Disneyland/D23 Trip Report – D23 for the twenty-third trip (Update 10/10 - 1901 Lounge & Spectromagic!!)

[skier_pete]

Day 0: I am not going to spend a lot of time on our travel day – we flex from Buffalo to LAX with a 2-hour layover in Las Vegas. There was not much interesting about the flight – which IMO is exactly what you want. We got a ridiculously great one-way price on SWA of $125 per person. (Other airlines would charge you that much for just the bags.) The only negative was we got into LAX about 9:30 PM and though we booked an Execucar to take us to the Tropicana on Harbor Boulevard, it took a good 30 minutes for the guy to get into the airport. A 45 minute drive and we were in Anaheim across the street from Disneyland.
Day 1: We really wanted to take advantage of rope drop out here, though people talked about how light the crowds were all summer – I didn’t believe them. Yes, crowds weren’t overbearing while we were there, but there were some long waits and I didn’t care to deal with them any more than necessary. Today was the only 9 AM rope drop of the trip (the rest of the week was 8 AM) and I wanted to take advantage of our time change. I also wanted to hit Galaxy’s Edge first thing first day – because today was the last day that the majority of passes were blocked out for summer. I didn’t know how it would affect crowds going forward – but it certainly wouldn’t hurt! So we were out the door of our room by 8 AM. The walk from our hotel is incredibly short. This sign is within visual of the front of our hotel. For those that are Florida Only people - imagine staying at the Contemporary – but it is “off property” and you simply walk to MK to be “on property”, and that is the entire park.

We were at the gates by 8:15 AM, but there was already a pretty big crowd of people there by then.

Here’s the people BEHIND us in line – and also the gates to California Adventure – that’s how close together the two parks are.

They started letting everyone into the parks at about 8:35 AM, but they weren’t really yet letting anyone beyond main street – so we lined up at Frontierland, not realizing they were routing everyone through the New Orleans Square entrance to Batuu.
The walk down Main Street U.S.A is always a kick in Disneyland.



I can’t help but look to Walt’s Apartment whenever we visit Disneyland.


It’s easy to forget how much smaller and compact everything is here versus Florida, until you turn that corner and spot the castle. Wait, where is it?



We were held here until right at 9 AM – and then led in a semi-orderly fashion into Batuu. They did a really good job of hiding Galaxy’s Edge at the back of the park. You can’t easily see it as you are walking along the Rivers of America until you are really almost there.

Entering from the far left entrance – this is where the resistance land is. This area feels fairly empty right now – with the ride not yet open to the public, and I didn’t really see any shops open here yet either. It’s kind of a weird feeling because the land is HUGE, but about half of it seemed pretty quiet.

The main portion of the land does feel like a small village with shops and working eateries and repair places and traders. They were extremely effective in building this land.




Pretty much everyone was lining up to get on the Falcon ride.



I love the way the “Spire” trees seem like ancient trunks that the buildings were built around. So much wonderful detail, there’s a lot of blaster marks everywhere. Even notice the banners on the left have score marks on them.

There were a couple of troopers out chatting with the crowd.




Continued in Next Post....

 

[skier_pete]

And before you know it, there’s the Falcon in full-size glory.

But we were there to look at the Falcon – we were there to fly it. (It’s a little blurry – but I think Standby said 25 minutes.

You walk in behind the Falcon and then through Hondo’s shop.






There were lots of noises of a working shop – but it sort of surprised me that they didn’t have a droid or two with some basic movement that could have made it feel slightly more alive. You eventually move up to the second floor via ramps, and now you are looking out at the top level of the Falcon.


Here’s the first “split up” spot – where Hondo tells you about your mission with him. I have to say it’s neat seeing a character that was from the show “Rebels”, which one of the better recent Star Wars products. I do like also that this pre-show is not very long – sometimes pre-shows drag on (Flight of Passage).




Once you get through this pre-show, they take you onto the Falcon in the main cargo area. They also at this point break you into groups of 6, 2 pilots, 2 gunners, 2 engineers. We had two pilots (DW and DD) and one gunner.






It was early in the day but we hardly had time to sit for a photo op at the chess set when they were calling our boarding party. I guess it’s hard to complain that your wait is too short, though. Then you head down another corridor, and they take you to the bridge of the Falcon.


I didn’t have much time before we were off and running. The ride is a lot of fun, if I must say there’s maybe a little too much involvement with trying to control the ride that you don’t really have as much time as you’d maybe like to actually pay attention to all the details. The pilot seem to have the best view and the most fun job of steering the ship. The gunner just basically pushes a button to shoot. The other family of three we were on the ride with didn’t speak English, so they didn’t really have a clue what they were supposed to do.
DW said afterwards that the ride made her a little nauseous but DD and I liked it so much we wanted to go again. The wait was showing about 40 minutes, so we decided to try single rider. They wouldn’t tell us how long single rider was, but it ended up being about 8 people long (maybe 2-3 minutes).

This time I was the engineer. This was more fun than being the gunner, but you also in the back of the cabin. What was interesting is this time we had 6 people that were all trying to do their jobs, but one of the pilots was a little kid, so I don’t think we did much better. The ride was not much different from the first ride, at least at first glance, which surprised me a little. The only big difference was the very end after we were back with the cargo. I wonder if eventually they’ll change the ride up a little bit more so that you can have different experiences like Star Tours. But for now it’s a wonderful ride – not quite on the level of Flight of Passage, but really fun, especially for a Star Wars fan that spent their childhood dreaming of the Millennium Falcon.



Next Time - a little more exploration of Batuu...

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

25 minutes isn't bad at all.

I agree about the queue, I think they could have done a bit more. Some droids working on the engine would have helped a lot. It kind of reminded me a bit of the Space queue, what with the big centerpiece above the loading area.

My favorite part of the pre-show is when you're waiting to get on the actual ride and they have Hondo on the screen and all the animations are like those in A New Hope.

You gotta be quick to get pictures in the waiting area. The worse was once there were just two guys sitting at the holochess table. Not getting pictures, just sitting there.

That was a pretty short single rider, we never saw it where the line was above the stairs.

 

[skier_pete]

25 minutes isn't bad at all.

I agree about the queue, I think they could have done a bit more. Some droids working on the engine would have helped a lot. It kind of reminded me a bit of the Space queue, what with the big centerpiece above the loading area.

My favorite part of the pre-show is when you're waiting to get on the actual ride and they have Hondo on the screen and all the animations are like those in A New Hope.

You gotta be quick to get pictures in the waiting area. The worse was once there were just two guys sitting at the holochess table. Not getting pictures, just sitting there.

That was a pretty short single rider, we never saw it where the line was above the stairs.

Yeah, we got in line and we were on the stairs, but basically only a step or two from the top of the stairs. As I said, like maybe 8 people in front of us. Pretty short.

The pre-ride stuff overall is super effective. I know Disney (and Uni) tries hard to make this part of the ride, but it doesn't always work. A good example of this is Flight of Passage, where the ride is fantastic, but the pre-show is already old the second time you sit through it. ("Wave your hands around a bit"...really?) Someone should do a ranking of the best Disney Pre-shows! Smugglers Run would be up there for sure!

 

[khertz]

Pretty cool that you got to start off your trip with visiting Galaxy's Edge and riding Smugglers Run pretty quickly. I'm still not really too excited about visiting it myself, but it does look really beautiful in your photos.

 

[skier_pete]

Day 1 - Continued

DD wanted a snack at this point. So we thought we would take a walk through the Food and merchandise areas. We started at the Docking Bay 7, but these were full meals. (We never returned here to eat.) Ronto’s Roasters had some good looking stuff too, but again we were just looking for a snack.




Instead we ended up a Kat Saka’s Kettle – where they sell popcorn.

So for those that haven’’ tried this yet, it was an interesting taste of popcorn. There was a little bit of spiciness, a little bit of citrus, the popcorn if you took a handful kind of tasted like you were eating fruit loops but with some zing. DW and I liked it quite a bit, but DD didn’t care for it. Unfortunately they didn’t have any plain popcorn.
The shops were really fascinating to walk through – so much to see – but there wasn’t really that much pull for us. I am not someone that needs a whole bunch of Star Wars crap, and neither DD nor DW are giant fans –so we really didn’t see anything we wanted – though I kind of wanted to get a Lothcat.

These little puppets were hanging in one of the shops.

Various toys and games







For how big the land is – they really needed more walkaround characters to make the land feel lived it. Sure, they had staff that was there to sell things –but they need interactions with the public. Supposedly Rey and Chewie are out in the land but we never saw them, only saw these two Stormtroopers.


The last place we went into before leaving the land was the droid Depot. Perhaps if DD was 4 years younger this might’ve interested me – but again I don’t need more knick knacks I’ll never use, and at $100 a pop I just wasn’t interested – but there was clearly a crowd in here and plenty of people buying. I wonder what the long-term outlook will be though at this price point.

At this point we actually headed “off-planet”. DW had gotten a FP for Big Thunder while we were riding the 2nd time on Smuggler’s Run, so headed out for our FP return. But first we had to get the first of many churros on the trip.

This here’s the wildest ride in the WILDERNESS!


We had a reservation at Oga’s for 11:30 AM but there was time for one more ride. Especially when it’s showing a 5 minute wait.

Anyone that hasn’t ridden the California version of Pirates doesn’t know what they’re missing. Orlando’s version feels like an abbreviated version when you’ve been out here;
First you ride by Blue Bayou. We will be eating here a little later in the day.

Dead Men Tell No Tales!


We wants the rum!


It’s a long ride – so by the time we got off the ride it was time to head back to Batuu for our Oga’s Cantina reservation.

To be continued...

 

[soniam]

I never got to eat at Docking Bay 7 either. I just wasn't hungry enough or wanted to spend that much time on a meal by myself. I think they need more snack options, especially for vegetarians. There isn't anything for them to eat at Ronto Roasters. I got the MSE droid popcorn bucket for my son, which came with the popcorn. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great. Mine was either already stale or went stale fast. Rachel and Brian hated it when they had some back at the room.

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

Hehe, yeah, not a big fan of that popcorn. Which is odd, because I love almost every type of popcorn I've ever had. I think they might want to have a few different flavors available there.

That little boy with the t-shirt that says 'family' who is in one of your pics is the cutest, haha, random, I know.

You had the opposite experience that I had at the Galaxy's Edge gift shops. It went something like this:

Me: oooh look at that!
Brian: no
Me: Aaaaaah! Look what they have!!!
Brian: put it down
Me: I really, really need this.
Brian: no you don't.
Me: I will literally die if I don't have this
Brian: good, then I'll save money by not having to buy that

I do think Galaxy's Edge could do with some more snack options. I recently wrote an article for the DIS (hasn't been published yet) about things they could do to spice up Galaxy's Edge. One of my options was having rotating food vendors in the marketplace, make it seem like a real marketplace. They could sell fruit cups with oddly cut fruit, nuts, pre-packaged cookies and other things like that. Then once their supply is gone they pack up and move out, and another vendor shows up.

Isn't DL POTC with a 5 minute wait fabulous? I wish I was on it right now. I've been squandering my rides on BTMR lately because all I do is look for glimpses of Galaxy's Edge.

I'm excited to read about your Blue Bayou experience. I've always enjoyed the food there, though I'll admit my palate is not the most advanced. And I could stare at the water view for hours.

 

[skier_pete]

I never got to eat at Docking Bay 7 either. I just wasn't hungry enough or wanted to spend that much time on a meal by myself. I think they need more snack options, especially for vegetarians. There isn't anything for them to eat at Ronto Roasters. I got the MSE droid popcorn bucket for my son, which came with the popcorn. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great. Mine was either already stale or went stale fast. Rachel and Brian hated it when they had some back at the room.

It was funny, after that first day we never did go back to Star Wars land. I could've spent more time exploring, but neither DW or DD are big-time into Star Wars (DD was for a while, but is more Marvel and Anime now). I just feel like at DLR that there is so much to see and do and we only had 4 days to do it. We go to WDW so much more - with probably at least 20 days in the next year - that I feel like I was willing to wait and see it in Florida - in a park like DHS where there's maybe 4 hours of other stuff I even care about seeing anymore.

I can't say I thought the popcorn was bad - but it didn't really taste like popcorn either. I hate to knock anything unique because I love it when menus are unique, but they should really have a "regular" popcorn and a "space" popcorn so you can choose between the two.

Hehe, yeah, not a big fan of that popcorn. Which is odd, because I love almost every type of popcorn I've ever had. I think they might want to have a few different flavors available there.

That little boy with the t-shirt that says 'family' who is in one of your pics is the cutest, haha, random, I know.

You had the opposite experience that I had at the Galaxy's Edge gift shops. It went something like this:

Me: oooh look at that!
Brian: no
Me: Aaaaaah! Look what they have!!!
Brian: put it down
Me: I really, really need this.
Brian: no you don't.
Me: I will literally die if I don't have this
Brian: good, then I'll save money by not having to buy that

Yeah, I'm the only one in the family that would really want star wars stuff, and I am on a pretty hard "I don't need this crap" kick, plus I KNEW what would happen in Club 33, so I kept my money in my pocket - even though I admit I didn't really see anything that I wanted very strongly besides that Lothcat.

I do think Galaxy's Edge could do with some more snack options. I recently wrote an article for the DIS (hasn't been published yet) about things they could do to spice up Galaxy's Edge. One of my options was having rotating food vendors in the marketplace, make it seem like a real marketplace. They could sell fruit cups with oddly cut fruit, nuts, pre-packaged cookies and other things like that. Then once their supply is gone they pack up and move out, and another vendor shows up.

Interesting Idea. I was surprised they didn't have a churro cart. You can't go 100 feet in DLR without hitting a churro cart. It's such a difference from Florida, where churros are rather difficult to come by outside MK.

Isn't DL POTC with a 5 minute wait fabulous? I wish I was on it right now. I've been squandering my rides on BTMR lately because all I do is look for glimpses of Galaxy's Edge.

I'm excited to read about your Blue Bayou experience. I've always enjoyed the food there, though I'll admit my palate is not the most advanced. And I could stare at the water view for hours.

We saw longer lines, but everytime we rode Pirates it was a 5 minute wait. (I saw it as high as I think 30 minutes.) WDW has been running pirates at half rates most of the time we've been there lately. If you want me to be annoyed by Disney, see me when I wait 30 minutes and find they're only loading half the rate. Grrr.

I will save my review for a post very soon, but we did enjoyed Blue Bayou. I do wish we hadn't sat so far from the water, it didn't seem quite as special when all you could see was the heads of the people on the boats.

 

[skier_pete]

Day 1 continued:

We had to wait in line about 20 minutes to get into the cantina – even WITH a reservation. The line was pretty long. (Not sure why I didn’t take a photo of it.) It’s definitely in the first order section of the place.


Entrance to the Cantina – you can actually read the letters if you look closely.

The place is small and a lot of the area is standing room. They assigned us to a table along with two other women – we were told we had 45 minutes and we could order two drinks, but if we wanted two drinks we better order them at the same time.

DJ Rex doing his stuff



Here’s the menu – non-alcoholic. DD got the Jabba Juice


The non-alcoholic drinks are a little more pricey.


I got the Dagobah Slug Slinger, which was pretty good but strong. DW got the YubNub, which she really enjoyed, but if they make us spend $42 every time I’m not going to be very happy. The mug is absolutely gorgeous though.



DD liked her drink, but not the popping pearls, they were too weird. (Sorry for the fuzzy picture.)
We actually probably didn’t stay the full 45 minutes because we had a lunch reservation at Blue Bayou. But I had pulled a Haunted Mansion Fastpass earlier, so we headed back their before we went to New Orleans Square.


No photos inside. The ride is actually pretty similar to the Florida one, with the scenes in maybe slightly different order. I think I actually prefer the Florida one in this case.
It was finally time for our lunch reservation at 1 PM. We had never eaten at Blue Bayou and this was on DDs wish list. I liked the idea because we wanted to get the Fantasmic reserved “Seating” and this seemed like a good option for this as well.


The menu is a prix fixe menu.

DW and I got the salad for my appetizer. It was quite good. Also props to the baker who made the bread – we gobbled it all down.

DD didn’t want one of the appetizers on the adult menu – so we asked to get the kids appetizer. For some reason they brought us three of them which was completely unnecessary as she is a pretty light eater and only ate one of them.

I had the lamb chops for my entrée – and this was absolutely wonderful. Very tender and cooked just right with a delicious sauce and potatoes and green beans.

DD and DW both got the steak, and this was also really good (not as good as the lamb IMO) and in fact huge. DD did eat about half of hers – the rest sat in our fridge for 4 days making the place smell like garlic whenever we opened the door.

For dessert we all got the Malificent dessert which was a Vanilla Ganache with a coconut crème and a chocolate center over a bed of cotton candy. DD didn’t like it at all. I just thought it was OK, and the cotton candy was terrible. (Lime flavored or something weird.) The whole thing had a light up base and was really cute looking, but I wouldn’t recommend it – and certainly not for the whole table.

Overall, I was pretty happy with the meal – we still were able to get a 10% discount with our DVC card! So overall with tax and tip it ran about $210 for the three of us.
After this we decided it was time to head back to the room for a bit of a rest. We actually pulled a FP from Indiana Jones, whose return time was between 5 pm and 6 pm, with the intention of using it later when we returned.

Next update - a Fantasmic evening...

 

[franandaj]

We were at the gates by 8:15 AM, but there was already a pretty big crowd of people there by then.

Yikes! Since we have a half an hour drive, I rarely am there for rope drop.

so we lined up at Frontierland, not realizing they were routing everyone through the New Orleans Square entrance to Batuu.

Technically it's Critter Country...

until you turn that corner and spot the castle. Wait, where is it?

Hey, don't punk on my castle!

I didn’t really see any shops open here yet either.

They're all pretty much kiosks.

The ride was not much different from the first ride, at least at first glance, which surprised me a little. The only big difference was the very end after we were back with the cargo.

I learned last week that there are times that you can get two shipments (I never have) and that there is an asteroid scene (which I got both the first two times I rode), but only got that again when we rode last Monday.

The pilot seem to have the best view and the most fun job of steering the ship.

I wouldn't agree with this statement! I think the Pilot has the most stressful job, and I totally suck at it. However, our "up and down" pilot last Monday hit more stuff than any other ride I've been on!

We started at the Docking Bay 7, but these were full meals. (We never returned here to eat.)

Smart.

So for those that haven’’ tried this yet, it was an interesting taste of popcorn. There was a little bit of spiciness, a little bit of citrus, the popcorn if you took a handful kind of tasted like you were eating fruit loops but with some zing.

Supposedly the red pieces are hot and the purple pieces are sweet.

DW and I liked it quite a bit,

You are the first person to say this.

Anyone that hasn’t ridden the California version of Pirates doesn’t know what they’re missing. Orlando’s version feels like an abbreviated version when you’ve been out here;

Accurate assessment.

DW got the YubNub, which she really enjoyed, but if they make us spend $42 every time I’m not going to be very happy.

I bet that they picked the drink that most people would want to be the one that is only available in the souvie mug.

But I had pulled a Haunted Mansion Fastpass earlier, so we headed back their before we went to New Orleans Square.

Ahhhhh, I miss the classic Haunted Mansion already. Only four more torturous months of the overlay.

The menu is a prix fixe menu.

I thought they removed the Monte Cristo, but the Gumbo is gone...

I had the lamb chops for my entrée – and this was absolutely wonderful. Very tender and cooked just right with a delicious sauce and potatoes and green beans.

Oh that sounds so good. I want Lamb now! We're going to a steakhouse for our anniversary this Thursday and it would be sacrilege to order lamb there! Now what am I going to do?

For dessert we all got the Malificent dessert which was a Vanilla Ganache with a coconut crème

You lost me at coconut creme.

 

[skier_pete]

Technically it's Critter Country...

You got me there! I always forget that exists since there's really not much there except two rides and Hungry Bear.

Hey, don't punk on my castle!

Sorry - it's just SOO tiny.

Supposedly the red pieces are hot and the purple pieces are sweet.

You are the first person to say this.

Would agree some pieces had a little spice. IDK, I liked it.

Ahhhhh, I miss the classic Haunted Mansion already. Only four more torturous months of the overlay.

We would like to make it out to see the overlay one day - it seems pretty spectacular for an overlay - but I could see where you could get sick of it every year.

Oh that sounds so good. I want Lamb now! We're going to a steakhouse for our anniversary this Thursday and it would be sacrilege to order lamb there! Now what am I going to do?

Can't make the decision for you, but I am the only one in my family that loves a good lamb chop. Though a top-notch steak still beats lamb.

You lost me at coconut creme.

Yeah, not sure why we all ordered it - only DW really like it. It LOOKED really cool, so that's something.

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

I keep going back and forth on getting the Yub Nub cup. It does look really cool. Almost as if the Ewoks did a wood carving of the battle of Endor.

That Blue Bayou dessert looks so cool though!! Sometimes it seems Disney is really going for Instagrammable over taste lately.

 

[skier_pete]

I keep going back and forth on getting the Yub Nub cup. It does look really cool. Almost as if the Ewoks did a wood carving of the battle of Endor.

That Blue Bayou dessert looks so cool though!! Sometimes it seems Disney is really going for Instagrammable over taste lately.

Yeah - better looking than tasting. Nothing wrong with making things both!

That's what is so great about the Yub Nub design. I read somewhere they weren't allowed to put any actual SW characters on the mugs to keep with the themeing of the land, but this actually was much more brilliant. I don't buy a lot of mugs because we just end up putting them on a shelf, but this one was too cool.

 

[skier_pete]

Day 1 - evening in DIsneyland

So we came back in the evening at around 6 PM, with the intention of hitting a few rides, getting some light dinner, and see Fantasmic! And that’s pretty much what we did. We got into the park and I went and pulled a Star Tours FP. But then headed over to ride Indiana Jones. The weird thing about this ride is that the FP line and the standby line merge outside the main building. For that reason, we ended up waiting in line about 20 minutes with our FP. Makes it a marginally useful ride to get a FP for.

I thought I got pictures on the ride – but apparently I didn’t. DD got VERY excited after this ride though – when she was in the queue, she was talking about how the writing on the walls has a special code that they used to give away decoder cards for. As we were walking through the queue – one of the Cast Members handed me a card with the code for the language! I gave it to DD – and she was convinced that they must have overheard her talking about it. I am not 100% sure this is the case – but either way quite a coincidence. (I took video of her excitement on the way off the ride but I must’ve posted it rather than save it.)

Then we ended up riding Jungle Cruise – which had about a 15 minute wait. Even so, they still ran you up the stairs – but at least we got some good views of the Tropical Hideaway and the ride.




I never noticed this Toucan up on the second level of the JC. It didn’t talk but it was an animatronic. Perhaps it escaped from the Tiki Room like Rosita.









I have to say I think I like WDW Jungle Cruise better – this one seems to be missing scenes – and then the Piranhas at the end didn’t work. We then flitted over to Tomorrowland to ride Star Tours.



Star Tours selfie!



We weren’t super hungry, so we decided to check out the Tropical Hideaway.





We were pretty disappointed in the food selection here outside of the dole whips. DD and I wanted to get an off flavored Dole Whip (Orange or Raspberry), but DW wanted something else so she walked over to Bengal BBQ. The line was long and slow moving, so I told her I would mobile order. She skipped the line and picked up the food! This is what she got – which was a very tasty choice!



I had wondered what ever happened to Rosita!



One thing cool is this tile magic carpet on the ground. This seems to be leftover from the days of the Aladdin Oasis.



With that, we decided it was time to get our seat for the Fantasmic show – maybe this was 30 minutes before the show.



The reserved seats for the show were right front and center and they gave us a nice seating pad, which we later used for D23 as well.



I didn’t take a ton of photos until the end of the show.















We were really tired by this point, and since we had reserved seats for the fireworks the next day, we didn’t much care to stay for them, but as we were walking down mainstreet – it is pretty cool to see all the projections on Main Street. I don’t think they do this at WDW.





Goodnight from Day 1 of Disneyland. Ride total today was only 8 (4 with FP) but a great lunch, a nice rest, a bit of Batuu exploration and Fantasmic meant we did plenty for our first day!

 

[soniam]

I really liked Tropical Hideaway. The bao buns are really good. I got the chile mango dole whip which was interesting However, I don't think my son would eat a single thing there The Fantasmic view for the Blue Bayou package is pretty amazing.

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

Sounds like a pretty good day. I'd take that over my day right now.

We almost brought our Fantastmic seat cushions for D23 but they were so bulky to pack.

And agreed, the Indiana Jones FP is worthless unless there is a line outside. But that line does move pretty fast anyway (usually) so I'm ok with the merge point being where it is.

 

[skier_pete]

8/20 – Today we had a little bit of a different plan from normal – we were meeting our friend @franandaj in early afternoon as well hopefully get a little extra magic from our Club 33 friends. We aren’t high energy people and can’t go all day – but also wanted to take advantage of the fact we were on east coast time and ready to get up at rope drop – which after yesterday’s 9 AM opening moved to 8 AM for today. So, we thought we would spend today with the DCA masses since this was the first day that Disneyland AP was could for Galaxy’s Edge. We were planning to only stay in the park until around 11 AM, and then head back for a short rest before meeting our friends.
It seemed to be the right move – we got in line for entering DCA and the crowd was about 10% of what was over at DL. They actually let us in pretty quick, so we moved to the rope leading to cars land.





We probably had about a 20-25 minute wait there, but were chatting with the CM and having fun for the most part. You could see construction in the new Marvel Land (or as we now know Avengers Academy.)

Here’s the crowd lined up behind us by the time the rope dropped. See how it pays to get there early.

When the rope dropped we thought we had a great strategy. I went and pulled a FP real quick from the machine, and then we hurried and got in line. This seemed to be working perfectly, we were only in line maybe 10 minutes when we got to the FP merge.




We were talking to another family in front us with heavy Canadian accents that had already been here a few days, when the ride simply lost all power. Not a ride stop – a “silence” and all the lights went out. We thought “uh oh” and the CM near the merge ran over to the ride.
They said the ride would likely be down for more than an hour, and they said we would be given a FP to come back for our time. That sounded OK to me – but at first they were going to scan our tickets but then told us to go over to the FP machine. Well, of course this didn’t even work, because we had just pulled a FP, so I went back to the ride, and the Canadian guy was being all pissed off, so I just kind off followed him and we got another set of FP ----so now I had two sets of anytime FP to use where we wanted.
We were still hoping the ride would come back up before too long. So we decided to check out Luigi’s Rollicking Roadster’s. Luigi likes the Ferrari’s



I like how all the tire types are pastas. The whitewalls were even Parmigiana.

We ended up watching about half of Cars 1 a few weeks ago, and I have to say that this may be the absolute best immersive land Disney has done to date. Not that Star Wars land is bad, but I think they messed up when they decided to make the land a place where no one has been in the movies. Cars land is EXACTLY where we’ve been in the movies, and that is what is so cool about it. I think if they had built Star Wars land as Tatooine, but set it at a different time from the original movie – I think it would have been a MUCH cooler experience.


We’d actually never ridden this ride, as our first two times at DLR it was the old version of the ride. (We got to ride it so early in fact they still had the beach balls, which were only there for maybe 3 months.) Then last time it was under construction – I remember trying to take pictures over the fence of the construction! Well, this time we got to ride it.
One thing DD pointed out that I don’t think I would’ve noticed – the boy cars all have grill/mustaches, and the girl cars don’t.


The fact is – while cute, it’s still a pretty boring ride. In fact, I think I liked the old version better in that it wasn’t very easy to ride, but at least it felt different, this ride sort of just moved around. The trackless system was kind of neat, but I can’t say I would ride this very often. Good for the kids though.
Love the cozy cone!

Next we headed to Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree, a ride I like a lot more. I love a good whip ride and this is a good one. (I don’t know why it seems better than the Alien ride in Toy Story land, but it does.) This one is a don’t miss for me, but also once is enough.


DD declared that she was hungry, and even though we had a light breakfast in the room, we were all feeling for something a little bigger, so we decided to eat at our favorite place in DCA – Flo’s.


I don’t think I have to describe the meals – they are pretty straightforward, a breakfast enchilada, French toast, and a standard breakfast scramble.




We were hoping by the time all this was done that RSR would be up and running – but it wasn’t.

So we headed over to Pixar Pier to check it out. It’s really no different than before but with a lot of Pixar stuff. (Love the view back through the entrance to Pixar Pier.


To be continued in next post...

 

[skier_pete]

You gotta love these billboards!



Of particular note was the Jessie critter carousel – the ride has been rethemed, but if you go into the bathroom, it’s still got the “King Triton” fish theme left there! Oops. Guess we’re not supposed to notice.


There’s really only one ride here that holds any interest for DW and DD – and that’s Toy Story Mania. We actually pulled a FP for the ride, but it wasn’t for like another hour, so we just used one of our “anytime” Fastpasses.

Love this ride!

I beat the other guy in the car…no one!

We walked over to the new Emotional Whirlwind, but it had like a 30 minute wait so that was a hard pass.



Besides, we rode this before when it was Flik’s Flyers.

We walked the rest of the way around the Pier and ended up deciding to just head over to Soarin’ and use our other FP.




Last thing before we went back to the room – gotta get our WET on:


No need for a FP here:

We could have ridden twice, but we actually didn’t get all that soaked, so we decided to leave well enough alone. However, I do love this ride – I just don’t like walking around a park wet. One of these years when we can get into the Grand Cali with our DVC, I’m gonna ride this thing 5 times in a row and be drenched!
With that it was about 10:30 AM, (Yes, we did all that before 11 AM) and we decided to head back to the room to chill.

Until Next TIme...

 

[franandaj]

You guys definitely got a lot done in those first three hours or less!

I was wondering why you didn't necessarily want to ride TSMM. Yay for a nice long break in the middle of the day!