Stitchwitch
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Aug 8, 2012
- Messages
- 16
Just back today from our trip and here are our thoughts. We are Mom, Dad, DS (12), DD (9), Grandma, and Grandpa
We typically visit DL every 2 or 3 years. The last trip we took was Spring Break 2016 when Galaxy’s Edge had been announced and the Rivers of America and the train were shut down. When we were on that trip we decided to go again in 3 years to see GE. As 2019 arrived I seriously considered delaying another year due to concerns about crowds. However for this trip we planned to go with my parents who are in their mid 70’s and I just didn’t want to delay since they are currently pretty mobile and in good health (knock on wood). We decided to expect crazy crowds and went ahead and booked prior to the announcement of the opening date. I did make a mistake in that we booked a prepaid vacation package through a travel agent. I usually book everything separately but at the time the package was a couple of hundred dollars less expensive. Of course we all know what happened with the crowds and had I made a stand alone hotel reservation I could have cancelled it and rebooked at a lower rate when prices dropped. Oh well, lesson learned.
Our nephew moved to Sacramento last year so we booked a flight into Sacramento to visit him and then planned to drive to Anaheim and fly out of SNA. About a month ago he took a job in Detroit and moved so we changed plans at the last minute and decided to visit Monterey. We still flew into Sacramento and drove about 4 hours to Monterey. We all thought Monterey was amazing. The aquarium is world class and we saw sea otters swimming in the wild! The Pebble Beach 17 mile drive was gorgeous and we explored tide pools. We’ll definitely be revisiting that area again someday. The drive to Anaheim was about 5.5 hours and on a Sunday there really wasn’t much traffic.
In Anaheim we stayed at the HoJo which is our absolute favorite hotel. We’ve stayed at other hotels on Harbor but we greatly prefer the HoJo. The pool area is just so nice and secluded, the service is excellent and even though that spray park is really best for kids younger than mine they still enjoy it.
Park hours were reduced while we were there with opening at 9am. This turned out fine given the extra sleep was well needed. The 9pm closing of CA was really annoying though. Crowds felt amazingly light to us M-W and then more crowded Thurs and Fri. Overall crowds definitely felt much lighter than our last trip at Spring Break. We bought Max Pass every day and loved it. We did have a few hours on a couple of days where it didn’t work but most of the time it was functioning and the longest we waited for anything was 45 min for Smugglers Run.
We did the Hungry Bear Fantasmic package and I felt like it was well worth it. The food was fine. I thought the BBQ sauce was too sweet but that’s a personal preference. My dad did have a hard time sitting on the ground. It’s unfortunate that the only way to get a seat for that show is that premium Riverbelle Terrace package where I understand you could get a table with a poor view.
It was a treat getting to watch the MSEP. Honestly it was a bit emotional for me given I remember it well from my childhood visits. We were able to find seats on a bench by the Matterhorn across from the Tinkerbelle meet and greet about 1.5 hours before the first show.
We visited GE a couple of times. While we were very impressed by the detail and immersiveness of the land we honestly found it a bit boring. We are definitely not the target audience for this land, which is totally fine. Neither my kids nor my parents had much patience or interest in playing around with the app and we weren’t interested in spending a lot on expensive souvenirs. Unfortunately I let my kids watch videos about merch before we went and then they were heart broken when they were out of Porgs, some of the droid colors and personality chips. My fault for getting their hopes up and definitely first world problems. My son still had fun building his BB unit and my daughter ended up finding a small porg that sits on your shoulder in Star Traders. The Smugglers Run ride was a lot more fun than I expected, especially when you are a pilot. We found the wait to be around 40 or 45 min around 5pm. We really did not like the food at Docking Bay 7. The Shaak roast tasted good but the veggies mixed in gave it a weird texture. My daughter’s shrimp noodle kids meal and the kids Tip Yip chicken meals were simply awful in our opinion. We are actually quite adventurous eaters, so it wasn’t an issue of simply preferring typical theme park food.
We did eat plenty of wonderful meals. Our favorites were: the Poke bowl at Bengal BBQ, Turkey sandwich at Pacific Wharf Cafe, Gyro fries at Paradise Garden Grill, Spinach Salad at Jolly Holiday, Num Num cookie, Churro Toffee, Blue Plate special at Flos. The French Market had this cherry vanilla cake for the Haunted Mansion anniversary that was amazing.
We did 5 days in the parks with hoppers, which was perfect. Enough time to do almost everything we wanted and several things more than once. It was an amazing trip. I’m not sure when we’ll be back. We plan now on saving for 3 years and then doing a big trip to Asia where we will visit the orphanages our kids lived in (we adopted our kids from China) and we will be doing Tokyo Disneyland.
We typically visit DL every 2 or 3 years. The last trip we took was Spring Break 2016 when Galaxy’s Edge had been announced and the Rivers of America and the train were shut down. When we were on that trip we decided to go again in 3 years to see GE. As 2019 arrived I seriously considered delaying another year due to concerns about crowds. However for this trip we planned to go with my parents who are in their mid 70’s and I just didn’t want to delay since they are currently pretty mobile and in good health (knock on wood). We decided to expect crazy crowds and went ahead and booked prior to the announcement of the opening date. I did make a mistake in that we booked a prepaid vacation package through a travel agent. I usually book everything separately but at the time the package was a couple of hundred dollars less expensive. Of course we all know what happened with the crowds and had I made a stand alone hotel reservation I could have cancelled it and rebooked at a lower rate when prices dropped. Oh well, lesson learned.
Our nephew moved to Sacramento last year so we booked a flight into Sacramento to visit him and then planned to drive to Anaheim and fly out of SNA. About a month ago he took a job in Detroit and moved so we changed plans at the last minute and decided to visit Monterey. We still flew into Sacramento and drove about 4 hours to Monterey. We all thought Monterey was amazing. The aquarium is world class and we saw sea otters swimming in the wild! The Pebble Beach 17 mile drive was gorgeous and we explored tide pools. We’ll definitely be revisiting that area again someday. The drive to Anaheim was about 5.5 hours and on a Sunday there really wasn’t much traffic.
In Anaheim we stayed at the HoJo which is our absolute favorite hotel. We’ve stayed at other hotels on Harbor but we greatly prefer the HoJo. The pool area is just so nice and secluded, the service is excellent and even though that spray park is really best for kids younger than mine they still enjoy it.
Park hours were reduced while we were there with opening at 9am. This turned out fine given the extra sleep was well needed. The 9pm closing of CA was really annoying though. Crowds felt amazingly light to us M-W and then more crowded Thurs and Fri. Overall crowds definitely felt much lighter than our last trip at Spring Break. We bought Max Pass every day and loved it. We did have a few hours on a couple of days where it didn’t work but most of the time it was functioning and the longest we waited for anything was 45 min for Smugglers Run.
We did the Hungry Bear Fantasmic package and I felt like it was well worth it. The food was fine. I thought the BBQ sauce was too sweet but that’s a personal preference. My dad did have a hard time sitting on the ground. It’s unfortunate that the only way to get a seat for that show is that premium Riverbelle Terrace package where I understand you could get a table with a poor view.
It was a treat getting to watch the MSEP. Honestly it was a bit emotional for me given I remember it well from my childhood visits. We were able to find seats on a bench by the Matterhorn across from the Tinkerbelle meet and greet about 1.5 hours before the first show.
We visited GE a couple of times. While we were very impressed by the detail and immersiveness of the land we honestly found it a bit boring. We are definitely not the target audience for this land, which is totally fine. Neither my kids nor my parents had much patience or interest in playing around with the app and we weren’t interested in spending a lot on expensive souvenirs. Unfortunately I let my kids watch videos about merch before we went and then they were heart broken when they were out of Porgs, some of the droid colors and personality chips. My fault for getting their hopes up and definitely first world problems. My son still had fun building his BB unit and my daughter ended up finding a small porg that sits on your shoulder in Star Traders. The Smugglers Run ride was a lot more fun than I expected, especially when you are a pilot. We found the wait to be around 40 or 45 min around 5pm. We really did not like the food at Docking Bay 7. The Shaak roast tasted good but the veggies mixed in gave it a weird texture. My daughter’s shrimp noodle kids meal and the kids Tip Yip chicken meals were simply awful in our opinion. We are actually quite adventurous eaters, so it wasn’t an issue of simply preferring typical theme park food.
We did eat plenty of wonderful meals. Our favorites were: the Poke bowl at Bengal BBQ, Turkey sandwich at Pacific Wharf Cafe, Gyro fries at Paradise Garden Grill, Spinach Salad at Jolly Holiday, Num Num cookie, Churro Toffee, Blue Plate special at Flos. The French Market had this cherry vanilla cake for the Haunted Mansion anniversary that was amazing.
We did 5 days in the parks with hoppers, which was perfect. Enough time to do almost everything we wanted and several things more than once. It was an amazing trip. I’m not sure when we’ll be back. We plan now on saving for 3 years and then doing a big trip to Asia where we will visit the orphanages our kids lived in (we adopted our kids from China) and we will be doing Tokyo Disneyland.
I live in Monterey County and its great here year long. Not too cold or too hot compared to the Bay Area.
