Skipping & Sailing My Way Through the Happiest Place on Earth- A First Visit TR! (UPDATE: 9/9)

[Hannahinwonderland]

Hello everyone, and welcome to my trip report!

I just got back from the best first trip to Disneyland EVER!

Backstory: So my family had been planning a trip to Northern California for a while and I started to think to myself..well, I've never been to LA, I've never been to Disneyland! And suddenly an Idea was Born! None of them really wanted to come along, but I was totally down to go alone. It was going to be a solo trip til a friend from the area who is a frequent visitor offered to come along with her boyfriend for the first couple of days and be my tour guide- I was SO SO into this plan! I am from New York so this was gonna be a fun trek! For funsies, this is what I spent a lot of time seeing on the first portion of my trip...

Many, many many lovely Redwood Trees.

Cast of Characters: There's me. I'm 24, making rapid progress through grad school (3 years down, 2 more years of my degree in School Psychology). I did the DCP at WDW back in 2015, loved it so much that I still talk about it almost DAILY, oops! I was a Jungle Skipper (so obviously visited the Jungle Cruise quite a few times on this trip). Miss it! Here I am skipping happily back in the day:

In addition, I was with two awesome friends on Days 1 and 2 of the trip, and another awesome friend on Day 4! More details about them to follow

Where I stayed: Budget Inn Anaheim. I am fully an on-property girl when I stay at WDW. However, this trip was to be done on a budget & this hotel did not disappoint, budget wise. It was very close (about a 15 min walk), was well within my budget, and was clean enough despite a tiny musty smell. Would recommend!

The Itinerary: The dates were Aug 22-26 at DL with one last day in LA. I arrived VERY early on the 22nd (more about that later) and departed Los Angeles SUPER late on the evening of the 27th.

This trip had really nothing planned...i'm a slightly picky eater (I'm vegan), so didn't make any ADR's or anything like that. I enjoyed the flexibility of being able to hop so easily! Throughout this report I will be comparing the two resorts and for sure, having the 2 parks steps away was really nice and a mark in DL's favor.

So where do I go from here? I'll be uploading my trip in detail, starting with my first day..feel free to follow along! I am posting this partially so that I can remember all the fun times, and also partially to inform people about the ~current state~ of DL from the impressions of a former WDW cast member/ WDW huge fan!

Chapter 1: The Early Arrival!
Chapter 2- Pirates is Cancelled!

 

[theluckyrabbit]

... I just got back from the best first trip to Disneyland EVER!..

So happy to hear that you had a great first visit!!

 

[Hannahinwonderland]

Part 1: The Early Arrival

Being the genius that I am, I was trying to save money on this trip, so I decided to take an overnight bus from San Jose where I was grabbing dinner to a friend, to Anaheim. So I arrived, bright and early, at a lovely 5 AM in the fancy Anaheim transport station!

Yes, 5 am! No sleep on the bus, but plenty of enthusiasm for the days ahead. From there I took a lyft, suitcase and backpack in tow, to Downtown Disney, as the Downtown Disney starbucks had just opened! I enjoyed walking through the nearly deserted Disney property. This was it, I was SO close to a magical Disney vacation! I ordered my usual (grande iced coffee with coconut milk), settled into an outdoor seat, and managed to waste the next 3.5 hours by just sitting there, people- watching, organizing things on my laptop and just overall enjoying my coffee!

From there, I walked back to my hotel around 8:30 AM. I intended to just leave my belongings in a storage area but my room was actually ready! This was amazing as I was able to go freshen up, lay in my bed for a bit and just chill while waiting for my friends. After a bit, they arrived and we were ON OUR WAY to Disneyland. We hopped in the car, queued up some "A Whole New World" & drove to the parking structure.

After getting through those golden gates, what was our first stop? Well, I had to walk through the beautiful, tiny castle of course...so we ended up in....

Fantasyland! I immediately tried to pull the sword out of the stone...

I tried my best. We purchased one Maxpass so that we could keep all the cute pictures. The Photopass person at this location was not amused to have an adult trying to pull the sword out, but whatever, he took a good picture.

From there it was time to hit the trifecta of rides that I either had never done, or did when I was a tiny baby at WDW: Snow White's Scary Adventures, Pinocchio's Daring Journey, and Mr. Toad's Wild Ride! Oh man... those rides lived up to the bolded descriptors. Maybe it was the lack of sleep...but I found them scary, daring, and then wild!! (I mean, you go to hell!!!!) From then on, I decided I could only do those rides in a trifecta...one after the other....Scary, Daring, and Wild. That's me!

By that time, I have to admit that I was getting SLEEPY! How to solve that? Food! We headed over to Frontierland to Rancho del Zocalo. I ordered the vegan tacos (yummy!), and my friends ordered the nachos and a burrito I believe? Everyone enjoyed their food, and we also enjoyed a nice rest sitting there and soaking up the atmosphere.

 

[momjeeps]

Hopping on for the ride. The Redwoods are one of my favorite non-Disney places to visit. So green and lush and peaceful! I love to go off-season in November when it’s cool and damp and deserted from the summer crowds.

Looking forward to hearing about your DL adventure. The first time we took our kids to WDW (I grew up in So Cal, so that was our special treat and comparison trip much like yours in reverse.) we started out much like you. We had driven through the night to get there and really didn’t plan on a park day that first day. But we were too excited to relax. So we added a day to our tickets and headed for MK. Just about stayed until closing time too. Crazy tired! But happy!

 

[Amw1064]

Love reading your report. We are from Florida and also took our very first trip to Disneyland this past June. After hundreds of trips to WDW we decided it was time for a trip to see where it all began. We absolutely loved it and my daughter is anxiously awaiting doing the College Program as well. Can't wait to read the rest of your report. We are actually going back next week to celebrate my daughter's 16th birthday and where else did she want to go???

 

[Jaina]

Following along! I'm impressed at you not sleeping all night, basically and then heading into the parks with enthusiasm! Go, you!!

 

[Hannahinwonderland]

Part 2: Pirates of the Caribbean is CANCELLED.

After lunch, we decided to start taking advantage of FP. I was excited to go back to the traditional FP system. I'm so used to scheduling my days and constantly checking the app/refreshing, but I was excited to just be chill and see what happened in terms of FP! We grabbed one for BTMRR and it turned out we only had to wait 20 minutes before we could get on the ride! Score!

BTMRR was so much fun! That is one of my favorite rides at WDW and I was excited for the differences. My first impressions were that it's a very similar ride...however, I love the explosion that happens in the cavern!! Oh my gosh! I was totally shocked by it- my friends were laughing at me. I think the Disneyland version felt a tiny bit smoother as well. I enjoyed getting a peek of Galaxy's Edge when we were at the top of the mountain. I ended up riding BTMRR SO many times throughout this trip. It's just so fun.

After the wildest ride in the wilderness, we headed to New Orleans Square. It was time for another one of my all-time favorite attractions, Pirates of the Caribbean. And WOAH FOLKS!! I was absolutely BLOWN AWAY! To the extent where midway through the ride, I leaned over to my friend and stated "That's it. Pirates of the Caribbean at WDW is CANCELLED!" I mean, everything about it is so fun. The bigger drops at the beginning! The extended opening/completely different setting (although later I rode it with another friend who was like, *** is happening in this first scene it makes no sense). The Disneyland effects are better. The ride is almost twice the length! So far, I was very impressed with Disneyland's versions of my favorite classic rides.

Next, it was time for Critter Country. I'm a big childhood Winnie the Pooh fan. When I graduated Kindergarten, I was given a special graduation Winnie by my parents, and my best friend in high school gave me a special graduation Winnie after 12th grade! (Sadly, I didn't receive one for college graduation). So I was excited to hop in my honeypot with my favorite bear. This ride was pretty much a carbon copy of WDW's version, except it didn't have my favorite part- bouncing with Tigger I enjoyed this ride, but didn't make a beeline for it the rest of the trip.

Next, we were ready to brave the wilds of Adventureland. We first grabbed a FP for Indiana Jones (which I was very, very excited for!) and then we hopped on line for the ONE, the ONLY, the SPECTACULAR: WORLD FAMOUS JUNGLE CRUISE!!! I was so excited from the first moment we entered the queue, I was taking pictures left and right. Comparing the queues head to head, I think Disneyland has a better one. Our queue feels like it will never, ever end and has a ton of switchbacks and is just fairly boring. I thought this queue was slightly more interesting and had more to look at (or maybe it was just that it was all new). I enjoyed going upstairs and taking a picture of my favorite botes from above:

They look so cute! Finally, we hopped on the ride itself and we were off. "Hit it Skip!"
My impressions/ real time thoughts were as follows:
1) The show scenes are in the wrong order! I am so confused! Where are we going next? It's like we are really lost in the jungle!
2) Ooh, cool tiger!
3) OMG THAT GUN IS WAY TOO LOUD AND IF I WORKED HERE I WOULD ABSOLUTELY REFUSE TO FIRE IT! (I never fired my significantly quieter gun while working at WDW..I would make jokes about yelling 'bang bang' or other variations. One time I took off my shoe and waved it at the hippos yelling "shoo! shoo")
4) Hi backside of water!!! I love you!!!
5) WOAH PIRANHAS! This was my favorite unexpected joy of the ride.
4) This ride is so short! I feel like it just began and now we're at Trader Sam's!

The Jungle Cruise at WDW is like..always backed up. The river moves more slowly as a rule and as a result there's more stalling; more time to talk at each scene, etc. This ride went by a lot faster. It was fun though. I got a selfie with one of my favorite elephants:

Of course, I returned to the Jungle several more times throughout this trip. At this point, it was (shockingly) only around 3:00- we were getting through things quickly!! We decided to see the Pixar Play Parade, which my friends had HEAVILY endorsed. We camped out right on a bench by the Matterhorn (I was looking at it wistfully, very sad it was closed..), I grabbed a Mickey Pretzel, and we were ready.

At this point we had an incredibly fun character interaction. I absolutely love how the characters in DL are a bit more free-roaming and there are opportunities for interaction. So Peter Pan & Captain Hook walked by. My friend and I are both HUGE Peter Pan fans so we got his attention and said hello. He approached our bench...However, when Captain Hook came by we cowered as if we were quite scared....this really offended him and we ended up getting to spend a couple minutes, with Peter, calling him a Codfish! Lmao! It was so fun and my friends commented that I was still smiling from the interaction a few minutes later...I'm used to my character interactions being a bit more scripted. I walk in, take a pic, quick conversation, etc- so this was a lot of fun.

And now it was time for the parade. It was so cute!! The music- so catchy. Play, play, PLAY PARADE! I'm still singing this a few weeks later all the time around my house lol. I loved the Inside Out float and I loved how all of the characters waved right back at me I give the parade a SOLID A+.

So at this point I'm a bit fuzzy on the exact sequence of events..lol. But I think what we did next was go back to Adventureland and ride Indiana Jones? Perhaps. If that's the case, that was another highlight of the day because friends, I absolutely LOVED INDIANA JONES!!! Like wow! It was so much fun. First of all the queue is amazing, my friend scared the pants off me by pulling a rope which made A VERY LOUD NOISE. The queue is also so, so long. We had a FP and I still feel like we walked several miles just trying to get to the ride. Now, I'm a big Dinosaur fan. I love the Dinosaur ride system, I consider it really exciting and fun- and as a result I absolutely loved Indy. The system is utilized so well!! I love all of the twists and turns and jolts and drops- yeah, tis jerky and I don't find it overall physically comfortable but I'm gonna enjoy being able to ride it while i'm still young lol! The story itself is pretty clear, the effects are so fun, the Indy theme song is catchy...I loved this ride. I went back multiple times throughout my trip. On the way out, I liked how you could see the Jungle river through the trees so I made my friends take a photo of me there.

At this point, we had done a lot of criss-crossing the park already...but we weren't quite done. We had two things left on the agenda for the day (before our nighttime plans, which were also ambitious) : 1) meet the Big Cheese, the Mouse of the Hour, my former Boss.... MICKEY! And 2) To ride Space Mountain.

Of course....not all agendas go as planned. Stay tuned to see if we were able to fit it all in!

 

[Eve & Wall-e]

I'm enjoying reading your trip report so far. I love the Indiana Jones queue. It's one of the best!