My husband and I are huge fans of Disney, we've been to WDW twice and DLRP 3 times (only because it's close and we can get a fix, it's by no means our favourite) so when we booked our California road trip, visiting the original Disney park was a must! We had a lot to cram into 2 weeks so could only spare 2 days for the parks. We booked the Park Vue Inn because it was so close and LOVED it! More on that later.
So...February 28th 7pm - We arrive at PVI after a long drive from the Grand Canyon where it had been snowing so we were a bit cold and weary but very excited. We checked in and instantly fell in love with the hotel, we could see the park sign from the hotel right across the road and arrived just in time to take advantage of the dinner that was offered, soup and bread after a long drive was greatly appreciated! We then made our way over to Downtown and loved the layout, everything so close, no buses or monorails for us! We were still a bit jetlagged and we had an early wake up call for leap day so after having a wander around the Disneyland hotel we headed back for a jacuzzi at the PVI, heaven!
February 29th 4am - Still jetlagged and wide awake we thought we may as well get up and have a leisurely 'getting ready' rather than the 30 second shower we had planned, headed out of our room around 5.50 to see...a massive queue! Rather naiively I had assumed it wouldn't be too packed at 6am with the crowds arriving after school and work and we briefly considered going back to bed but joined the queue and were pleasantly surprised at how quickly it was moving. As we got closer to bag check we saw lots of people in pajamas with the free hats obviously heading back to their rooms which really annoyed me. Surely the whole point of the hat was to give it to the first 2000 people into the park not the 2000 people who'd slept on the road who were then going back to bed?! Never mind, less people in the park for us to grapple with. We were on main street by 6.30 with our badges and instantly LOVED it! So much attention to detail and lovely to see Walt's actual apartment above the fire station. That was the thing that we kept coming back to every few hours in the park, Walt actually walked these streets and designed and it does indeed feel just that little bit more special because of that.
Park experience - QUEUES in odd places! Jolly Holiday Bakery, Lockers, to get your photo with the leap day sign?! We took advantage of these queues, headed straight to Space to get a fastpass and made our way through the castle to Fantasyland. It is obviously smaller than MK but we really loved the feeling, almost as if you were in a real Disney story as opposed to a theme park. We went on Mr Toad's wild ride with a 2 minute wait then IASW before Casey Jr. IASW was so much better than MK, loved the characters in all the worlds, why don't they do that in the other parks?! We then went over to BTM where we waited about 25 minutes, our longest wait of the day. Grabbed a FP for Indiana Jones then over to Space! Best Space in all the parks!! The one is Paris is offensively bad and whilst I love the ridiculousness of the one at MK, DL's version is by far superior! We were aware of people around but it didn't feel too busy. We have been at DLRP at French half term so we know busy! Really enjoyed Jungle Cruise, we had a very sarcastic CM who really made the trip. Indiana Jones was great too, it's a horrid rollercoaster in Paris which is rough and painful so this was a very welcome new experience. By this point, it was about 9.30am so we headed over to CA to get a FP for World of Color. About a 5 minute wait then picked up our blue section FPs.
I'm getting a bit bored of my own rambling now so I'll just list the things we enjoyed!
Screamin - great fun, smooth ride, loved the view at the top into Cars land!
Little Mermiad - LOVED it! I'm a huge fan of the film and thought this ride was perfect, the animatronics were so advanced, they moved really well and really looked like they were under water!
Soarin' - One of our favourites at WDW so no surprise we enjoyed it here just as much, we didn't get front row so we had a few feet dangling but loved it all the same. The smells seem a lot more potent than they are at Epcot?!
Pacific Wharf Cafe - I had been dreaming about soup in a bread bowl so when I got the queue and saw they make the broccoli and cheddar soup with chicken stock I was so disappointed!! Being vegetarian and all. Why make a vegetarian soup and flavour it with chicken stock?! Never mind, the veggie chilli was lovely and the bread, delicious!
Things we didn't enjoy so much
Mike and Sully - Felt like we queued for ages for this one and it was all a bit...meh. Not particulary exciting or dynamic, nothing new really that you can't see on any other ride.
Finding Nemo submarine voyage - We went on this on day 2 of our park adventure and queued for 45 minutes even though there didn't seem like there was that many people in front of us. When we finally boarded ourselves we understood the delay. It's such a ridiculously long process to get everyone on and off! You hope the ride will be worth it and it is kind of cool, but it's so long and the novelty wears off very quickly. They have kind of the same thing at Epcot and it took about a fifth of the time from entering the queue to leaving the ride so we kind of wished we hadn't bothered.
Shows and parades - We only saw World of Color and Mickey's Soundational parade, both we thought were fab!
We waited in total for WOC for about 90 minutes but we had a great view next to the stairs on the second tier of the blue section. We were expecting to be squashed together by the time the show started but we were pleasantly surprised, didn't seem that crowded til it was time to leave! The show was excellent though, well worth planning well and waiting for. I suspect it wouldn't have been as good if we didn't have a clear view. One thing that slightly irked me. As we were on the second tier we could obviously see everyone on the first tier and it seemed every third person was filming it. I don't see the point of this as it's never going to be as good and the whole show is on youtube! It just ruined the view a bit seeing loads of tiny images of it when I should have just been looking at the show itself!
We saw the parade at DL right before we left on March 1st and thought it was wonderful. Puts DLRP's parades to shame!! I've never seen Mary Poppins and Bert on the carousel horses before and it was so fantastic to see! We watched right up by IASW so had a great view of them leaving the gate and right after it finished we headed out of the park so beat the crowds that were on main street! We felt a bit smug about that!
Oooh, forgot Star Tours! We got a FP but still waited about 30 minutes. I'm a believer in using your FP for the time it states so when we saw 2 guys in front of us using a FP for 12pm at 5.30 it was kind of annoying. We did hear them saying "they're going to crack down on us soon" which made me giggle!
Anyway, I've only been on the original ST once before and it made me feel so sick that it kind of ruined the day for me so I've always avoided it since. I had to try Star Tours 2 though and did it at the end of the day so if I did feel ill it wouldn't matter! I needn't have worried. The ride was so much fun and the 3D effect was amazing! Didn't feel nauseous at all so very pleased that I've added another ride to my list of favourites!
To sum up our trip - WISHED WE'D GIVEN IT MORE TIME!! We had a fantastic holiday and really enjoyed California but if we could do it again, we'd skip Hollywood and add another day to Disney. Or even a few more days, there was so much to do that I either hadn't noticed or hadn't factored it enough time for that we felt we could have easily managed a few more days. And we've definitely found our favourite park! It's just so pretty and so much attention to detail. New Orleans square is beautiful and I loved that Haunted Mansion just looked like a normal house right off the street rather than a big spooky ghost house up on a hill. Pirates was fab too, so much better than MK. And we had matterhorn macaroons at the Jolly Holiday Bakery which were divine! So much to talk about!!!
If you're still with me, well done! I know I've rambled but hope you enjoyed reading a newbie's perspective. We can't wait to go back. We fell in love with San Diego and I kept saying to my husband "If we lived here we'd be 75 minutes drive from Disney!" Maybe one day!
So...February 28th 7pm - We arrive at PVI after a long drive from the Grand Canyon where it had been snowing so we were a bit cold and weary but very excited. We checked in and instantly fell in love with the hotel, we could see the park sign from the hotel right across the road and arrived just in time to take advantage of the dinner that was offered, soup and bread after a long drive was greatly appreciated! We then made our way over to Downtown and loved the layout, everything so close, no buses or monorails for us! We were still a bit jetlagged and we had an early wake up call for leap day so after having a wander around the Disneyland hotel we headed back for a jacuzzi at the PVI, heaven!
February 29th 4am - Still jetlagged and wide awake we thought we may as well get up and have a leisurely 'getting ready' rather than the 30 second shower we had planned, headed out of our room around 5.50 to see...a massive queue! Rather naiively I had assumed it wouldn't be too packed at 6am with the crowds arriving after school and work and we briefly considered going back to bed but joined the queue and were pleasantly surprised at how quickly it was moving. As we got closer to bag check we saw lots of people in pajamas with the free hats obviously heading back to their rooms which really annoyed me. Surely the whole point of the hat was to give it to the first 2000 people into the park not the 2000 people who'd slept on the road who were then going back to bed?! Never mind, less people in the park for us to grapple with. We were on main street by 6.30 with our badges and instantly LOVED it! So much attention to detail and lovely to see Walt's actual apartment above the fire station. That was the thing that we kept coming back to every few hours in the park, Walt actually walked these streets and designed and it does indeed feel just that little bit more special because of that.
Park experience - QUEUES in odd places! Jolly Holiday Bakery, Lockers, to get your photo with the leap day sign?! We took advantage of these queues, headed straight to Space to get a fastpass and made our way through the castle to Fantasyland. It is obviously smaller than MK but we really loved the feeling, almost as if you were in a real Disney story as opposed to a theme park. We went on Mr Toad's wild ride with a 2 minute wait then IASW before Casey Jr. IASW was so much better than MK, loved the characters in all the worlds, why don't they do that in the other parks?! We then went over to BTM where we waited about 25 minutes, our longest wait of the day. Grabbed a FP for Indiana Jones then over to Space! Best Space in all the parks!! The one is Paris is offensively bad and whilst I love the ridiculousness of the one at MK, DL's version is by far superior! We were aware of people around but it didn't feel too busy. We have been at DLRP at French half term so we know busy! Really enjoyed Jungle Cruise, we had a very sarcastic CM who really made the trip. Indiana Jones was great too, it's a horrid rollercoaster in Paris which is rough and painful so this was a very welcome new experience. By this point, it was about 9.30am so we headed over to CA to get a FP for World of Color. About a 5 minute wait then picked up our blue section FPs.
I'm getting a bit bored of my own rambling now so I'll just list the things we enjoyed!
Screamin - great fun, smooth ride, loved the view at the top into Cars land!
Little Mermiad - LOVED it! I'm a huge fan of the film and thought this ride was perfect, the animatronics were so advanced, they moved really well and really looked like they were under water!
Soarin' - One of our favourites at WDW so no surprise we enjoyed it here just as much, we didn't get front row so we had a few feet dangling but loved it all the same. The smells seem a lot more potent than they are at Epcot?!
Pacific Wharf Cafe - I had been dreaming about soup in a bread bowl so when I got the queue and saw they make the broccoli and cheddar soup with chicken stock I was so disappointed!! Being vegetarian and all. Why make a vegetarian soup and flavour it with chicken stock?! Never mind, the veggie chilli was lovely and the bread, delicious!
Things we didn't enjoy so much
Mike and Sully - Felt like we queued for ages for this one and it was all a bit...meh. Not particulary exciting or dynamic, nothing new really that you can't see on any other ride.
Finding Nemo submarine voyage - We went on this on day 2 of our park adventure and queued for 45 minutes even though there didn't seem like there was that many people in front of us. When we finally boarded ourselves we understood the delay. It's such a ridiculously long process to get everyone on and off! You hope the ride will be worth it and it is kind of cool, but it's so long and the novelty wears off very quickly. They have kind of the same thing at Epcot and it took about a fifth of the time from entering the queue to leaving the ride so we kind of wished we hadn't bothered.
Shows and parades - We only saw World of Color and Mickey's Soundational parade, both we thought were fab!
We waited in total for WOC for about 90 minutes but we had a great view next to the stairs on the second tier of the blue section. We were expecting to be squashed together by the time the show started but we were pleasantly surprised, didn't seem that crowded til it was time to leave! The show was excellent though, well worth planning well and waiting for. I suspect it wouldn't have been as good if we didn't have a clear view. One thing that slightly irked me. As we were on the second tier we could obviously see everyone on the first tier and it seemed every third person was filming it. I don't see the point of this as it's never going to be as good and the whole show is on youtube! It just ruined the view a bit seeing loads of tiny images of it when I should have just been looking at the show itself!
We saw the parade at DL right before we left on March 1st and thought it was wonderful. Puts DLRP's parades to shame!! I've never seen Mary Poppins and Bert on the carousel horses before and it was so fantastic to see! We watched right up by IASW so had a great view of them leaving the gate and right after it finished we headed out of the park so beat the crowds that were on main street! We felt a bit smug about that!
Oooh, forgot Star Tours! We got a FP but still waited about 30 minutes. I'm a believer in using your FP for the time it states so when we saw 2 guys in front of us using a FP for 12pm at 5.30 it was kind of annoying. We did hear them saying "they're going to crack down on us soon" which made me giggle!
Anyway, I've only been on the original ST once before and it made me feel so sick that it kind of ruined the day for me so I've always avoided it since. I had to try Star Tours 2 though and did it at the end of the day so if I did feel ill it wouldn't matter! I needn't have worried. The ride was so much fun and the 3D effect was amazing! Didn't feel nauseous at all so very pleased that I've added another ride to my list of favourites!
To sum up our trip - WISHED WE'D GIVEN IT MORE TIME!! We had a fantastic holiday and really enjoyed California but if we could do it again, we'd skip Hollywood and add another day to Disney. Or even a few more days, there was so much to do that I either hadn't noticed or hadn't factored it enough time for that we felt we could have easily managed a few more days. And we've definitely found our favourite park! It's just so pretty and so much attention to detail. New Orleans square is beautiful and I loved that Haunted Mansion just looked like a normal house right off the street rather than a big spooky ghost house up on a hill. Pirates was fab too, so much better than MK. And we had matterhorn macaroons at the Jolly Holiday Bakery which were divine! So much to talk about!!!
If you're still with me, well done! I know I've rambled but hope you enjoyed reading a newbie's perspective. We can't wait to go back. We fell in love with San Diego and I kept saying to my husband "If we lived here we'd be 75 minutes drive from Disney!" Maybe one day!
