Business Trip to San Diego? I'M GOING TO DIDNEYRAND!!!!!-April 2013 TR*Update 11/18

[CarolynK]

I love the Mike and Sulley ride, too, such great themeing! Simple yet entertaining!
California does cool off at night, good thing your room was so close I hate being cold, I also would have returned for a sweatshirt!!

 

[IheartDDuck]

Mmmmm - dranks!

I love the Mike and Sulley ride, too, such great themeing! Simple yet entertaining!
California does cool off at night, good thing your room was so close I hate being cold, I also would have returned for a sweatshirt!!

I love that ride too. My favorites are typically the dark rides.

It was nice with the room being so close. I was prepared better for California weather though than my Dad was, having remembered that it cools down at night. Not like Florida, where it's hot and humid all the time.

 

[IheartDDuck]

Dad got changed into long pants and long sleeves, so he was good to go for the rest of the night.

We had fastpasses for World of Color, so we had some time to spare until then. I really wanted to check out Radiator Springs that night. I did check the wait times on the My Disney Experience app, but the wait time was a bit too long for us at that point. We would miss World of Color, which I definitely didn't want to do. But we walked over there anyway, just to double check, and so I could get some pictures for the evening.



It's really cool at night. None of my pictures do it justice.





And here's why I still love to use my iPhone for pictures. In case anyone is curious, I always use my iPhone for pictures. I'm not a photography buff at all, and I don't want to spend the money on an expensive camera that I have no idea how to use. But the iPhone camera does well enough to get my crisp nighttime shots.





Every time I see this, the song Low Rider comes into my head.











The line was still far too long, but we spent a lot of time just taking in the atmosphere of this area of the park at night. Soon, it was time for us to head over to the Paradise Pier area to watch World of Color.



Selfies while we wait.





While we waited, the CM in the area did a trivia competition.

Which Jason and I dominated. No, for real. No one else got any of the answers. The questions?

1) What's the owl's name in the Sword in the Stone? - Jason answered
2) What are Ursula's eels names? - Jason answered
3) What's Prince Phillip's horse's name in Sleeping Beauty? - I answered
4) What is the name of Prince Eric's dog in the Little Mermaid? - I answered

Jason and I both knew all the answers, it was just a matter of who got there first. Anyone care to harbor guesses?

Soon, it was time for the show to start. I didn't take tons of pictures, since we weren't too close to the front. And, I just wanted to enjoy the show.













You can make Ariel out a little in that shot.







The show is incredible. Currently, my favorite Disney show, simply because it's unlike anything in WDW. Such a great addition to DCA. We all thoroughly enjoyed it, and were happy with our decision to make this last minute trip to Disneyland because of my business trip.

We called it a night after that, basically because the parks were closing too. And, we had an early morning, because we were going to go back to DCA for 7am EMH. I never get up that early in WDW, but we wanted to make sure we could hit Radiator Springs Racers again, before heading over the Disneyland for the day.

Up next: Can we get up early enough?

 

[ZehnJahren]

While we waited, the CM in the area did a trivia competition.

Which Jason and I dominated. No, for real. No one else got any of the answers. The questions?

1) What's the owl's name in the Sword in the Stone? - Jason answered
2) What are Ursula's eels names? - Jason answered
3) What's Prince Phillip's horse's name in Sleeping Beauty? - I answered
4) What is the name of Prince Eric's dog in the Little Mermaid? - I answered

Jason and I both knew all the answers, it was just a matter of who got there first. Anyone care to harbor guesses?

Ooh ooh me!

1) Archimedes!
2) Flotsam and Jetsam (of course)
3) I don't know that one. I just remember when Phillip says "hup boy" to him and offers him "a few carrots".
4) Max!

How long was the line at Radiator Springs at that time of night? Just curious.

 

[CarolynK]

Well, 7 am in Cali is really 9 am at home, at least that's what we tell ourselves when we're in DL it helps to trick our brains into getting up!! That's how we were able to ride the submarines when they re-opened a few years ago (and we still had an hour line to wait in!).
World of Color and Carsland, two reasons for us to start planning another DL trip! Your nighttime pictures are awesome!! You're right, who needs an expensive camera when you get results like that!

 

[RGirl]

Your nighttime Carsland pics are great! I can't wait to see that place in person!

WOC sounds like such a great experience. I'm just not sure about it though - no seating, a lot of waiting, late at night. I'm worried that it just wouldn't work very well with DD. If we go for her 7th birthday, I would love to do it, but I just don't know whether it makes sense. Based on our last DLR trip, she wants to GO-GO-GO all day. What do you think? Can a child handle the wait and then even see anything if she does make it through?

 

[emmysmommy]

Oh Dani, I love WOC. The sound track and the beautiful artistry of the fountains, lasers, and lights are so awesome! My favorite part is the Pirates of the Caribbean with the pyrotechnics.

Sadly, I would have done very poorly for the trivia. I only knew 2. I think I need to watch more Disney movies to remedy that.

I will be interested to see if you are up and ate 'em at 7am for EMH!

 

[teekathepony]

Wow, wow, wow. WOC looks incredible! (I'm off to YouTube some videos of it...)
I didn't do so well on the trivia, only 2/4 I knew. Oh well!

Sent from my iPad using DISBoards

 

[IheartDDuck]

Ooh ooh me!

1) Archimedes!
2) Flotsam and Jetsam (of course)
3) I don't know that one. I just remember when Phillip says "hup boy" to him and offers him "a few carrots".
4) Max!

How long was the line at Radiator Springs at that time of night? Just curious.

Correct my dear.

The answer to number three is Samson.

It was a lengthy wait, almost 2 hours if I remember correctly. It was a really busy weekend when we were there.

Well, 7 am in Cali is really 9 am at home, at least that's what we tell ourselves when we're in DL it helps to trick our brains into getting up!! That's how we were able to ride the submarines when they re-opened a few years ago (and we still had an hour line to wait in!).
World of Color and Carsland, two reasons for us to start planning another DL trip! Your nighttime pictures are awesome!! You're right, who needs an expensive camera when you get results like that!

That's what I tell myself all the time too. Yet somehow, it still doesn't work.

I discovered how good my iPhone was about two years ago, when I purchased the 4s. After that, I don't use much else. I bring a backup (currently my waterproof camera), in case I run out of battery power. But I also bought a Powerock, which is purse size and can charge my phone. So I'm covered.

Your nighttime Carsland pics are great! I can't wait to see that place in person!

WOC sounds like such a great experience. I'm just not sure about it though - no seating, a lot of waiting, late at night. I'm worried that it just wouldn't work very well with DD. If we go for her 7th birthday, I would love to do it, but I just don't know whether it makes sense. Based on our last DLR trip, she wants to GO-GO-GO all day. What do you think? Can a child handle the wait and then even see anything if she does make it through?

It's completely worth it if you can wait to see it. There's plenty of room for sitting on the ground there. The best bet would be to make sure you take a break right before WOC, and then use fastpasses. We waited about 30 minutes and had decent seating. I would just make sure she has something to keep her busy while you wait.

 

[IheartDDuck]

Oh Dani, I love WOC. The sound track and the beautiful artistry of the fountains, lasers, and lights are so awesome! My favorite part is the Pirates of the Caribbean with the pyrotechnics.

Sadly, I would have done very poorly for the trivia. I only knew 2. I think I need to watch more Disney movies to remedy that.

I will be interested to see if you are up and ate 'em at 7am for EMH!

I just loved it. It was one of the best experiences that I've had.

We watched all of the old school Disney movies. We still have all of them on cassette, so the Sword in the Stone and movies like that were part of my every day life growing up.

Wow, wow, wow. WOC looks incredible! (I'm off to YouTube some videos of it...)
I didn't do so well on the trivia, only 2/4 I knew. Oh well!

Sent from my iPad using DISBoards

You will not regret watching the videos on YouTube. It's incredible. I had watched it on video before, so I knew what to expect, but it still doesn't do it justice. It definitely doesn't spoil anything, it just wet's your appetite.

 

[IheartDDuck]

I'm going to take a stance here and say that they should call the 7am EMH O'Dark Thirty Magic Hours. Because it truly does feel like you have to get up at o'dark thirty just to make it there in time.

Well, that might be a little bit of an exaggeration.

Me exaggerate? Nooooooo....



The plan was to hit up DCA for the morning magic hour, and then to head over to Disneyland for the rest of the day.

I got myself up at 6am, and then got the boys up after I was pretty much ready. We were out the door at 6:55am. And the beauty of DCA and the Grand Californian? Bam. We were heading into the park already at 7am on the dot!

Holla!

Of course, what's the first thing we did when we got in?



Yup. Starbucks y'all. I'm still in heaven about this Starbucks thing in Disney. Lurve me some good coffee.



First stop on our morning? Well, it was actually the sole reason that we came to DCA first.

Radiator Springs Racers. Yuppers. The wait time was already 20 minutes. It really shows the popularity of this area, because at 7am, the wait was already 20 minutes. Good thing that we decided to get there early.



We were able to finish our coffee (score!), before we had to get on the ride, so the line was just long enough. And we were excited!



It's so purty.









The rest of my pictures came out super blurry, so I figured I would share the good ones with you.

After that, we decided to head over to Flo's V-8 cafe to grab some breakfast before heading over to Grand Californian to get the stuff out of our room, because we were checking out of the Grand Californian and into Paradise Pier for one night. We had to do that because the trip was booked last minute (it was a business trip at first, remember), so we could only get the Grand Californian for 2 nights on DVC, and then had to pay OOP for Paradise Pier for one night. GC was way too expensive for the budget we were on for the one night.

Had to explain the logic there, sorry. Just so no one gets confused. Hehe.

Jason and I got the chicken tamale breakfast and a fruit plate to share.



And Dad got a bounty platter. Man loves a bounty platter.



My fruit plate.



I liked the ambience in this location. The food was pretty good too, can't complain. The chicken tamales were a little spicy for me. But remember, I'm a spice pansy, so no one should really take my word on anything when I say that. Because I might be like:

Man that milk was spicy.



After we left we ran into Mater on the way out. Making his rounds and leading the rest of the people into the park, because it was now 8am, and the park had opened to the general public. Which meant we were swimming upstream, because everyone else was heading in while we were heading out.



We made it back to the hotel in a matter of minutes. We had packed up before, so it took us a very short amount of time to get our luggage taken down. We had bell services at the Grand Californian hold it. They said they would hold it and transfer it to Paradise Pier for us, which was kinda nice. I know WDW does that too when you transfer resorts. After they had our luggage held, we headed back out to go to Disneyland.

Up next: I curse you Space Mountain and the fact that you were closed when I haven't been here in 6 YEARS!

 

[teekathepony]

O'dark thirty magic hours is an excellent name for it. I do admit to being a morning person though, so I never really mind!
Wow, 20 minute wait already? Yikes, glad you got there early.
Breakfast looks good! Im a total spice wimp too, love the milk comment. DH thought it was funny too, he's always making fun of me for being so wimpy! Heheh

Sent from my iPad using DISBoards

 

[emmysmommy]

And that's why I LOVED the AM magic hours at DCA - short lines for RSR!! Did you see the crazies waiting in the FP line while they could be IN line to go on the ride?? (Meaning the FP machines didn't open up until closer to 8am.) I almost made that mistake once then my friends pulled me out of the line and said, uhhhh let's actually GO on the ride. Oh yeah.

So you ARE a Packer fan!

I've not had breakfast at Flo's but I've had lunch and dinner - all were good. Your breakfast choice looked very good & healthy too!

Now I'm 3 for 3 with your TR updates.

 

[IheartDDuck]

O'dark thirty magic hours is an excellent name for it. I do admit to being a morning person though, so I never really mind!
Wow, 20 minute wait already? Yikes, glad you got there early.
Breakfast looks good! Im a total spice wimp too, love the milk comment. DH thought it was funny too, he's always making fun of me for being so wimpy! Heheh

Sent from my iPad using DISBoards

I'm definitely not a morning person, so this kinda stuff is pretty rough for me. Hahaha.

I know, 20 minutes already that early in the morning.

I had to go there with the milk comment, because I seriously feel that way sometimes.

And that's why I LOVED the AM magic hours at DCA - short lines for RSR!! Did you see the crazies waiting in the FP line while they could be IN line to go on the ride?? (Meaning the FP machines didn't open up until closer to 8am.) I almost made that mistake once then my friends pulled me out of the line and said, uhhhh let's actually GO on the ride. Oh yeah.

So you ARE a Packer fan!

I've not had breakfast at Flo's but I've had lunch and dinner - all were good. Your breakfast choice looked very good & healthy too!

Now I'm 3 for 3 with your TR updates.

Exactly! And use, the crazies were lining up. We never did FP when we were there (at least for RSR), because I just didn't want to contend with waiting in line and then getting a crap return time.

I am indeed a Packer fan. That's 2 of my 30 things you've seen now.

The breakfast was yummy. I was certainly trying to make a healthier choice.

 

[RGirl]

I am so excited to try RSR in January!!!

Holy cow! That tamale breakfast looks sooooooo good to me. I am thinking we may need to do a CarsLand breakfast one day.

 

[RGirl]

It's completely worth it if you can wait to see it. There's plenty of room for sitting on the ground there. The best bet would be to make sure you take a break right before WOC, and then use fastpasses. We waited about 30 minutes and had decent seating. I would just make sure she has something to keep her busy while you wait.

Thanks so much for the info! Hopefully, since we should be hitting up DLR at least 3 times in 2014, we will finally get to see this!

 

[IheartDDuck]

I am so excited to try RSR in January!!!

Holy cow! That tamale breakfast looks sooooooo good to me. I am thinking we may need to do a CarsLand breakfast one day.

You're going to love it!!!!!

The tamale breakfast was really good. Flo's V-8 Cafe has some great selections.

Thanks so much for the info! Hopefully, since we should be hitting up DLR at least 3 times in 2014, we will finally get to see this!

No problem! Awww, three times, I'm jealous. I know you're MUCH closer than me. I feel like it's so hard for me to make it to Disneyland, because it's so much more expensive for us.

 

[DVCWDWMEMBER]

You're going to love it!!!!!

The tamale breakfast was really good. Flo's V-8 Cafe has some great selections.



No problem! Awww, three times, I'm jealous. I know you're MUCH closer than me. I feel like it's so hard for me to make it to Disneyland, because it's so much more expensive for us.

That breakfast picture made me drool all over my laptop .

We need to put our heads together to plan a trip to DL...... I really want to see Radiator Springs.... it's been way too long

 

[IheartDDuck]

That breakfast picture made me drool all over my laptop .

We need to put our heads together to plan a trip to DL...... I really want to see Radiator Springs.... it's been way too long

Hopefully when we put our heads together, we don't bang them together.

I'm game. I can jimmy just about anything if you give me the chance.

 

[CarolynK]

6 am on vacation IS tough; don't you just hate the guys when they get to sleep in because they don't have hair and makeup to do?!

Your food at Flo's looks really good!