It was good to see Disneyland again! Let me start with the synopsis of likes and dislikes from our trip and then expand so that those with shorter attention spans (like me) can still stand to read this!
Here are the special likes from this trip:
Liked the Disneyland hotel beds -- these seemed to be an improvement over my last visit, great mattress!
Loved the new Indiana Jones ride in Disneyland! Not sure when this was installed, but it wasn't there the last time I went or I somehow missed it.
Loved California Soarin' in DCA! Great virtual reality, although I have suggestions for how to improve it. What fun!
To die for hot cocoa!!! Yummm!
Loved the addition of some new restaurants. This will give the Blue Bayou some competition which can only be a good thing. I was particularly impressed with the Storybook Cafe in the new hotel and the Jazz Kitchen or perhaps it was called Brennan's Jazz Restaurant and the short order restaurant next door was the Jazz Kitchen. In any case, this is the New Orleans style restaurant in Downtown Disney.
Didn't like so much....
Paradise Pier in DCA -- if I wanted to go to Six Flags, I could've saved a lot of money by staying in Texas. Did they fire all the imagineers??! This was very unDisney and I now understand the anti-DCA statements I have heard. It's pretty lame to say that Walt Disney would've approved it because he loved amusement parks. His concept was to take an amusement park and elevate it to pure whimsical fantasy. No elevation here! And ridiculous lack of crowd control -- cheek to cheek! (And I think you know which ones).
No normal hotel services. Why is it that you can't rent a movie in your hotel room like you can in 99% of the hotels in America?? Tired from walking and waiting in endless lines, it would've been great to kick back in the room and watch a movie. Also, $2.50 for a soda from the machine at the end of the hall is highway robbery!! Enough to make you want to stay at the Hilton instead. Heaven forbid that you need to call the front desk for anything -- you may never actually have your call answered, but you will spend at least 5 minutes listening to voice messaging. It's faster to walk to the front desk and ask your question. Service is slow and mediocre.
Now for the long version....
We arrived last Thursday night and checked into the Disneyland hotel. We're very glad we choose this hotel over the new Grand Californian -- more on that later. I'm glad that we got a room away from Downtown Disney because it generates considerable noise. We were facing the pool in the Sierra tower. Nice large room although someone needs to redecorate it. I loved the TV cabinet with the drawing of an initial plan for the original DL, but nothing in the room seemed to have been intended to go together. The fabrics looked tired -- from too many washes, I suppose.
We slept really well, thanks to the wonderful mattress and a room on the "good side" of the building. Ahhhh! Then I was up at 5:30 to go for Fantasmic tickets. I left about 6 to go to Guest Relations and it had started to drizzle. I got there (no one told me I would have to walk -- the monorail doesn't start until 8 AM!)and there was one couple standing in line to get tickets just for the 2 of them. I asked how they knew to arrive early, they said that this was what they were told by Disneyland City (Town?) Hall CMs. The 3 of us were the only ones there until my husband showed up at 7:30. About 5 minutes before they opened the window, another person showed up and this was at 8:30. The wheather predictions were that it would rain all day, but I was told by the CM there that they would not cancel the show for rain -- Not! Interestingly enough, when they sold us tickets we were not number 3 & 4, but numbers 8 & 9! There were 5 people on the list before the ticket office opened! We were told that these people were corporate sponsors or something like that (???).
It was cold and rainy, but this seemed to be a deterrent for many potential attendees so we relished the ability to stop on Main Street for hot chocolate and pastry. I must say that Disney serves the best hot cocoa I have ever had!! Belissimo!!
Only Fantasyland and Tomorrowland were open for early entry, so we rode 5 or 6 rides and then headed to Adventureland to wait for them to drop the rope at 10. There was a mad dash for the Indianna Jones ride, so we followed the crowd although our original intent was to get reservations at Blue Bayou. The ride was terrific, so we stopped to pick up a fast pass to ride again later and went to Blue Bayou, Pirates and the Haunted Mansion before returning.
The sun came out at 10:30 and stayed out for the next couple of hours so we rode the coasters that were open, except Splash, since we didn't want to get any wetter! It drizzled a couple of other times in the afternoon, but we went back to our room for a nap at about 2. Then we went to dinner at Blue Bayou -- not as good as I remember it, but I do like those Mint Juleps. I had the evening special which was a chicken and crab dish. My husband had crab cakes. Nothing special in either case.
I forgot to mention that we stopped at Naples in Downtown Disney on the way back to the room and had a late lunch. I was under impressed with the food for the price, but the service was phenomenal. This is probably because there were 25 employees (we counted them, but maybe there were more that were behind the scenes?) and only 33 customers at this point. I had a salad and my husband had lasagne. The salad had too much greens and the lasagne didn't have enough cheese.
After dinner at the Blue Bayou, we rode the Indy ride again and then headed to the gallery for Fantasmic. It started to rain. The CM in the gallery said the show would probably be canceled.
We waited hopefully and even though it stopped raining at 8:30, they cancelled the show. Our consolation was getting served sugary desserts while sitting on the parlor floor - ugh! We got a full refund, but what we really wanted was to see the show without having to get up at 5:30 AM again! We never saw Fantasmic <IMG WIDTH="15" HEIGHT="15" SRC="/infopop/emoticons/icon_redface.gif" alt="red face">
On Saturday, we headed for DCA. We entered the park and waded through the swarm of bodies to get to California Screamin' --- we were immediately disappointed. We got a fast pass to think about it, but never used it. We walked around Paradise Pier feeling aghast at this new theme park almost ready to call it a day at 10:30 AM. We saw the ride board and California Soarin' already had a 130 minute wait and no fast passes left.
We stood in line for an hour and 15 to ride the river rapids ride. 14 out of 17 people we asked thought that the rock statue was a wolf. One person thought it was just a pile of rocks, one person thought it was a coyote, and the other person said that they had been told it was a bear, but didn't believe it. I think they should start referring to it as the wolf --BTW, I heard one of the CMs tell someone it was a wolf. I asked her about it telling her that I thought it was suppose to be a bear and she said yes, but since everyone seemed to think it was a wolf, that was what she now told people. It kind of ruins that "Bear Left" sign! And no one can figure out where the stuffed bears in the gift shops are coming from!
The river rapids ride was rather dull -- again, no imagineering evidence here. Where was the scenery? Where were the back drops?
We decided to go get some food and we went to see the Bug's Life. It was just as cute as I remember from Animal Kingdom until it got a bit intense with the "evil bugs". When the spiders dropped from the ceiling, the little girl sitting next to us shrieked in sheer terror! This needs to be toned down so as not to ruin an otherwise entertaining event. I mentioned this to one of the CMs and he told me that DCA was not intended for children!!!!
We then got very lucky and only had to wait 40 minutes to get into California Soarin'!!!! We got the very best seats, but didn't realize this until we went back later. We were in the theater to the left of the front of the building, in the first row of the first (from the line) set of seats. It was like flying without a plane!! Except for those breaks to new scenery -- not smooth, but then maybe it was the best way to keep the view interesting, it was a sheer delight. What we found when we went back that night and rode again was that on other rows you could see the feet of the people above you -- I think the ride would be improved if you everyone was flat in front of the screen so you'd have to turn in order to see other people. This would make it a better flying experience for those who aren't on the front row.
It was an out of body experience and a definite must see!!!
Later in the afternoon we went to the Hollywood section. The SuperStar limo is pretty lame -- card board cut outs with flourescent paint is not my idea of imagineering. We didn't go to see the Muppet Movie since we had seen it at MGM and the line was about an hour long. At 4, there was a 3 hour line for California Soarin' -- the obvious hit of the park.
We also saw the California history movie with Whoopi and while it was an entertaining movie and we liked the talking statue, it could've been a lot more Disney with some additional imagineering.
Nothing else interested us here, so we went to Downtown Disney. The big disappointment here is no spa to get pampered in while on vacation. We got some beignets from the Jazz kitchen which were good, but my advice is only to get one order -- there are 3 large beignets in each bag!
The candy store is fun, but the candy they make is awful!! Unless you happen to like rubbery fudge and sugary chocolate, I wouldn't recommend it.
The World of Disney has almost everything you could want to buy from Disney stores, but that's almost....I saw monkey's in adventureland, but I couldn't buy them here. I did get some lotion and bath gel that smelled really good.
We then ducked in the Grand Californian hotel to look around and go to dinner. The hotel is flat out ugly on the outside and I heard several people comment on this in DCA. It's better on the inside but is missing the amenities to make it a luxury hotel. For example (and this is just an example to illustrate what I mean), in the women's bathroom there are wood doors to what appear to be private commode stalls as one might expect to find in a luxury hotel. However, when you step into the stall you find a movie theater type commode with the cheap side walls. The luxury is only a facade! The lobby looks a lot like the Wilderness Lodge, with all the fun stuff removed -- no imagineering here. But then I have to remember that DCA is NOT for children!
We stopped to view the menus for Napa Rose, where we had a ressie, and the Storybook Cafe. We decided we liked the menu for the Storybook Cafe better, so we canceled the ressie and ate at the Cafe! It was a terrific choice. I had the vegetable soup and my DH had the chicken quesadillas to start. Yummm! Then I had a pasta dish -- can't recall the name -- with artichoke hearts and fresh veggies. My DH had Frittatas. Again it was all very delicious! The service was excellent and we got to sit next to a warm fire. We were very pleased!
That night we went back to DL and rode Splash Mountain and some other rides. We also rode the Indy ride again and the Matterhorn again. We picked up so toys for the kids.
My DH had to leave Sunday morning, but I went back to the parks later in the day. I got to ride California Soarin' a third time.
I rode the Mullhollan madness and it was just like the cheapy roller coasters that they used to set up in carnivals at shopping mall parking lots when I was a kid. No imagineering here!
I went to dinner at Brennan's Jazz Restaurant on Tuesday night with some of my co-workers who were attending the same conference as I. We decided to order a lot of appetizers, salads and desserts. We had the coconut shrimp (2 orders), crab cakes and the spinach dip (spinach or artichoke?). I had the tomato salad. Then we had banana's foster for dessert. It was all very tasty. Service was good, but some of the staff seemed rather inexperienced. I really liked this restaurant! We didn't get to hear the Jazz musicians though since we could only get a table upstairs without a ressie -- be sure to get that ressie if you want to hear music!
Well, that's it -- I hope this is helpful to some of you!
Toodles
WDW 79, 83, 99
DL 91, 92, 93, 95
Here are the special likes from this trip:
Liked the Disneyland hotel beds -- these seemed to be an improvement over my last visit, great mattress!
Loved the new Indiana Jones ride in Disneyland! Not sure when this was installed, but it wasn't there the last time I went or I somehow missed it.
Loved California Soarin' in DCA! Great virtual reality, although I have suggestions for how to improve it. What fun!
To die for hot cocoa!!! Yummm!
Loved the addition of some new restaurants. This will give the Blue Bayou some competition which can only be a good thing. I was particularly impressed with the Storybook Cafe in the new hotel and the Jazz Kitchen or perhaps it was called Brennan's Jazz Restaurant and the short order restaurant next door was the Jazz Kitchen. In any case, this is the New Orleans style restaurant in Downtown Disney.
Didn't like so much....
Paradise Pier in DCA -- if I wanted to go to Six Flags, I could've saved a lot of money by staying in Texas. Did they fire all the imagineers??! This was very unDisney and I now understand the anti-DCA statements I have heard. It's pretty lame to say that Walt Disney would've approved it because he loved amusement parks. His concept was to take an amusement park and elevate it to pure whimsical fantasy. No elevation here! And ridiculous lack of crowd control -- cheek to cheek! (And I think you know which ones).
No normal hotel services. Why is it that you can't rent a movie in your hotel room like you can in 99% of the hotels in America?? Tired from walking and waiting in endless lines, it would've been great to kick back in the room and watch a movie. Also, $2.50 for a soda from the machine at the end of the hall is highway robbery!! Enough to make you want to stay at the Hilton instead. Heaven forbid that you need to call the front desk for anything -- you may never actually have your call answered, but you will spend at least 5 minutes listening to voice messaging. It's faster to walk to the front desk and ask your question. Service is slow and mediocre.
Now for the long version....
We arrived last Thursday night and checked into the Disneyland hotel. We're very glad we choose this hotel over the new Grand Californian -- more on that later. I'm glad that we got a room away from Downtown Disney because it generates considerable noise. We were facing the pool in the Sierra tower. Nice large room although someone needs to redecorate it. I loved the TV cabinet with the drawing of an initial plan for the original DL, but nothing in the room seemed to have been intended to go together. The fabrics looked tired -- from too many washes, I suppose.
We slept really well, thanks to the wonderful mattress and a room on the "good side" of the building. Ahhhh! Then I was up at 5:30 to go for Fantasmic tickets. I left about 6 to go to Guest Relations and it had started to drizzle. I got there (no one told me I would have to walk -- the monorail doesn't start until 8 AM!)and there was one couple standing in line to get tickets just for the 2 of them. I asked how they knew to arrive early, they said that this was what they were told by Disneyland City (Town?) Hall CMs. The 3 of us were the only ones there until my husband showed up at 7:30. About 5 minutes before they opened the window, another person showed up and this was at 8:30. The wheather predictions were that it would rain all day, but I was told by the CM there that they would not cancel the show for rain -- Not! Interestingly enough, when they sold us tickets we were not number 3 & 4, but numbers 8 & 9! There were 5 people on the list before the ticket office opened! We were told that these people were corporate sponsors or something like that (???).
It was cold and rainy, but this seemed to be a deterrent for many potential attendees so we relished the ability to stop on Main Street for hot chocolate and pastry. I must say that Disney serves the best hot cocoa I have ever had!! Belissimo!!
Only Fantasyland and Tomorrowland were open for early entry, so we rode 5 or 6 rides and then headed to Adventureland to wait for them to drop the rope at 10. There was a mad dash for the Indianna Jones ride, so we followed the crowd although our original intent was to get reservations at Blue Bayou. The ride was terrific, so we stopped to pick up a fast pass to ride again later and went to Blue Bayou, Pirates and the Haunted Mansion before returning.
The sun came out at 10:30 and stayed out for the next couple of hours so we rode the coasters that were open, except Splash, since we didn't want to get any wetter! It drizzled a couple of other times in the afternoon, but we went back to our room for a nap at about 2. Then we went to dinner at Blue Bayou -- not as good as I remember it, but I do like those Mint Juleps. I had the evening special which was a chicken and crab dish. My husband had crab cakes. Nothing special in either case.
I forgot to mention that we stopped at Naples in Downtown Disney on the way back to the room and had a late lunch. I was under impressed with the food for the price, but the service was phenomenal. This is probably because there were 25 employees (we counted them, but maybe there were more that were behind the scenes?) and only 33 customers at this point. I had a salad and my husband had lasagne. The salad had too much greens and the lasagne didn't have enough cheese.
After dinner at the Blue Bayou, we rode the Indy ride again and then headed to the gallery for Fantasmic. It started to rain. The CM in the gallery said the show would probably be canceled.
We waited hopefully and even though it stopped raining at 8:30, they cancelled the show. Our consolation was getting served sugary desserts while sitting on the parlor floor - ugh! We got a full refund, but what we really wanted was to see the show without having to get up at 5:30 AM again! We never saw Fantasmic <IMG WIDTH="15" HEIGHT="15" SRC="/infopop/emoticons/icon_redface.gif" alt="red face">
On Saturday, we headed for DCA. We entered the park and waded through the swarm of bodies to get to California Screamin' --- we were immediately disappointed. We got a fast pass to think about it, but never used it. We walked around Paradise Pier feeling aghast at this new theme park almost ready to call it a day at 10:30 AM. We saw the ride board and California Soarin' already had a 130 minute wait and no fast passes left.
We stood in line for an hour and 15 to ride the river rapids ride. 14 out of 17 people we asked thought that the rock statue was a wolf. One person thought it was just a pile of rocks, one person thought it was a coyote, and the other person said that they had been told it was a bear, but didn't believe it. I think they should start referring to it as the wolf --BTW, I heard one of the CMs tell someone it was a wolf. I asked her about it telling her that I thought it was suppose to be a bear and she said yes, but since everyone seemed to think it was a wolf, that was what she now told people. It kind of ruins that "Bear Left" sign! And no one can figure out where the stuffed bears in the gift shops are coming from!
The river rapids ride was rather dull -- again, no imagineering evidence here. Where was the scenery? Where were the back drops?
We decided to go get some food and we went to see the Bug's Life. It was just as cute as I remember from Animal Kingdom until it got a bit intense with the "evil bugs". When the spiders dropped from the ceiling, the little girl sitting next to us shrieked in sheer terror! This needs to be toned down so as not to ruin an otherwise entertaining event. I mentioned this to one of the CMs and he told me that DCA was not intended for children!!!!
We then got very lucky and only had to wait 40 minutes to get into California Soarin'!!!! We got the very best seats, but didn't realize this until we went back later. We were in the theater to the left of the front of the building, in the first row of the first (from the line) set of seats. It was like flying without a plane!! Except for those breaks to new scenery -- not smooth, but then maybe it was the best way to keep the view interesting, it was a sheer delight. What we found when we went back that night and rode again was that on other rows you could see the feet of the people above you -- I think the ride would be improved if you everyone was flat in front of the screen so you'd have to turn in order to see other people. This would make it a better flying experience for those who aren't on the front row.
It was an out of body experience and a definite must see!!!
Later in the afternoon we went to the Hollywood section. The SuperStar limo is pretty lame -- card board cut outs with flourescent paint is not my idea of imagineering. We didn't go to see the Muppet Movie since we had seen it at MGM and the line was about an hour long. At 4, there was a 3 hour line for California Soarin' -- the obvious hit of the park.
We also saw the California history movie with Whoopi and while it was an entertaining movie and we liked the talking statue, it could've been a lot more Disney with some additional imagineering.
Nothing else interested us here, so we went to Downtown Disney. The big disappointment here is no spa to get pampered in while on vacation. We got some beignets from the Jazz kitchen which were good, but my advice is only to get one order -- there are 3 large beignets in each bag!
The candy store is fun, but the candy they make is awful!! Unless you happen to like rubbery fudge and sugary chocolate, I wouldn't recommend it.
The World of Disney has almost everything you could want to buy from Disney stores, but that's almost....I saw monkey's in adventureland, but I couldn't buy them here. I did get some lotion and bath gel that smelled really good.
We then ducked in the Grand Californian hotel to look around and go to dinner. The hotel is flat out ugly on the outside and I heard several people comment on this in DCA. It's better on the inside but is missing the amenities to make it a luxury hotel. For example (and this is just an example to illustrate what I mean), in the women's bathroom there are wood doors to what appear to be private commode stalls as one might expect to find in a luxury hotel. However, when you step into the stall you find a movie theater type commode with the cheap side walls. The luxury is only a facade! The lobby looks a lot like the Wilderness Lodge, with all the fun stuff removed -- no imagineering here. But then I have to remember that DCA is NOT for children!
We stopped to view the menus for Napa Rose, where we had a ressie, and the Storybook Cafe. We decided we liked the menu for the Storybook Cafe better, so we canceled the ressie and ate at the Cafe! It was a terrific choice. I had the vegetable soup and my DH had the chicken quesadillas to start. Yummm! Then I had a pasta dish -- can't recall the name -- with artichoke hearts and fresh veggies. My DH had Frittatas. Again it was all very delicious! The service was excellent and we got to sit next to a warm fire. We were very pleased!
That night we went back to DL and rode Splash Mountain and some other rides. We also rode the Indy ride again and the Matterhorn again. We picked up so toys for the kids.
My DH had to leave Sunday morning, but I went back to the parks later in the day. I got to ride California Soarin' a third time.
I rode the Mullhollan madness and it was just like the cheapy roller coasters that they used to set up in carnivals at shopping mall parking lots when I was a kid. No imagineering here!
I went to dinner at Brennan's Jazz Restaurant on Tuesday night with some of my co-workers who were attending the same conference as I. We decided to order a lot of appetizers, salads and desserts. We had the coconut shrimp (2 orders), crab cakes and the spinach dip (spinach or artichoke?). I had the tomato salad. Then we had banana's foster for dessert. It was all very tasty. Service was good, but some of the staff seemed rather inexperienced. I really liked this restaurant! We didn't get to hear the Jazz musicians though since we could only get a table upstairs without a ressie -- be sure to get that ressie if you want to hear music!
Well, that's it -- I hope this is helpful to some of you!
Toodles
WDW 79, 83, 99
DL 91, 92, 93, 95
What kinda salad had too much greens? Tons of cheese in Lasagne is not "California Cuisine."
