Disneyland 07 ..am I dreaming?

[drag n' fly]

I am just going to point out the highlights and low lights of our vacation and skip the filler!

Dh, me ds13, dd1, ds4 staying at Grand Californian from November 14-19


Flight, hotel etc!

-flight was good
-Disney express worked great
-Oooh hotel is pretty
-check in. My room request by my”AMA travel agent” is not on file. Surprise surprise I requested bunkbed rooms. We got 4164 wayyyyyyyyyyyy farrrrrrrrrr away. You need a golf cart to get to it.
-Nice room. Monorail right outside our window.
-Oh oh toilet is filthy and the room has been dusted for bed bugs. I lift the mattress and it is ok so we stay. I clean the toilet ewwwwwww.
-housekeeping is very spotty. Some days even toiletries and cups are not refreshed despite getting a generous tip everyday.
-every single day there is crap everywhere in the hallways. I saw room service carts with food on the sitting in hallways sometimes 12 hours or longer. Some days you cannot get through all the dishes laying on the floor and the room service carts everywhere. They were shampooing rugs and running industrial fans on our floor. Between all the cords, noise and carts plus morning cleaning baskets it was a downright maze to get to the lobby somedays.
-real lack of storage space in the rooms.
-the bed was heavenly. I slept like a log each night.
-the food is really good in the restaurants in the hotel. Dh said the breakfast burrito in Whitewater snacks was very good.
-pools were nice but very cold.
-service was very rushed for Storyteller Chip and Dale breakfast. Food was good. Our waitress was supposed to bring waffles in addition to our breakfast to our table. Never received them only refilled coffee once.

Parks

- 14th and 15th we walked on every ride more than once you could of shot a cannon through there.
- Dancing with the stars was at DL. Jennie Garth danced with Mickey Mouse. They were filming the Christmas parade.
- -Once Christmas season started on the 16th then all heck broke loose. Ride after ride after ride kept breaking down.
- The most notable breakdown worth mentioning is we got to the very top of Space Mountain on the steepest incline and yup it stopped completely dead on the track in the pitch dark. Ummmmm helllllp. Finally the lights came on and we were 5 feet from the top and we had to climb out of our seats while the ride was on a huge incline going up and walk down….fun fun! We got a green fastpass which allowed us on any ride except Nemo. Ok
- We had Nemo strategically planned. We had runners (aka DH)! Would you believe we not only made Nemo once but twice and walked on the second time like a rock star? More on that in a minute. Anywhoo we got the first sub of the day. We nailed EE and rope drop perfectly on this one!
- We were dreamed! Yup coming off Pinocchio we got dream ears! It was nice because we got dream ears in Feb from WDW so we had dream ears from each park now!
- As I previously mentioned rides kept breaking down…always when we were in line of course! That was it…. DH had it and expressed his concerns politely to a CM and said we have wasted valuable park time waiting to get on rides that break down or being escorted off of ones already broken. He apologized by providing us with something that is even more coveted than being dreamed! The ORANGE fastpass. This fastpass will get you to the front of the line on ANY ride in the park. Yup even Nemo. We were escorted through the exit line to the front and walked right on Nemo….woooohooo!
- Miley Cyrus was at DL on the 18th!
- The baked potato soup at Carnation café was heaven in a bowl! Good service great food!
- DCA was relaxing and a nice day. A cm gave our family “family pins” because she said it was nice to see a happy family having fun…that was cool!
- Legoland was awesome the kids (all of them) had a blast and loved the park! Thanks again to Amy(grumpyvet) for the coupons and saving us almost 100 bucks as it is a very expensive park! Once inside though merchandise is very cheap and food was exceptional for a theme park.
- Went to the outlet and picked up a few things. Hit toys r us and got some cool stuff for real cheap that we cannot get in the Canadian toys r us.
- Blue Bayou was a nice meal. Had the ribs they were yummy!

The icing on the cake however is we are now DVC owners at AKV! We bought while at DL!

Going home

-express is on time and again well organized and helpful

-Oh oh a plane broke down in Calgary and our flight is delayed almost 4 hours…..CRAP that could of meant more time at the parks if we had remembered to confirm our flights.

But behind every cloud is a silver lining folks!

We were walking in the airport and unbeknown to us we walked right through the middle of some people filming something. I look back and who walks out of a car!!! Lauren Conrad and Whitney Port from “The Hills!” WOW! Well they followed us into the terminal so dd11 pulls out the camera and takes a few shots. I then said to dd11 that if she went up and politely asked to take a pic they might say yes. Well she finally worked up the nerve and not only did she get the pic but Lauren and Whitney took a picture with dd11 in the middle….WELLL dd11 was in tears she was so thrilled. They totally made her day!. We went through security and our gate was 24a. Well directly across from us at gate 23 they were filming “The Hills” for a couple hours at gate 23 while we were there.

It was a long wait we were supposed to be home at 8 in the evening and by the time we got home from the airport due to the flight delay it was 12:30am….yawn! All’s well ends well with another Disney trip!

 

[BraMax]

Your trip sounds amazing. That sucks about the service at the CGH. At least the park wasn't too busy for the first few days. And talk about a lucky break with the Nemo ride. We leave Wednesday for DL and we are hoping to do Nemo this time. It was too busy when we were there this summer. Hopefully we will get some slow days while there and get to go on it.
Again thanks for sharing your trip highlights and lowlights with us. Oh and has your DD stopped smiling yet lol. Cool for her.

 

[scanmom]

Man, I would not be a happy camper if I had the experiences that you did at GCH. They charge WAYYYY too much to be doing that crap.

 

[drag n' fly]

Man, I would not be a happy camper if I had the experiences that you did at GCH. They charge WAYYYY too much to be doing that crap.

Well to make a long story short we would not stay there again as cash guests as they are charging way more than the level of service provided. We did however put our name on the villa's list as we will be considered founding members for them and will add on to get the 11 month booking window.

 

[garate55]

Well you were lucky not to get the wafles at Storytellers, they were rocks.
I agree with the lines great on Thursday and part of Friday but Friday night and Saturday, even on Sunday they were horrid. Monday was our last day and was very calming.

 

[Hofmanns4]

I am so sorry that you had issues. We had the totally opposite experience with the housekeeping staff for our stay from 11/10 to 11/17. Our room was very clean when we checked-in and ready before noon. The only issue was the first night we were very tired and housekeeping came at 9:30 for turndown service. A bit late in my opinion, but it was never that late the rest of our trip. She always replaced items and arranged the toys in funny locations.

Question, I was joking with the family about bedbugs. How do you know if the room was dusted?

I meant to check the mattress, but forgot.

 

[drag n' fly]

I am so sorry that you had issues. We had the totally opposite experience with the housekeeping staff for our stay from 11/10 to 11/17. Our room was very clean when we checked-in and ready before noon. The only issue was the first night we were very tired and housekeeping came at 9:30 for turndown service. A bit late in my opinion, but it was never that late the rest of our trip. She always replaced items and arranged the toys in funny locations.

Question, I was joking with the family about bedbugs. How do you know if the room was dusted?

I meant to check the mattress, but forgot.

You will usually see signs of powder collected in crevices like the drawers and in headboard crevices. In our case their was a considerable amount of powder in the crevices in the headboard.

 

[drag n' fly]

I am so sorry that you had issues. We had the totally opposite experience with the housekeeping staff for our stay from 11/10 to 11/17. Our room was very clean when we checked-in and ready before noon. The only issue was the first night we were very tired and housekeeping came at 9:30 for turndown service. A bit late in my opinion, but it was never that late the rest of our trip. She always replaced items and arranged the toys in funny locations.

Question, I was joking with the family about bedbugs. How do you know if the room was dusted?

I meant to check the mattress, but forgot.

What floor were you on?

 

[Davids-Coco]

I hate to say that our GC experience was like your from 11/7-11/14. They are charging way more than their quality. Were you there for the 3 am fire alarm?

Oh, and our matress stunk... as in uncomfortable.

 

[Hofmanns4]

What floor were you on?

We were on the 6th floor in room 6108.

I do not remember any powder residue, but will have to remember to look for that next time.

 

[Hofmanns4]

Were you there for the 3 am fire alarm?

Oh, and our matress stunk... as in uncomfortable.

We were there! It was our first night and we were really tired from the drive. I thought it was the clock at first.

We were really upset since this happened to us the last time we were there on our last night. It took forever to get DS who was 6 months at the time back to sleep. I was really glad that it did not happen again over the 7 nights.

Our mattress was very comfy, but...and this may sound funny...the sheets are noisy. Everytime anyone rolled over in the night, it woke me up. The sheets were so crisp, they crinkled really loud. DH said I was crazy and that he never heard it....but I swear it seemed really loud.

 

[drag n' fly]

I hate to say that our GC experience was like your from 11/7-11/14. They are charging way more than their quality. Were you there for the 3 am fire alarm?

Oh, and our matress stunk... as in uncomfortable.

We did not check in until the 14th so I must have missed it.