First a quick note:
The 2013 schedule is out and the only publized changes are a ride on Walt's private rail car the Lilly Belle and visit to the behind the scenes farm. The Day 2 spoiler is still not a published stop. The Tour of Stars homes remains. I would trade that for a tour of the El Capitan, but so be it, we still had a great time. And the tour of Star's home was on our agenda and not the El Capitan so I knew that going in. And, the El Capitan shows movies all day so you can still get inside, just not backstage. Beware though, movies there are expensive. We didn't go.
I wish we didn't know about BoHo's either.
Okay, on with the report.
Day 3 What will those people think of next!
Again, rise and shine for 7AM breakfast. We have another long, long day ahead of us. Can it possibly even come close to matching the magic of yesterday? Well, after a delicious breakfast, same as yesterday, we hit the buses preciously at 7:45.
Oh wait, we did breakfast with a genuine celebrity. It seems that Rick and Tyler had appeared on Jimmy Kimmel taping the previous evening. Well, they taped a segment with Jimmy and David Spade to be aired later today (day 3 today, not today today). Rick, in his own words, was now a W list celebrity. Tyler abstained from the celebrity list. They were bemoaning the fact the promised t-shirts to be part of the segment never did appear. Shame on you Jimmy, treating a celebrity like that! Rick, to his chagrin, was never asked for an autograph or a photo. Even after he rose to the N list after the segment aired.
So, today, today we were off to Imagineering. Couldnt hold a candle too yesterday, could it? Well, once again ole Dolby1000 was wrong. After about a 30 minutes bus ride (thanks, Don!!!) we arrived at a very plain looking office building. The only way you might know it to be a Disney building is that the address is in the shape of the badges the cast members wear. Although here it is safe to call them employees here as they are off stage pretty much all the time.
Once again, it was team Diana (we ROCK) and team Christian (the OTHER guys). You know, of course, no pictures allowed, so I cant go into a whole lot of detail here. How interesting would it be to hear about us visiting, but not actually seeing and interacting with the staff ? This is just a segment that will stand alone, trust me, it was well worth the time. Without giving anything away, the primary areas we saw were:
Recording
Character Modeling
Attraction Modeling
Secret Modeling (opps, cant tell you about that, but Michael, the AK guy, pointed something out to us in the Model shop that if true, could be absolutely amazing, or could have been just a model that someone wanted to put together and its dream of being a real ride is over).
What was emphasized by everyone we met is that Disney doesnt make rides. The creative gang is focused on telling stories. Every attraction is telling a story. They might tell it in different ways, via different methods, but the goal of the imagineers is to immerse guests into attractions that tell a story, either from the theme park itself or from one of the movies or TV shows. Look at Carsland, it tells a story related to the movie Cars. You can talk with Crush from Finding Nemo, or, I guess Stitch in similar attractions at other theme parks. The queues themselves are many times part of the attraction, Star Tours being a prime example of that. You want to live Star Wars, there is nothing better than Star Tours. What work we saw at Imagineering clearly illustrated this approach. The truly live and breath story telling. Cool.
Then, there was the secret surprise (not telling you, you cant make me, but this is where we got Lucky and you are going to have to look that one up yourself). But, I suggest you dont and wait for it, it is worth it.
All too soon we were at the secret, well, not secret to those who work there, the secret Disney Employee Glendale Store. The friendly shop keeper was frantically putting out new Carsland shirts that had just come in moments before. These are not the shirts on sale at the Park. So, of course, we had to get one, each. And some pins, including a pin only offered to ADBers at this location. Even the employees cant get them. I havent any pictures of the pins, so just have to take my word for it.
Here is yet another example of how welcomed we were everywhere we went. One of the boys on our tour, Nick, is a real Disney kid. He knew all the trivia and was just totally into Disney. Wont surprise me if he works there someday. Anyhow, they had a coffee table type book about Imagineering and I just knew he was going to get it. Of course he did, but the really cool part was that the two tour guides, not C&D, but the two that guided us through the building, signed his book. Each added a personal message too, not just a signature. That was so special to Nick and he'll remember that for a long time. If you ever met Nick, or his brothers Adam and Ben you'd like them immediatly. They were tons of fun on the trip.
Well, after dropping $$$ at the store, we left for the Disney Studios. It seems like Im writing about a short visit, but we were there a good 3, 3 ½ hours. There was plenty of time to take in all they wanted to show us.
So, off to studios. Cant help it, my heart missed a beat or two when Don drove us in. This is a magical land full of, well, as you pull in, office buildings. But, it really has stages and lots of other things. We were given over an hour for lunch and had the run of the studios as long as we didnt go into any actual sound stages or buildings and that if any soundstage had its doors open, there were no pictures. Otherwise, snap away! Oh, we were allowed in the Commissary as that is where we very quickly ate. You were allowed an entrée, a side, a dessert and a beverage. Food was freshly prepared and rather good too. But, we were so excited to be at the studios, we quickly downed lunch and went exploring.
Sorry guys, words fail me again. Perhaps a couple of images while I ponder what to say next. . . . . .
I would imagine that depending what is in production or how busy the studios are that each visit is potentially unique, so that what we saw may be different upon future visits. I do know that everyone wants to see the street sign, the legends plaza and the seven dwarfs building and we had plenty of time to view all three. Other than Rick, we did not see any celebrities. The studios seemed rather quiet, but we were there so briefly that I could easily be quite wrong. We also had a rare surprise by visiting an actual set for a sitcom that had been filmed there recently. It might air in November, so, wow, they certainly tape that in advance. Again, your studio visit will likely be quite different than ours, so don't take my report to heart. The visit concludes with a visit to the Disney Archives, which, again, I would imagine what is displayed changes on a regular basis. We also had a chance to visit the studio store where I did manage to spend more of our $$$ on a really neat Mickey Watch. It actually is a hidden Mickey watch. It is the Mickey watch Ive always been looking for, something different and something a bit understated.
Our visit to the studios was about 2 hours and then all aboard the bus so that Don can take us to our final destination hotel, the Grand Californian at
Disneyland! Everyone was so excited that most of us grabbed 40 winks during the hour or so ride. We needed the rest.
We arrived around 4 or so and quickly got our keys to our room. I then changed them out for keys with a charge card so we could make purchases without having to carry much cash.
Our room, would everyone like to see a picture from our balcony? Would you like to see the roof over the entrance to DCA from the Grand Californian? If there is a worse view in the hotel, likely there wasnt one much worse than ours. We could peek out and see the corner of a pool and roof. Well, we werent there for the view. So, no, I didnt waste any pictures on the view.
The group met up again around 5:30 for dinner at Steakhouse 55 at the Disneyland Resort. One thing hugely different from Disney World that if you stay at the GC, DR or the Pacific one, you dont need a car, in fact, a car would be a hindrance. We could walk everywhere. And we did, walk everywhere, that is.
First, we walked over to Steakhouse 55. Like Tam OShanter we were not offered the full menu. You had soup or salad, steak, chicken or vegan entree and dessert. Since we all had napped on the bus, we were eager to get into Disneyland, which C&D had promised would occur this evening.
How can I say this? When everyone is eager to get into Disneyland, is now the right time for a 2 hour dinner, for only 3 courses? It seemed like the food took forever to get us, especially the first course. Now, the food was very, very good. Although if you want to show off a steakhouse to us, is having the only steak offering a flat iron steak really the best choice here? Seemed to me to be a bit, oh how can I say this, a bit cheap to have only 3 entrees to choose from and only one cut of steak, a cut that isnt actually a really popular one either. I would have thought a top sirloin or a rib eye might be offered and might show off the abilities of the steakhouse better. Again, not that the flat iron wasnt good; it just would never be my first choice when ordering steak. Second, the steak came with house vegetables and garlic mashed Yukon gold potatoes. Must be a potato shortage in California (although likely not true based on the farmers market we had seen 2 days earlier). The vegetable was 2 spears of asparagus and a thimbleful of the potato. Hey, Im from Chicago and when we serve potatoes, far more than a thimble full. Use an ice cream scoop and let us enjoy them. They were really good, I mean like, wow good, but, really, two bites and that was it. For dessert there was a very, very rich dark chocolate mousse that was excellent. It was the size of the steak. It was so rich that you could only eat a couple of bites of it. No one finished theirs, or ate more than a third of it. Really, I wanted a potato portion of the chocolate mousse and a chocolate mousse portion that matched the potato. Oh, and the servers here seemed confused about the menu (how could that be, there were only 3 choices) and were unclear about how to serve wine. 3 people at our table ordered wine. Now, wine was not included but they had a full bar available and you could purchase drinks. Seems to me that they had a really nice selection of California wines. Alsothe 3 people at our table wanted a second glass with the main course. Not unusual at all, yet the servers handed the patrons their bill before the main course was even served. Excuse me? Aren't you killing your tip? Isn't the timing like, totally OFF? Never seen anyone get a bill before the meal was done. What's up with that? Further flubs included DW and I ordereing Diet Coke (soda was not charged), our usual, and they served us Coke (I can taste the difference). DW is a diabetic and real coke isnt something she should be drinking. Thankfully, before she could start on hers I noticed the wrong choice was served and had it corrected.
So, this dinner had a few problems, some poor service, limited menu options, I thought the portions were rather small, except for the dessert which was way too much, and it took over 2 hours when we just wanted to get into the park. Insert your own In and Out Burger joke here, I'm out of them.
Finally, dinner was over and D&C led us into Disneyland. We were given 4 day park hopper passes. These are paper tickets and were not connected to our room keys. We were warned not to lose them as they were not replaceable. As far as I am aware, no one did.
We started our Disney evening by going on one of the rides, a personal favorite that exists in every Disney theme park The Haunted Mansion. To the chagrin of many people standing in the line for it, we just sauntered right in. Im mean we never stopped walking until we were in the first room of the mansion. C&D held their signs high so that the losers in the line (kidding, not serious, and it was mostly teens there for Grad Night anyway) knew who the heck was cutting. If you want immediate ride access, pay for the tour! Not sure how they did it, but C&D had communicated with the cast members running the ride and we waltzed right in, the ante room just waiting us.
Now, this was first time, since maybe high school, that Ive gone on a ride with a full group of people, enthusiastic, excited that we just cut in the line in front of everyone giddy people. Did I say enthusiastic? Have you ever heard 37 people scream (not in real terror, but just playing along) when the lights go out? I mean we screamed! Loudly. We were doing maniacal laughs, hoots and howls and just really enjoying ourselves. I bet they heard us back in the line. I know the cast members got a real kick out of us; we were all playing along and just going bonkers.
Afterwards, C&D went to hold the special viewing place for Fantasmic. We all got a single fast pass to use in any ride in DL. Except Star Tours. The darn thing had a small print exception line that listed World of Color (okay, that made sense) and Star Tours as being the only exceptions.
Lets talk about Star Tours for a sec. If you are not interested, feel free to skip this section as I will go into some detail about this attraction, and if you dont want it spoiled, skip to the next paragraph. However, I'm setting up something for Day 5's report, so thanks for playing along. Okay, all set? Last May, I was in FL, at the opening of the new Star Tours ride. Now, what makes this Star Tours special is that it now has variations. It runs in 4 parts, an opening, a scene 1, a communication and a scene 2. There are 2 openings (Darth Vadar and Falcon), 3 scene ones (Hoth, Pod Race and Wookie Planet), 3 communications (Akbar, Yoda and Leia) and 3 scene twos (Episode One space battle, Naboo underwater and Boba Fett and the Death Star from Jedi). While in FL I did Star Tours 8 times. What, didn't you know I was practically raised on Star Wars?
My goal was to see all the variations. My results were that the Pod Race and the Space Battle were played a lot. I saw both 6 times and never saw Hoth or Boba Fett. I saw Wookie planet twice and Naboo twice. DW knew that my goal for this trip was to finally see Hoth and Boba Fett scenes in Star Tours. So seeing that Star Tours was an exception on the Fast Pass was a bit of a bummer as I expected to use my Fast Passes pretty much exclusively for that ride. Oh yes, my favorite opening was the Falcon as you got into space a lot quicker and Leia on the communication because, well, shes Leia. Of course, I only had the Falcon opening 2 out of 8 and the Leia communication once. Normally, I got Akbar or Yoda for the communication. Okay, so put this paragraph in your back pocket and save it for later. I will come back to it, multiple times, trust me, this leads to one of the best experiences I have ever had at Disney.
Re-railing the trip report, Star Tours talk over, for now.
So, for the Fantasmic seating we had to be at the special place, which was right in front of Royal Street, pretty much dead center of the lagoon, by 8:30 It was now 8PM, not a lot of time to try and use the Fast Pass for anything before the show. So, we went on Pirates of the Caribbean since it was right there and had only a 10 minute wait. Enjoyed it very much, longer than the FL version.
We came out of Pirates and the efficient cast members of DL had roped off the areas for Fantasmic viewing. Our special spot was steps away. We couldnt get there. It seems that they make the paths one way streets and the cast member kept pushing us away from where we needed to go. I could see C&D, but it was so noisy they couldnt hear us and I had left my phone in the room, so I couldnt call them. The Cast Member refused us admission to our area, claiming the reserved seating was in the other direction. I explained to her that we didnt have THAT reserved seating, we had a different area. She proved unhelpful. So, went the long way around, having to trek all the way back to Jungle book before being able to make a u-turn and go down the lower path to our viewing area. C&D were none too pleased that a cast member hadnt let us come directly on down. They are very, very protective of the group. Twice, a couple of non ABDers tried to infringe on our space and C&D would politely, yet firmly inform them that they were not allowed in our area. What was really funny was that there was person standing in a no-no zone right behind us and she saw C&D having people removed from our section. So she knew, she knew it was reserved. About a minute before the show, she made the move, scrunching in at the back of our section, just barely in the rope. One of us, I forget who, told her the section was reserved (which she knew already) but she feigned not speaking English (yeah, right). Christian immediately came over and had her scooted out. We all laughed because we knew that she knew she wasnt supposed to sit there.
So, then, less than a minute later, Fantasmic started. Now, we have seen this show, twice, in FL. In neither case were we that impressed. Oh, it was a fine show, but not really worth the two hour wait, IMHO. Here in DL, though, the show is a bit different. Maybe because we seemed closer to the action, maybe it is just a better show, but we enjoyed Fantasmic much more in DL than in FL. The DL version includes a segment with Peter Pan and Captain Hook and the Columbia sailing ship that is very impressive.
Everyone enjoyed the show and then everyone pretty much waited around after the show, for about 10 minutes, for the fireworks.
The fireworks are really great and I liked the music Disney chooses for them. We even saw the hidden Mickey firework (one of our friends was taking pictures and a got a perfect shot of it). They did skip on portion of the show that we didnt even realize until we saw them again 2 days later. Ill go into that on the Day 5 report.
So, now it was about 10PM and DL was open to 11. I like it when DL says 11 they mean 11, not 10:30 or earlier. I was focused on getting onto Star Tours a couple of times, but we had the Fast Pass to use first, but not, of course, on Star Tours. So, since Indiana Jones was on the way, lets go for it. We used the Fastpass there and got on within just a few minutes. I believe IJA is much better than its counterpart Dinosaur at AK. It has a much better story and a better fun focus. I confess, I looked at the eye. We then scooted, ducked, dodged and tried to escape the Temple of the Forbidden eye.
Won't tell you if we or didn't.
So, now it is about 10:15 and I really, really wanted Star Tours. By now, most of the firework crowd was gone, but the park was crammed full of grads. And I mean crammed full. Didnt see any rude behavior, but the park was not emptying out like on a non-grad night. The stand by time at Star Tours said 40 minutes. Now, I remember riding Star Tours in FL, the stand by time was always less than what the sign said. But, FL has 6 simulators, DL only 4. So what, it didnt matter, I was getting on this ride. Even better, DW wanted to come too! It actually took only 20 minutes. In typical Disney organizational fashion, there was a cast member where the Fast Pass was collected and the line went to the right and left. The right side was Fast Pass side and the left side Stand By. Well, if the Fast Pass line got to short, the CM would fill it with Stand By. By this time of night it seemed most of the Fast Pass people had either come and gone or werent coming, so the Stand By line moved rather quickly.
So, if you dont want to be spoiled about Star Tours, Im going to pick up that thread again.
Here we go, so, for those reading the whole thing, I wanted Hoth and Boba Fett. So, I got the Vader opening (6-9 on that), Pod Race (7-9 on that), Yoda, and of course, Episode One Space Battle (7-9) on that. No Hoth, no Boba Fett. However, I was the REBEL SPY for the third time, so it may have been a surprise to the rest of riders, but not so much to me as I've already been tagged that way before.
DW, being her first time, was incredibly impressed and knew why I like it so much. But, being that we had just done Indy, well, she was now done for the night. It was 10:50 and the stand by line still stood at 40 minutes. I wanted to go again, darn it. I asked a friendly CM manager if DW could sit by the Star Tours entrance until I was through, which would take us past 11PM and into Grad time. He said, no problem, and for the record, was very polite and professional about it. So I went again. The actual wait actually 15 minutes being that the Fast Pass line was once again being used to help out the stand by line. Same exact trip.
So, now after 10 rides, I had Pod raced 8 of 10 times, when the law of average says I should have seen each 3 times by now, and I had seen the Space Battle 8 of 10 times, when the same law of averages should apply there too. Dont get me wrong, these are great sequences, but I was still short two.
Lastly, there is one great advantage to going to DL instead of the Magic Kingdom. Now we were ready to leave, it was only a not too far walk to the hotel. No Monorail ride, no boat trip and no secondary trip to the car and a long trip back to whatever place you were staying. We simply walked out of DL and back to the CA, only about 5-10 minutes. We then settled in for a short nights sleep as breakfast was at, you guessed it, 7AM.
Tomorrow Day 4 Adventuring California Style
Dolby1000 (2 days to go, I've never written so much in such a short time!)
I love your tongue-in-cheek style. Some day I will take this trip, but until then, I like living through others' reports!
Oh..love that Imagineering model shop! When we were there they had a model of the Cars Land mountain range that took up the whole room. I hope one day your Secret Model will turn into something and you can say you saw it before it was..so cool...
. I need all the tips I can get so I can make the most of my time if we go in october.
