pixar mark
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Sep 18, 2012
- Messages
- 77
Intro
My wife, DD6, and I are Disney fanatics. We have been WDW annual pass holders in the past and have gone every year for a while. This is our first trip to DLR and we were very excited to come to where it all began. I have to say we had a great vacation, which included 5 days at Disney and 6 days running around Malibu, Ventura, Santa Barbara, LA, and parts in between. We did one day on Thursday the 22nd and then came back for four more days on Tue-Fri of the next week so we could avoid the 24 hour event and the weekend and holiday crowds. I know this post is very long winded, but I wanted to give you an idea of what we loved, what we didn’t, and how things compared to WDW.
Location and Parks
We stayed at Desert Inn and Suites right across the street. It’s no frills, but very adequate and for $79 a night, free breakfast, and a 5 minute walk it cannot be beat. I love the closeness compared to WDW. Also like the ease of park hopping. Almost didn’t buy it, but we ended up hopping at least twice every single day. Having DTD so close is also a big plus over WDW.
It was nice walking to the park every day and also being close to rental cars and restaurants. However, it has it’s downside in that walking by a Denny’s or a ticket broker on the way to the gate kind of felt weird compared to waking up in the middle of a whole Disney World in FL. We arrived by taxi from SNA and I didn’t feel the magic driving in. We pulled off the highway and immediately saw the back of TOT and a bunch of hotels and restaurants. I missed all the big signs at WDW and all the various Disney resorts looming on the horizon. It kind of felt like arriving at a Six Flags or something.
I never felt the parks were small compared to WDW. DCA was a little compact, but it just meant I could get from one great ride to another with minimal walking time. If I’m being honest, I found DCA to be the more charming and more manageable park compared to DL. Lines were shorter, areas were better themed, shows were better, and even way more Photopass photographers in DCA. I loved both parks, but DCA was our go-to park, especially when it got hot and unbearably crowded in Fantasyland in the afternoons.
Rides
The number and quality of rides is better in DLR than WDW, with only a few exceptions. There were so many things to do that even if one line was long, there was something else nearby that had a 5 minute wait. That was especially true in DCA.
Rides that I thought were better at DLR than WDW:
Pirates – way longer, better themed, bigger drops. One of my top 3 rides.
Small World – LOVED IT!!! Great seeing the characters in the ride. WDW could be so much improved if they just added a few of them. However, the long wait in the sun after you come out of the ride…didn’t care for that.
Space Mountain – love the loading room, the track was smooth, like the two seater cars, great soundtrack during ride. I do however like most of the queue better in WDW including the old synth music and the interactive games. Another of my favorite rides.
Teacups – love the lighting
Autopia – I hate this ride at WDW, but I kind of liked it here. Longer and better track, cars are better, felt more scenic.
Buzz Lightyear – Easier to aim the guns and to tell when you hit the targets.
Pooh – story flows better and stuff just looked more freshly painted or something
Tarzan’s Tree – liked it slightly better than Swiss Family, daughter liked the interactive stuff at end.
Fantasmic – use of the boats was a big improvement, although WDW has much better seating for this.
Tiki Room – dole whip line
Big Thunder – Wow! Super smooth ride, love the new explosions and bats. Queue at WDW is the worst for any ride. This just beats the pants off of WDW.
Rides better at WDW:
Little Mermaid – ride is same but queue is way better at WDW.
Haunted Mansion – Sorry, but I think the outside looks rather silly here. It fits architecturally, but there is nothing scary about it. The WDW building looks so much more haunted. Also, WDW has all the interactive queue games and activities. There are a few ride details better at WDW too, but this one is mostly due to the queue and exterior.
Tower of Terror – random drop sequence, moving down the hallway…DCA ride seemed short
Dumbo – dual rides and the playground
Jungle Cruise – seemed like a few scenes were missing from DL like the tunnel. Queue is horrendous at DL. We went at night and things weren’t well lit up either.
Everything else seemed to be pretty much the same at both parks.
New attractions we loved:
RSR – our favorite ride. The model of what every new ride should be…scenic, thrilling, and have a dark ride component. Plus the random choice of room at the end and the race give it re-rideability.
Redwood Creek – daughter hit this three times. Loved running around and especially liked the zip line and climbing wall
WOC – possibly the best night show I’ve seen.
Monsters Inc – one of our favorite movies and they did it justice with the ride
Aladdin show – very high production value and Genie is amazing! Rivals AK’s Finding Nemo show as the best show on property.
Mr. Lincoln – I’m from Springfield, IL, Lincoln’s home, so it was very cool to see our hometown boy and our state flag in DL. For being an old attraction, I thought it still was very moving and a classic, well done attraction.
CA Screamin – Best pure Disney roller coaster. I still like Rockin Rollercoaster at HS due to the music and darkride theme, but this one is more thrilling.
Mr. Toad and Pinocchio – old and simple (and at times odd and non-PC), but they are well themed and fun.
Casey Jr. – I didn’t care for the boats, but thought the train was pretty good due to the hills, the soundtrack, and the higher views. I had low expectations and was pleasantly surprised.
Magical Map Show – love that the princesses perform, excellent show.
Rides that I didn’t love:
Matterhorn – it’s not bad, but it’s pretty bone jarring and not too thrilling. If it were a 10 minute wait, it would be worth it. Not worth 30+ mins.
Storybrook Canal – Didn’t help that I waited an hour (see below), as it certainly wasn’t worth it. Model houses seemed too small of scale. Would have been a great little ride if everything was about 3x the size.
Indiana Jones – I’m sure this will be unpopular, but I just thought this ride was OK. Queue is amazing and the openness of the rooms were great so you could glimpse what was coming next. The sets looked amazing. My problem was with the violence of the ride. I love thrill rides, but this one was so jerky that I couldn’t even see what was going on around me due to being thrown all over the car. It didn’t need to be that rough and it just detracts from the views. Also, I didn’t really follow the story, the scenes with Jones were a bit lame, and the big boulder didn’t work the second time I rode it. I’d give it about a 6.5 out of 10, but not worthy of more than a 20 minute wait.
Snow White – It was a bad ride in WDW and it’s a bad ride in DL. Hard to follow, dark, and no resolution, not to mention old.
Roger Rabbit – wanted so bad to like this. Had daughter watch the movie beforehand. I think she enjoyed this ride but I did not. The spinning was interesting but the ride was just a series of seemingly unrelated, nonsensical scenes. The audio was garbled. I had no idea what I was looking at.
I liked everything at DCA, even Luigi’s and Goofy’s. Fun wheel was a little boring (didn’t do swinging ones) but it’s a Ferris wheel.
Food
This doesn’t cover everything I ate, but it hits the highlights…
• The Blue Bayou Monte Cristo and mint julep lived up to the hype and then some. Probably my favorite meal of the trip.
• Mickey head beignets were good but overrated in my opinion.
• Plaza Inn chicken was very good. Not the best I’ve ever had…we have good fried chicken in the South and Midwest, but very tasty. Would eat again.
• Plaza Inn breakfast was surprisingly good, especially the French toast with caramel sauce.
• The fried green tomato sandwich at Hungry Bear was interesting. I could have done with less/no sauce but it wasn’t bad.
• The pina colada churro was very tasty at DTD…better than the salted caramel which was also good. The churros were kind of hard to chew though…actually had a better churro at Santa Monica pier.
• The Hawaiian BBQ at Earl of Sandwich still the best value around. A favorite when we go to WDW.
• French Dip and the chocolate mousse cake from French Market almost tied the Monte Cristo for best meal.
• Little disappointed in the chicken tacos at RDZ. Chicken had a buffalo type sauce that was not great and a little hotter than I wanted. Love the atmosphere…let down by the food.
• Chowder in bread bowl at PWC was tasty and got to relax in the shade and catch the Pixar parade.
• Both the pork loin and the roast beef at Flo’s were solid choices.
• Red Wagon corn dog…conflicted on this one. The breading was very thick and yummy. However, it was so thick I could barely eat it and my girl couldn’t even bite it. I think my expectations were too high due to the hype. In the end, it’s just a good corndog, but a corndog all the same.
Operation of the park
This is where I found DLR flawed and quite lacking when compared to WDW. Part of it is the lack of service tunnels so that you see princesses emerging from doors in Tomorrowland, guys in coonskin hats on Mainstreet, 4 carts of cameras and lighting equipment for some shoot being trucked through the park at opening…these things are nonexistent at WDW and took me out of the magic a little. Even seeing all the CMs walking to work and walking into the park was strange, although not a huge deal. But I saw other problems too:
• Stuff just didn’t ever start on time…two shows, one parade, F!, rope drop….everything seemed to be 5 to 10 minutes late. And no, my clock wasn’t ahead of Disney’s clocks.
• Character meets that don’t have a set place were chaos. I watched Belle at the front gate try to regulate her line. She had no handler and was trying to tell people to cut the line off. They ignored her and kept coming. She was meeting one set of guests while trying to tell others not to get in line. Just have a handler out there working the lines. Also saw multiple lines form or sometimes no lines at all with people just mobbing the character. Bad system.
• Fastpass…Look, I like that DLR still has the old FP system, so that’s a plus. Also love that the parks are disconnected and that some of the rides are also disconnected. My problem is with a few of the lines. FP should take you to the loading area, or at least very near it. I think we waited almost 20-30 minutes in Indiana Jones even using FP. RSR was pretty good, as was Splash, but Space Mountain and Star Tours also took a while, and I might be forgetting something else. I think WDW has the same problems on a few rides, so it’s not a DLR criticism.
• Photopass workers were so inconsistent. Had a few great ones, one that did a 15 minute shoot with us around Cars and Bugs including lots of magic shots. But also ran into lots that gave misinformation. Almost nobody would do the magic shots but they would tell you so and so in this part of the park will do them. I go there and they won’t do them, but they say the guy I just talked to in the other land should have been able to do them. Everybody passing the buck and some say a certain shot is possible and others say it’s retired. Train the photographers please. Also had two handlers and two photographers at Mickey’s house (maybe shift change, but all seemed to be working) but then other places had none of either.
• I will say that the $69 price for Photopass is an absolute steal. We did a character meal, had about a dozen ride photos, and over 150 other shots including magic shots. It was so easy and fun to take these pics and we all got to be in them as a family. Never did this at WDW because the price is like double.
• The queues…oh man. I don’t understand the outdoor queues in the blazing sun. Yes, I understand that rain is not the problem that it is in Florida. But it was like 88 and sunny a few days and we just melted in a few lines. Plant more trees, put up canopies, something. I get that there isn’t enough space to have indoor lines, but please shade them. Plus you can tell the indoor portions are old because they are so tight, I don’t see how bigger people even fit through a few spots. Pinocchio and the upstairs of Jungle Cruise come to mind as some tight spots.
• Elsa and Anna…luckily I got there way before park open and had only a 15 minute wait. But my daughter’s main objective for this trip was to meet Elsa. Sure enough, we get in there and it’s only Anna! Come on Disney, this makes no sense that in a city full of actresses, you can’t find someone that would look reasonably similar in a wig and costume. The disappointment at a slightly off Elsa would be far less than not meeting her at all. Also, one guy actually jumped over the turnstile (after scanning his ticket) a full 5 minutes before they let people in. They yelled at him to come back, but he kept running and was first in line. Why they let him stay there is beyond me. Same with all the runners…if you played by the rules and walked you were rewarded with hours of wait. Start enforcing some rules or just line people up by the turnstiles instead of the hub.
• Ticketing is messed up too. Sometimes they scanned for your picture, sometimes not. Sometimes you needed an ID, sometimes not. Sometimes you needed a hand stamp, sometimes not. Once they checked for a stamp and ours had worn off due to swimming…they just let us in anyway. No consistency. And do stuff like exchanging vouchers, taking pics, etc at the ticket booth, not the turnstile…it slows everything down.
• Broken rides were a problem. I’m not talking about referbs. I’m talking about unplanned outages. Did my MM in Fantasyland and after hitting Matterhorn and Mr. Toad, we stood in line for Pinocchio only to be told it needed a 5-10 minute restart. After 10 mins, they said another 10. We left and went to Snow White, only to have it shut down. I went and grabbed RSR fast passes and when I returned at noon to ride that, it was down. On another day, went straight to Toy Story at rope drop only to have it down. This really screws up your plans when rides go down in the first hour and you waste low crowd time standing in a non-moving line. Also, seemed like Splash was down virtually every time I was in the area. Only rode it once out of 5 days in DL.
• Rides operating at below capacity besides high crowds. I did single rider twice on CA Screamin’. First, this is the dumbest setup with people having to take two sets of elevators to get to the loading platform. Then you get over there and get ignored as the CMs are only concerned about the regular line. They were letting cars go with one person in them while we stood and watched. We ended up having to basically walk up there ourselves when we saw an opening because the CMs weren’t paying attention. Saw lots of empty seats or even whole cars on lots of rides. That’s ok when the wait is 5 minutes…give people space to spread out. But when the line is 20+ minutes, it’s time to fill them up.
• Storybrook Canal was even worse. Went there right at 9:00 and got in what should have been about a 10 minute line had they been operating normally. But they were running only two boats. We waited in line almost an hour. Right before we boarded, they brought out three more boats and said it was their policy to not bring them out until the lines were long. Gee thanks.
Despite all of these issues, we still had a great time. I didn’t come across one bad CM, and I had several exceptional CMs. I blame policy and management for the problems, not the CMs (with maybe the exception of the single rider line issues). I don’t really know if I have a favorite park between WDW and DLR. They are different and both have strengths and weaknesses. I think there are reasons to go to both parks and enjoy them for what they are. So glad we got to come to Disneyland and hope we can return again in a few years!
My wife, DD6, and I are Disney fanatics. We have been WDW annual pass holders in the past and have gone every year for a while. This is our first trip to DLR and we were very excited to come to where it all began. I have to say we had a great vacation, which included 5 days at Disney and 6 days running around Malibu, Ventura, Santa Barbara, LA, and parts in between. We did one day on Thursday the 22nd and then came back for four more days on Tue-Fri of the next week so we could avoid the 24 hour event and the weekend and holiday crowds. I know this post is very long winded, but I wanted to give you an idea of what we loved, what we didn’t, and how things compared to WDW.
Location and Parks
We stayed at Desert Inn and Suites right across the street. It’s no frills, but very adequate and for $79 a night, free breakfast, and a 5 minute walk it cannot be beat. I love the closeness compared to WDW. Also like the ease of park hopping. Almost didn’t buy it, but we ended up hopping at least twice every single day. Having DTD so close is also a big plus over WDW.
It was nice walking to the park every day and also being close to rental cars and restaurants. However, it has it’s downside in that walking by a Denny’s or a ticket broker on the way to the gate kind of felt weird compared to waking up in the middle of a whole Disney World in FL. We arrived by taxi from SNA and I didn’t feel the magic driving in. We pulled off the highway and immediately saw the back of TOT and a bunch of hotels and restaurants. I missed all the big signs at WDW and all the various Disney resorts looming on the horizon. It kind of felt like arriving at a Six Flags or something.
I never felt the parks were small compared to WDW. DCA was a little compact, but it just meant I could get from one great ride to another with minimal walking time. If I’m being honest, I found DCA to be the more charming and more manageable park compared to DL. Lines were shorter, areas were better themed, shows were better, and even way more Photopass photographers in DCA. I loved both parks, but DCA was our go-to park, especially when it got hot and unbearably crowded in Fantasyland in the afternoons.
Rides
The number and quality of rides is better in DLR than WDW, with only a few exceptions. There were so many things to do that even if one line was long, there was something else nearby that had a 5 minute wait. That was especially true in DCA.
Rides that I thought were better at DLR than WDW:
Pirates – way longer, better themed, bigger drops. One of my top 3 rides.
Small World – LOVED IT!!! Great seeing the characters in the ride. WDW could be so much improved if they just added a few of them. However, the long wait in the sun after you come out of the ride…didn’t care for that.
Space Mountain – love the loading room, the track was smooth, like the two seater cars, great soundtrack during ride. I do however like most of the queue better in WDW including the old synth music and the interactive games. Another of my favorite rides.
Teacups – love the lighting
Autopia – I hate this ride at WDW, but I kind of liked it here. Longer and better track, cars are better, felt more scenic.
Buzz Lightyear – Easier to aim the guns and to tell when you hit the targets.
Pooh – story flows better and stuff just looked more freshly painted or something
Tarzan’s Tree – liked it slightly better than Swiss Family, daughter liked the interactive stuff at end.
Fantasmic – use of the boats was a big improvement, although WDW has much better seating for this.
Tiki Room – dole whip line
Big Thunder – Wow! Super smooth ride, love the new explosions and bats. Queue at WDW is the worst for any ride. This just beats the pants off of WDW.
Rides better at WDW:
Little Mermaid – ride is same but queue is way better at WDW.
Haunted Mansion – Sorry, but I think the outside looks rather silly here. It fits architecturally, but there is nothing scary about it. The WDW building looks so much more haunted. Also, WDW has all the interactive queue games and activities. There are a few ride details better at WDW too, but this one is mostly due to the queue and exterior.
Tower of Terror – random drop sequence, moving down the hallway…DCA ride seemed short
Dumbo – dual rides and the playground
Jungle Cruise – seemed like a few scenes were missing from DL like the tunnel. Queue is horrendous at DL. We went at night and things weren’t well lit up either.
Everything else seemed to be pretty much the same at both parks.
New attractions we loved:
RSR – our favorite ride. The model of what every new ride should be…scenic, thrilling, and have a dark ride component. Plus the random choice of room at the end and the race give it re-rideability.
Redwood Creek – daughter hit this three times. Loved running around and especially liked the zip line and climbing wall
WOC – possibly the best night show I’ve seen.
Monsters Inc – one of our favorite movies and they did it justice with the ride
Aladdin show – very high production value and Genie is amazing! Rivals AK’s Finding Nemo show as the best show on property.
Mr. Lincoln – I’m from Springfield, IL, Lincoln’s home, so it was very cool to see our hometown boy and our state flag in DL. For being an old attraction, I thought it still was very moving and a classic, well done attraction.
CA Screamin – Best pure Disney roller coaster. I still like Rockin Rollercoaster at HS due to the music and darkride theme, but this one is more thrilling.
Mr. Toad and Pinocchio – old and simple (and at times odd and non-PC), but they are well themed and fun.
Casey Jr. – I didn’t care for the boats, but thought the train was pretty good due to the hills, the soundtrack, and the higher views. I had low expectations and was pleasantly surprised.
Magical Map Show – love that the princesses perform, excellent show.
Rides that I didn’t love:
Matterhorn – it’s not bad, but it’s pretty bone jarring and not too thrilling. If it were a 10 minute wait, it would be worth it. Not worth 30+ mins.
Storybrook Canal – Didn’t help that I waited an hour (see below), as it certainly wasn’t worth it. Model houses seemed too small of scale. Would have been a great little ride if everything was about 3x the size.
Indiana Jones – I’m sure this will be unpopular, but I just thought this ride was OK. Queue is amazing and the openness of the rooms were great so you could glimpse what was coming next. The sets looked amazing. My problem was with the violence of the ride. I love thrill rides, but this one was so jerky that I couldn’t even see what was going on around me due to being thrown all over the car. It didn’t need to be that rough and it just detracts from the views. Also, I didn’t really follow the story, the scenes with Jones were a bit lame, and the big boulder didn’t work the second time I rode it. I’d give it about a 6.5 out of 10, but not worthy of more than a 20 minute wait.
Snow White – It was a bad ride in WDW and it’s a bad ride in DL. Hard to follow, dark, and no resolution, not to mention old.
Roger Rabbit – wanted so bad to like this. Had daughter watch the movie beforehand. I think she enjoyed this ride but I did not. The spinning was interesting but the ride was just a series of seemingly unrelated, nonsensical scenes. The audio was garbled. I had no idea what I was looking at.
I liked everything at DCA, even Luigi’s and Goofy’s. Fun wheel was a little boring (didn’t do swinging ones) but it’s a Ferris wheel.
Food
This doesn’t cover everything I ate, but it hits the highlights…
• The Blue Bayou Monte Cristo and mint julep lived up to the hype and then some. Probably my favorite meal of the trip.
• Mickey head beignets were good but overrated in my opinion.
• Plaza Inn chicken was very good. Not the best I’ve ever had…we have good fried chicken in the South and Midwest, but very tasty. Would eat again.
• Plaza Inn breakfast was surprisingly good, especially the French toast with caramel sauce.
• The fried green tomato sandwich at Hungry Bear was interesting. I could have done with less/no sauce but it wasn’t bad.
• The pina colada churro was very tasty at DTD…better than the salted caramel which was also good. The churros were kind of hard to chew though…actually had a better churro at Santa Monica pier.
• The Hawaiian BBQ at Earl of Sandwich still the best value around. A favorite when we go to WDW.
• French Dip and the chocolate mousse cake from French Market almost tied the Monte Cristo for best meal.
• Little disappointed in the chicken tacos at RDZ. Chicken had a buffalo type sauce that was not great and a little hotter than I wanted. Love the atmosphere…let down by the food.
• Chowder in bread bowl at PWC was tasty and got to relax in the shade and catch the Pixar parade.
• Both the pork loin and the roast beef at Flo’s were solid choices.
• Red Wagon corn dog…conflicted on this one. The breading was very thick and yummy. However, it was so thick I could barely eat it and my girl couldn’t even bite it. I think my expectations were too high due to the hype. In the end, it’s just a good corndog, but a corndog all the same.
Operation of the park
This is where I found DLR flawed and quite lacking when compared to WDW. Part of it is the lack of service tunnels so that you see princesses emerging from doors in Tomorrowland, guys in coonskin hats on Mainstreet, 4 carts of cameras and lighting equipment for some shoot being trucked through the park at opening…these things are nonexistent at WDW and took me out of the magic a little. Even seeing all the CMs walking to work and walking into the park was strange, although not a huge deal. But I saw other problems too:
• Stuff just didn’t ever start on time…two shows, one parade, F!, rope drop….everything seemed to be 5 to 10 minutes late. And no, my clock wasn’t ahead of Disney’s clocks.
• Character meets that don’t have a set place were chaos. I watched Belle at the front gate try to regulate her line. She had no handler and was trying to tell people to cut the line off. They ignored her and kept coming. She was meeting one set of guests while trying to tell others not to get in line. Just have a handler out there working the lines. Also saw multiple lines form or sometimes no lines at all with people just mobbing the character. Bad system.
• Fastpass…Look, I like that DLR still has the old FP system, so that’s a plus. Also love that the parks are disconnected and that some of the rides are also disconnected. My problem is with a few of the lines. FP should take you to the loading area, or at least very near it. I think we waited almost 20-30 minutes in Indiana Jones even using FP. RSR was pretty good, as was Splash, but Space Mountain and Star Tours also took a while, and I might be forgetting something else. I think WDW has the same problems on a few rides, so it’s not a DLR criticism.
• Photopass workers were so inconsistent. Had a few great ones, one that did a 15 minute shoot with us around Cars and Bugs including lots of magic shots. But also ran into lots that gave misinformation. Almost nobody would do the magic shots but they would tell you so and so in this part of the park will do them. I go there and they won’t do them, but they say the guy I just talked to in the other land should have been able to do them. Everybody passing the buck and some say a certain shot is possible and others say it’s retired. Train the photographers please. Also had two handlers and two photographers at Mickey’s house (maybe shift change, but all seemed to be working) but then other places had none of either.
• I will say that the $69 price for Photopass is an absolute steal. We did a character meal, had about a dozen ride photos, and over 150 other shots including magic shots. It was so easy and fun to take these pics and we all got to be in them as a family. Never did this at WDW because the price is like double.
• The queues…oh man. I don’t understand the outdoor queues in the blazing sun. Yes, I understand that rain is not the problem that it is in Florida. But it was like 88 and sunny a few days and we just melted in a few lines. Plant more trees, put up canopies, something. I get that there isn’t enough space to have indoor lines, but please shade them. Plus you can tell the indoor portions are old because they are so tight, I don’t see how bigger people even fit through a few spots. Pinocchio and the upstairs of Jungle Cruise come to mind as some tight spots.
• Elsa and Anna…luckily I got there way before park open and had only a 15 minute wait. But my daughter’s main objective for this trip was to meet Elsa. Sure enough, we get in there and it’s only Anna! Come on Disney, this makes no sense that in a city full of actresses, you can’t find someone that would look reasonably similar in a wig and costume. The disappointment at a slightly off Elsa would be far less than not meeting her at all. Also, one guy actually jumped over the turnstile (after scanning his ticket) a full 5 minutes before they let people in. They yelled at him to come back, but he kept running and was first in line. Why they let him stay there is beyond me. Same with all the runners…if you played by the rules and walked you were rewarded with hours of wait. Start enforcing some rules or just line people up by the turnstiles instead of the hub.
• Ticketing is messed up too. Sometimes they scanned for your picture, sometimes not. Sometimes you needed an ID, sometimes not. Sometimes you needed a hand stamp, sometimes not. Once they checked for a stamp and ours had worn off due to swimming…they just let us in anyway. No consistency. And do stuff like exchanging vouchers, taking pics, etc at the ticket booth, not the turnstile…it slows everything down.
• Broken rides were a problem. I’m not talking about referbs. I’m talking about unplanned outages. Did my MM in Fantasyland and after hitting Matterhorn and Mr. Toad, we stood in line for Pinocchio only to be told it needed a 5-10 minute restart. After 10 mins, they said another 10. We left and went to Snow White, only to have it shut down. I went and grabbed RSR fast passes and when I returned at noon to ride that, it was down. On another day, went straight to Toy Story at rope drop only to have it down. This really screws up your plans when rides go down in the first hour and you waste low crowd time standing in a non-moving line. Also, seemed like Splash was down virtually every time I was in the area. Only rode it once out of 5 days in DL.
• Rides operating at below capacity besides high crowds. I did single rider twice on CA Screamin’. First, this is the dumbest setup with people having to take two sets of elevators to get to the loading platform. Then you get over there and get ignored as the CMs are only concerned about the regular line. They were letting cars go with one person in them while we stood and watched. We ended up having to basically walk up there ourselves when we saw an opening because the CMs weren’t paying attention. Saw lots of empty seats or even whole cars on lots of rides. That’s ok when the wait is 5 minutes…give people space to spread out. But when the line is 20+ minutes, it’s time to fill them up.
• Storybrook Canal was even worse. Went there right at 9:00 and got in what should have been about a 10 minute line had they been operating normally. But they were running only two boats. We waited in line almost an hour. Right before we boarded, they brought out three more boats and said it was their policy to not bring them out until the lines were long. Gee thanks.
Despite all of these issues, we still had a great time. I didn’t come across one bad CM, and I had several exceptional CMs. I blame policy and management for the problems, not the CMs (with maybe the exception of the single rider line issues). I don’t really know if I have a favorite park between WDW and DLR. They are different and both have strengths and weaknesses. I think there are reasons to go to both parks and enjoy them for what they are. So glad we got to come to Disneyland and hope we can return again in a few years!
