So, I actually wrote this entire update, you'll have to wait to see if Luke writes anymore in the future haha.
We had a fairly early wakeup this morning, but we were fine with it – it was our first full day in California! We woke up, got dressed and called an Uber to get us to Downtown Disney for our breakfast reservation. We arrived, went through security and headed to La Brea Bakery for our 8am reservation. We made it to Downtown Disney and checked in there about 2 minutes past 8. The restaurant was not very busy, and we were seated at a 4-top table outside right away. It was a bit of a cold morning, so we were right below a heater which was nice - the weather didn't bother us too much but I could tell our waiter was freezing!
First things first: the menu:
For drinks, Luke ordered a coffee, fairly straight forward.
Luke decided to try something different for him, and ordered the
Chorizo Frittata - potatoes, jack cheese, avocado, salsa fresca and cilantro with a side of mixed greens, $17
Luke describes this an omelet/pan-scrambler hybrid but with more eggs and less potato. He says it was nice and light, fluffy and flakey, and filled with flavour. He also loved the addition of the creamy avocado on top - according to him it added a nice little something extra.
The mixed green salad on the side was "whatever" (in Luke's words haha) - there was nothing wrong with it, the greens were nice and fresh but the frittata was just that good. This was served with a balsamic vinaigrette .
If you've read any of my other trip reports, you'll know I'm not a huge breakfast person, so I was really excited when I was informed I could order anything from the menu, not just the brunch options. I decided on the
Grilled Three Cheese - a blend of three cheeses on garlic rubbed rustic bread served with a cup of our tomato bisque - $16.
This was so good! The bread was fresh - great bread can make or break a sandwich for me (Wonderbread will always get a big fat no from me!). The cheese blend was mild but creamy and delicious - I'm really fussy and prefer basic cheeses like mozzarella or cheddar so this was up my alley. The ratio of cheese to bread was pretty much perfect as well, which can be a major complaint of mine when it comes to grilled cheese (some places just over do-it - I like cheese, but there's a fine balance haha).
And then there's that soup - omg, so good! I love pretty much all tomato soup - and this was not even in the same league as a can of Campbell's haha - I want to buy cans of La Brea tomato soup at the grocery store now!
The total of our meal was $36.37 - this includes a 10% discount thanks to my annual pass.
This is one place we plan on visiting again on our next Disneyland trip! Now I just want tomato soup...
We finished eating, and made the decision to enter Disney California Adventure Park first (both parks opened at 9am that day), so we hopped in line shortly before opening.
Once we scanned our tickets to enter the park, we headed straight for the Fastpass Kiosk for Radiator Springs Racers, along with half the population of California it seemed like. We got to the FP line and followed the snaking line to find the end – it was seriously insane! We got into line and stood still for about 5 minutes – the line didn’t move at all. We looked at each other, said screw it and decided to just head straight to the ride and wait in the standby line – it was barely 10 minutes past opening, how bad could the standby line be at that point?
When we arrived at Radiator Springs, the standby line had a wait time of 40 minutes posted – which isn’t terrible, We figure if we had have stayed in line just to get a Fastpass for it, we would have been at least half an hour. So, we got into line for our first ride of the trip! The actual standby time – only 28 minutes! Score!
This ride was great as always, I love that scene when you come around the corner and the waterfall is cascading down on your right hand side!
After exiting the ride, I snapped a picture of our on-ride photo – I knew our photos were included with my shiny new annual pass I had just purchased the day before, but I actually had no idea how it worked. Turns out I just had to enter the code shown on the preview screen into my app, and voila – our on-ride photos
This is the first time we’ve been to Disneyland that we’ve actually got our ride pictures, so I was pretty excited about it!
After exiting Radiator Springs, we had to stop to get a picture with Stanley
From there, we decided to stop at Luigi’s Casa del Tires, since it was not open on our first trip back in 2015, and we were strapped for time on our 2016 trip. The posted time was 5 minutes, but it actually ended up being over 15 minutes.
This ride was cute, but not something I need to do every time, and not something I’d wait more than 15-20 minutes for.
I also took a picture of our sneakers, since both of us were wearing our runDisney shoes on this day
Since Photopass was included with my annual pass, we stopped for a few pictures in Cars Land The photographer there told me to pull up the Photopass barcode on my Disneyland app, then screen shot it and set it as my lock screen to make it super easy to use on our trip (and to save from opening the app every time we stopped for pictures – Disneyland was not offering free in-park Wi-Fi at this point).
By this point, it was 10:15 so we went and grabbed a Fastpass for Soarin’ (after falling in love with that ride on our trip to Florida a few weeks earlier). Our FP window opened at 10:55, so we had a bit of time to kill beforehand.
Luke decided to use that time to go pick up the DCA Starbucks “You Are Here” mug that he wanted, and thanks to my super-amazing annual pass we saved 20% on it.
There was a churro stand nearby, and you can’t go to Disneyland and NOT have a churro, so I bought one even though we had just ate breakfast 2 hours earlier. Sadly, no annual pass discounts on that The churro was delicious though – I’d say they are better in the California parks than they are in the Florida parks.
By the time I finished my snack, we were in our window to go on Soarin’. It’s the exact same ride in DCA as it is at Epcot, but it’s so good! I love the ride building in California – an airplane hangar just makes so much sense!
After our trip around the world, we stopped at the little store across from Soarin’. Luke had brought his runDisney lanyard that he had purchased at the race Expo in Florida, but he needed to buy one of the little pouches to put his park ticket into – so he found a super cute Baymax one there.
I’m not into pin collecting or pin trading, but I had to buy this one since it was an annual Passholder exclusive haha.
I also picked up a Grape soda pin – I think I want to use it for our wedding somehow
At this point, we decided to park hop and head over to Disneyland. I love how close the two parks are, it makes hopping so easy and convenient!
We had checked the wait times on the app as we made our way over, so once we entered the park we headed to Critter Country and went on Winnie the Pooh.
After our journey through the Hundred Acre Wood, we went and hopped in line and met Pooh, Tigger and Eeyore – some of my favourites!
We stopped to grab a Fastpass for Indiana Jones (one of my favourite rides at Disneyland!) for a few hours later, and then went to the Enchanted Tiki Room.
I love the Enchanted Tiki Garden here! It’s so cute, and a great form of entertainment while you’re waiting to be let into the building for the show!
But, it'll pay for itself - I wrote down all the discounts I got with it in California, plus the cost I would have paid for tickets plus photopass, and I'll try and do the same for our trip in November and January...
My pass was around $800 and I thought that was expensive! But we did buy two. I should have done that! But I think at this point we've already gotten back the value of it and we still have 2 more trips. The ticket part alone has paid for itself since we've been to the parks about 10 days or so already since we got it.
Been missing you around these parts! (Hint hint I started a new DR yesterday and you're not there yet so I am trying to observe etiquette and wait three days before calling but I'm getting antsy)
you better put a ring on this one, Fallon. I almost laughed out loud. But my stomach hurts, so I just internally laughed.
in truth it does look pretty nice. Was it walking distance to the parks?
she's beautiful. I want one!!!
