Imdboss
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jun 12, 2014
- Messages
- 877
Background: me, DH, DD (almost 12), DS 7. Me and kids in park Wed-Sun, DH with us Fri-Sun.
This was a different trip for us in that the kids and I flew into lax from Seattle because DH works in LA, we usually fly into SNA. We landed around 10:30pm and I sure missed the ease of SNA. We had a car service take us to DHs hotel. We drove to DL on Wed and Thurs, leaving around 9:30 both days, not a bad drive, took us about 40 min, I was expecting an hour. Driving to DL was a first, parking was very easy! Friday we checked into DoubleTree Anaheim, we've stayed here before. Walked to Toy Story lot to cut down on the walk to the park, this worked really well!
Temps for our 5 days were HOT! DH ordered a Camelback to be delivered to hotel on Thurs so that was a huge help on our last 3 days, it really made a big difference and I'd highly recommend one. It was really nice to have cold water whenever we wanted rather than buying a bottle of water and guzzling it down while it's still cold only to be thirsty again in 5 min. It was $75 and I think it paid for itself in those 3 days.
Hot temps seemed to keep crowds away. We were pleasantly surprised with the lower than expected crowds, we've encounter worse during Aug, Oct, and Nov. Normal days for us would be 10-12 hours, this trip we did 7-9 and got a lot more rides in.
I bought our PHs from parksavers.com. I highly recommend them. My bank didn't allow the charge to go through due to possible fraud, told them it was legit so they said to have merchant reprocess charges. I emailed them since they were closed, figured I'd hear back following day sometime, got an immediate email stating they'd reprocess charges and had my tickets via email a minute later. I saved $17 on the 5 day PH, could've been $5 more if I bought more than 5 days before first park day, and saved $10 on 3 day PH.
We upgraded two PHs to APs, we were given full value of the tickets not the price I paid for them towards our upgrade. Yay!
Jedi training: this was big on DS to-do list. Didn't get to it until Sun. He and I got to park at 10:10 and went straight to signup and picked the 2:25 show. There were two shows after that still available. You must arrive 25 min prior to start of show, they give a 15 min grace period, or else your spot may be given to another child on the wait list.
Take advantage of Buzz being disconnected! The wait is usually short but if not just grab a FP, the return time is usually 20-30 min later. If we were doing another ride in TL we'd grab buzz on our way then be able to go on buzz right after the other ride.
Security: longest lines were Wed when we arrived at 10:50. Otherwise fairly quick. Sometimes we went through metal detector other times not.
Launch Bay is a great place to escape the sun/crowds/noise. Plenty of open space to find a quiet corner if needed.
DL app: I learned its best to actually click on the ride for further details or to see FP info because sometimes this info was different than what it shows in just the listing format even though I had just refreshed. There were times where it'd show a ride as temporarily closed or a different wait time than what it showed when I was just looking at the list. This happened a few times. It seems that part of the app updates prior than the other...if that makes sense.
Those are the main points I can think of. If you have any questions I'll be happy to answer what I can!
Can't wait to go back (hopefully Oct)
This was a different trip for us in that the kids and I flew into lax from Seattle because DH works in LA, we usually fly into SNA. We landed around 10:30pm and I sure missed the ease of SNA. We had a car service take us to DHs hotel. We drove to DL on Wed and Thurs, leaving around 9:30 both days, not a bad drive, took us about 40 min, I was expecting an hour. Driving to DL was a first, parking was very easy! Friday we checked into DoubleTree Anaheim, we've stayed here before. Walked to Toy Story lot to cut down on the walk to the park, this worked really well!
Temps for our 5 days were HOT! DH ordered a Camelback to be delivered to hotel on Thurs so that was a huge help on our last 3 days, it really made a big difference and I'd highly recommend one. It was really nice to have cold water whenever we wanted rather than buying a bottle of water and guzzling it down while it's still cold only to be thirsty again in 5 min. It was $75 and I think it paid for itself in those 3 days.
Hot temps seemed to keep crowds away. We were pleasantly surprised with the lower than expected crowds, we've encounter worse during Aug, Oct, and Nov. Normal days for us would be 10-12 hours, this trip we did 7-9 and got a lot more rides in.
I bought our PHs from parksavers.com. I highly recommend them. My bank didn't allow the charge to go through due to possible fraud, told them it was legit so they said to have merchant reprocess charges. I emailed them since they were closed, figured I'd hear back following day sometime, got an immediate email stating they'd reprocess charges and had my tickets via email a minute later. I saved $17 on the 5 day PH, could've been $5 more if I bought more than 5 days before first park day, and saved $10 on 3 day PH.
We upgraded two PHs to APs, we were given full value of the tickets not the price I paid for them towards our upgrade. Yay!
Jedi training: this was big on DS to-do list. Didn't get to it until Sun. He and I got to park at 10:10 and went straight to signup and picked the 2:25 show. There were two shows after that still available. You must arrive 25 min prior to start of show, they give a 15 min grace period, or else your spot may be given to another child on the wait list.
Take advantage of Buzz being disconnected! The wait is usually short but if not just grab a FP, the return time is usually 20-30 min later. If we were doing another ride in TL we'd grab buzz on our way then be able to go on buzz right after the other ride.
Security: longest lines were Wed when we arrived at 10:50. Otherwise fairly quick. Sometimes we went through metal detector other times not.
Launch Bay is a great place to escape the sun/crowds/noise. Plenty of open space to find a quiet corner if needed.
DL app: I learned its best to actually click on the ride for further details or to see FP info because sometimes this info was different than what it shows in just the listing format even though I had just refreshed. There were times where it'd show a ride as temporarily closed or a different wait time than what it showed when I was just looking at the list. This happened a few times. It seems that part of the app updates prior than the other...if that makes sense.
Those are the main points I can think of. If you have any questions I'll be happy to answer what I can!
Can't wait to go back (hopefully Oct)
