Reasons for buying VGC?

[anna08]

I am a tried and true WDW fan from childhood, and have never been to Disneyland. I tend to buy things of value (much to my DH's dismay), and love uniqueness. Of course the VGC are small in number so my curiosity is peaked and I'd like to know what has prompted others to buy there, other than the obvious west coaster who frequents DL for ease of proximity.

 

[stopher1]

Here are a few:

- the first DVC resort on the West Coast
- it's located at the FIRST Disney resort - the one that started it all!
- the first DVC resort to be located literally inside a Disney theme park/with a private entrance directly into that park (true it's DCA and not DL park, but that doesn't matter)
- the rooftop viewing platform for the all-new (2010) World of Color show on Paradise Pier Lagoon
- the size of the resort will make that 7 month window nearly impossible to book...
- no buses or other vehicular transportation needed to get around - you can be everywhere in near moments on foot

There are many reasons that are quite nostalgic that I have as well, having grown up in So Cal and almost at the park - having been a DL castmember in high school & college, the year-round splendid So Cal weather, etc, etc...

I'm sure others will post more reasons as well.

 

[anna08]

oops! Just saw thread from justkeepswimmin about Positives for VGC. That helped some. I know this sounds kinda silly, but I have this image of SoCal as being painfully dense with overpopulation. Is this true? How easy is it to get to DL without a car? If I like all the walking I normally do at WDW would i dislike DL? It does sound neat to be in a DVC essentially inside a park.

 

[stopher1]

oops! Just saw thread from justkeepswimmin about Positives for VGC. That helped some. I know this sounds kinda silly, but I have this image of SoCal as being painfully dense with overpopulation. Is this true? How easy is it to get to DL without a car? If I like all the walking I normally do at WDW would i dislike DL? It does sound neat to be in a DVC essentially inside a park.

As a region Southern California is immense and very, very populated - the greater LA basin is basically comprised of 5 counties, many many cities that are essentially interconnected, and about 20-30 million+ people, yes. You can literally drive 200+ miles in So. Cal and still be inside some city, without any major break or major greenspace like you have in other parts of the country. To quote Lucy Ricardo from the I LOVE LUCY episode where she is trying to convince Ricky that they should travel from NY to LA by car..."you absolutely need a car in Los Angeles." This is true. Sure there are city and regional buses, taxis and light rail that can help move people around, but So Cal has long been about the car, and remains so. However, you can definitely enjoy Disneyland and it's environs without one.

As a resort, it is so much smaller than WDW. WDW alone is about the size of the city of San Francisco, or twice the size of Manhattan - and there is much of it that you can't even explore since several thousand acres are dedicated nature preserve. You absolutely need the buses, monorails and boats to get around there - or - a car.

DLR, comprised of the original Magic Kingdom - Disneyland park, California Adventure, Downtown Disney and the three hotels, along with the various parking structure and lots probably take up 500-600 acres of land, and is completely surrounded by the city of Anaheim. There's LOTS of walking to be had on city streets if you are so inclined.

The fact that you are inside a resort surrounded by so much life only ADDS to the appeal of the VGC for me. Sure when you enter the gates of WDW, you are able to "get away from it all" as you continue to drive deeper into the heart of the resort complex to find your hotel - but at DLR, you don't quite have that luxury. That was the beauty of the berm that Walt had designed and built all around the original park. The berm elevated the train and was then planted with trees to shut out the real world. The greater DLR resort doesn't have that same berm, but collectively through the past 54 years, as the outside world has continued to surround it closer and closer, it seems to have more of an innate ability of shutting it all out for the hours that you are there. 10 years ago as the imagineers were designing the changes that ultimately brought about DCA, DTD and the hotel "district", more landscaping was added that helps bring it all in more closely together. It had become an oasis deep in the heart of a metropolis, if you will, that gives respite from the real world for a while.

 

[wideeyedwonder]

If I like all the walking I normally do at WDW would i dislike DL? It does sound neat to be in a DVC essentially inside a park.

For us (family of 5 with 3 kids), the shorter distances between rides and parks is a godsend. When we stayed at the DLH or the GC, we would take the monorail from DTD to DL, or take the "shortcut" through GCH to get to CA. The monorail wait was never longer than 20 minutes. We've long since abandoned the "comando" method of hitting the parks, so we'd often return to the hotels in the afternoon for relaxation and swimming, followed by another stint in the parks in the evening. Having the hotels and the parks so close together makes this possible.

It was similar to staying at the BC at WDW, and walking to Epcot...we could come and go as we pleased, although it was a much longer walk than at DL.

For us, with young kids, the walking at WDW was just too much (we've been twice), and now we prefer to do the Disney Cruise when in Florida. Perhaps when the kids get older, we'll use some of our points at the Big W, but until then, we have an almost ideal situation at the Big D.

 

[SunnieRN]

I lived on the west coast until two years ago. The difference to me is that disneyland is more compact, and it shuts out the world better than the magic kingdom does. The experience of fantasmic at disneyland is so impressive and the haunted mansion nightmare overlay is fantastic!!

Between disneyland and dca you have a LOT of the same rides as you do in wdw's 4 parks a few that are unique to the west coast!!

Disneyland is definately something to see at least once, but don't be surprised if you love it enough to return every 2 or 3 years!! The disneyland fan base is incredible and fanatic in a lot of ways which will most likely make it hard to book there 7 months out. I loved my one trip to wdw and I am going back in a few days, but a part of my heart will always belong to disneyland!!

As for the car issue, you can fly into Anaheim, Orange county or Los Angeles and get bus service to disneyland resort. You can also get transportation to other L.A. amusement parks and San Diego from there!! Southern CA traffic is not always a lot of fun.

 

[Disney_Villain]

Our 2 big plusses on DL (aside from the fact that DL was Walt's park):

In DL, you don't have inconvenient busses that take forever to haul you from park to park, or park to hotel (as you do in WDW). You can walk these distances. As a result, you can make a dinner reservation in any DL park or DL hotel and not worry about where you're going to be for the day (and you have a lot more dining options because of this).

We also find that character interactions are far better in DL than in WDW, due to what acting talent SoCal has to offer. We've had some pretty impressive character meals in DL that have put anything we've had in WDW to shame.

 

[DVC Mike]

I grew up in Southern California just a few miles from Disneyland, so it will always be special to me.

I bought at VGC because you can literally walk to two theme parks and DTD. Everything is grouped together and you don't need to wait for a bus or hop in the car. Plus, there is just so much else you can do, such as go to the beach or the mountains.

 

[stopher1]

I grew up in Southern California just a few miles from Disneyland, so it will always be special to me.
.

Me too - it really is such a special place.

Growing up there was a newscaster who always began his nightly broadcast saying "from the mountains to the desert to the sea and all of Southern California this is..." - there's just something about it. You could be at the ocean from DL in about 15 minutes. Or to the mountains in about an hour and half, or into the high desert within maybe another hour. The landscape is really diverse throughout California.

Disneyland itself, unlike WDW, really isn't a week-long destination. A few days sure... but there are so many other things to see and experience in So. Cal. A car is important for those aspects, but not DL itself. YOu could easily spend 7-10 days in So Cal and leave still wanting to see and experience more. The beauty of VGC is that you can then go back many times and get your DL visit in, and use Anaheim as your home base to then also experience more of what So Cal has to enjoy on non-DL days.

 

[anna08]

Thanks so much everyone for your answers! Stopher1 - you make me want to go right now!! Thanks for clarifying what's there - I had no idea it was that expansive. I was just picturing highrises towering over Cinderella's castle and dense smog (which to be fair, would comparable to the thick humid air of Florida). I love the idea of escaping to the beach, the mountains, etc... Hmmmm. Not sure now where the next add-on will be.....

I've only ever spent time in Sonoma and Ojai with a pinch of San Fran on top, so I guess I'm really a California newbie. I've always said if I was going to fly 6 hours to get somewhere, I'd rather be in London!! Maybe I'll I need to rethink my vacation plans for 2010...So many DVC choices, so little time!!

 

[nunzia]

stopher1 said it all very well. I know the deals to be had on Harbor, and we used to always stay off property, but I haven't stepped foot ouside the resort since 2001 when we first stayed at the GC. In pictures it looks alot nicer than it did when we took our kids and stayed at the Tropicana with the doughnut nazi and did the dash of death across the street. So Cal is such a congested huge city that goes and goes and goes, that it means alot for me to block it all out. That said, now that DH and I will be taking more trips (thank to the DVC effect..or is that affect) we may need to peek our heads outside the resort once in awhile. We've done all the usual side trips: Knott's, Universal, Magic Mountain, San Diego, Hollywood, beach, but who knows what the future holds. Is there somewhere close to rent a car?

 

[stopher1]

stopher1 said it all very well. I know the deals to be had on Harbor, and we used to always stay off property, but I haven't stepped foot ouside the resort since 2001 when we first stayed at the GC. In pictures it looks alot nicer than it did when we took our kids and stayed at the Tropicana with the doughnut nazi and did the dash of death across the street. So Cal is such a congested huge city that goes and goes and goes, that it means alot for me to block it all out. That said, now that DH and I will be taking more trips (thank to the DVC effect..or is that affect) we may need to peek our heads outside the resort once in awhile. We've done all the usual side trips: Knott's, Universal, Magic Mountain, San Diego, Hollywood, beach, but who knows what the future holds. Is there somewhere close to rent a car?

There's a rental location inside Downtown Disney - I believe it's an Alamo... it's down around the corner from the bookstore at the end of the AMC Theater building. There's a walk way there runs between it and the DL Hotel. If you think about the sorcerer's hat outside the DL Hotel and are walking towards it - turn left before the hat and head down that path and you'll see it.

 

[stopher1]

If I like all the walking I normally do at WDW would i dislike DL?

Another thing I forgot to mention... now I'm not 100% positive how often they offer this, but when DW & I stayed at the GC a few weeks back for our anniversary, the hotel was allowing guests to go into DCA in the early morning pre-opening hours to do "power walking", where you could walk throughout the theme park on a designated route. You had to be downstairs and at the hotel's private entrance by like 7:30 am or something like that (the park didn't open til 10 those days), and you had an hour to walk.... so something else special about it, and providing exercise for those that want to partake and not walk the city streets surrounding the resort.

 

[ACDSNY]

I like the weather in SoCal better than WDW.

 

[anna08]

Another thing I forgot to mention... now I'm not 100% positive how often they offer this, but when DW & I stayed at the GC a few weeks back for our anniversary, the hotel was allowing guests to go into DCA in the early morning pre-opening hours to do "power walking", where you could walk throughout the theme park on a designated route. You had to be downstairs and at the hotel's private entrance by like 7:30 am or something like that (the park didn't open til 10 those days), and you had an hour to walk.... so something else special about it, and providing exercise for those that want to partake and not walk the city streets surrounding the resort.

That's awesome!!

 

[nunzia]

Another thing I forgot to mention... now I'm not 100% positive how often they offer this, but when DW & I stayed at the GC a few weeks back for our anniversary, the hotel was allowing guests to go into DCA in the early morning pre-opening hours to do "power walking", where you could walk throughout the theme park on a designated route. You had to be downstairs and at the hotel's private entrance by like 7:30 am or something like that (the park didn't open til 10 those days), and you had an hour to walk.... so something else special about it, and providing exercise for those that want to partake and not walk the city streets surrounding the resort.

I've actually seen that offered every time I've gone, so I'm guessing it's a regular thing.
and..thanks for the car rental info!