Disneyland and Eastbound Panama Canal (AKA Patricia who??) **Complete**

[ShellB8585]

Wow, what a packed first few days!

It was pretty tiring but we were having a blast. I do have a hindsight / lessons learned thing but I will post a final review once i complete the report.

One day we'll get to Disneyland Paris I'm enjoying your comparisons!

You should. It's not as great as the American parks overall but it does have a lot of things that are improvements - large walkways behind the main street shops is one of the best things as you can actually move when there is a parade on or at park closing! I'd rather go to the American parks but this one is a lot closer and I just want to be at Disney

Hi! I've just finished reading the part where you eat at Cheesecake Factory. I already need to comment before I go any further!

Congrats on scoring a sweet ride! Carl looks pretty cool behind the wheel!

It was a little more expensive than I originally planned BUT how could I say no? I enjoyed driving it and let's face it, we'll never own one (12 mpg just isn't enough!!)

DH loves Kona Brewing Company!

My cousins are able to get to the US a lot more often than we can so he has been telling us about Kona for years so we thought we'd pick it up for a change and we really did enjoy it

My have a sweet tooth and I DON'T share my cheesecake!!! We used to go there a lot before the kids just so I can have dessert!

I would have another, I think it was a factor of several things - we were tired, it had been a long day and I just don't think it's what we needed at that moment. If we had shared a cheesecake I think we would have enjoyed it a lot more!

I'm all caught up! I've never been to WDW or DLP. It's interesting to hear your comparisons about the rides.

I didn't know if that'd be appreciated or not as a lot of folks haven't been to DLP especially. But I have invited some of my readers over from my DLP TR most of whom haven't been to the parks in the US so I thought it might be useful.

DH and I don't ride Matterhorn anymore because it hurts our backs. Indiana Jones hurts his back sometimes as well. I guess we aren't getting any younger!

I know! I don't remember it being like that when we rode them Jan 2010 but I suppose that was nearly 6 years ago! I also think they have changed the seating recently so let's put it down to that instead

Your condo looks so homey, nice, & spacious! How did you find it?

There is a website I use everytime we go away and want an apartment or villa etc There are tons to choose from (often thousands) and then I do a little research on the area, how long it will take us to get places, what amenities are available etc etc. We do love the freedom of this type of rental as it can save us money - making our own meals (although we didn't on this particular occasion) but I would recommend this one and we will stay here again next time we find ourselves in Anaheim! I am not sure if I'm allowed to post links??? If you would like more info though please feel free to PM me and I will send you the website

 

[Flossbolna]

Hi Shelley! Sounds like you had a fabulous time on your cruise! I am really looking forward to reading about your experience through the Panama Canal!

All those Kona beers look so pretty in the fridge, but what a shame that you had to leave two of them behind...

 

[ShellB8585]

Hi Shelley! Sounds like you had a fabulous time on your cruise! I am really looking forward to reading about your experience through the Panama Canal!

we did have a great time and it was just what we needed! I enjoyed your Panama Canal TR and actually it is what cemented our cruise so thank you for sharing your trip with us!!

All those Kona beers look so pretty in the fridge, but what a shame that you had to leave two of them behind...

It's a shame my fridge at home can't look like that, instead it's water, salad, veggies and lean meat - oh well, it's nearly Christmas

 

[ShellB8585]

A Californian Adventure

Managed to get up at a more usual time this morning – 06:45, showered and had a cup of tea (yes very English ) and some cereal. I know I know, lucky charms aren’t a very grown up breakfast. It’s a throwback to our childhoods, they stopped selling this in the UK quite some time ago so we can only get them when we come to the US and it has sort of become a tradition now.





Breakfast was a little more leisurely than planned as we had hoped to get there for opening but we actually didn’t leave until 07:55 oops. We were in California Adventure by 08:10.


The first port of call, naturally, was for​

​

This was our first time visiting DCA with Cars land and we did not want to miss it. I then took a few photos of the area – the theming here is fantastic, it feels as though you have actually just walked into Radiator Springs!!














I didn’t take a huge deal of photos and, quite frankly, the internet holds much better ones than I could take


We then headed to my favourite Disney Vista​

Of course I love the castles and walking down main street USA but I just love this sight


And on into Paradise pier where California Screamin was a walk on so we rode twice​

Then Toy Story Midway Mania was 30 minutes so we hopped in line​

See, this is a much fairer contest than Buzz is (although I still lost) I also find this more fun!


Next up





Mickeys wheel of Terror – when we rode this in 2010 I did not like it. AT. ALL!!! This time however, I quite enjoyed it. The seats seem to have changed and gotten a little deeper meaning there was something more substantial to hold onto. Still not sold on it being a “fun” wheel though.

​

Uh Oh!!

​

​

Only joking!!!


We then came across 2 walk on rides that we don’t remember doing before the first…



Has become one of Carls favourites

This was followed by the Zephyr

​

 

[ShellB8585]

After our airborne adventures we didn’t stay on land long as we headed under the sea












Then over to Grizzly Peak Rapids



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Next we queued a mere 30 mins for



Nothing compared to the WDW queues!

By this time it was nearly 11 so we headed back to Radiator Springs but before our race we picked up



For this evening as we knew we wanted to ride in the dark too!








We had a yellow car




and got pimped up by Ramone








And lost by the smallest amount!

We had a look in the shops





I quite liked this and could think of a few places it’d look good in our home but it was a bit too large to get home





Another productive morning complete we decided it was time for a rest but not caffeine this time – something a little more refreshing so we headed to



Where we decided to go for local Beers, Carl had the Anaheim HefeWeizen and I had the Anaheim 1888 and we had a snack





Like a good DISer (well I started out well…) I updated my notes





Whilst Carl tried to decided the next step...




We enjoyed the beers and the pretzel but the cheese was not to our liking unfortunately. But we were refreshed so we headed out…​

 

[ShellB8585]

We walked through
​

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Our aim was another of our favourites


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But first DH wanted to play…




​

Tower of Terror was only a 25 minute wait and enjoyable as always.


We then had a look in a few shops before strolling to our lunch ADR at Wine Country Trattoria for the World of Colour package. We had tried to eat here last time but it was closed, then we weren’t going to this time until I decided we would be doing world of colour so thought the fastpasses would be good.


Here is the menu for your perusal​

I liked this sign they had up​

Wise words indeed!!!

First up there was Focaccia bread

​

And we were brought our drinks, Carl opted for a Karl Strauss Beer and I had the California wine flight



We both had Minestrone soup to start – we are definitely soups over salads kinda people. It was ok but I have had better, presentation could definitely be worked on though, messy bowls will never do!​

Then Carl had the Lasagne, Lasagne his is favourite dish and he did enjoy this one​

I had the crab Gnocchi which I quite enjoyed but it was hard to taste or find the crab





Then dessert was brought out each of us had Tiramisu (not that great) Panna Cotta (yum) a Macaroon (so-so) and a lemon puff (I thought I’d like this one the most and expected it to be refreshing but it was a little sweet) ​

The meal was enjoyable overall, maybe it’d be better when ordering from the regular menu? The thing we really didn’t like was the service – the worst we had all trip and really we should have complained but we couldn’t be bothered to take time out of our day for that. The server didn’t really seem interested in spending any time at our table, just brought what was needed but the thing we least liked was each course was brought out when we were halfway through the previous one. Now that’s just rudeness. We weren’t eating slowly by any means and it was not overly busy so bringing our pasta out before we finished our soup etc was unacceptable. Had I known service would have been so swift I certainly wouldn’t have ordered a wine flight which Carl helped me finish as we didn’t feel comfortable or welcome to stay to long after we’d finished our meals. But then she took aaaaaaages getting our World of Colour fast passes!


Anyway we left and moved on from our only negative Disney experience and headed to the 2:20 showing of Aladdin. I really enjoyed this and the Genie was very funny. It’s a shame it is making way for Frozen I understand it is a very popular film, I also enjoyed it a lot, but Disney seems saturated with it. Anyhow…

​

We followed this up with Monsters Inc. which only had a 10 min wait


​

Which was a nice little ride.​

 

[ShellB8585]

I forgot to mention throughout the day we had been heading back to Buena Vista Street to see if Oswald was out for photos but we never did see him. One such time we happened to arrive at the same time as the Red Car Trolley News boys so we stayed to watch the show about following your dreams and Walt Disneys journey to California
​

And look who showed up​

​

Bye Mickey










​

So then we did stop for some caffeine…



Tastes even better in a Disney cup

We then walked through the​

And had a little sample whilst watching some bakers hard at work



We slowly made our way over to Grizzly Peak for another ride on the Rapids whilst it was still hot enough to dry in a reasonable time. The ride was down but we decided to hop in the queue in the hope it’d be back up soon.





I took this photo in the queue



Then uh oh – the worst thing anyone who likes to take photographs can see – dead battery!!! This is a fairly new camera for me and I haven’t gotten around to buying a spare yet although this does last a lot longer than any I have had before. There was no way I was watching WOC without my camera so a decision was made and we jumped out of the queue and sped back to the condo.


We were back at 4:57 according to my notes. Since we were back we decided to take showers and get changed and had some cold soft drinks. Now I think my husband chose wisely as he would be annoyed waiting for me if he had to but we left the condo at 5:30 so only 33mins after we arrived…​

 

[ShellB8585]

…We were back in the park in no time and met the tail end of the parade so we slowly followed until we could branch off






http://s1291.photobucket.com/user/S...1-45da-a765-939f863e2ec9_zpsfvxvtcs1.jpg.html​

Our destination you ask? Well it’s one of our favourites and it’s very rare – can you guess??














​

If you got it right give yourself a pat on the back. It was a 15 minute wait

Walked on to Carls new fave…

We considered getting a beer but the queue for that was longer than the rides so we passed. It was nearly time for our evening racing at Radiator Springs so we headed back…


​

You might be able to make out the people around the tyres at Luigis. Well, little did we know that RSR had been down for a couple of hours and that was the back of the fastpass queue!!


SO… we thought we would give another favourite a last ride and then come back

Unfortunately the wait was 50 minutes so instead we thought we’d try the queue for RSR. At this point they had closed the regular queue as the park was closing soon so it was just fastpass returners and single riders. It only ended up being about 30 minutes of waiting

We won by a fair amount this time…must be Luigis whitewall tyres

We picked up a water on our way out of Radiator Springsand headed to our WOC fastpass return where we arrived around 7:45. We were offered the wet or “dry” zone and we were at the top of the stairs just out of the wet and into the dry. Turns out it didn’t matter as the heavens opened and it poured down most of the show. We weren’t too bothered, it was quite refreshing and we knew this was our last thing of the day and it wasn’t far home.


So what did I think of WOC? I LOVED it (even in the rain)!!! I would go so far to say it is the best show I have seen of this type and I even got a little teary at points I thought it was beautiful.


Anyway, enough talking…












​

 

[ShellB8585]

Feeling grateful for Mr Disney we joined the masses and exited. Taking a few photos on the way​

We went into the World of Disney but it was very busy so we carried on. We were going to go to Trader Sams for a cocktail tonight as it’s the only time we could really fit it in but we were a little tired and a lot wet, Downtown Disney was busy on top of that so we just headed home, dried off and got into comfy warm PJs and cracked open a Kona all by 9:30. A most wonderful day! I haven’t been to WDW for a while so my memories are fading a little but I am fairly certain DCA is my favourite non magic kingdom park….​

 

[bcwife76]

CarsLand is really well done isn't it? For this past trip we spent more time at DCA than DL, it has such a special vibe to it!

You got some amazing photos of WOC! We were in the front row of the wet zone and were afraid we'd get soaked so our phones/cameras went into pockets so as not to get wet. This show is so well done, I got teary eyed as well ;-)

Your food at Wine Trattoria for lunch looks way better than what we had for dinner - sorry to hear you had such lousy service. For this reason alone I gave it a rather poor review on Trip Advisor and would not return to that restaurant. Did you prefer riding RSR at night or in the daytime? I've only ever ridden it in daylight. I prefer the swings in the dark rather than daytime though, love how the lights blur as you whiz by!

 

[pepe3penelope]

Here are my comments about the next post:

Wow! Is it me or is your condo very very close to the park entrance? Your times show you leave and enter w/in 10-15 minutes? Are you walking over?

We love RSR!!! Our DS was finally able to ride that and Soarin' over california last month. We've been putting up w/waits so we can ride as a a family.

You will NEVER catch me on the swings or Mickey's what I call "Wheel of Death"!!!

Our kids like Zephyr but I don't so DH takes them. I braved it a couple weeks ago. Hmmmm...he can continue to take them from now on!

Your condo option is cool! We are locals but last year we did a Staycation @ the Villas at Grand Californian and a birthday weekend for DD at DLH. For our trip last month we stayed across the street on Harbor Blvd. Much faster walk to the entrance than DLH and PPH. In general, I prefer to be closer to the Disney bubble. I may PM you to have it as a future option.

 

[pepe3penelope]

I love that you got 2 FP's for RSR. Nice score! I really want to ride it at night.

Ariel is my fave princess. But there's just something about that ride. I almost always get so close to falling asleep but DD keeps waking me up. I think it's dark, leans you back to go under the sea... Just let me sleep!!!

We have never trie Wine Country Tragtoria because I've read too many negative things about the service from DISers and friends. If the service is bad, I won't go.

 

[ShellB8585]

CarsLand is really well done isn't it? For this past trip we spent more time at DCA than DL, it has such a special vibe to it!

It was fantastic and I do really like DCA! We only got a 3 day 1 park pass and I think that was about right for this trip. However if we go for a little longer next time it will definitely be hoppers and I wouldn't be surprised if we spent more time at DCA too.

You got some amazing photos of WOC! We were in the front row of the wet zone and were afraid we'd get soaked so our phones/cameras went into pockets so as not to get wet. This show is so well done, I got teary eyed as well ;-)

Thank you. I have been getting into photography a little bit recently so I am glad I succeeded to get some good shots (there are a lot that didn't make the cut ) When it started raining I was a little worried about the camera but it was ok in the end, just dried it off regularly. when we went in 2010 I think this was just being put together / starting so it was nice to see and I do think it's a great show! Also liked NPH as the narrator.

Your food at Wine Trattoria for lunch looks way better than what we had for dinner - sorry to hear you had such lousy service. For this reason alone I gave it a rather poor review on Trip Advisor and would not return to that restaurant.

The food tasted good it''s just a shame it was let down by the service as actually it's a nice restaurant too. I am thinking next time (if we only have a couple days) I may not make any ADRs and try out the quick service offerings instead.

Did you prefer riding RSR at night or in the daytime? I've only ever ridden it in daylight. I prefer the swings in the dark rather than daytime though, love how the lights blur as you whiz by!

That's a tough question as I enjoyed both but it was pretty neat all light up at night and one of my favourite things is a Disney Park all lit up in the dark

Here are my comments about the next post:

Wow! Is it me or is your condo very very close to the park entrance? Your times show you leave and enter w/in 10-15 minutes? Are you walking over?

Yes we could walk over in about 10-15 minutes. Now we are only 2 adults and we walk a lot, We did see families who were a lot slower when walking with kids/strollers. Officially the condo owners say it's about 20 minutes

We love RSR!!! Our DS was finally able to ride that and Soarin' over california last month. We've been putting up w/waits so we can ride as a a family.

You will NEVER catch me on the swings or Mickey's what I call "Wheel of Death"!!!

Our kids like Zephyr but I don't so DH takes them. I braved it a couple weeks ago. Hmmmm...he can continue to take them from now on!

RSR is a great ride - and fastpasses are heaven sent as I'm not sure we would have been able to have such a productive day otherwise. I hated the wheel the last time we rode it but actually found it ok this time.

Your condo option is cool! We are locals but last year we did a Staycation @ the Villas at Grand Californian and a birthday weekend for DD at DLH. For our trip last month we stayed across the street on Harbor Blvd. Much faster walk to the entrance than DLH and PPH. In general, I prefer to be closer to the Disney bubble. I may PM you to have it as a future option.

We do like the ease of self catering. We didn't really do any catering but we find it a little more relaxing that a hotel. The Grand Californian does look beautiful. And one of the things I love about the Anaheim resort is that even with having the Condo just outside we still felt as though we were in that bubble.

I love that you got 2 FP's for RSR. Nice score! I really want to ride it at night.

Well we only had one day so we had to try and I can definitely recommend it at night!

Ariel is my fave princess. But there's just something about that ride. I almost always get so close to falling asleep but DD keeps waking me up. I think it's dark, leans you back to go under the sea... Just let me sleep!!!

haha to be honest with a long day of walking around the parks there's always a few rides where I want to rest my eyes for a few minutes

We have never trie Wine Country Tragtoria because I've read too many negative things about the service from DISers and friends. If the service is bad, I won't go.

The food was good. The service wasn't horrendous just a little odd getting your next course before you've finished your first. Overall it was definitely worth it for the WOC fastpass! I had read a few negative reviews but I tend to take that with a pinch of salt so to speak. We stayed in a hotel in Rome that had nothing but negative reviews for the previous few months...Turned out to actually be a wonderful hotel with some of the friendliest staff. Not everyone has the same experience.

 

[sager1969]

Following along - looking for some good tips as we are doing the WBPC in 2015. Thank you for sharing!

 

[ShellB8585]

Following along - looking for some good tips as we are doing the WBPC in 2015. Thank you for sharing!

Thanks for reading! The cruise was great but we'll get to that soon we'd like to do the Westbound when we do this again but out of port canaveral so we can visit WDW 1st

 

[DnA2010]

Jumping on board!
We just spent a lovely week in Disneyland (5 day hoppers and Halloween party) and your pics are bringing back so many awesome memories!

Glad your LAX experience was good- ours wasnt great- it was soo busy- took ages to get a bus to the car rental and a big line once we got there uggg- anyways-

Also loved seeing the Kona Brewing mixer- yum! We are big fans of Kona as we love the Big Islsnd of Hawaii.

Cars land s just so awesome, we managed to somehow pull multiple RSR FPs also- yay!

So can't wait to get to your cruise report- I would love to do this cruise! Maybe next year if somehow we can grab a great GT rate


Can't wait to read more!

 

[ShellB8585]

Jumping on board!
We just spent a lovely week in Disneyland (5 day hoppers and Halloween party) and your pics are bringing back so many awesome memories!

Glad your LAX experience was good- ours was t great- it was soo busy- took ages to get a bus to the car renal and a big line once we got there uggg- anyways-

Also loved seeing the Kona Brewing mixer- yum! We are big fans of Kona as we live the Big Islsnd of Hawaii.

Cars land s just so awesome, we managed to somehow pull multiple RSR FPs also- yay!

So can't wait to get to your cruise report- I would love to do this cruise! Maybe next year if somehow we can grab a great GT rate


Can't wait to read more!

Originally I had planned on going to the Halloween party ultimately deciding on saving the money. I don't think we would have gotten as much done if we had done the party too so it's just another reason to go back Sorry to hear your airport experience wasn't as good as ours - we were utterly astounded how quick it was! I know it's not peak season but it was a Saturday and I was expecting it to take a lot longer! Hawaii is firmly on my very long list of places we want to visit but no idea when we'll fit it in soonish I hope!!
I promise I am trying to get through the Pre cruise bits as swiftly as possible but I haven't uploaded all of the cruise photos yet so that may take a little longer

 

[ShellB8585]

Have just noticed something hinkie with my pictures from one of the DCA posts, will fix it this weekend and hopefully bring some more updates

 

[ShellB8585]

Our final Disneyland Day!

Usual getting up routine – I am not going to tell you we showered every morning but please know we did. I won’t mention it passed this point but please don’t think that meant we stopped showering every morning!!

We left the house at 7:40. The intention was to pick up some beignets and coffee from Ralph Brennans Express on the way in but they didn’t open until 8. Shame really as there are a lot of people around before that. Oh well.



As soon as we were in the park we went straight to Star Tours which had a 10 min wait.

​

We haven’t been on this since the new “storylines” (it hasn’t been updated in Paris…yet…) and I thought it was really good!

Then I lost at Buzz again



Since we had a beautiful blue sky, I took some snaps of the castle









We then waited for Frontierland to open for our last must do ride




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This was a walk on, I think we were on the second train of the day! I will say the best one of these is definitely at Disneyland Paris where you go through the tunnel at the beginning.

After our wildest ride in the wilderness we decided check out the Haunted Mansion queue..

It was only 20 minutes and we knew it was popular so we jumped in
​

​

..before heading to Splash mountain which was another walk on



​

I really like Churros and had pretty much been looking forward to one at Disneyland so I bought one for breakfast

Smelt delicious, looked yummy, tasted like cardboard…..

I was so very very disappointed. So we replaced it with our first ever

Much better!!!

We did a little shop browsing – I hadn’t seen a lot I wanted to be honest which was disappointing. The only thing had been a Darth Vader dress but I wasn’t 100% sure. Nothing bought still we headed to pick up a Space Mountain fastpass – return time 11:30-12:30. Whilst we were waiting we went to


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the single riders queue and walked straight on!​

 

[ShellB8585]

We still had a bit of time to kill before our fast pass and there was only a 20 minute wait for the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage



​

Turns out this ride is a little longer than expected we got off at 11:50 and had an ADR at midday. No time for Space Mountain so we gave our fastpasses to 2 ladies, I hope they enjoyed their ride!?! Then it was time for lunch and after no breakfast and a disappointing churro boy were we ready for this!!!



Our destination?




Soon to be extinct…






​

We were sat at a table with a young family from Canada whos company we enjoyed and we liked the entertainment – again it’s a shame this area is going


The chicken, ribs and beans were delicious! As it was an all you can eat kind of set up we ordered extra of those. The cornbread was a little sweet for our liking (I’m starting to notice a trend here…) and the slaw was nice but as Carl doesn’t like it we didn’t need anymore. The nice thing we learnt is any uneaten food gets shipped out as animal feed so doesn’t go to waste.

It was quite hot today and we had done almost all of what we wanted so we decided to have a little break from the park.



On the way out we noticed a free photopass photographer in front of the castle so stopped



Unfortunately DH is squinting in every single one of them!

Looked through Downtown Disney and had a wander around the Grand Californian, looks a very nice hotel, I think we could definitely stay there!
I was quite impressed by the cake, look at the detail..








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I also really liked this door



Carl found some time to watch some champions league football (sorry, I can’t bring myself to actually call it soccer)


We then went back to the condo, picked up the car and drove to Walmart to buy some wine for the cruise. DCLs alcohol policy has recently changed – I know most of you will know this but there will be some reading who don’t – It used to be that you can take any kind of alcohol onboard and pretty much as much as you could fit in your carry on – the stipulations it had to be in the carry on (not checked luggage) AND it was not supposed to be consumed in public areas. We had never taken advantage of this before but as we were going on a longer cruise we were going to take advantage this year. However, just a couple months ago it changed to 2 bottles of wine 750ml or smaller OR 6 bottles of beer per adult over 21. You can then bring the same on in each port you visit. There were a lot of very upset people, didn’t really matter to us we’d just budget a little more into our onboard spends. However, the only thing I think that does need a rethink is this allowance is the same if you are on a 3 night or 14 night cruise. There have been a few occasions in recent years where the Wonder has not been able to visit various ports and with more days at sea I’m sure it wouldn’t be too horrendous for them to adjust this just a little for longer cruises. This is the reason we couldn’t take our 2 beers with us when we checked out in San Diego (well technically we could have and they would have held them until we got back but it seemed pretty pointless for 2 bottles of beer)

ANYWAY (sorry about that) we bought 2 bottles of red and 2 of rose to have in the room when we get back from excursions we don’t have expensive tastes and tend to prefer Californian as they are a little fruitier than European wines.

Shopping complete we spent a little time at home and did some more washing so everything was clean before leaving.


Excuse tootsies​