Our round the world magical trip! TR UPDATED 03/01 WALT DISNEY STUDIOS!!

[Disneydreamsdancer]

So it’s just gone 10am and we arrive in DCA and get our blue WOC fastpasses for the 8pm show. As we are already in the park and it's quiet we decide to head for California Screamin!

We waited a little more than 5 minutes, which was great! I was a little nervous t this point, its the first time I had ridden this coaster, I have to say that I LOVED it! Such a long ride but much fun! We were both very happy afterwards!

We decided with WOC fastpass in hand we would head back over to Disneyland to grab a morning coffee and snack. It was still reasonably quiet, the crowds were very low and manageable.

We stopped at Market house for a cinnamon tea latte and cookie, very delicious, we love the latte, so yummy!

We then walked through tomorrowland, which was much busier!

We decided to skip the wait line for Buzz and go check out the Captain EO tribute. The one and only time I saw this show was at Disneyland Paris just after it opened in the early nineties when I was just six so I was very pleased to see it again, it brought back some great memories!

We then went to check out IASW, which was due to close tomorrow to have its holiday overlay removed so we knew we needed to ride it today!
On the way we saw the Lunar new year celebrations. They had dancers and a Chinese dragon. Mulan was out, it was a lovely parade to watch!

 

[mommamonster]

I'm glad I found your TR - I am staying with my family at the Fairfield Inn in a few months and I liked seeing your photos of the rooms and view from the front door. I haven't been to the hotel before, I'm hoping it's a nice stay.

Also, your panorama photo of the Tiki Room is a beautiful photo!

 

[Disneydreamsdancer]

I'm glad I found your TR - I am staying with my family at the Fairfield Inn in a few months and I liked seeing your photos of the rooms and view from the front door. I haven't been to the hotel before, I'm hoping it's a nice stay.

Also, your panorama photo of the Tiki Room is a beautiful photo!

Thank you and welcome!! We cannot say enough positive things about the fairfield inn, we've stayed at many hotels all over the world and many marriotts and the fairfield stands out as one of the best. The staff were so helpful and friendly and the rooms were some of the cleanest we have encountered, a great place to stay

 

[Disneydreamsdancer]

By this point the line for IASW was rather long, and about 10minutes into the wait it stopped moving. We waited about another 10minutes before one of the castmembers by the loading bridge shouted that they were having technical difficulties. They had stopped loading people into the boats and those already seated didn’t move in that time.

Several castmembers began gathering around the bridge, talking a lot, then after about another 5 minutes we began moving. Lots of people in front of us decided to duck out of the line, but knowing the ride would close after today we decided to stick it out. All in all we waited about 25-30minutes till we were loaded.

IASW still had its holiday overlay on, I have only been to DLR 3 times and all 3 times it had always been the holiday season inside IASW! Nice to see some changes though, unfortunately my $400 point and shoot did not like it one bit, after a couple of unsuccessful shots I put it away and merely enjoyed the ride, as i'm always filming or snapping everything in sight!

 

[Disneydreamsdancer]

After IASW we headed over to the other side of the park and got a fastpass for BTMRR. The return time was good so whilst we were waiting we headed over to POTC. This used to be my ultimate favourite Disney ride, on this trip I discovered a new one...more on that later!
We were lucky when we joined the queue it was reasonably short, we joined it just before the line goes inside the building, in the time we stood there a heap of people turned up and they put out the queue chains in the outside area, perfect timing! We waited only 10 minutes to board. As always I love this ride, the smell, the feeling that you’re outside, it’s all so good!

After that we rode Winnie the pooh, I think this ride is so cute, with its little yellow ride vehicles!

Once we exited the ride we got a fastpass for splash mountain. We had to wait for our BTMRR hour to expire as I found out about the machines now being connected when I tried within the hour. So with splash FP in hand we headed over to use our BTMRR passes.

This is another of my favourite classic Disney rides, I love the DLR version even more than the DLRP version. This time I tried the goat trick and it certainly worked!
We then headed back to splash. By this point I was kind of nervous. I have never ridden splash before, although i’ve been on plenty of log flumes. This was one ride though that my mom had really wanted to go on, so I knew I needed to do it! The ride was fine, the last drop was not nearly as bad as I thought but oh my gosh I got so wet!! I ended up right at the front of the boat and everything, my face, hair, hoodie and jeans were all soaked through! It was fairly cold so we decided to head back to the hotel to change.

Once back my mom said she was not feeling well. Unfortunately she has been ill for months, we are waiting for hospital referrals, she said she really did not think she could cope with going back out so we forfeited our chance to see WOC and got an early night after eating at the pizza hut in the Fairfield.

Next up, a very rainy day at Disneyland

 

[Caroline NZ]

I'm enjoying reading your trip report, we have only been to DL in spring/summer so it is interesting to see it in rain / cooler weather.

 

[Disneydreamsdancer]

I'm enjoying reading your trip report, we have only been to DL in spring/summer so it is interesting to see it in rain / cooler weather.

Thank you and kia ora! I've only ever been in Dec and Jan so i'm used to the colder days, I bet the park is beautiful in summer with all the greenery

 

[Disneydreamsdancer]

Monday January 23rd

This morning we were up bright and early, had breakfast in the room with food we’d brought from the mini mart on the 3rd floor and were at the parks in time for rope drop. The rain today was constant, i’ve never been to Disney on a rainy day before so I did my best to dress suitably, no jeans and waterproof shoes! We started the day at Disneyland, which thanks to the rain was pretty dead.

We headed straight for the Nemo submarines. The previous 2 times we had visted the resort the subs were still a relatively new ride and so the queues were huge, this was the first time we had ridden. We made it into the 2nd sub of the day, however with the rain coming in through the open hatch the bench I sat on was wet and drips kept landing on my head! I still enjoyed the ride all the same, I find the technology amazing with the projections, very cute!

We then headed back to mainstreet for a coffee in the new Jolly Holiday bakery. I love the theming in the little place! All the details are so gorgeous and the food was great. Here’s a view on the hub in the rain from our table.

We decided to head over to DCA and do some of their inside rides, here’s the hub, empty and wet on our way out of DL

First on our plans was the animation academy. This is my favourite place in both of the parks, I love keeping the drawings and framing them at home, I think it’s a great free souvenir and so much fun! Katie was our artist today and we drew Pluto, goofy and pooh. I rolled mine up with a hair tie and headed for the beast’s library. I did the test and got the character I am most like as Flik from A bug’s life, my mom got mulan! I love this room, its theming is so beautiful and I always have to stand and watch the petals fall from the rose and the portrait change.

We left the animation building and headed across the street to the store to get some shopping done! I got a gorgeous blue/green mickey hoodie for my birthday from my mom and I bought a Disneyland coffee travel mug and a mickey egg mould, I’m on a mission this trip to increase my Disney household collection!

After that we headed over to monsters inc. The ride was really quiet and a walk on, at the end Ros said happy birthday to me, we all thought that was very cool how they do that trick!
Next we went to Muppets 3d.

My castmember friend who gave us the tickets works in muppets so I promised to go see him work. He had told the castmembers on the door that we were coming and they recognised us and chatted for a while, they were very sweet and friendly!

 

[Disneydreamsdancer]

The show was great as always and my friend was awesome, such an entertaining show! Next we went over to the Tower of terror.

This was the first time I have tried this ride, last time I went to DLRP they were still building their version. We stood outside and watched the drop a couple of times then joined the standby queue. Luckily due to the rain the wait times here were really short as well, we waited no more than 10minutes to board. The attention to detail in this ride amazes me, the lobby and library are so beautiful to look at, I kind of wish I’d had a bit more time to stand there and take them in. This is officially my new favourite ride at DLR. The drops were so much better than any of the other drop towers i’ve been on, that one point where you can’t tell whether you’re going up or down! So great! My legs were shaking so badly after we got off!

Thats me and mom on the front row far left! My face look hilarious, I did enjoy it really!

When we came out the Pixar parade was on so we stopped and watched it for a while.

Afterwards we did some more browsing on the shops around the backlot area. By this time we were getting hungry so decided to go try the boardwalk pizza and pasta place. The rain had stopped which meant sitting outside was ok, the staff were going round drying all the seats and tables. I had the pasto 5 cheese ravioli with pine nuts.

It was delicious! Great value for money, the portion was a good size, definitely recommend it! When we were eating they had the coney island band playing to entertain us, they were great, lovely music to eat to.

When we were full we thought it would be a good time to catch the late afternoon showing of Aladdin the musical. We had seen this show on our last visit and loved it. Being a HUGE musical theatre fan I have been to a couple of shows on Broadway and lived in London for 20 years so frequented the west end almost weekly, and this show is equal in quality to a lot of the shows i’ve seen. The hyperion I find to be a lovely theatre as well.

The show was flawless as expected, I was sad to see the carpet now flying but was expecting it after the accident last year. I do hope they can get the issue sorted and once it’s completely safe again go back to using it. There was some choreographed sets with the dancers to fill in the time before Aladdin and Jasmine came on stage though so least we had something to watch. Afterwards my mom was tiring and starting to feel ill again so we called it a day a little after 6pm and headed back to the hotel for the night.

 

[Disneydreamsdancer]

Tuesday January 24th

Today is my birthday!!! We spent the day away from the parks so hope it’s ok to post this here, it does contain Disney and i’ll keep it short!

My friend met us at 10am outside the hotel and we headed first over to companyD. Sadly when we got there there was a sign on the gate which said it was not open on Tuesdays. I was disappointed but did not mind. My friend was very apologetic, he didn’t know that, having never visited the store on a Tuesday before, he promised to take me when I come back for my next trip so we headed off to Hollywood!

We parked in the multi-storey by the Graumans Chinese Theatre and had the customary photos by the sign, unfortunately due to being able to take cameras into the shooting we were going to later I left my camera behind so only had my itouch which is bad quality. The white shiny blur behind us is the sign!

Next we headed out to the street and walked around looking at the hand and foot prints and the stars. One of my dancing idols

And the legend himself

And my favourite actor ever

We had a look around the Disney’s soda fountain and store, they had some great pins on sale, I got some of the squashed pennies and we had a Mickey waffle and vanilla coke for a birthday lunch treat!

My castmember friend then told me his birthday surprise for me, he was going to take us to the Walt Disney studios and show us around! I was so excited I couldn’t quite believe I was going to get to see the studios! We drove over there and parked in this parking structure

I walked around snapping pics of everything! I could not believe walking around the stages that this is where the beautiful Disney films i’ve watched all my life and loved were made.

This sign was gorgeous, the little Disney touches everywhere were great

We had lunch in the staff cafeteria. I was shocked at how cheap everything in here was! The three of us ate lunch for under $15. I got a free castmember magazine and we continued on our tour.

Continued in next post...

 

[Disneydreamsdancer]

Lastly we visted the cast store. They had the usual Disney merchandise that you would expect in the Disneystore and a stand or two of Studio and company merchandise. I debated for ages but got a portfolio

And a company luggage tag and ID clip for my work keys, I know the kids at school will love that!

A castmember from the store approached me with a Disney store birthday badge with my name on, so now I have two birthday badges from Disney!

It was then time to head over to Warner Bros for our filming of the Big Bang Theory. We had guaranteed tickets and got there about 4.30pm. Our tickets were checked and we joined the guaranteed queue. We were then given a handstamp once our ID was checked and walked onto the lot and down to the stage. We were security checked twice before entering the studio and being seated. For those of you that know the show we were seated directly in front of the stairwell between Penny and the boys apartments. We had a great view! We got to watch the first edit of the episode they had filmed the previous week on some big screens then they began shooting our episode. All scenes were filmed 2 to 3 times. The MC kept us all entertained. He gave out candy and signed photos if people came up to entertain everyone. He had anyone from outside of the country come up and sing for everyone. I did and sang the New Zealand national anthem, I got a signed photo, I was so pleased! He asked about my Disney birthday badges and I told everyone how great Disneyland was! Here's our programme and my photo.

The shoot took a long time, we were fed pizza and got out of the studio at about 10.30pm . We drove back to Anaheim and my friend gave me some more castmember things as birthday gifts.

It was quite literally the BEST birthday I’ve ever had!
Next up our last Disney day