Vexorg
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2006
- Messages
- 620
Just got back from spending most of the past week in the parks with my new bride. We are both Annual Passholders (she has Deluxe and I have Premium) and we both visit the parks frequently (we make several trips a year.) A few thoughts on the trip:
Hotel: We used Hotwire to find a relatively inexpensive hotel and ended up at the Days Inn in Fullerton, on Imperial Highway a couple of blocks away from Harbor (about 8 miles north of the parks.) Nothing much to report here, it's an older hotel but the rooms were large and clean, although the shower was kind of weird. Normally we stay at a condo in Laguna Hills owned by my wife's parents, but for some reason it wasn't available for this trip.
Crowds: Naturally the parks were fairly crowded, but overall I thought they were manageable, especially if you know what you're doing. One of our tricks for getting past crowds is to cut through gift shops when possible to get around congestion (we refer to this technique as taking the "Shiny Route" because it tends to lead to occasional distraction.) The lines on a number of the rides were shorter than I might normally expect for a Summer trip, although Saturday and Sunday were pretty busy as expected. We actually ended up not making much use of Fastpasses because they weren't needed for most rides. We did miss out on a couple of rides (most notably Radiator Springs Racers) on this trip, but don't worry about it too much since we are there fairy often.
New stuff: I have to say that the Imagineers really outdid themselves with the new nighttime entertainment this year. The Disneyland Forever fireworks are pretty impressive, but I have to say that the Paint the Night parade was really the show-stealer. I think this is the first time I can recall where I'd consider a Disney parade to be a must-see (and not just because you're stuck behind the blasted thing trying to get to the other side of the park.) The technical skill on display in designing the floats and effects in the parade is amazing. The new World of Color show (which we actually did a lunch at Carthay Circle for) was pretty good too, but didn't quite feel like it was using all of the capabilities of the World of Color fountains. There were also quite a few minor additions to rides (the Hatbox Ghost on the Haunted Mansion, new animatronics on the Matterhorn, some more tinkering on Indiana Jones, etc.) that I hadn't had a chance to see before. I did not get to see Peter Pan since we couldn't make it work with the schedule, but we'll be sure to hit that on the next trip.
Weather: The last time me and my (then future) wife took a trip to Disneyland in August a couple of years ago, the weather was oppressively hot and muggy (something like upper 90s with high humidity) which made it difficult to spend much time outdoors. This time around the weather was not nearly as hot (lower 80s for highs most of the trip) but there was still a decent amount of humidity.
Food: Nothing too special here, although we did the World of Color lunch package at Carthay Circle on Saturday (we typically do one "splurge" meal per trip). Very good, although I don't think I'd do it too often. In general, if we're eating in the parks our go-to spots are the French Market (my wife really likes the Cajun Meatloaf) and the Stage Door Cafe, with an occasional splurge for one of the nicer restaurants (most often Blue Bayou, although I'd love to try Club 33 some day.) One thing I noted on this trip is that it would be nice if there were a few more options for things somewhere between a snack and a full-blown meal in the parks (some of the things I found that work well are the Chili Cheese Fries at Smokejumpers Grill and the baked potatoes at Harbor Terrace.)
Other thoughts:
- I'm surprised how much losing a few pounds (I managed to lose somewhere around 15 pounds prior to the wedding) makes for less fatigue at the end of a Disneyland day. In the past I've been pretty wiped out by three or four days at Disneyland, but this time around I managed to hold up pretty well for the whole six days.
-According to the fitness tracking app on my phone, over the course of six days spent in the parks I walked 2.9 miles (didn't arrive until later in the day), 8.2 miles (this included some solo time in the parks after my wife went to bed early), 7 miles, 6 miles, 5.4 miles and 3.8 miles for a total of around 33.3 miles of walking in six days. On some of the occasions where I have done solo trips to Disneyland I've tracked as much as 12 miles a day, but even this is quite a bit of walking. I also tend to end up being the Fastpass mule on occasion, so that adds some extra. We also did the walk back to the garage a couple of times to avoid the tram lines, which accounted for some of that as well. No matter how you do it, it's a lot of walking.
Overall it was a fun trip as usual, but I'm not sure I'd recommend Disneyland as a honeymoon. It just doesn't leave you much time or energy for... um.... other things.
Hotel: We used Hotwire to find a relatively inexpensive hotel and ended up at the Days Inn in Fullerton, on Imperial Highway a couple of blocks away from Harbor (about 8 miles north of the parks.) Nothing much to report here, it's an older hotel but the rooms were large and clean, although the shower was kind of weird. Normally we stay at a condo in Laguna Hills owned by my wife's parents, but for some reason it wasn't available for this trip.
Crowds: Naturally the parks were fairly crowded, but overall I thought they were manageable, especially if you know what you're doing. One of our tricks for getting past crowds is to cut through gift shops when possible to get around congestion (we refer to this technique as taking the "Shiny Route" because it tends to lead to occasional distraction.) The lines on a number of the rides were shorter than I might normally expect for a Summer trip, although Saturday and Sunday were pretty busy as expected. We actually ended up not making much use of Fastpasses because they weren't needed for most rides. We did miss out on a couple of rides (most notably Radiator Springs Racers) on this trip, but don't worry about it too much since we are there fairy often.
New stuff: I have to say that the Imagineers really outdid themselves with the new nighttime entertainment this year. The Disneyland Forever fireworks are pretty impressive, but I have to say that the Paint the Night parade was really the show-stealer. I think this is the first time I can recall where I'd consider a Disney parade to be a must-see (and not just because you're stuck behind the blasted thing trying to get to the other side of the park.) The technical skill on display in designing the floats and effects in the parade is amazing. The new World of Color show (which we actually did a lunch at Carthay Circle for) was pretty good too, but didn't quite feel like it was using all of the capabilities of the World of Color fountains. There were also quite a few minor additions to rides (the Hatbox Ghost on the Haunted Mansion, new animatronics on the Matterhorn, some more tinkering on Indiana Jones, etc.) that I hadn't had a chance to see before. I did not get to see Peter Pan since we couldn't make it work with the schedule, but we'll be sure to hit that on the next trip.
Weather: The last time me and my (then future) wife took a trip to Disneyland in August a couple of years ago, the weather was oppressively hot and muggy (something like upper 90s with high humidity) which made it difficult to spend much time outdoors. This time around the weather was not nearly as hot (lower 80s for highs most of the trip) but there was still a decent amount of humidity.
Food: Nothing too special here, although we did the World of Color lunch package at Carthay Circle on Saturday (we typically do one "splurge" meal per trip). Very good, although I don't think I'd do it too often. In general, if we're eating in the parks our go-to spots are the French Market (my wife really likes the Cajun Meatloaf) and the Stage Door Cafe, with an occasional splurge for one of the nicer restaurants (most often Blue Bayou, although I'd love to try Club 33 some day.) One thing I noted on this trip is that it would be nice if there were a few more options for things somewhere between a snack and a full-blown meal in the parks (some of the things I found that work well are the Chili Cheese Fries at Smokejumpers Grill and the baked potatoes at Harbor Terrace.)
Other thoughts:
- I'm surprised how much losing a few pounds (I managed to lose somewhere around 15 pounds prior to the wedding) makes for less fatigue at the end of a Disneyland day. In the past I've been pretty wiped out by three or four days at Disneyland, but this time around I managed to hold up pretty well for the whole six days.
-According to the fitness tracking app on my phone, over the course of six days spent in the parks I walked 2.9 miles (didn't arrive until later in the day), 8.2 miles (this included some solo time in the parks after my wife went to bed early), 7 miles, 6 miles, 5.4 miles and 3.8 miles for a total of around 33.3 miles of walking in six days. On some of the occasions where I have done solo trips to Disneyland I've tracked as much as 12 miles a day, but even this is quite a bit of walking. I also tend to end up being the Fastpass mule on occasion, so that adds some extra. We also did the walk back to the garage a couple of times to avoid the tram lines, which accounted for some of that as well. No matter how you do it, it's a lot of walking.
Overall it was a fun trip as usual, but I'm not sure I'd recommend Disneyland as a honeymoon. It just doesn't leave you much time or energy for... um.... other things.
