Vexorg
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2006
- Messages
- 620
Me and my wife got back last night from a long weekend spent in the parks. We are annual passholders in our late Thirties who typically make the trip to the parks roughly 3-4 times a year. A few brief thoughts on the trip:
- The weather was quite nice, which was good because we one of our purposes for making the trip was to get away from the gloomy weather in Seattle. It does definitely get a bit colder in the evenings, but I was still fine without a jacket (not so much for my wife.)
- The crowds were quite a bit more than we expected, even on Monday. I'm pretty sure most of it was from the Candlelight Processional weekend, but even without taking that into account the lines seemed rather long on a lot of rides. In particular, the rides with overlays generally had unusually long waits (Haunted Mansion Holiday was around an hour most of the time, IASW was around 35-45 minutes, and Jingle Cruise was typically around 30-45 minutes as well.) Hyperspace Mountain was by far the longest wait in the park though, with 120+ minute waits being pretty typical. All in all, even with fastpasses it meant we did a lot more waiting in long standby lines than we usually do, which in turn led to us being a lot more exhausted by the end of four days in the parks than we normally are. It was still a fun trip, but the combination of exhaustion and a minor physical ailment that decided to pick this time to show up made it a rather draining trip.
- This was my first time visiting Disneyland at Christmastime, so this was my first time seeing a lot of the Holiday overlays. I've seen Haunted Mansion Holiday a number of times, but Jingle Cruise and IASW were new to me. The IASW one is very well done, but I'm not sure about how well I like the Jingle Cruise. The "Random decorations got dropped in the jungle" theme seems to work and the jokes are corny as ever, but I don't know if I'd go out of my way for it. Hyperspace Mountain seems to be quite popular, but I think I prefer the original version overall.
- For a hotel, this time we stayed at the Best Western Newport Mesa Inn over in Costa Mesa near SNA, which we got off of Groupon. Overall, the hotel was reasonably nice and clean and fairly easy to get to the parks from, nothing too special.
- Food: For the most part, we stuck to our favorite places (typically French Market, Stage Door Cafe and Jazz Kitchen Express over in Downtown Disney) but did also make a trip out to Flo's V8 Cafe. I haven't been there in a while and don't know when the menu changed, but I didn't like it nearly as much as I did the last time I was there. We did also try to do a lunch at Blue Bayou, but couldn't get a reservation.
- The coolest thing we saw on this trip: On our second-to-last night we ended up watching the early Fantasmic show, then the fireworks from a bench in New Orleans Square before taking a couple of rides to wait for the post-firework crowds to leave before we did. As a result, we ended up on the east side of Main Street going to the lockers just in time for the Paint the Night parade to start going by just as we got there. We ended up watching from the little area next to the Starbucks, and saw that the CMs running the fruit stand in that area had developed a neat little dance routine to go along with the parade. I'm guessing they had seen it all quite a few times...
All in all a fun trip as usual, but a lot more exhausting than usual. Next up we'll probably try to squeeze one more trip in before our passes expire in February, and then then my wife's sister is trying to set up a trip to WDW in April.
- The weather was quite nice, which was good because we one of our purposes for making the trip was to get away from the gloomy weather in Seattle. It does definitely get a bit colder in the evenings, but I was still fine without a jacket (not so much for my wife.)
- The crowds were quite a bit more than we expected, even on Monday. I'm pretty sure most of it was from the Candlelight Processional weekend, but even without taking that into account the lines seemed rather long on a lot of rides. In particular, the rides with overlays generally had unusually long waits (Haunted Mansion Holiday was around an hour most of the time, IASW was around 35-45 minutes, and Jingle Cruise was typically around 30-45 minutes as well.) Hyperspace Mountain was by far the longest wait in the park though, with 120+ minute waits being pretty typical. All in all, even with fastpasses it meant we did a lot more waiting in long standby lines than we usually do, which in turn led to us being a lot more exhausted by the end of four days in the parks than we normally are. It was still a fun trip, but the combination of exhaustion and a minor physical ailment that decided to pick this time to show up made it a rather draining trip.
- This was my first time visiting Disneyland at Christmastime, so this was my first time seeing a lot of the Holiday overlays. I've seen Haunted Mansion Holiday a number of times, but Jingle Cruise and IASW were new to me. The IASW one is very well done, but I'm not sure about how well I like the Jingle Cruise. The "Random decorations got dropped in the jungle" theme seems to work and the jokes are corny as ever, but I don't know if I'd go out of my way for it. Hyperspace Mountain seems to be quite popular, but I think I prefer the original version overall.
- For a hotel, this time we stayed at the Best Western Newport Mesa Inn over in Costa Mesa near SNA, which we got off of Groupon. Overall, the hotel was reasonably nice and clean and fairly easy to get to the parks from, nothing too special.
- Food: For the most part, we stuck to our favorite places (typically French Market, Stage Door Cafe and Jazz Kitchen Express over in Downtown Disney) but did also make a trip out to Flo's V8 Cafe. I haven't been there in a while and don't know when the menu changed, but I didn't like it nearly as much as I did the last time I was there. We did also try to do a lunch at Blue Bayou, but couldn't get a reservation.
- The coolest thing we saw on this trip: On our second-to-last night we ended up watching the early Fantasmic show, then the fireworks from a bench in New Orleans Square before taking a couple of rides to wait for the post-firework crowds to leave before we did. As a result, we ended up on the east side of Main Street going to the lockers just in time for the Paint the Night parade to start going by just as we got there. We ended up watching from the little area next to the Starbucks, and saw that the CMs running the fruit stand in that area had developed a neat little dance routine to go along with the parade. I'm guessing they had seen it all quite a few times...
All in all a fun trip as usual, but a lot more exhausting than usual. Next up we'll probably try to squeeze one more trip in before our passes expire in February, and then then my wife's sister is trying to set up a trip to WDW in April.
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We are headed down Friday night and I am excited! Trying to prepare myself for the crowds, but thankful that we have a few dining reservations (Big Thunder BBQ, Blue Bayou, and Carnation Cafe).
