booked for Aug 19th.

For us, we value the seating over the food especially since none of us are huge dessert eaters. We would rather eat a light dinner then enjoy the bread, cheese and sweet offerings at our own table and chairs for the show and if we really want to eat at Carthay (which I suspect we will) then we will book a separate reservation there another evening. The viewing section for the dining packages are good, we have always had a great view but I hate having to camp out the good spot early and sit on the ground while waiting for the show. I am definitely getting too old to sit on the ground for an hour+ just to get the good view that we love.

 

[swimchick1984]

It really depends on what is more important to your family, food or seating. We've done WCT dining once, CCR dining twice and the dessert party once with our second dessert party booked for Aug 19th.

For us, we value the seating over the food especially since none of us are huge dessert eaters. We would rather eat a light dinner then enjoy the bread, cheese and sweet offerings at our own table and chairs for the show and if we really want to eat at Carthay (which I suspect we will) then we will book a separate reservation there another evening. The viewing section for the dining packages are good, we have always had a great view but I hate having to camp out the good spot early and sit on the ground while waiting for the show. I am definitely getting too old to sit on the ground for an hour+ just to get the good view that we love.

Thank you for the validation. I went ahead and booked the dessert party. The dedicated seat after a long day sounded lovely.

 

[Mrs Nesbitt]

Will be visiting Disneyland for the first time August 17-22, doing a split stay between DLR and GCH. Originally was going to skip the WOC dessert party after reading that the food was average but realised it is worth it (to me) to have a guaranteed seat. Counting down the days and will be watching closely to see how the end of reservations at SWGE impact the crowds.

 

[Aladora]

Added some info in the first post about visiting GE after June 24.

 

[iMadHatter]

As they say: "bad things happen in 3's" and right now my son's middle school and our community is dealing with a tragic loss of a student after an accident at an end of school camping trip. I am really quite overwhelmed with all of this sadness

I'm so sorry to hear your sad news! I hope things are getting easier and better all around.

What are some of your non-Disney plans?

We're definitely planning a beach day- I think I'm just excited to see Coronoa del Mar as I am for Disney! We're staying at the Ayres Hotel on Aug 9. I've always wanted to try it out, so this will be fun.

I lived in LA for many years, and if we have time we may also visit some of my old favorite haunts up there. For sure, I will be searching for some divey taco shack along the beach for some fish tacos. They just aren't as good outside southern Cal.

We went to Roscoe's the last time we were in town. Although the food was OK, the service was horrid and the place was 75% empty at dinner time. I asked the lady at the check-in counter if I could buy one of the T-Shirts they had for sale. She told me that they had been out for weeks and had not re-ordered because are a "hassle". We won't be back.

This makes me sad! I didn't live far from the original Hollywood location and went there a LOT. It was never great food, just fun. But how sad that they can't be bothered with the hassle of their own chain.

I'm getting SOO excited as the countdown gets closer. I'm getting into full planning mode now. I'm down to 50 days! What do you all like to do to get ready for your trip?

 

[flav]

That’s is a hard choice for me. How many park days do you have? I think park
Hoppers because you can still use regular fast pass tickets.

We usually start in one park and finish in the other watching the nighttime entertainment. Before max pass I would jump parks
And get fast passes for a later fast pass
for radiator springs to use in the evening. My feet appreciate max pass

Thank you for your answer. We agreed with you and splurged on both PH and MaxPass. That means no dining reservations for us, we had to save somewhere! Breakfast is included at our GN hotel and we will eat QS and Snacks for the length of the DL portion of the trip! So soon!

 

[CherylGonz]

I got to make my first reservation today! Minnie and Friends breakfast. The latest time available was 10:30. Is this latest you can book?

I’m also second guessing myself. If I look at past hours the park on Aug 20 will be 9am not 8am. We will use MM so we can be in by 8. Just wondering if it’s not a good idea to take a break at this time and instead book a different day and before park opening.

 

[gerilyne]

We are only doing 3 reservations for dining this go around.
8/4- Cafe Orleans for lunch
8/5- Lamp Lighter Lounge for dinner
8/10- Carthay Ciricle for lunch

One reason is we want to be able to get into SWGE to build light sabers and hopefully to Oga's and I don't want to be tied down to dinning reservations if we can get in to do either of those things. I am also waiting for reservations to be available for the Walk in Walt's footsteps tour, which I think is next week? I have never done a tour and my BF suggested we try and do that.

 

[Mrs Nesbitt]

Happy to see that Soarin' Over California will be staying until the end of August, had been hoping it would be there for my visit.

 

[lauritagoddess]

We are only doing 3 reservations for dining this go around.
8/4- Cafe Orleans for lunch
8/5- Lamp Lighter Lounge for dinner
8/10- Carthay Ciricle for lunch

One reason is we want to be able to get into SWGE to build light sabers and hopefully to Oga's and I don't want to be tied down to dinning reservations if we can get in to do either of those things. I am also waiting for reservations to be available for the Walk in Walt's footsteps tour, which I think is next week? I have never done a tour and my BF suggested we try and do that.

The same here, except I'm not going to make any reservations because of wanting to get the reservations for Oga's at least. I doubt we'll do Savi's because of the cost, but I don't want to be tied down to any dining reservations because of trying to get the Oga's reservation.

Now, I just wish they would put out the park hours for all of August.

 

[tlcdoula]

Thank you for your answer. We agreed with you and splurged on both PH and MaxPass. That means no dining reservations for us, we had to save somewhere! Breakfast is included at our GN hotel and we will eat QS and Snacks for the length of the DL portion of the trip! So soon!

There are so many fun quick services to eat at. You will have an amazing time.

 

[tlcdoula]

Happy to see that Soarin' Over California will be staying until the end of August, had been hoping it would be there for my visit.

ME too!!! I was hoping this would happen. SO excited

 

[tlcdoula]

I got to make my first reservation today! Minnie and Friends breakfast. The latest time available was 10:30. Is this latest you can book?

I’m also second guessing myself. If I look at past hours the park on Aug 20 will be 9am not 8am. We will use MM so we can be in by 8. Just wondering if it’s not a good idea to take a break at this time and instead book a different day and before park opening.

I think you will be able to get a lot done before your reservation and Be able to get a fast pass to use for when you are finished breaky. I think we are going to do this as well

 

[caribbeandream]

World of color desert party or dinning package? Which is better?

I have never done the dining package but we have the dessert package for this trip. For me, being able to have reserved seating at the end of a long day at the park trumps everything.

Added some info in the first post about visiting GE after June 24.

Thank you!

Happy to see that Soarin' Over California will be staying until the end of August, had been hoping it would be there for my visit.

Me too!

 

[CherylGonz]

Just made our Hungry Bear FM reservation. I still need to do transportation and then we will be all set.

My youngest really wants to build a droid so we shall see how long the lines are. Other than that we just want to walk around SWGE. We are doing it DD as she is the SW fan. They do want to try the blue/green milk. Where is this offered? It's not the end of the world if we don't get to do the ride.

 

[CherylGonz]

Will be visiting Disneyland for the first time August 17-22, doing a split stay between DLR and GCH. Originally was going to skip the WOC dessert party after reading that the food was average but realised it is worth it (to me) to have a guaranteed seat. Counting down the days and will be watching closely to see how the end of reservations at SWGE impact the crowds.

We did WOC dessert party the last time we were there. It was expensive but so worth it to have a seat! There was 5 of us and I we bought back two boxes full of desserts because we couldn't eat them all. If we had known we would have had an early dinner. We were one of the first one's in line and were seated at one of the high top tables. I think these are better. We are not doing it this time as we want to see Fantasmic as it was not running when we were there during the 60th and this is more of a budget trip.

 

[PatMcDuck]

We booked the WoC dessert party today, for the 21st. We loved the dessert party 2 years ago. I have been booking things each day as we hit 60 days, only crazy guests used to going to WDW book at exactly 60 days, lol. We booked Blue Bayou and the 8 pm Fantasmic dinner at River Belle (where you remain in your dinner seats for the show). We have a few in the group with knee issues so having seating is a blessing to enjoy shows comfortably.

We are thinking we will be able to get into the Cantina with the 7 am available booking opportunity. We see how THAT goes.