Just back! Tips and experiences

[mesaboy2]

ITTBAB isn't there anymore? What's the Maleficent thing that replaced it?

ITTBAB will be back in a week or so. Maleficent is temporary while the movie is new.

 

[myers2170]

Yes, there will definitely be a next time...our trip was truly special and magical and would not have been near the success had it not been for this board and all of the posters!!

The wide right thing is dead on!! We weren't even planning to do RSR first thing in morning due to crowds but we ended up front wide right and ended up loading onto the 4th car to hit the track!!

Male fixer is a 3d preview of the movie with similar effects like the ITTBAB show. MIT was excellent. They told me ITTBAB would be back mid June.

 

[Gisele]

Yes, there will definitely be a next time...our trip was truly special and magical and would not have been near the success had it not been for this board and all of the posters!!

The wide right thing is dead on!! We weren't even planning to do RSR first thing in morning due to crowds but we ended up front wide right and ended up loading onto the 4th car to hit the track!!

Male fixer is a 3d preview of the movie with similar effects like the ITTBAB show. MIT was excellent. They told me ITTBAB would be back mid June.

What is a male fixer? lol .... Sounds titilating .....

 

[myers2170]

Oops... That was supposed to be Maleficent"..but I'm glad it peaked your interest!! LOL

 

[FFerret]

Oops... That was supposed to be Maleficent"..but I'm glad it peaked your interest!! LOL

Too funny!
We LOVED Maleficent. Even my jaded DD14 thought it was excellent. I think she has a crush an the Raven.

 

[smiles33]

We were at DL from Saturday, June 7 through Tuesday, June 10.

That's the EXACT same itinerary we had! We arrived Saturday afternoon around 2 and went into the parks because I got a 4th day free from buying 3 day park hoppers from Orbitz. We had 1/2 days on our arrival and departure days, but it was nice to have the extra hours as I wasn't planning to go in on Saturday due to Grad Night. We spent about 4 hours in both DCA and DL and we left the parks by 7:30 (right after we used our Splash Mountain fast passes).

Your quote about Del Sol is actually my same opinion about the Disneyland Hotel.

Del Sol: not really too impressed for the price. The room was clean and really big, otherwise it was nothing special. I really think your paying for the location. Parking is additional, but internet is included.

I missed the free parking at HoJo: $17/night at DLH is pricey! I know there are some huge on-site hotel fans, but those wavering, I hope they read my opinion that it's just ok. Yes, the light-up headboards are nice, but I was not impressed by the overall experience and think my service at HoJo was just as good if not better than DLH service. The headboards and ability to order cocktails in the pool area don't justify the huge up-charge compared to off-site motels. We also never order room service so being at a hotel versus motel isn't an issue for us. Frankly, I'd rather stay at HoJo in a Kids' Suite in the future, so I get twice the space for less money and also a microwave to heat our breakfasts. Plus the walk from HoJo (if you immediately cross over at Manchester) is much less crowded than fighting the hordes in DTD. I prefer walking from HoJo than walking from DLH. The monorail was nice when we were headed to DL, but we spent most of our time at DCA so we didn't use it every time.

I thought crowds would let up Monday, but they really didn't. Tuesday was the same. I thought I had read on the boards that 7 am magic hours were the absolute best and were empty. We used ours Tuesday and it was packed. We had a 20 minute wait for PP and when we were done all the other fantasyland dark rides had long looking lines. We walked by the Matterhorn and it was down, even though there were a lot of people in line. ST was down as well so we went on Buzz twice with 5 minute waits.

Not sure if the rehab of Space and Alice and the fact that Matterhorn and ST were down made the morning hour busier, but it was pretty bad.

We've never been in June, so we were prepared for it to be REALLY bad. So I think we were pleasantly surprised it wasn't as crazy as we thought. In fact, I would say there were only a few moments when it felt MUCH worse than our April or September trips. We spent EMH/Magic Morning on Tuesday morning at DL but I ran for the Elsa/Anna Frozen M&G so we didn't get to PP or other FL rides. I was third in line but DH and the girls hadn't planned to arrive until 8:30 or 9 (I thought it wasn't opening until park open) so then I just let families go ahead of me for 30+ minutes.

As for food, we, too, love corn dogs but got them from the Little Red Cart right around 11 am on Monday when it was a 5 minute line. I also had Cafe Orleans reservations on Monday night just so I could try the Monte Cristo. Good, but I won't be ordering it again--talk about a heart attack on a plate! DH ordered the salmon salad and thought it was only ok (he's the food connoisseur in the family).

-Plaza Inn: after having hundreds of meals in WDW and DL, this was the absolute worst ever. We ate at 10 because I didn't wait to miss the earlier park hours and shorter lines. The following characters were there: Chip, Dale, Fairy Godmother, Hook, Pooh, Eeyore, Tigger, Max, Rafiki, Minnie and maybe a few others I forget. First, I thought the food was pretty near awful, with the exception of the fruit and the mickey waffles. I'm not picky with food usually, but I couldn't eat a lot of it. We were stuck in a corner in the restaurant, and a lot of characters skipped us and the other two tables (that had lots of kids) that were in the corner with us. We told some random CMs, and they said they'd tell the character attendants but the characters never came back. So we never got to see Chip, Dale, Fairy Godmother, Max, Minnie and we basically had to chase down Eeyore on our way out.
I don't think I would have hated it so much if the food were edible. But it is bad enough when you pay a premium to see characters and most of them skip you, when the food is awful that is the final straw. We complained on the way out about the characters and basically got a shrug in return.

-Storytellers Cafe bfast: we scheduled this for our final morning because we had been so let down by Plaza Inn. This was probably the best bfast I have had at a Disney park or hotel. The food was amazing, its also the only buffet I've ever seen offer eggs benedict. The characters were all also amazing, they were playful and spent plenty of time at our table (we saw Brer Bear, Chip, Dale, and the brother bears).

-Big Thunder Ranch BBQ: amazing meal as usual, no complaints. Just make sure to go in hungry.

Your Plaza Inn experience is exactly what we experienced in 2013. It's the worst of the character breakfasts even though some people here seem to think the food is great. We opted for Surf's Up Breakfast as my DDs don't really know any of the Storyteller characters. Decent food (better than Minnie's) and nice character interaction but we won't be going back there either. We also had Goofy's dinner on Saturday, our arrival day, and only met TWO characters at the table (three if you count Goofy at the entrance). Two skipped our table and then we had Splash FP to use so we left. We won't be going there again either, but at least the food was decent.

We tried BTRBBQ on our first trip in 2011. Decent food, but the price wasn't worthwhile for us given the small quantity of food my girls and DH eat. I'm the big eater in our family so I felt like I got my money's worth.

Characters:

we usually aren't big character people, but our last trip to WDW we really got into them so we decided to meet a lot at DL. I think our best interactions were at the Big Thunder Ranch area, we got to meet Rabbit, Brer Rabbit and Bear, Mickey, Minnie, Roger Rabbit, Baloo and Thumper. They were all super playful and fun.

We also got to meet Donald on his birthday.

We really wanted to meet Steamboat Willie, and they have 4 Mickeys back in his house. The character attendant was really great and had us wait aside until they were ready to load Steamboat Willie's room.

We usually do a bunch of M&Gs but this time we just did Frozen and Captain America. I didn't feel like waiting in line for Pixie Hollow, PFF, Toontown, etc. and we've done them all on previous trips. The girls didn't ask for the others so they may be outgrowing this...I do wish I had known about the special M&G at Big Thunder. I think they would've liked meeting all those rabbits!

 

[Gisele]

Oops... That was supposed to be Maleficent"..but I'm glad it peaked your interest!! LOL

Lol.... I know it was most likely a typo, but thought I would have some fun with it anyway.

 

[Blue32]

We are flying home as I type this. I never really felt the parks were "slammed". I was expecting it to be busy and it was. But I can honestly say I enjoyed this trip more than our first, the week after thanksgiving in 2012. The long hours made it possible do much more and by taking a break every day we avoided SOME of the more crowded times of the day. I'll be doing a TR soon as well.

 

[mummabear]

Characters:

we usually aren't big character people, but our last trip to WDW we really got into them so we decided to meet a lot at DL. I think our best interactions were at the Big Thunder Ranch area, we got to meet Rabbit, Brer Rabbit and Bear, Mickey, Minnie, Roger Rabbit, Baloo and Thumper. They were all super playful and fun.


We really wanted to meet Steamboat Willie, and they have 4 Mickeys back in his house. The character attendant was really great and had us wait aside until they were ready to load Steamboat Willie's room.

Any questions?

So is there 4 different Mickeys to meet?

 

[jacobsmommy]

Is this in Mickey's House in Toontown? Which four Mickeys are there? We've done Toontown every trip and didn't know about this!

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

I think I will be doing a TR, though I'm not going to be starting it for a week or two yet.

I'd love to read it! I'm going to do one too soon, except not only will it have DL but San Francisco, coastal road trip, Yosemite backpacking with Half Dome and King's Canyon/Sequoia.

Yes, there will definitely be a next time...our trip was truly special and magical and would not have been near the success had it not been for this board and all of the posters!!

Yeah out first DL trip was supposed to be a one time only kind of thing. Like anyone believed that.

.......

We usually do a bunch of M&Gs but this time we just did Frozen and Captain America. I didn't feel like waiting in line for Pixie Hollow, PFF, Toontown, etc. and we've done them all on previous trips. The girls didn't ask for the others so they may be outgrowing this...I do wish I had known about the special M&G at Big Thunder. I think they would've liked meeting all those rabbits!

I hate it when character meals suck. One of the better ones I've been to was the recent Star Wars characters at Hollywood and Vine. We had a later reservation and character attendants came by constantly checking on who we'd seen and who still needed to come by. In my opinion they should all be like that.

I totally forgot to say! One of our other best character experiences was with the Avengers. We went Sunday afternoon and waited about 20 minutes for Thor. Oh my gosh, the Thor we saw was soooo good. He had the accent down and he was just so much fun to watch. Kind of like a combination of Gaston and Luke Skywalker.

Then we waited about 25 for Captain America, he was ok but didn't do a lot of interaction. We figured we were just one of the odd groups out that didn't get good interaction.

I've always wanted to try the HOJO but our trips are usually only with a few months notice so I always miss the retro rates. Do you keep up with their rates? I get the emails but I forget if they've released retro rates for January...which would be awesome to get since we are doing the DL Star Wars Half.

Yeah the Monte Cristo confused me. Everyone on here said it was the best thing ever, but somehow I missed what it was exactly. When I ordered it at Blue Bayou I was like ah ok its a fried sandwich. It was decent, but kind of just like fair food in my eyes and it wasn't that wonderful.

We stayed at the Disneyland Hotel for one night when they had the Dapper Day rates. I really enjoyed the light up headboard and I enjoyed being close to Trader Sam's...but yeah. I just can't justify the price, even to my Disney crazed self. I mean...I could do one night at the DLH or I could stay for like 3 more days. I think I make a pretty decent salary...but geez that place is expensive.

We've been twice before, once before Carsland so I don't think that even counts and it was dead.

Then after Carsland but it was in early March. So maybe I just wasn't sure what to expect with DL in terms of being crowded or not. Now that I think back on it, the rides were doable with their waits. I think it was just the mass of people in the actual park walking around. We always know where we are going and I walk pretty quickly, so it was pretty annoying to continually have to dodge people walking super slow and it was just hard to even walk in a lot of places.

Disneyland really needs to find space to make a small amphitheater for Fantasmic. I think that would solve a lot of the late day crowding problems. Do they really have no backstage area they could take over for the amphitheater?

We are flying home as I type this. I never really felt the parks were "slammed". I was expecting it to be busy and it was. But I can honestly say I enjoyed this trip more than our first, the week after thanksgiving in 2012. The long hours made it possible do much more and by taking a break every day we avoided SOME of the more crowded times of the day. I'll be doing a TR soon as well.

I'll look out for your trip report! I'm doing one too and it should be interesting to see what we all experienced during the same time.

As I said a little above this, maybe we just hadn't gone during times that were anywhere near crowded before, our first two trips having been a little before Carsland opened and then early March of the following year.

So is there 4 different Mickeys to meet?

Is this in Mickey's House in Toontown? Which four Mickeys are there? We've done Toontown every trip and didn't know about this!

Yep, he has 4 rotating rooms back there. Each group that is let in from the cartoon room sees a differently dressed Mickey (he is an expert at quick costume changes).

I believe one is usually Sorcerer Mickey (we weren't concerned with him since he meets regularly at DHS), one is Steamboat Willie, his tuxedo and then Bandleader outfits.



I'm super excited that I'm all washed out. Thanks CM photographer