Q: What happens when you don’t make plans? A: The best things ever!! A DL Aug/Sep TR

[buttercup14]

Hi There! I’m Louise (from Australia) and you’ve reached my Trip Report for my August/ September solo trip to Disneyland! This TR comes to you in 2 parts, since my vacation was split between 2 visits to DLR and A visit to WDW. The first part covers August 27th until September 2nd and the second part cover September 19th- 23rd. I believe at this point I’m supposed to write about the planning I did for my trip. I guess that’s easy. I did none.

Well, that’s not exactly true. I booked flights and accommodation, purchases an AP since I’d be there for so long, and booked a few meals, but that was basically it, and here’s why. I’d been to DLR before, quiet recently actually, and I’d done (or at least, I thought I’d done) pretty much everything. I didn’t need to plan. I knew what was likely to get crowded when, and had heard about the ‘secret things to do’ already. It's funny because this attitude is completely different to the one i use for WDW, and i think it's why i prefer DLR. Of course I know this attitude if nothing knew to locals/ regular guests at the park, but I do wish to see it adopted by as many people as possible , because as I discovered on the trip, when you don’t have plans for your days, the best things happen! If any of you are regular viewer’s of Fresh Baked Disney, their ‘style of touring’ was what I was going for. So read on if you wish to hear about the magical things that happen when you just let Disney happen to you!

*The fine print of my TR, I love The Mad Hatter and AIWL so that comes up a lot, I’m a 23 year old sometimes going on 5 sometimes going on 50, I use brackets a lot in my writing, I am, and always have been, not the best with spelling and grammar, my apologies for any misstakes …(ok, that one was on purpose)*

 

[buttercup14]

Day One, Thursday 27th of August or The 36 Hour Day.

Having started my journey from Sydney to LA almost 24 hours ago (though only arriving 6 hours after I left, something I call confusing time zones and jetlag 101) I arrived in Anaheim around 1.30pm. I was dropped off by Super Shuttle (no issues, was happy for the price I paid) at my hotel (sticking to the ‘Super’ theme, Super 8 motel on West Katella, again, no issues, very good price, clean room, plenty of space), got myself settled in, let folk’s back home know I’d arrived Safely, showered and then off to the park I went!

From my hotel It was a 15-20 minute walk to the DL bag check ( I once did it in 10 minutes when I was in a hurry and walking very fast/ kind of running), with all the walking I was going to be doing in parks I really didn’t mind that extra big, besides it was my only form of exercise during the vacation. I had purchases my AP online and was sent an ‘e-ticket’ to print out and bring to the gate. There they gave me a temporary ticket for the day which I had to exchange by the end of the day at the ticket booth for my actual AP.

I walked onto MS and was right away, so happy! I’d only been away for 6 months, but I’d missed Disneyland greatly. I was also very happy to see the parade crowd’s been sensible and at 10 minutes until the start of the parade, still only sitting on the shady side of the street:

Side A (shady) Side B (sunny)

Being Jetlagged I knew I didn’t really want to ‘ride’ today, I also felt that some sort of iconic Disneyland snack was in order for my first stop, so I went in search of a ice cream cart and found one at the start of big thunder trail were I got myself I Mickey ice cream bar. The Ice cream cart was perfectly located right next to the Mark twain, so I ate my ice cream in the waiting area and went aboard:

What do you think, are the two CM’s in the bottom corner doing the Macarena or getting ready for Halloween?

After a most lovely ride on the Mark Twain (which by the way, I think is a great way to start a Disney trip), I found myself, in true me style, drawn to fantasyland, via the princess fantasy faire. As I was walking past I notice the line for the princesses was basically non-existent, so I popped in to say hello to the princesses. The CM outside the hall noticed my ‘dance with me’ button and imminently grabbed my hand and started dancing with me!

So notice those flip flops I’m wearing, they were brand knew, bought specifically for this trip because they were non-slip and good quality, supposed to be good for wearing on vacation. They lie! Only 1 hour after wearing them did they start rubbing against my feet like crazy and giving me the most horrible blisters. I had thought when I put them on that afternoon ‘I’ll only be in the park for a few hours, nothing bad could happen in that time right, even if these shoes turn out uncomfortable it should be ok for a few hours, right?’ WRONG! I’d only been in the park one measly hour and already I was having to appeal to first aid for multiple band aids! I’m only going to say this once, everybody please, for the sake of your poor feet, wear proper walking shoes to the parks!

After covering half my feet in band aids I soldiered on with a walk through Fantasyland. Except here’s the thing, band aids, feet you’re walking on and heat don’t exactly watch, and within half an hour almost all the band aids had peeled off. So I gave up. Well not quiet, first I ate, then I gave up. But by this time jetlagged had kicked in, so I didn’t mind the giving up part at all. I had dinner at Pinocchio Village Haus, BLT flat bread with a Monstro lemonade, very yummy and I’m proud to say I didn’t fall asleep in it (don’t laugh, this happened to a family member once, head first into their dinner after a 14 hours flight…ok, maybe laugh a little!), then went to the ticket booth to get my proper AP, then hobbled, no understatement, back to my hotel. Or I tried to hobble, before realizing that I was no longer in the park and could take my shoes off to walk, which was so much better! I stopped by the pharmacy for some blister specific band aids (I bet they sell a lot of those!) then upon returning to my hotel did the very best I could not to fall right asleep in the doorway. And that, was the 36 hour day!

Here's the aforementioned flatbread and lemonade

I've also got some video of my day's for you (if you prefer video to reading), here's the pre-trip and day one segment:

 

[buttercup14]

Day two, Friday the 28th of August or Getting in trouble for leaning up after myself

I’m glad to report that I slept like a rock all night and was up and ready to go at 7am. My hotel served breakfast, bread, oranges, pastries, nothing fancy but jetlag always makes me less hungry for a few days so it suited me fine. I got to the parks in plenty of time for rope drop. As I was walking down main street towards the hub I spotted something out of the corner of my eye. Tiana, for some strange reason, meeting at refreshments corner, I did a double take, this was something I’d never seen, why was she at refreshment’s corner, in what way does that suit her character? Was she perhaps lost? But those questions aside, she had no line, no one who seemed to have noticed she was there, so I went to say hi:

There was still a good 10 minutes until rope drop, and rather than standing around I had a look around in one of the shops before joining the rope drop crowd. I had in mind to try for Peter Pan this morning, but the crowd of people trying to do the same thing was insane! I’m a tiny person, and just one person at that, so been squished and pushed around in a crowd is always something I try to avoid at all costs. Perhaps if I was taller or larger it wouldn’t be such a daunting thought. So as the crowds started to get squishy going through the castle towards Peter Pan I bailed out. To which I was rewarded with an hour of wait free rides and characters while everyone else in fantasyland tried to fight then wait their way onto peter pan. First I found Hatter and Alice, as mention above my favourites, and I was very surprised when Hatter offered me a hug, right off the bat, he just doesn’t seem like a huggy kind of guy, but he was surprisingly sweet (why does It always surprise me when Hatter is sweet? I see him as funny, clever and witty, but sweet always seems unexpected!):

Followed by a visit to Aurora at the wishing well:

A ride on Alice in Wonderland:

Followed by the Casey jr Train:

One day, perhaps, I’ll learn to stop acting like a 4 year old when riding the Casey jr train, until that time you’ll see me smiling, singing along and making train actions while riding. It was about 10 minutes until 10am by this time, so I went over to Toon Town for opening. Everybody was squished over into the shade waiting for opening. At 10am Pluto and Goofy came out to open Toon Town. I followed Pluto for a while who was going around causing chaos and trying to blow up Toon Town:

I had thought about riding Roger Rabbit, but it was still closed so instead I rode gadget go and met Minnie Mouse:

I played around in Toon Town a bit before it go over run by children, gave Pluto a hug and went to see Goofy, who was awesome:

After I felt done with Toon Town I decided a park hop was in order, and made my way back to the front of the park to head over to California Adventure. On my way out I spotted Cruella with a short line, so I stopped by. She suggested a new fashionable way to wear my hat:

And told me that she too was dressed in Wonderland style, and by the way if I saw Alice to tell her that the White Rabbit was going to be extraordinarily late….

I believe upon getting into DCA I had lunch, what it was I don’t remember. After lunch I went to the Animation Academy and had a play around in the Sorcerer’s workshop. I tried to find out what Disney Character I was with the help of Lumiere and a some questions , however the questionnaire didn’t like me very much, and refused to let me be a planner, also I came close to having to eat some people, but in the end I got Pocahontas, I’m happy with that! (If you’re wondering, when I did it again and choose to eat people, I got The Queen of Hearts).

I relaxed in the animation building for a while then headed back out into, what was by this time, the inferno. I may be being a bit over dramatic, maybe. Point being, by this time of day (around 12.30pm), It was incredibly hot! I went over to cars land and got a grape tonic to combat the heat which I took back over to Disneyland. I went and saw about half of Mickey ad The Magical Map then headed to refreshment corner to watch a games of Musical Chairs with The Mad Hatter and Alice (my daily Disneyland tradition along with a morning walk through fantasyland). Except there weren’t many kids around, so I ended up playing, thankfully by this time I’d finished the Grape tonic, or it could have been a very messy games! After the came I delivered Cruella’s message to Alice.

It was around 2.30pm and I thought I break was in order, so I headed back to my hotel to regulate my body temperate with a swim and the A/C. By the time I got back to the parks it was around 4.30pm, so I went into DCA to see the Pixar Play Parade. I found a front row spot in the shade no problem. I was so happy I got to see the Inside Out pre-parade, I love the commentary they ran for it, I’d love to see if there’s a written down version of it somewhere. Post parade I went in search of Dinner, which I found at Flo’s V8 café in the form of Ribs. I couldn’t get much meat off the bone and I should have added some more sauce to it, but other than that it was nice.

I spilled some of the ribs sauce on the table and tried to clean it up, to which a CM imminently told me not to worry about it. I smiled but kept cleaning it up, it was my mess after all! When he saw me still wiping it down he said Madame, that’s my job, it’s ok you can leave it. I’ve never gotten in trouble for cleaning up after myself before! So I left it, and having been hit by residual jetlag during my dinner, headed back to the hotel for some more needed sleep!

 

[buttercup14]

Day Three, Saturday the 29th August or When it was Saturday and somehow i avoided waiting in line

I was up, ready and at the parks for 8am rope drop! I love 8am rope drop! When it comes to vacation you can defiantly count me as a morning person! I took some photo’s along MS before heading in for my morning walk through Fantasyland:

I rode Snow White then the Matterhorn using the Single Rider line. Then I bumped into Peter Pan who stopped to chat with me for a bit:

Just as Peter was leaving I noticed Hatter and Alice heading out, I was Disneybounding as Hatter today so stopping to get a picture with them was defiantly a priority. They walked towards Fantasyland via the wishing well, so I followed them figuring they were, at some point, going to stop for some photo’s. Thing is they didn’t. Normally I love the idea of roving character’s but already it was just so crowded and they were getting mobbed with people asking them for autographs/ photo’s while they were walking, making it hard to have a line. So I just followed them for a good while, along with a few other people, and enjoyed the rare moments they got to stop and do something funny/silly while not being mobbed by people:

They can Fly!

Eventually the crowds of people around them died down and I got a picture with them while they were walking along:

The bummer was there were so many people bombarding them the whole walk for photo’s/autographs, no one (including myself) really got any interaction from them, which for me, is what the whole purpose of roving set should be! And this was at 9am, imagine what it would have been like later in the day as the crowds grew! I feel so bad for them being constantly bombarded, and I feel even worse when I end up feeling like I have to do it too!

On the way out of Fantasyland the line for Pixie Hollow was only 5 minutes, so I stopped by to say hi to Tink, I love Pixie Hollow in the morning when it’s still quiet, it’s so pretty!

I went and rode Big Thunder next, followed by heading back to Toon Town to ride Roger Rabbit, since I didn’t get to yesterday! It was getting hot by this point, so I went to get a froze drink then lined up to meet Merida, who was clearly melting in the heat poor thing! I got lunch at pizza port (I love their pasta, but haven’t found many people who share that opion so I guess it’s just me!) then walked over to big thunder ranch, were I found Woody with a very short line, the heat didn’t seem to be bothering him, he was awesome!

Then I went to pat some goats. I even found one sitting on top of a barrel so I didn’t have to bend over to pat him, of course, as I do with any animal these days, I treated him just like my cat:

I was heading over to wait for musical chairs when I walked right past Rapunzel, so I made a change of plans and got in line. The line was right in the sun, and I almost melted! I feel any worse for people who got in the line later then me and had so much longer to wait! The little girl in front of me was very glad for my water spray bottle, possibly even more than I was! When it got to my turn Rapunzel gave me a big hug right off the bat, I told her I was so excited to meet her (ok, I’ve met her before, but I always am excited!) and we talked for a while about what I’d done that day.

I still managed to make it in time for musical chairs, I watched for a little bit before deciding I’d done enough melting and headed back to the hotel for a break! Once I felt refreshed enough I headed back to the parks, and as I was walking in spotted Chip ‘n’ Dale at the entrance with a very short line (seriously, I can’t believe all the good timing I had on this day, Saturday and I hadn’t had to wait once for more than 10 minutes!).

It was getting close to parade time so I went and got a snack then got a spot outside the Alice In Wonderland restrooms (good spot in my opinion, halfway through the route so no matter what direction the parade comes from you won’t have to wait TOO long, not too crowded to fast like MS, and there’s no one sitting on the opposite side so the characters are much more likely to be looking at your side!). I spent the waiting time talking to a little girl who was fascinated by my bracelet.

I have no photo’s or memories of what happened after the parade, so I’m going to presume I had dinner then left so I’d have plenty of energy for Sunday, being my favorite day at Disneyland. But who knows, maybe I did something else after and I’ll never know!

 

[buttercup14]

Day Four, Saturday 30th of August or Why I love Sundays

Sunday! My favourite day at Disneyland (did I say that already?) Of course I had arrived for rope drop. If you hadn’t noticed I hadn’t done much riding the past few days. That’s because I’d already confused my body and brain enough by flying to the other side of the world where I’m awake when I should be asleep, it was super hot when I’d been used to cold, all of a sudden I was surrounded by thousands of people every day, and there was this unusual mix of churros and perspiration in the air. So I didn’t want to confuse my body or brain any more by spinning it round in circles or sending up and down mountains at high speeds. But it had now been more than 48 hours and I figured my body should be relatively adjusted by now. So I rode Big Thunder, Indiana Jones, Matterhorn and then, the scariest of them all, king Arthurs carousel! Being early in the morning I got to ride on Jingles too!

On my way out of Fantasyland I spotted Hatter and Alice on their morning walk, thankfully not being mobbed by people this time, in fact, there weren’t many people around at all, so I went to say good morning. Hatter saw my dance with me button and the three of us had a mini dance party in the middle of the walkway! Hatter then told me to go on his ride, the MADterhorn. I told I’d been on the teacups with my glittery hat and had a mini-disco party. He asked me what cup I went in, perhaps the blue one, and pulled out a blue teacup. I told him to wait a minute, opened my backpack and pulled out a matching teacup! He was very surprised! He asked me where I got it and said it hadn’t been sold in 20 years (though I already knew this!), he took it to have a ‘closer look’ then tried to run off with it! After Alice had a word with him he gave it back though!

I headed off to Tomorrowland (which I hadn’t stepped a foot in yet) to grab a FP for space mountain. By now it was around 9am (yep, all that above happened in an hour, did I mention I love 8am rope drop? And Sundays?) Then went to see Tinkerbell and Rosetta, who taught me the Pixie dance after I tried to teach them the Charleston!

I then headed against the crowds on MS and popped over to DCA to ride the Radiator springs racers, single rider of course. 5 minute wait. I went back via bugs land playing in the water fountains to cool down. I took the Disneyland railroad from MS to Toon Town where I said Hi to goofy who imminently buried my in a giant bear hug:

Then freaked out about his mini-me, then started to dance with me, then tried to run away with me over to DCA so we could go to Mad T Party together, until the CM reminded him it wasn’t on until the evening!

Then I visited Pluto who got me to spin around like a disco ball so he could dance!

I did the sleeping Beauty castle walk through then got myself an early lunch at Rancho del Zochalo (sorry, I’ve no idea how that should be spelt), I had the Tostada, yummy but needed some more lettuce/tomato. I took a ride on the Pirates of the Caribbean while I digested. I really wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do next. For some reason I found myself walking towards, then riding, The Teacups, no idea why at the time, I’m not good with spinning so I only normally ride once in a trip. But as I got off the teacups it became apparent why I had ended up there, as I saw The Pearly String band walking though Fantasyland and followed them right onto the carousel!

After their ride they played a few songs over by Snow White and I watched them from the shade before heading to musical chairs, I ended up playing again. This game was mostly adults so I actually got to play for a while before feeling bad for the kids and giving up my seat! Not that I mind, it’s nice to watch the game too! After musical chairs I asked Alice if they’d be back out again, she said Yes so I rushed back to my hotel room to pick up some gifts I had for them that I hadn’t wanted to carry around all day. By the way, if you’re looking for an afternoon break, rushing to and from your hotel room is not the way to do it! When I got back to the parks I thought I had missed Hatter and Alice, but found them eventually walking near Snow White, I asked their character attendant if it was ok to give the gifts to them, and she said go for it, so I went over trying to hide the gifts (them in balloons) behind my back, which was difficult as they were quiet large. They seemed to like their gifts and a few people took pictures of them with the balloons.

After rushing to and from my hotel I was in desperate need of a cold drink and a sit down, so I went to get a mint Julep and some beignets which I sat down with and spent close to an hour devouring them and people watching!

I headed over to DCA to ride a few of the bugs land rides/ anything without much of a line, I also checked out Mad T Party but nothing much was happening yet.

I went back over to Disneyland and got dinner in the form of a Turkey leg, then got in line for fantasmic ( which I had gotten a FP for earlier in the day at some point). I’m glad to see they’ve organised this system into a line prior to letting people in, last time I was there (February), people just lined up blocking the pathway, now you line up near the Mark Twain and down Big Thunder Trail. I was stuck in the side section having to stand during the show, thankfully having seen it before I didn’t mind too much. I stayed by rivers for the fireworks. It was nice that it was quiet, but I couldn’t see the projections on the water that clearly, I thought it was just an ok spot for the fireworks (stand by later in the report for my opinion on a better spot in rivers to watch the fireworks from). I was feeling super duper tired by this point, and squished my way through the crowds of people leaving before I feel asleep right in the middle of main street!

This video cover's the past 2 days:

 

[buttercup14]

Day Five, Monday 31st of August or That one non-Disney Day (Knotts Berry Farm)

So in my month of traveling around Disney parks I did give myself a few days off from The Mouse, this was one of them, on which I choose to go to Knotts Berry Farm, because sometime you just need to go somewhere not crowded to be dropped down tall towers and flung around at high speeds.

I took the LA metro bus to Knotts, when I’d been previously with my family we’d always taken one of those shuttles that picks you up, drops you at a central ‘sorting’ location where you get on the shuttle to the park. Taking the LA metro was so much easier! And cheaper, they announce the stop’s too so I didn’t have to worry about getting lost.

Knotts was, as it always has been on previous visits, very quiet. I basically rode all morning without having to wait for anything, they didn’t get anything resembling crowds until about 1pm. The only thing I did have to wait to ride was the stagecoach. I’m not going to write into lots of detail about my day, mainly because apart from that I rode lots and it was quiet in the park, I don’t really remember much else! Nor do I have any photos from the day. By about 3pm I was feeling over it and waited a while for the bus before I could get back to my hotel. I think I went into Downtown for the evening, but I have no photos from the day to refresh my memory, so consider this a very sort part of the TR.

 

[buttercup14]

Day Six, Tuesday 1st of September or Costume Change!

I began my day with breakfast at the Plaza Inn, I had this booked during the magic hour so I didn’t interfere with my park time. For those with bookings you can enter at the gate closest to downtown (gate 1, I believe), and walk up to the plaza. I was seated promptly, in a booth too! (As I solo I never get a booth, so this was a rare treat). I got my breakfast (3 plates full, and I finished it all too!) and the character’s came around. Fairy Godmother asked If I had been naughty as I was sitting in the corner, chip n dale both came and danced with me, Pooh and Tigger gave me big hugs, Minnie was super sweet and I offered to help Captain Hook hunt down Peter Pan (shh, don’t tell Peter):

I really enjoyed this breakfast, the food was good, mostly standard breakfast foods but done well, the characters were great and there were lots of them too! And it wasn’t too crowded, I was finished and had meet all the characters in less than an hour. I hopped over to DCA for opening and took the opportunity to ride Radiator springs racers and meet Elsa and Anna before it got crowded:

Anna asked if I could take Olaf back to Australia with me


As I was heading back over to Disneyland I suddenly had a very strange feeling, one I never had before, that I wasn’t dressed right for the day! Not that I was going to be too cold/hot, just that I suddenly wanted to wear I different set of cloths! Go figure! But I didn’t argue with it, I popped back to my hotel, looked in my suitcase and was drawn to wear my Rapunzel Disneybound. So I did a ‘costume change’ and headed back to the park. I still have no idea why I had a particularly yen to wear this outfit!

Back at the park I was so happy to find that, much the same as when I dressed up as a child (meaning when I was a child, not dressing up like a child!), all the CM’s upon seeing me, promptly called me Rapunzel! This makes me so happy! I figured since I was dressed like a princess, I should go over to meet the princesses. On my way in someone was kind enough to inform me what time Rapunzel would be out. I was happy to find the line for the princesses was quiet manageable, and also that the little girl in front of me was dressed like Rapunzel too! So I spent my time waiting playing with her, It makes me so happy when I get to create a big of magic for someone else too! We had to wait a bit extra to meet the Princesses as a dragon (apparently) got loose in the hall and the CM’s had to fight it off. This happened a few times during my visit, who knew Disneyland had a dragon problem!

The Princesses were so lovely this day, I met Cinderella, Jasmine and Belle. All of them checked that I’d been keeping a good eye on Pascal and making sure he wasn’t trying to play hide n seek in the park:

Belle asked if I’d like to twirl with her and of course I said yes!


I then hung around for a little bit waiting for Rapunzel, since she’d be out soon. I watch some of the show with the Pearly band, Mary and Bert for the back:

Then got in line for Rapunzel. Again, this line is horrible in terms of how long you have to stand in the sun/not having much shade! As soon as she saw me, Rapunzel gave me a big hug! We compared outfits and stories about Pascal and she fascinated by my mini frying pan:

After Rapunzel I went over to big thunder for a ride then hopped back over to DCA, where Oswald was meeting out front, I stopped to say Hi and he decided to play hide n seek with Pascal:

I also stopped to say Hi to Chip n Dale, who were also happy to take up my ‘dance with me’ button offer:

I got some lunch then I went over to the animation academy and learnt to draw Sulley (I did an ok job, I don’t seem to have a photo of my drawing and despite having kept it I can no longer seem to find it!), I did a few of the rides in bugs land + King Triton’s carousel before heading back to Disneyland for Soundsational, where Rapunzel tried to mouth something (I think about Pascal) to me. This was actually the first time I’d gotten some character interaction during parade (I find they tend to interact more with the kids).

I went back to the hotel for a little while for a break, then came back, grabbed dinner and a spot for PTN. Again I sat by the Alice in Wonderland restrooms, it wasn’t very crowded and you could get really good viewing spots at 30 minutes before the parade. So I know lots of people love PTN, and yes I agree the floats look great, and the music is fun, but I guess I’m just an Electric light parade forever girl! I enjoyed it and I’m glad I saw it but it’s not a parade I would take the time to see again. So the problem about where I was sitting was that after the parade we were all routed back into Fantasyland for the fireworks. I managed to work my way back around to MS before the fireworks started, it was super crowded and the CM were actually telling people to slip under ropes for firework spots, I think mostly because people were trying to stop in the walkways. I got a spot squished up onto the curb (which did have a much needed height advantage), except it was on the left side of MS which meant half the fireworks were obscured by trees (so try and go for the right side of MS walking towards the castle), I found myself looking more at the projections on the MS buildings, which were amazing. I was at this point that I figured out that there’s probably no where in the park that’s an ‘ideal’ viewing point for the fireworks, simply because there’s so much going on! I don’t think there’s a place you could see the fireworks, projections, Tinkerbell, Nemo, snow and the Matterhorn all at once, unless you had the whole park to yourself maybe! So if you’re planning, try and plan a few spots of the fireworks to experience it all properly! Later on in my TR I’ll get to my personal favourite spots I saw the fireworks from.

 

[4Mickeys]

Looks like you had a great time!

You found someone - I also liked the pasta at Rockets Pizza Port but I really liked their Asian Chicken Salad.

You make me want to go back - but still paying off our trip last year lol!

 

[buttercup14]

Day Seven, Wednesday 2nd of September or Hey Bert, what'cha doing?

As always, I arrived this morning for rope drop and started with my morning walk though Fantasyland (predictable, aren’t I?). I popped in for a visit with the faries at Pixie Hollow. This morning Silvermist was also visiting. She asked me what music I liked to dance to and I tried to think of a Disney song, I ended up telling her I liked to dance like a train to the Casey jr train song (some serious 3 year old-ness going on!)

TinkerBell told me I had to go show my pin of Minnie dressed as Tink to her and tell Minnie she had to dress like that all the time, she also told me I should start wearing green dresses too:

Here she is telling me to wear matching shoes


After Pixie Hollow is headed over to critter country were I rode Splash Mountain (a few times actually I think) and Winnie the Pooh. I saw Tigger and Pooh out doing a meet n greet and had a sudden urge to go give Tigger a big hug, so I did. He was instant I wear him on my other arm like Goofy:

I walked back up to Fantasyland via the Big Thunder Trail, stopping to ride Pirates and big Thunder along the way, and say Hi to Jessie:

Once I got to Fantasyland I noticed Bert, just standing watching the teacups, he stood there for a solid 5-10 minutes because I rode snow white and came back to find he was still there, thing is he wasn’t taking any photo’s or autographs, he was just standing there looking at the teacups. Why I didn’t think to simply go up to him and say ‘Hey Bert, what’cha doing?’ I have no idea, maybe he was simply curious how long he could stand there without someone coming and asking him what he was up to! Most people didn’t even seem to notice he was there:

By now it was getting towards lunch time, so I stopped at the Plaza Inn for some fried chicken:

Which is always yummy but too much chicken for one person!

After lunch I headed over to Tomorrowland to ride the Monorail while I digested:

Followed by stopping to say Hi to Hatter and Alice, Hatter tried to start up a dance party back Alice wanted some music before she could dance:

I found myself headed towards MS, were I hoped on the omnibus (something I hadn’t done since I was 10 despite always intending to ride it every visit!) and when I got off I spotted Ariel walking towards the entrance, which was perfect because I’d been looking for her the past few days!

I then walked myself back up MS and pondered what to do, I found myself getting Ice cream at the Golden horseshoe and when I finished saw the Mark Twain was at the dock, so I hopped on for a ride only to find a special visitor on board:

I’d heard that Tiana rides the Mark Twain so I was so happy to actually see it happen! See, even when you’re not really sure what to do next, Disneyland will guide you! Since the boat wasn’t that crowded Tiana got to spend a lot of time at the side, waving at people and talking to whoever wanted to talk with her! I’m so glad this I something that happens, I know character’s used to go on rides but they stopped quiet a while ago, so I’m glad to see this! Maybe one day they’ll let more character’s ride again! Since I was leaving Disneyland for a few weeks after today I popped by to say Hi again to the Princesses, somehow I always managed to catch the line when it was quiet and only had a few families waiting:

After seeing the Princesses I hopped over to DCA, where I spent a while in the Animation building seeing turtle talk and having another try at drawing Sully, unfortunately with not much improvement!

I wondered over to Grizzly peak to look at riding the Rapids, but the line was long and they had no SR left, so I met Pluto instead:

And road Soarin’ before heading off to do something I hadn’t done yet, Mad T Party. I figured it was AIWL themed, but I wasn’t really sure if it was going to be my kind of thing. However once I let go of my prejudice against all main stream music and started to just sing a long I began to enjoy it. I do wish there would have been more people dancing so I could have felt comfortable dancing (which is what I really wanted to do but if you’ve ever tried to break out dancing all by yourself when no one around you is, you’ll know it’s very difficult, the frustrating thing is I know I’m not the only one who wants to dance, and everyone else is feeling pretty much the same way, but to be the one to start the dancing is hard, especially when you don’t have a friend with you! But I digress) At any rate, I enjoyed the band enough to want to stay for the second set, but first I needed some dinner, so I headed over to the Cozy Cone to get a mac n cheese cone then took it back to Mad T party with me, where I took some photo’s and tried to get a spot closer to the stage for the second set.

After Mad T Party I hauled myself back to my hotel to pack up all my things. I spent the next 2 weeks in Orlando at WDW (there’s a TR for that also, check my sig) before coming back to DLR for the last few days of my trip.

 

[buttercup14]

Looks like you had a great time!

You found someone - I also liked the pasta at Rockets Pizza Port but I really liked their Asian Chicken Salad.

You make me want to go back - but still paying off our trip last year lol!

Oh good, i'm glad i found someone else who likes the pasta! I'll have to try the salad next time!

 

[buttercup14]

Day Eight, Sunday 20th of September or More of why i love Sundays!

Ok, so technically, this was day nine, since I did arrive back in Anaheim around 1pm the previous day and went into the park for the afternoon. But I can’t remember what I did, and didn’t have my camera so there’s no photo’s to jog my memory either. So we’ll just count this as day eight. There was some event over in Disneyland park which meant it was opening an hour later, so I was left with DCA for 8am open. I took the chance to ride radiator springs racers (again, SR, it was actually reasonably crowded for this time of morning, but I find the SR line moves quiet well) and I did a bit of window shopping before heading over to DL for 9am open. When I walked out of DCA this is what I found:

The lines for DL park were half way across the plaza. Once I got half way through the line it seemed to move much faster, and I made it up to the castle for just after rope drop. I took myself for a ride on the Matterhorn and went to grab a FP for Space Mountain (now ghost galaxy’s for Halloween). I also went for a spin on Buzz (one day I’ll learn how to actually shoot the targets and not the air space around them!) I went back over to Fantasyland where I found Hatter and Alice, now with the Queen of Hearts. I really wasn’t sure whether to have been vaguely terrified or delighted at the prospect of meeting the Queen of Hearts, but I got in line none the less. Hatter read my button again and immediately grabbed my hand to dance with me, in true Hatter style there was a lot of turning and spinning and then he knocked my hat off while Turing me! Off with my hat!

They took another look at my pin collection which had expanded rapidly since I last saw them, Hatter made a comment about the Queen's pin being so tiny and insignificant, she didn't take to his comment kindly:

Then I asked Alice if she could teach me the correct way to curtsy to the Queen, I regret this a little because it ended up being slightly embarrassing , first I wasn’t speaking loudly enough, then I wasn’t curtsying low enough, but now at least I know the correct way to curtsy and I got to keep my head as an added bonus!

The queen wanted my toes to be pointed out more, then Alice told me to stand up nice and straight, keep eye contact and say 'Yes your majesty!'

(By the way, just by the very slim chance she’s on these boards and reading this, thanks so much to the lady behind me who took photos of the whole meet for me!)

I went over to ride big thunder then headed back to Tomorrowland to use my FP for ghost galaxy’s. Despite almost always travelling to DL during Halloween time, I hadn’t done this since I was 10. Upon riding it I remembered why, it genuinely freaks me out! Usually I love SM but I can’t quiet handle the overlay, the music and projections are a bit to creepy! So I calmed myself down with anther Princess visit (can you tell, i visit the Princesses a lot!), where I found Aurora was paying the hall a visit:

Along with Snow White and Belle, but you’ve seen enough pictures of me with them! All this was on my way to get myself a FP for Haunted Mansion (now with the Nightmare before Christmas overlay). Which I did, with only an hour to wait until my FP I got myself an early lunch at the Harbour Gallery (shrimp salad, it was delicious! And salad so added bonus!). Then I used my FP for Haunted Mansion, I just love the overlay! I’ve seen it a few times before but I still love it! This was also my first time getting to see the hat box ghost, and yes, he is as amazing as everybody says! I never thought I’d be so excited to see a ghost!

I headed over to see musical chairs, and on my way I bumped right into the Genie walking to his meet n greet, so I said Hi:

After musical chairs I headed to my hotel (super 8 again, by the way) for a break/ nap, since I really wanted to actually try and stay out late this night. When I was ready I headed back to DCA, getting myself dinner at the Mexican place (sorry, don’t remember it’s name, but there’s only one mex place in DCA so it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out) then heading off for Mad T Party. The band were great this night! I loved every minute of it, even the mainstream/popular music, I stayed for 2 sets, getting myself a red’s apple freeze from cars land in between (my inner child loves this drink, you should have seen the look I unintentionally gave the CM when she asked me if I wanted cream on top, something along the lines of what I’d give someone who asked me if I wanted feet at the bottom of my legs!)

I hopped back to DL in time for Fantasmic since I wanted to try something out. I’d heard a secret about a spot you can watch the performer’s get on and off the floats, and was delighted to find it was true! I got to see King Louie + the Monkey’s, Ariel and Prince Eric, Snow White and her Prince + Peter and everyone from the pirate ship load on and off their boats! Me and the few others in the area got waved from the characters, and then mark twain came through, and there was all 20 or so of the characters waving at the 5 or so of us! It was so neat! And watching them get all the floats ready was super neat to!

After the Mark Twain came past I jumped right onto splash mountain, which at this point was a walk on. This was probably one of the best rides on splash ever! For one, the fireworks were going off! Our log came up the top of one of the hills outside and ‘Boom!’ A Mickey firework is launched right into the air! The atmosphere of excitement in our log alone could have outdone the atmosphere on Main Street! Every time we were outside/at the top of the big drop we go to see bits of the fireworks! This is the way to see fireworks people! Also, we all got soaked! Or, the left half of us anyway, I don’t know what it was about our boat, but every time we went down a drop, even the tiniest of ones, the water just poured in on the left side! First everyone in the boat would be screaming because of the fireworks, the next second because we were all suddenly soaked! But in the very best way possible!

When the ride was over I walked over to river’s to watch the rest of the fireworks, I found I had a better view standing back from the River than last time when I stood right against the bottom railing. I spent the next hour or so riding before tiredness got the best of me and I retired back to my hotel.

 

[buttercup14]

Day Nine, Monday 21st of September or A half day that I don’t remember much of!

So this part of the TR is going to be relatively small, because I don’t remember much of what I did this day! I know I started the day off with a ride on the Storybook Canals and Casey jr train, I also presume I rode some other things, one of them defiantly being the haunted mansion! I managed to meet Jack and Sally, who complained that I didn’t have enough spooky pins, and asked me if there was some sort of monster in my hat:

As I was walking back towards main street in spotted the Straw Hatters walking through frontierland, which reminded me they do a set on the Mark Twain around this time, I followed them and that was indeed where they were heading, so I hoped on the Mark Twain and watched them play from the second level. At the end of their set they give out tambourines and flags for guests to play/wave, which was fun!:

I had lunch at Café Orleans, where I finally got to try a Monte Cristo, which was delicious but far too much deep fried goodness for me! I could have used a bit more fruit and a bit less bread! Or better still someone to share with! I had a little bit to time to spare between lunch and my daily dose of musical chairs madness, so I went over to Fantasyland where I found the Pearly band, so I stopped to watch them for a while before heading to musical chairs. Musical chairs was an interesting one this day, mainly because, there was no piano player! But Hatter wanted to play anyway, so he decided the person to get out would sing the next song! Boy did I pick a day to play, I hadn’t sung in front of people in years and I’m a quiet one! But it added some extra fun to the game!

I headed back to my hotel for a break and when I got there found I was incredibly tired, so I had a nap, which lasted much longer than intended, and I felt super dazed when I woke up, so I stayed at the hotel for the evening, even sleeping through the fireworks!

Cover's the past 2 days:

 

[buttercup14]

Day Ten, Tuesday 22nd of September or So. Much. Magic!!

This morning I decided to change things up and spend my morning in DCA, where I arrived for rope drop, weaved my way through the crowds of people heading for the racers, and was one of the first in line for Midway Mania, the only ‘shooting game’ I can do a decent job at! I then took a casual stroll over to Grizzly peak, where I rode the grizzly river run (with some other folks from Australia, Our accents stand out so much!). I was glad to have brought along a pair of water shoes that I changed into, since all the water just keep sloshing into the bottom of the rat soaking our feet! I could actually pour the water out from my shoe when I took it off! I took some time to run around redwood creek challenge before all the little kids got there and stopped to say Hi to Goofy on the way out (who looks very handsome in his zoot suit, by the way):

(You can see how much my preference lies with Disneyland park by how sort that paragraph was as opposed to one of the paragraphs about a morning in DL)


I headed across the way to park hop where once again lines for the gates were half way across the plaza, and moving even more slowly than the previous days, but I made it through eventually! I went and got myself a FP for haunted mansion, then road ALL the attractions in critter country (that’s right, you heard my, all 2 of them!) before heading back to use my FP. I tried to get a lobster roll from harbour gallery for lunch, but they were out of the mixture, so I went for a corn dog instead, a DL staple I hadn’t tried yet, mainly because I refuse to accept something without vegetables as a meal even when I’m on vacation, but I made an exception this once. While yes I agree the corn dog was yummy, it was too much batter for my taste towards the end, guess I’m just not a junk food kinda girl.

After lunch I needed to digest, so I went for a wonder and as I was walking past pixie hollow I found my legs taking me into the line. It was much longer than I’d normally wait but by this point in the day almost everything had long lines. You know how the CM’s tell you not to run. I saw another good example of why you should listen to them while waiting. An excited girl came running (just a little bit) into the line, stumbled and dropped her autograph book, sending it flying under the railing. Thankfully it was close enough that with the help of a long armed gentleman, it was retrieved, but had it have slid a little further it probably would have ended up in the pond and that girl would have lost all her autographs. If she would have been walking it would have fallen on the ground in front of her. If she would have been an adult is might have been a camera or a wallet sent flying!

In Pixie hollow today was Silvermist and TinkerBell (maybe one day I’ll get to meet Fawn, I always seem to get Silvermist or Rosetta!). Silvermist asked if I had been travelling all over the place, I answered yes but I guess really I’d only travelled to 2 places, it just felt like a lot of places because I’d been through a lot of airports getting to those places (lucky fairies, don’t have stop overs on their flights!):

TinkerBell inspected my lost things (pins) and have me the official word that she did not steal Hatter’s teapot as had been rumoured! :

After my Pixie time I visited the wishing well, an end of trip tradition to get rid of all the soon to be useless to me US change I’d acquired, it’s very hard not to feel self-conscious dropping a large handful of change into the well! (By the way, you know how they say any wish you make at the Well will come true, I’ve been wishing at the well for 12 years of my life and I can personally attest that every single wish has indeed come true! Minus the one I made on this past trip, but it does usually take some time)

I took a ride on the monorail in place of my afternoon break today (since I was very near the end of my vacation I figured it no longer mattered if I was tried, it would probably help me sleep on the plane trip home!) and upon getting off the monorail spotted another misplaced character. For some reason, Pluto was taking a walk through tomorrowland. Perhaps he’d mistaken himself for the other kind of Pluto? Or he just felt like being the puppy of Tomorrow, who knows?

I stopped over for another visit with the Princesses before grabbing an afternoon snack:

I was getting to around parade time so I decided to go back to the monorail to see if I could get the timing for some magic right and catch some of soundsational from the Monorail. I thought I was going to miss it but I ended up timing it perfectly, and got to watch about half of the parade going through Fantasyland on the monorail! I was happy to find the Character’s waved at the monorail as I passed too!


I did a little bit of riding before I left the parks to get dinner at the garden walk, the headed back in for World of Color (I had gotten myself a FP that morning). It was 10-15 minutes before they were supposed to let the FP people in, but folks were already lined up. There was no obvious labelling system for the different sections and I had to ask a CM were my section was (surly it would make it easier for the CM’s to have some signs or have it written on the FP?) I got a snack and lined up for my section, we all got thoroughly squished together before being let in, and I was able to get a spot against the second level railing. I ate my snack and played the color wheel challenge (I did not win), then the show began. Honestly, I didn’t find this show anything particularly spectacular. I can tick it off the list of things I’ve seen now, but It’s not something I’ll take the time to do again.

I popped out of the show a few minutes early to beat the crowds back to Disneyland, were I took the ‘secret passage’ up to the hub because PTN was about to begin the streets were covered in parade viewer’s. I tried for a bit more magic by getting in line for the astro orbitor. The parade was coming through the hub as I was waiting in line, but I was glad to see it was moving slowly, and I got on my rocket about mid way through the parade and got to see a few of the floats go through from my flight! (A warning though, trying to watch the parade from your rocket will make you extra dizzy!)

After my flight I was forced into Tomorrowland and through Fantasyland onto the big thunder trail by the parade crowds. I was near literally swept off my feet in the crowds and couldn’t have gone anywhere else! But that’s ok, because as I was swept towards Big Thunder I knew what I had to do. I got in line and again, perfect timing! (I couldn’t believe my magic timing luck today!) The fireworks starting going off as soon as I got on! This was just as magical as the right I rode splash while the fireworks were going, and everyone on the train was feeling the magic! I loved the surprise and delight of other un-expecting guests getting to see the fireworks from the ride as I much as I loved seeing the fireworks myself! As an added bonus I spotted TinkerBell hovering around nearby after her flight from the castle! When I got off the fireworks were still going, I stood outside big thunder and watch for a bit, then walked closer to the river’s and watch for a bit, I really enjoyed watching the one show from a few different spots, and watching them near big thunder gives the fireworks a bit of a ‘focal point’ that they seem to be launching around (like the castle but not the castle!).

Once the fireworks finished I headed over to critter country for a last ride on Splash Mountain. Once again it was super quiet, basically a walk on. Now I’d been making a lot of my own magic today, but Disneyland wouldn’t settle for that, it wanted me to have so more magic. So it decided to create a log jam in splash mountain. What’s magical about that you ask? We had to be walked off!! We were right in the middle of the ride to, so we got to take a good walk to get out! All the while I’m thinking ‘I’m WALKING in splash mountain. I’m standing next to a deer in Splash Mountain!’ Basically, I was dorking out big time! A few people were grumpy about it, saying they missed their bus. But I couldn’t have been happier! By the time we got out it was 10 minute past official close time, and the Rivers of America were totally empty! It was so beautiful! I had a bit more magic with an evening walk before heading back to my hotel for the last night.

 

[buttercup14]

Day Eleven, Wednesday 23rdof September or Last day

So this was it. After 28 days between WDW and DLR it was my last day! Needless to say I was feeling a bit melancholy. I started out the morning with breakfast at Ariels Grotto. My booking was for 9am and when I arrived the Princesses weren’t out yet. The fruit and pastry basket they gave you to start off the meal was delicious- though clearly not designed for a solo diner! I ordered the breakfast sandwich, which came out around the of Princess Belle’s arrival. I’m not sure if I missed it on the menu or it didn’t say, but the sandwich comes on a croissant, I’m not really a fan of croissant’s, but it was a nice meal regardless. After Belle came Cinderella, Tiana and Jasmine. They all stopped for a quick chat and a photo:

By the way, I loved the ceiling of the grotto!

After breakfast I hopped over to DL. Today my main goal was just to meet character and ride a few of my favourites. So I rode AIWL, big thunder and got a FP for haunted mansion, then stopped by the Princesses for a last visit. Snow remembered me from the previous day and part of the conversation we’d had, so we continued on our chat, and I asked all the princesses if they could twirl with me, which they were all happy to do!

I also found Rapunzel outside so I met with her again to before going to use my FP for haunted mansion. I then got some lunch at the Jolly Holiday Bakery and brought it over with me to watch musical chairs. Hatter remembered me and came over to offer me some invistabliTEA. I then went to take one last walk through Fantasyland, in the walkway I spotted a crowd of people gathered around, I went over and found Peter Pan playing duck duck goose with 15 or so kids (and a few big ones) This made me so happy to watch! I had my stroll through Fantasyland before heading back to MS:

At the front of the park I stopped to say hi to Chip n Dale (actually, I believe I asked them to hide me away somewhere so I didn’t have to leave!):

And Pluto:

Before it was time to leave. Thankfully this time I did not cry, as I did having to leave last time! Not that I didn’t come close!



So there you have it, that was my magical solo trip! I had so much fun and for the most part, honestly hardly even noticed I was there solo, I was having too much fun to care! Feel free to ask me any questions about my trip that might help you with your trip

 

[MommaBerd]

Fantastic trip report! Thanks for sharing.