WishUponAStar3
Believer In Big Dreams!
- Joined
- May 23, 2011
- Messages
- 205
We just got back yesterday from a magical trip to San Diego + Disneyland! Since these boards have been so helpful for me in planning, I wanted to share my thoughts on our DLH stay and opening night of OBB:
Disneyland Hotel was the BEST! I was soooo happy with my choice to book here. Tons of magic, starting with:
- A complimentary upgrade upon check-in from a standard room to a beautiful pool-view room that was ready when we arrived at 9:30 AM! Double-win! (I did let the front desk associate know that we were celebrating our anniversary and babymoon and I asked if there was any chance of an upgrade, and she made it happen! So definitely don't hesitate to ask nicely, and if they can do it they will!)
- Our 1/2-day pool cabana rental was the perfect way to spend the late-morning/early-afternoon while waiting for OBB. Great cabana location, great amenities, and I was reminded again of how stellar the pools are at DLH- it's truly like a mini waterpark! Definitely the best pool scene on Disneyland property. And for anyone worried like I was about construction noise, it was nonexistent- and we were there on a weekday during working hours. Another thing I worried about was if the pool would be too crowded and hard to socially distance, but neither were the case- we had plenty of space to swim and play in the pool and waterslides without getting too close to anyone!
- Amazing food! My husband said our pool cabana lunch was one of the two best meals of the entire trip- and that includes our earlier stay at the Four Seasons San Diego. He got the tuna poke bowl and panko-crusted long beans, while the 4-year-old and I also loved our Hawaiian cheeseburger and sweet potato fries. Yesterday we treated ourselves to Dole Whips for breakfast on the wonderful patio at Tangeroa Terrace- just perfect!
- While the rooms at both DLH and GCH are a lot less luxe than you would expect for the price point, I find the theming of the DLH rooms so magical that it almost makes up for it! My son even applauded after seeing the headboard light up and play music, which was so cute.
Love all the little Mickey touches throughout the room and bathroom, too.
- Literally the only thing I didn't love was the longer walk to the parks as opposed to the proximity of GCH, which we really felt at the end of the night when we were rushing out of CA Adventure at 11 PM during a sudden lightning storm! When we go back next year with a baby in tow, we might consider the Grand just for the closer location. It will really sting to have to shell out more $$ for a hotel we don't love as much, though... so we just might stay at DLH again and make do with the walk, which really isn't THAT long.
OBB was a blast, and I'm so glad we did it! There were some hiccups at the beginning, but the night thankfully got better and better.
- Clearly I'd been away from DL too long, because we made the rookie mistake of showing up to the turnstiles just before 4 PM, thinking we could afford to rest in the room after our pool day and that we'd still be left with plenty of time to enjoy the park. That was a big OOPS, since we showed up to a looooong line to enter the park and then another long line to get our party wristbands. By the time we were done with the lines, it was time for our 5 PM reservation at Wine Country Trattoria, so definitely a bummer to lose a whole hour of our ticket time in line.
- Wine Country Trattoria was also running late, so our 5 PM reservation was more like 5:20. The restaurant was very nice about it though and offered us a free appetizer to make up for the wait. The food was definitely good, but very generic Italian fare, nothing special, and wayyyy overpriced for the OBB dining package. But the Halloween dessert was really fun (and yummy), and the Oogie Boogie popcorn bucket was a big hit with my son.
- We had hoped to hit a few rides before the first parade, but got stuck close to the front of the line for Monsters Inc. when the ride had to be temporarily stopped due to someone dropping a backpack on the track. A 5-min wait turned into like a 25-30-min wait- oof!
- The first parade also started 20 mins late- I'm starting to feel like the theme of our first few park/party hours was all about waiting! But the parade was awesome, the characters interacted with my son in the front row, and afterwards we made a lot more progress on rides and trick-or-treating!
- By waiting till after the first parade to hit the trick-or-treat trails, we had no lines to wait in for those, and they were a HUGE hit with my son! We only hit 3 of the trails, but between the 3 of us we came home with bags absolutely stuffed with candy! Disney is definitely generous with the trick-or-treating offerings.
- We got to ride WEB SLINGERS on the standby line, no need to deal with getting into a virtual queue- and it was only a 30-minute wait and soo much fun!
- Toy Story Midway Mania was an actual walk-on ride- never seen that before!
And of course, the ambience and magic were so special! I'm definitely planning on us going back next year, either pre-Halloween again or pre-Christmas, and hopefully by then Covid will be long gone so we can stay 3-4 days and see everything. It was a little hard to be so close to the main park and castle, Star Wars Land, etc and not be able to go in, but I felt like just going for the party was safest in light of my little one being unvaccinated. And while the party crowd was bigger than I'd hoped, I also felt pretty safe with our masks, and it wasn't like people were close enough to breathe down your neck in line or anything like that.
We also had a fabulous meal at Ralph Brennan's just before leaving yesterday, and the waitress was kind enough to offer us complimentary beignets for our anniversary! SO delicious, and the people-watching from the patio, with the Disney Halloween music playing, was so great.
Let me know if you have any questions on anything!
Disneyland Hotel was the BEST! I was soooo happy with my choice to book here. Tons of magic, starting with:
- A complimentary upgrade upon check-in from a standard room to a beautiful pool-view room that was ready when we arrived at 9:30 AM! Double-win! (I did let the front desk associate know that we were celebrating our anniversary and babymoon and I asked if there was any chance of an upgrade, and she made it happen! So definitely don't hesitate to ask nicely, and if they can do it they will!)
- Our 1/2-day pool cabana rental was the perfect way to spend the late-morning/early-afternoon while waiting for OBB. Great cabana location, great amenities, and I was reminded again of how stellar the pools are at DLH- it's truly like a mini waterpark! Definitely the best pool scene on Disneyland property. And for anyone worried like I was about construction noise, it was nonexistent- and we were there on a weekday during working hours. Another thing I worried about was if the pool would be too crowded and hard to socially distance, but neither were the case- we had plenty of space to swim and play in the pool and waterslides without getting too close to anyone!
- Amazing food! My husband said our pool cabana lunch was one of the two best meals of the entire trip- and that includes our earlier stay at the Four Seasons San Diego. He got the tuna poke bowl and panko-crusted long beans, while the 4-year-old and I also loved our Hawaiian cheeseburger and sweet potato fries. Yesterday we treated ourselves to Dole Whips for breakfast on the wonderful patio at Tangeroa Terrace- just perfect!
- While the rooms at both DLH and GCH are a lot less luxe than you would expect for the price point, I find the theming of the DLH rooms so magical that it almost makes up for it! My son even applauded after seeing the headboard light up and play music, which was so cute.
Love all the little Mickey touches throughout the room and bathroom, too.- Literally the only thing I didn't love was the longer walk to the parks as opposed to the proximity of GCH, which we really felt at the end of the night when we were rushing out of CA Adventure at 11 PM during a sudden lightning storm! When we go back next year with a baby in tow, we might consider the Grand just for the closer location. It will really sting to have to shell out more $$ for a hotel we don't love as much, though... so we just might stay at DLH again and make do with the walk, which really isn't THAT long.
OBB was a blast, and I'm so glad we did it! There were some hiccups at the beginning, but the night thankfully got better and better.
- Clearly I'd been away from DL too long, because we made the rookie mistake of showing up to the turnstiles just before 4 PM, thinking we could afford to rest in the room after our pool day and that we'd still be left with plenty of time to enjoy the park. That was a big OOPS, since we showed up to a looooong line to enter the park and then another long line to get our party wristbands. By the time we were done with the lines, it was time for our 5 PM reservation at Wine Country Trattoria, so definitely a bummer to lose a whole hour of our ticket time in line.
- Wine Country Trattoria was also running late, so our 5 PM reservation was more like 5:20. The restaurant was very nice about it though and offered us a free appetizer to make up for the wait. The food was definitely good, but very generic Italian fare, nothing special, and wayyyy overpriced for the OBB dining package. But the Halloween dessert was really fun (and yummy), and the Oogie Boogie popcorn bucket was a big hit with my son.
- We had hoped to hit a few rides before the first parade, but got stuck close to the front of the line for Monsters Inc. when the ride had to be temporarily stopped due to someone dropping a backpack on the track. A 5-min wait turned into like a 25-30-min wait- oof!
- The first parade also started 20 mins late- I'm starting to feel like the theme of our first few park/party hours was all about waiting! But the parade was awesome, the characters interacted with my son in the front row, and afterwards we made a lot more progress on rides and trick-or-treating!
- By waiting till after the first parade to hit the trick-or-treat trails, we had no lines to wait in for those, and they were a HUGE hit with my son! We only hit 3 of the trails, but between the 3 of us we came home with bags absolutely stuffed with candy! Disney is definitely generous with the trick-or-treating offerings.
- We got to ride WEB SLINGERS on the standby line, no need to deal with getting into a virtual queue- and it was only a 30-minute wait and soo much fun!
- Toy Story Midway Mania was an actual walk-on ride- never seen that before!
And of course, the ambience and magic were so special! I'm definitely planning on us going back next year, either pre-Halloween again or pre-Christmas, and hopefully by then Covid will be long gone so we can stay 3-4 days and see everything. It was a little hard to be so close to the main park and castle, Star Wars Land, etc and not be able to go in, but I felt like just going for the party was safest in light of my little one being unvaccinated. And while the party crowd was bigger than I'd hoped, I also felt pretty safe with our masks, and it wasn't like people were close enough to breathe down your neck in line or anything like that.
We also had a fabulous meal at Ralph Brennan's just before leaving yesterday, and the waitress was kind enough to offer us complimentary beignets for our anniversary! SO delicious, and the people-watching from the patio, with the Disney Halloween music playing, was so great.
Let me know if you have any questions on anything!
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