wareagle57
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jan 14, 2014
- Messages
- 3,220
We've been back a few days, but we spent 8 days in Southern California for our honeymoon, with most of that being at DL. We did 5 day park hoppers and split our stay between the Grand Californian and an airbnb close by. All in all it was an amazing trip I will never forget. Here are just a few of my thoughts. I hope the negatives don't come across as too much complaining. They are just of course, what sticks out the most.
The Good- I usually skrimp and save every penny and do Disney as cheap as possible, usually staying at a value resort. But since it was our honeymoon I was able to splurge and stay at the Grand Californian for a few days. I had stayed across the street on Harbor before, and while that's still amazing compared to WDW, the grand took it to a whole other level. It was so easy to pop in and out of DCA. Once I even made a FP for GRR while my wife slept and snuck out for a quick ride without having to worry about walking around wet the rest of the day.
Crowds were great. Not that it didn't get crowded at times, but compared to our last few trips to WDW, getting around the parks, through security, and through the turnstiles was a breeze. I rarely even had to worry about wait times.
MaxPass is the best. I wish they would bring this system to Florida as it is so much easier and more fair to everyone. I'm not sure why at 60+ days out, you still sometimes get shutout from FoP and Slinky FP, or only get them once or twice an entire week long trip, yet you can get the most popular attraction at DL or DCA 3 times every single day if you really want to. Maybe there are enough locals not trying to get RSR every day. But I think there is enough capacity at WDW that if you allowed people to book between parks, it would spread out and allow FoP and Slinky availability until at least noon everyday. The ONLY problem with MP and the crowds was that availability was SO readily available, that I wasn't really able to stack our evenings during breaks because the return times were so soon.
The Bad - The lack of photopass at DL is a big disappointment. Though I guess you could argue that's part of the reason Main Street is not such a madhouse like it is at WDW with a PP photographer every 30 feet. I would have liked to get a few more pictures, and adding the ride photos manually was annoying. Our Incredicoaster picture never showed up one time, and there is no one there to talk to about it like at some rides. I have the time we rode and a picture of another car at the same time with a ballpark number, but just never wanted to take the time to hassle a CM about it. I also found it strange that many photographers rushed us through once it was our turn, despite having just married buttons and matching shirts, while we just watched them spend several minutes with guests in front of us. We did have a couple great moments with PP CM's, but those were usually the ones with no lines that we specifically sought out to ask for a picture.
I really missed magic bands. While the touch points back up at WDW too, this just seemed to make it worse. I didn't like having to pull out my phone and find my FP or ticket every single time we rode something or hopped parks. This is a minor thing, but something I realized I take for granted in Florida.
The Good and Bad-
Characters - This one is actually a mix of both Good and Bad. I LOVED how many characters we saw roaming the parks. I'm not a "meet the characters" type person anyway. I just like to see them. And I loved how many times we just passed by Mickey, or saw Mary Poppins and Burt riding the carousel. (They even spotted us and congratulated us while riding!) The bad part is, how hard it was to actually meet them. Even when we waited for Mickey or Minnie to first come out, we'd follow them to their spot and immediately told the line was cut off. But no one could ever tell us where to line up, and the spots each met in rotated every time. Not a problem for me, but my wife really wanted to meet both. We finally were able to, but again were rushed through after watching Mickey spend a good 5-10 minutes with a single girl who had a made at home Minnie dress.
CMs - This one is another mixed bag. Plenty of amazing CM interactions. But there were also several rude and less than helpful ones. I'm sure part of it is that I simply don't need to ask for any help at WDW and am never in a situation where I'm not exactly sure where to go. But there were so many CMs just not paying attention or doing their jobs when we were confused about where to go in FP line, or just talking to each other about life outside of work.
The Ugly - The guests. Yikes. Obviously a very small percentage of those there, but a few rotten apples really spoiled the whole bunch. It may be anecdotal, but it's something we encountered over and over again on our trip. People talking loudly all throughout dark rides; talking, laughing, and cackling though emotional parts of World of Color; and parents with some of the wildest most misbehaved kids running wild in the queue for guardians, and seemingly mocking us, even though we never said anything to them. I'm normally not one to get bothered by these things because they are so rare, and I know it's not my first or last time, and it may be theirs. But there were just so many people that seemed entitled and selfishly unaware of how their actions were affecting others.
The only people I actually confronted were the girls talking in the row behind us on Pirates. This was not the occasional whisper. it was a full blown conversation and way too loud. They didn't take the hint of a few head turns, and it was just completely taking me out of the immersive experience. When I finally asked them to stop and told them it was distracting and ruining the immersion, they rolled their eyes and just says "oooookaaaay." To their credit, they did stop. Or at least kept it to a minimum. My wife thanked them afterwards, but they never apologized and instead informed us that "that people talk on rides all the time on Disneyland." If I had been by myself I probably would have escalated and told them that just because people do something doesn't make it ok, but I let it go. It is the same thing as talking in a movie, except the people you are ruining it for paid a lot more than $10 to get in.
The Amazing:
-The Walk in Walt's Footstep tour was worth every penny. Like I said, I usually don't do upsell events or tours or deluxe resorts, but wanted to make our Honeymoon (and my wife's first time at DL) special. This was definitely the highlight of the trip. I did not expect to get emotional on this tour but I did. While a lot of the info is stuff I've heard before, it was good to hear it again and presented in the place it actually happened, or with the clips of Walt in our ear. And there were several things I had never heard before. It was also good to actually take a break from riding as much as we could and actually just BE in Disneyland and take in the sites and sounds. I feel like the tour was worth it even without getting to see Walt's Apartment. That was just icing on the cake, and a surreal experience I never thought I would see. I was very glad to find out the guide would take a picture for us. We got to watch the Dapper Dan's right underneath the window with Walt's light. And after our "lunch" (it was more like dinner since the tour was 2:30-6:00, the timing worked out perfectly to watch Soundsational from Main Street and then follow the final float down to make our Space FP just in time.
-Fantasmic! - Again, another upsell I wouldn't usually do. We went with BB and got a waterside table. The meal honestly was meh. And while I'm not sure if the view we got as a result was actually that much better had we watched with FP, I'm just going to assume it was. The show blew us away. It is sooo much better than the WDW version. I almost didn't even make time to see it but I'm glad I did. The Columbia dressed up like the Black Pearl was so cool, and having the pirates swing off the side right over our heads was unreal.
-World of Color - I had previously only seen the show done for the 60th, so I was excited to see the original. As I'll mention below, our first showing was kind of ruined by guests next to us. But we saw it twice and both times were incredible. I love this show and would rank both nighttime water spectaculars above everything at WDW other than HAE, and frankly it's not even close.
-Guardians of the Galaxy. Holy Cow, I was not prepared for how much I would love this ride. Tower of Terror has always been a favorite. I knew it would still be fun, but I could not believe that I was immediately ready to declare it was better than ToT. We rode it more than anything else, and by the end of the trip I decided it was my favorite Disney ride period. If we had this at WDW or it did not exist at all, I could probably live with sticking to the east coast. But this one ride pushes DL over the top as the best IMO. Turning the spooky and most well themed ride ever into a funny and fun dance party actually worked.
That's about it. I know these comparisons get made a lot. But I really do love DL and wish there was a way to merge the best of both places. Ride for ride DL wins. And having maxpass and the parks right next to each other really pushes it over the top. But the atmosphere did seem to take a big hit in our limited experience.
The Good- I usually skrimp and save every penny and do Disney as cheap as possible, usually staying at a value resort. But since it was our honeymoon I was able to splurge and stay at the Grand Californian for a few days. I had stayed across the street on Harbor before, and while that's still amazing compared to WDW, the grand took it to a whole other level. It was so easy to pop in and out of DCA. Once I even made a FP for GRR while my wife slept and snuck out for a quick ride without having to worry about walking around wet the rest of the day.
Crowds were great. Not that it didn't get crowded at times, but compared to our last few trips to WDW, getting around the parks, through security, and through the turnstiles was a breeze. I rarely even had to worry about wait times.
MaxPass is the best. I wish they would bring this system to Florida as it is so much easier and more fair to everyone. I'm not sure why at 60+ days out, you still sometimes get shutout from FoP and Slinky FP, or only get them once or twice an entire week long trip, yet you can get the most popular attraction at DL or DCA 3 times every single day if you really want to. Maybe there are enough locals not trying to get RSR every day. But I think there is enough capacity at WDW that if you allowed people to book between parks, it would spread out and allow FoP and Slinky availability until at least noon everyday. The ONLY problem with MP and the crowds was that availability was SO readily available, that I wasn't really able to stack our evenings during breaks because the return times were so soon.
The Bad - The lack of photopass at DL is a big disappointment. Though I guess you could argue that's part of the reason Main Street is not such a madhouse like it is at WDW with a PP photographer every 30 feet. I would have liked to get a few more pictures, and adding the ride photos manually was annoying. Our Incredicoaster picture never showed up one time, and there is no one there to talk to about it like at some rides. I have the time we rode and a picture of another car at the same time with a ballpark number, but just never wanted to take the time to hassle a CM about it. I also found it strange that many photographers rushed us through once it was our turn, despite having just married buttons and matching shirts, while we just watched them spend several minutes with guests in front of us. We did have a couple great moments with PP CM's, but those were usually the ones with no lines that we specifically sought out to ask for a picture.
I really missed magic bands. While the touch points back up at WDW too, this just seemed to make it worse. I didn't like having to pull out my phone and find my FP or ticket every single time we rode something or hopped parks. This is a minor thing, but something I realized I take for granted in Florida.
The Good and Bad-
Characters - This one is actually a mix of both Good and Bad. I LOVED how many characters we saw roaming the parks. I'm not a "meet the characters" type person anyway. I just like to see them. And I loved how many times we just passed by Mickey, or saw Mary Poppins and Burt riding the carousel. (They even spotted us and congratulated us while riding!) The bad part is, how hard it was to actually meet them. Even when we waited for Mickey or Minnie to first come out, we'd follow them to their spot and immediately told the line was cut off. But no one could ever tell us where to line up, and the spots each met in rotated every time. Not a problem for me, but my wife really wanted to meet both. We finally were able to, but again were rushed through after watching Mickey spend a good 5-10 minutes with a single girl who had a made at home Minnie dress.
CMs - This one is another mixed bag. Plenty of amazing CM interactions. But there were also several rude and less than helpful ones. I'm sure part of it is that I simply don't need to ask for any help at WDW and am never in a situation where I'm not exactly sure where to go. But there were so many CMs just not paying attention or doing their jobs when we were confused about where to go in FP line, or just talking to each other about life outside of work.
The Ugly - The guests. Yikes. Obviously a very small percentage of those there, but a few rotten apples really spoiled the whole bunch. It may be anecdotal, but it's something we encountered over and over again on our trip. People talking loudly all throughout dark rides; talking, laughing, and cackling though emotional parts of World of Color; and parents with some of the wildest most misbehaved kids running wild in the queue for guardians, and seemingly mocking us, even though we never said anything to them. I'm normally not one to get bothered by these things because they are so rare, and I know it's not my first or last time, and it may be theirs. But there were just so many people that seemed entitled and selfishly unaware of how their actions were affecting others.
The only people I actually confronted were the girls talking in the row behind us on Pirates. This was not the occasional whisper. it was a full blown conversation and way too loud. They didn't take the hint of a few head turns, and it was just completely taking me out of the immersive experience. When I finally asked them to stop and told them it was distracting and ruining the immersion, they rolled their eyes and just says "oooookaaaay." To their credit, they did stop. Or at least kept it to a minimum. My wife thanked them afterwards, but they never apologized and instead informed us that "that people talk on rides all the time on Disneyland." If I had been by myself I probably would have escalated and told them that just because people do something doesn't make it ok, but I let it go. It is the same thing as talking in a movie, except the people you are ruining it for paid a lot more than $10 to get in.
The Amazing:
-The Walk in Walt's Footstep tour was worth every penny. Like I said, I usually don't do upsell events or tours or deluxe resorts, but wanted to make our Honeymoon (and my wife's first time at DL) special. This was definitely the highlight of the trip. I did not expect to get emotional on this tour but I did. While a lot of the info is stuff I've heard before, it was good to hear it again and presented in the place it actually happened, or with the clips of Walt in our ear. And there were several things I had never heard before. It was also good to actually take a break from riding as much as we could and actually just BE in Disneyland and take in the sites and sounds. I feel like the tour was worth it even without getting to see Walt's Apartment. That was just icing on the cake, and a surreal experience I never thought I would see. I was very glad to find out the guide would take a picture for us. We got to watch the Dapper Dan's right underneath the window with Walt's light. And after our "lunch" (it was more like dinner since the tour was 2:30-6:00, the timing worked out perfectly to watch Soundsational from Main Street and then follow the final float down to make our Space FP just in time.
-Fantasmic! - Again, another upsell I wouldn't usually do. We went with BB and got a waterside table. The meal honestly was meh. And while I'm not sure if the view we got as a result was actually that much better had we watched with FP, I'm just going to assume it was. The show blew us away. It is sooo much better than the WDW version. I almost didn't even make time to see it but I'm glad I did. The Columbia dressed up like the Black Pearl was so cool, and having the pirates swing off the side right over our heads was unreal.
-World of Color - I had previously only seen the show done for the 60th, so I was excited to see the original. As I'll mention below, our first showing was kind of ruined by guests next to us. But we saw it twice and both times were incredible. I love this show and would rank both nighttime water spectaculars above everything at WDW other than HAE, and frankly it's not even close.
-Guardians of the Galaxy. Holy Cow, I was not prepared for how much I would love this ride. Tower of Terror has always been a favorite. I knew it would still be fun, but I could not believe that I was immediately ready to declare it was better than ToT. We rode it more than anything else, and by the end of the trip I decided it was my favorite Disney ride period. If we had this at WDW or it did not exist at all, I could probably live with sticking to the east coast. But this one ride pushes DL over the top as the best IMO. Turning the spooky and most well themed ride ever into a funny and fun dance party actually worked.
That's about it. I know these comparisons get made a lot. But I really do love DL and wish there was a way to merge the best of both places. Ride for ride DL wins. And having maxpass and the parks right next to each other really pushes it over the top. But the atmosphere did seem to take a big hit in our limited experience.
I've been seeing more and more posts about rude CM's, that is a disappointment to read. But it sounds like there were some real positives as well and that you guys have a great trip still. Congratulations to you!
