Halloween Time, Diamond Celebration, & my 30th Birthday! A First-Timer's Trip to DLR *Final Thoughts

[Lauren1027]

Trip Report Day 3, Part 2: Lazy DCA Afternoon and World of Color

After lunch, we walked over to the Animation Academy to check out the schedule of what drawing classes they would be holding today. Since they got rid of Animation Academy at Hollywood Studios, we both knew we wanted to do a class here. Plus it’s a free souvenir! There weren’t any characters we wanted to do yet, but they were doing Jack Skellington and Zero later that afternoon, so we made plans to come back. We really wanted to see the Aladdin show, but it had been cancelled for the day. I was SO bummed because this was our only day in DCA and I know that show is ending shortly. I’ve heard so many great things about the Aladdin show so I was extremely disappointed that we didn’t get to see it.

We then went to get in line for the Monsters, Inc. ride since we don’t have this one in Florida. It was a really cute dark ride. Since we still had a couple of hours to kill before our drawing classes, it was time to just walk around and check everything out, since we had no idea where anything was in DCA. We walked back to Buena Vista Street and saw Oswald out again. Naturally, I wanted another picture.

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Then we walked to Paradise Pier to see if there were any other rides that interested us. They were all pretty basic carnival rides, so nothing interested us too much. We wanted to do Mickey’s Fun Wheel, but decided it would be cooler at night. Little Mermaid was a no-go because its identical to the one at the Magic Kingdom, and Toy Story had a long wait so we skipped that as well. We saw Donald was doing a meet, so we got in line to get some pictures with him.

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After that, we went back to Cars Land so that we could really explore the place. Man is that a super cool land. The details were incredible, and I didn’t even like the movie! We got some pictures. Again, the Photpass photographer went a little crazy. Lol. We then headed back to the Animation Building to look around there and get in line for the drawing class. It’s a really cool building and I like all the little interactive games in there.

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Again, sorry for the lack of pictures today. I was just so over having my picture taken and taking pictures in general, so I pretty much only have Photopass ones. We did the drawing classes for both Jack and Zero and I got SO frustrated because I’m a terrible drawer, therefore no pictures. After being in that Animation Building for nearly 2 hours, I was ready to leave!

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We walked over to the Grizzly Peak area of the park and just looked at all the cool details of that area and browsed some shops. We also went to peek in the lobby of the Grand Californian, which was gorgeous! We are hoping to stay there next year when we come back for our honeymoon. While we were about to leave Grizzly Peak, I spotted a popcorn cart off in the distance and to my shock, I saw a red Mickey balloon popcorn bucket! I wasn’t even looking for those buckets anymore, especially after we had been told they had been pulled until after the holidays, so I literally gasped out loud and ran over to get one! Hooray! I actually coveted TWO of the three balloon buckets! I was so pleased.

At this point, it was starting to get dark out and we only had about an hour until our Radiator Springs FP was ready to use. We walked through Buena Vista Street one more time and found some old-timey friends to visit real quick, then it was back to Cars Land.

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If I thought that Cars Land during the day was beautiful, at night it was mind-blowing. All that neon was just gorgeous! I couldn’t stop snapping pictures. I was also getting thirsty after that popcorn so I grabbed myself an oil can of Diet Coke from the Crazy Cone. I’ll always be a sucker for cool souvenir cups.

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We got in line for Radiator Springs Racers and still had a 30-minute wait, despite having FPs. I think the ride must have shut down for a little bit. My first impression of this ride was that the animatronics and scenery were amazing, but it didn’t go as fast as Test Track. Even so, I still think I prefer RSS over Test Track just because the theming is much, much better. We would be back to ride this one again tomorrow morning!

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After RSS, we went back to Paradise Pier to ride California Screamin one more time (we loved this ride!) and then got in line for Mickey’s Fun Wheel. We chose the non-swinging side because I’ve heard how absolutely terrifying to swinging one is. I enjoyed the ferris wheel because we got an excellent view of the park and Anaheim at night. It was very pretty getting to see the mountains off in the distance…which I’m not used to being from Florida.

It was getting closer and closer to World of Color time, so we needed to grab something to eat. We were very indecisive and couldn’t decide what either of us were in the mood for, so we just settled to what was closest, which was Boardwalk Pizza and Pasta. We both got the same thing—the chicken and sundried tomato pasta. For a counter service pasta, this was surprisingly really good. And served in real dishes! This would NEVER happen at WDW. However, my meal was tainted because after 2 full, over 8-hour days in the park (and a half day on Friday) my feet were at their breaking point. I’m sure it was the combination of being on my feet all day and waking up at the crack of dawn every morning, but I was just in so much pain that I completely broke down into tears. Haha. I calmed myself down after a few minutes, but I think I just needed a good cry.

With food in our bellies and my meltdown subsided, we headed towards our World of Color viewing area, which was directly centered to the Fun Wheel, but a little ways back, which I was happy about since I hear you can get pretty wet if you’re close to the front. We had about 30 minutes until the show started, so we pretty much just relaxed and took pictures of Mickey’s Fun Wheel every time it changed a different color.

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I put my camera away once the show started since I had never seen the show before, but we both LOVED the show! Its so different and unique. I’ve never seen the original WOC before, but had heard mixed review about WOC Celebrate and that it wasn’t as good. Either way, I thought it was excellent. I loved all the nods to my favorite attractions, but my favorite was the Star Wars segment! There may have been a few tears involved just because that score gets me every time…it makes me sooo happy!

When WOC was done, we hobbled out of the park, through the looooooooooooooong walk through Downtown Disney, and finally made it to our hotel. Just as I went to plus my phone into the wall to charge and then pass the heck out, I see a note from the hotel on our desk. It more or less read that the hotel was having electrical work done on our building tonight and that all power to the tower was being shut off from 1-5AM. At this point it was nearly midnight and NO ONE had notified us of this all day. In fact, all they left us was this….

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Are you ****** kidding me?!? Furious, we called front desk to see how they could do this without informing guests by phone and offering them another room or a room discount. They told us that we could switch rooms now for the few hours that the power would be out if we wanted to, but by this point in time we were so exhausted and had already switched rooms once this trip, that we didn’t want to do it again. We tried arguing with the front desk to at least try and get a night discounted or comped, but they wouldn’t do anything for us. In fact, the front desk service at the Disneyland Hotel was pretty much terrible our entire stay. It was kind of a turn off, since I’m used to CM’s usually going above and beyond in situations like this.

Thankfully, we were so tired and California is pretty mild, so we didn’t really notice that we had no A/C for the evening. And on that note, we end Day 3 of our Disneyland trip. Stay tuned for our 4th and final day at Disneyland soon!

 

[azarine]

enjoying your TR!

 

[Lauren1027]

Trip Report Day 4, Part 1: More Rope Dropping and Minnie & Friends Breakfast

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all enjoyed your holidays. I was lucky enough to get a little over a week and a half off of work to spend some much needed time with my family and relax a little. Now that most of us are back to reality, lets get started with Day 4, our final day in the parks *sad face*

We once again woke up at 5am, but this time it was to the sound of the A/C and power clicking back on. Luckily, we were so exhausted after a couple of open-to-close days in the parks, that we didn’t notice the lack of electricity in our room and slept well. Our plan for today was to once again go to the Extra Magic Hour at DCA to ride Radiator Springs Racers one more time, and then head to Disneyland in time for rope drop. Our goal was to rush straight up to the train station to see if we could ride in the Lily Belle.

Again, we were out the door by 6:30 and at the DCA side of the esplanade by 6:45. Right at 7, we entered DCA and were part of the mob running down the Buena Vista Street to get on Radiator Springs Racers. We were one of the first in line for the ride. It was actually our first sunny morning in California, and the parks at sunrise just looked so gorgeous, especially Cars Land. I wish we could have spent just a tad bit longer exploring DCA a bit, but we were dead-set on wanting to spend our last day in Disneyland so we headed over to the gates and waited about 20 minutes until the park opened.

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I wish we could have spent just a tad bit longer exploring DCA a bit, but we were dead-set on wanting to spend our last day in Disneyland so we headed over to the gates and waited about 20 minutes until the park opened. As soon as they let us in the gates, we rushed up the stairs to the Main Street Railroad Station, and a conductor came out immediately and told us no rides on the Lily Belle today because it was too hot. We were so bummed! This was our one chance to ride it, especially now, since it will be closed until late 2017. Oh well, it was hard to be too disappointed when I turned around and saw a nearly-empty view of Main Street. Disneyland is such a pretty park, although its pretty comical when I compare this picture to a picture I have at the Magic Kingdom train station. Same view, MUCH bigger castle. But no big, smiley pumpkin either.

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The rest of the park wasn’t quite open yet, but we headed straight to New Orleans Square so that we could ride our favorite, Haunted Mansion Holiday, again. We waited, and waited, and waited, and finally we heard a rumor that all rides in New Orleans Square were down for probably the next hour. Might as well get some pictures with our favorite attraction while no one was there!

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Coolest popcorn spinner ever!

We went over to try and ride Indiana Jones, and that was also down. What the heck! So we walked all the way to Tomorrowland to check and see if Space Mountain was running and we were told it wasn’t, but that it would be back up soon. Not wanting to walk back and forth again, we decided to stay and within probably 10 minutes, we were on the ride. So much for rope-dropping the park when no rides were operating during the first hour. Today was unfortunately filled with all kinds of bad luck such as that.

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After Space Mountain, we went back to Adventureland and got on Indiana Jones, then Pirates of the Caribbean. I can’t stress enough how great both of these rides are. I can’t wait to get back to Disneyland again and ride these attractions.

Before heading back to the Haunted Mansion, we saw that Jack Skellington had a really short line, so we waited to get pictures with him. I was a little bummed that he wasn’t meeting with Sally like he was all weekend, but I love Nightmare Before Christmas and the line was actually short, so we were pretty excited. It was then time for another spin on Haunted Mansion Holiday. I think this was either ride number 4 or 5 of the trip!

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After Haunted Mansion, we did a little wandering around some shops, and then headed to the Plaza Inn for the Minnie and Friends breakfast. I wasn’t really too interested in booking this character meal, but DF’s ultimate character goal is to get a picture with Max Goof, who I heard sometimes makes an appearance at this character meal, so I booked it for him. Unfortunately, we had no such luck and saw no Max that day. All-in-all, the meal was good, but it was so hectic and we were both in pretty crummy moods because of the bad luck we’d been having throughout the morning that we just weren’t too into it. The characters we saw were Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore, Chip and Dale (not pictured), Captain Hook, and Minnie. I think there was someone else, but we were ready to leave so we didn’t wait.

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After breakfast/lunch (it was already after 11), we finally got to watch Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, which I had been anxious to see all week because I’m a huge history buff. Well, the excitement died pretty quickly because that attraction was BO-RING. I love Lincoln, and I love American History. I love the Hall of Presidents and that America attraction at EPCOT, but this was just a snoozer. I didn’t know Lincoln was the only audio-animatronic there. And while he was impressive, given the history behind that AA, it was just missing something. One and done with Mr. Lincoln, sorry folks.

This was the only part of Great Moments that DF liked. He's obsessed with MJ and looooooves Captain Eo.

We then headed to Big Thunder Ranch to go pet some goats! For the first and last time too. They were soooo cute, but it was too hot for them to wear their Halloween bandanas. We didn’t hang out with the goats for too long because I’m slightly allergic and didn’t want to ruin the rest of my afternoon with a runny nose, but we did check out the rest of the area, which was all decked out for Halloween (though from what I’ve heard, not as much as it was in the past). It was a cool little area of the park to relax.

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After Big Thunder Ranch, it was finally time to ride it’s a small world, which I had been waiting the whole trip to do. We walked over there and it was closed for its holiday refurb! I was soooo mad because I had really been looking forward to riding this version since I’ve heard its far superior to WDW’s, and it had literally JUST closed that day when it had been open for the rest of our trip. I was really kicking myself for waiting until the last minute. But as bummed out as I was that I didn’t get to ride it, at least I know that when we go back in December 2016, I’ll see the amazing holiday version.

thumb_IMG_5262_1024 by Lauren Rausch, on Flickr

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Such a pretty pretzel cart

From there, we decided to do all the Fantasyland attractions that we had skipped the previous days because they all had little to no wait times today. We rode Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride again, Pinnocchio’s Daring Adventure, and Snow White’s Scary Adventure. Snow White was way more twisted than I remembered it and Pinnochio kinda was too…I’m surprised little kids aren’t scared of these rides.

At this point, we decided to head back to the hotel room to relax for a few minutes and to get into our outfits for Mickey’s Halloween Party. We didn’t want to bring actual costumes with us, but we did have some Halloween-inspired outfits to wear.

 

[Lauren1027]

Trip Report Day 4, Part 2: Mickey's Halloween Party and A Final Farewell

When we got back into Disneyland about an hour and a half later, we met up with some of our friends who live in the area for a couple of hours. We mostly just walked around and caught up since we hadn’t seen each other in several months. The park was actually getting really busy now too, since people started showing up for the Halloween Party. We rode Autopia because it had a short wait. I actually really liked this ride. Its much smoother and more scenic than the Tomorrowland Speedway at WDW (which I also like).

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Then we lucked out and got on Haunted Mansion Holiday (for the last time) without any wait at all because I guess the ride had been down for awhile and it had just opened back up. Score, though I was super sad that this was the last time we’d be riding this amazing attraction.

After Haunted Mansion, we said bye to our friends because the Halloween Party was only about an hour away from starting. We then headed to Toon Town (and ran into a Photopass photographer on the way who wanted to take our picture) for the pre-party and to stand in some SUPER long character lines. I’m all about the characters and I had already agreed with George that we would just enjoy the party and I wouldn’t waste our entire time just waiting on characters, but that I at least wanted to go to the pre-party in Toon Town for some character photos. So we waited in the line that rotated between Mickey & Minnie/Chip & Dale. I really wanted to meet both sets because their outfits were SO cute. I was actually really happy when we got Chip and Dale because their cop and robber costumes were so unique. I then debated on getting back in line for Mickey and Minnie, but it was probably an hour wait so we decided against it and just got a picture in front of this Halloween Party sign.

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I then changed my mind and decided that I really did want a picture with Mickey and Minnie in their Halloween costumes, so we went back in line. We were there for a few minutes and the cast member told us that this was Mickey and Minnie’s last set. There was no way we’d make it to the front of the line, so we once again cut our losses and left Toon Town in search for food, since we hadn’t has anything to eat since brunch.

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We knew we had to have one last mint julep before the end of the trip, so French Market it was. We didn’t really eat at too many quick service restaurants while at Disneyland, but this one was a win for us. I was SO impressed. We got the shrimp po-boy, French dip sandwich, and a pumpkin cheesecake to split. Everything was really tasty. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures because it was really dark out at this point.

We were still interested in riding some more rides before the parade and fireworks, so we walked to Adventureland to see what the wait was for Indiana Jones. All the lines were so long! This is strange for me because at WDW, if you want to go on rides during a Halloween party, the lines are non-existent. At Disneyland, everything still had just as long of wait times as they did during the day. This was such a disappointment to us because we actually bought the Halloween Party tickets more so that we could have more time in the park to get on rides without long waits. Oh well. At least we ran into Genie, who did not have a line at all.

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We walked over to Tomorrowland to ride Space Mountain one more time. There was a 20-minute wait, which was one of the shortest waits so we just did it. When we got off the ride, people were absolutely freaking out because it was apparently pouring rain outside. When we finally got outside, it was barely sprinkling. Hah, being from Florida, I was expecting this massive downpour and this was nothing! I legit laughed out loud at all the poor Californians who don’t know what rain is continued on.

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Star Tours didn’t have a wait, so we went on that next. We decided not to ride it earlier in the trip because we knew it was exactly the same as at WDW so we wouldn’t need to do it, but we had nothing else to get on at the moment, so we went. It was exactly the same, but that’s ok, because its an attraction that I’ll always love (except for that Jar Jar Binks scene that I ALWAYS seem to get). There was also this cool photo-op outside of the attraction.

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While the pathetic little rain did stop after we got out of Star Tours, apparently it was enough to cancel the parade for the evening, so with those plans shot, we headed to Main Street to get some pictures with the giant pumpkin.

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After that, I was just so beat. While the rain didn’t last for long, it was long enough that it made puddles all over the ground, and unfortunately, I was only wearing flats with no lining what-so-ever, so my shoes were completely soaked through and I was miserable. Not only are wet feet such a terrible feeling, but I was again in so much pain from all the walking we had done over the past 4 days. We went over to New Orleans Square to get a spot on the water to watch the Cadaver Dans, and while waiting on them, I had breakdown #2 and just started crying from the pain my feet were in.

The Cadaver Dans were incredible performing on that foggy barge on the Rivers of America. It was such a cool thing to see and I wish I had gotten some better pictures. Once their performance was done, we went to the Hub to stake out a spot for the fireworks. Because of that “rain storm” the fireworks were postponed by about 20 minutes and I was just losing all patience. I was tired, grumpy, and wet and was about to just call it a day, but then the fireworks finally started. They were pretty cool and I really loved that they had Zero fly across the castle, but they didn’t even hold a candle to the Halloween fireworks at WDW.

While we still had about an hour left of the Halloween Party after the fireworks, I was just done. We had had some pretty crummy luck all day and I was just in a sour mood, which sucks since it was the last day in the park and I would have loved to have left on a good note. We also had an early flight back to Orlando the next morning and still had to pack, so we called it a day and bid farewell to Disneyland. Of course I was disappointed to be leaving, but not too much, because I knew that we would be back next year and I’d get to see everything all over again.

When we got back to our hotel room, we packed all of our bags and tried to figure out where the hell we would put all of our souvenirs. Thankfully, we had brought big luggage with us and didn’t have too much trouble. We then showered and went to sleep…but not before taking one last picture of the absolutely lovely headboard.

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When we woke up the next morning, we quickly got ready and called the Super Shuttle to pick us up at the entrance of the Disneyland Hotel. We had no issues checking out (though unfortunately were not offered any compensation for our room issues the following evening) and within 10 minutes, our van was waiting for us and we were on route to John Wayne Airport.

I’m pretty much going to end the trip report here because it took as the entire day to get home because of the time change going from the west coast to the east coast. Our flights were both good and on time and the only interesting thing to happen was that this lady sat next to us on our first flight….

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She held those succulents in her lap the whole flight! Lol. I thought there were rules about bringing plants onto airplanes, but I guess not. Oh, and we totally had a dead body on our first flight too! When we landed, I was looking out the window waiting to off the plane and I saw that they were unloading bags. All of a sudden, this HUGE, coffin-sized box came out of the luggage loading area and I pointed it out to DF. I said, “someone either shipped a refrigerator in a commercial flight, or that’s a dead body.” So that was interesting.

We got back to Orlando around 5PM that evening and were home by dinnertime to see our very-much missed puppies. They were thrilled for us to be home. We unpacked all of our swag right away to try and find a home for everything. We may have went a little overboard.

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We had to keep our FPs since they don't have them in Florida anymore

And that’s where our first trip to Disneyland ends! I really hope you all enjoyed following along with my trip report and that I was able to help you in planning your next trip to Disneyland…or at least getting you excited for it! While the TR is over, I do plan to do a follow-up post on all my thoughts and opinions on the Disneyland Resort as a first-timer visiting. I will also post a link to my engagement photos at Disneyland and DCA for anyone interested. I don’t want to take up a ton of room on this thread with them, so I will most-likely just post them on my wedding planning journal and will just post the link to them on here once I have those up. Thank you to all that followed along!

 

[OregonMomToWDW]

I enjoyed your trip report. We had never been to Disneyland during at Halloween time, so it was very interesting to see what is different, I am sorry that your party day was not as you planned it to be.

 

[Lauren1027]

The Good, The Bad, and the Disney: A first-Timer's Review of the Disneyland Resort
While I am a WDW-vet, this was my first time visiting the Disneyland Resort, so to conclude my TR, I thought it would be helpful to offer you my insight on DLR as a first-timer. I'll let you know what I liked and disliked, what I regret missing, and what I would do all over again. Overall, I had an AMAZING first-time experience at Disneyland and there isn't too much that I would have done differently. I can't wait to go back for our honeymoon this coming December!

The Good:

• The rides! Many of the rides were SO much better than at WDW. Haunted Mansion Holiday was mind blowing, Pirates of the Caribbean was longer, Space Mountain was smoother, darker, and faster, they still have Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, and Indiana Jones was a fantastic ride!
• Blue Bayou Fantasmic dinner package. If you have the means to do it, do it. It was so worth the money and we got the best seats in the house to watch Fantasmic, which their version is also much better than WDW's. The restaurant is beautiful and the food was great. While this option may not be an option anymore with Fantasmic closing until 2017, I believe they are still offering this package with VIP viewing to Paint the Night instead. We definitely plan to book this package again when we go for our honeymoon if its still being offered.
• Paint the Night and the Disneyland Forever fireworks were amazing nighttime shows. So was World of Color. I loved them all so much. I still think I prefer Wishes slightly over the Disneyland Forever Fireworks because there are more fireworks, but the projections they use for Disneyland Forever were amazing and so was the soundtrack.
• Proximity. Its awesome how much easier park hopping is with the parks being right next to each other and walking distance. We didn't utilize it as much as we could have, but when we did, it worked out great.
• The Disneyland Hotel. While we did have quite a few hiccups here, it was still a beautiful hotel and I'm glad we stayed there. I loved all the vintage Disneyland touches, and of course Trader Sam's (though Grog Grotto is slightly better, in my opinion).
• Mint Juleps. This became my obsession of the trip. We had one almost every day that we were there. Sooooo good.
• Haunted Mansion Holiday. Had to mention it on its own because it was seriously that good. We rode it 4 or 5 times.

The Bad

• The Cast Members. Maybe we just had a bad experience with most of them, but so many were either straight up rude or just didn't have good knowledge of their jobs. The CMs at WDW are so much friendlier and I will never take them for granted again.
• Lack of bathrooms! Seriously, there are so few bathrooms in Disneyland and the ones they have had easily 15-20 minute waits most of the time we were there. This was a huge issue for someone like me with a weak bladder. Also, none of the restaurants had bathrooms either, which was super annoying, especially when you would like to wash your hands before and after dinner.
• Mickey's Halloween Party was such a disappointment compared to Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party at WDW. No special parade, the character meets were just ok, the ride lines were still really long, etc. We thought we would get a ton done and didn't really get to do much of anything. I wish I would have saved my money and just spent more time at our hotel. Then again, I was also tainted with exhaustion at this point (since we went on our last night) and it has rained a bit so my feet were completely soaked.
• The Matterhorn. It gets so much hype but that ride straight up sucks. You've been warned (though the yeti is pretty cool).
• Character Meals. Now that I've done a few, I never need to do them again. The food is mediocre at best and the character pictures never turn out good anyways. I don't ever eat enough food to get my money's worth anyways.

Wish I Would Have Done:

• Rode "its a small world" at the beginning of our trip so I didn't miss out on it.
• Spent more time exploring DCA. For some reason, we weren't too excited about DCA and we spent most of our time there riding California Screaming, Radiator Springs Racers, and in the Animation Academy. Looking back, I wish we would have explored some of the other lands, even if we weren't interested in any of the attractions there (such a Bug's Land, Pacific Wharf and Grizzly Peak). I'm also SO disappointed that we missed out on the Aladdin show, especially since we'll never get to see it now.
• Booked a hotel day. While I don't regret going into the parks on our first day of the trip, I wish we would have scheduled a little bit more downtime to enjoy a full day at the hotel and more time to explore Downtown Disney. The Disneyland Hotel was amazing, but we only had about half of our first day to really hang out and enjoy it. Our time at the pool was very rushed, and it would have been nice to have one day off from the parks to sleep in, hang out in our room for a bit, walk around the hotel grounds, and enjoy more of the restaurants and Trader Sam's.
• Spent more time in Toon Town. I really loved Toon Town when it was at the Magic Kingdom, and while I wouldn't give up New Fantasyland for it, I do have fond memories of it. DF wasn't too interested in Toon Town, so we really didn't spend any time in there other than to just walk through it and go on Roger Rabbit's CarToon Spin. If it were up to me, we would have dedicated an hour or two there to check out Mickey and Minnie's house and to meet them in their respective houses. I'm also really kicking myself for not taking any engagement pictures in Toon Town because I think that would have been so cute.
• Tried more snacks. When I was researching the Disneyland trip, I made a whole list of snacks that I HAD to try while on the trip. Snacks such as churros, a corn dog, the lobster nachos, Matterhorn macaroon, and a Tigger tail were all at the top of my list. But we had booked so many table service meals that I was always too stuffed for snacks. I did get to try a few off my list, such as the mint julep, Mickey beignet, Monte Cristo, and the pomme frites, but next time, I think I'll focus on trying more snacks and having less sit-down meals. Though I absolutely don't regret the table service meals either.

That's all, I think! Overall, I definitely recommend a trip to Disneyland if you love Disney! Now that I've got one trip under my belt, I'm sure I'll be able to make my next trip there even better! Thanks again to all that followed along on my first trip report!

 

[wishiwasindisneyjen]

I really enjoyed your report. I also live in FL (Winter Garden) so we go to the parks here a lot so I spent a lot of my time in DL comparing. I totally understand your breakdowns, full park days are exhausting! Can't wait to check out your photos from your photo shoot. Thanks for sharing!

 

[krismom345]

Great report! Thanks for sharing

 

[Lauren1027]

I really enjoyed your report. I also live in FL (Winter Garden) so we go to the parks here a lot so I spent a lot of my time in DL comparing. I totally understand your breakdowns, full park days are exhausting! Can't wait to check out your photos from your photo shoot. Thanks for sharing!

You're right around the corner! Winter Garden is only about a 30-minute drive from me and my almost brothers and sister-in-law actually live there so I'm quite familiar with the area. Thanks for following along!

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Thank you so much for writing out this Trip Report - I very much enjoyed it!

I am so sorry though that you had such bad luck on your last day! At least you did get on Haunted Mansion a bunch of times and the overlay really is phenomenal. All of New Orleans Square I absolutely loved - and love that picture/painting for it I see in your souvenir pile

Sorry you didn't get to meet Mickey/Minnie - but Chip N Dale really are cute in those costumes!

Coolest popcorn spinner ever!

it really is!!!!

56794590215 by Lauren Rausch, on Flickr

OMG - love the look on the guys face behind your DF!

Sorry that they didn't comp anything for all the issues you had with your hotel room

Thanks for sharing your high and lows from the trip and I especially like the idea of "what wold I do differently" - very helpful I think to people planning their first trip! Overall I think we had a fairly similar reaction/takeaway, though I don't think we really encountered any rude CMs (though they also weren't OMG so much better than WDW CMs like some people say)