Socal Vacation!!: First PTR & TR- August 16th-21st, 2012

[sftoanaheim]

Our first Trip Report!

Cast of Characters:

Me and my GF! 25 and 22 respectively.

We live in San Francisco and both love theme parks of all kinds (and of course, Disney is the best!) We visited Disneyland in January- my first time, her first since being very young- and had an ok, but not great experience. We were there just after the holidays, so lines were non-existent but Haunted Mansion was closed (my absolute favorite from WDW as a kid), World of Color was the only nighttime show, and we came to call DCA Disney's Construction Adventure. We had a good time, just left feeling kind of ehhh....

The first trip was a Christmas gift from me to my GF, I bought annual passes and took advantage of the monthly payments for CA residents. Since we have the passes and with all of the new stuff there, we've decided to go back! We're going for an epic six day SoCal Adventure, and we leave on Thursday!!

This is my first shot at a PTR and TR, but looking at these has really helped us in our planning and to figure out a LOT of ways to have a better trip. I'm so excited, I just have to write this all out. I'll try to take it easy on the smiles, but even I must admit they're fun. I haven't taken a vacation since that very brief trip in January, which turned out to be more stressful than fun at times and boy do I NEED it!

Here is the plan:

Thursday, August 16th
Work in the office from 9:30am-4:00pm , then jet to the airport to catch our 6:20pm flight to LAX. We'll land at 7:40, and we're staying our first two nights with my college buddy C and his girlfriend. They're (very kindly) picking us up from the airport, and then we'll hopefully head somewhere "L.A" for dinner. Side Note: I've never really been to L.A., just very briefly for our last Disney trip and a few months ago when I was flown down and back in a day for a job interview- so I'm excited to really get a Socal experience.


Friday, August 17th
Luckily, my buddy lives in Studio City, so he's just minutes away from Universal Hollywood and these thrill junkies couldn't resist checking out the park and the new Transformers ride. I've experience Universal Orlando, and IOA and I know that Hollywood is not quite on that level, but I'm excited for it nonetheless. Studio Tour and Transformers are what we're most excited about! C and his gf have to work all day, but they'll be meeting us for dinner at Universal CityWalk.


Saturday, August 18th
Today we'll be tooling around Hollywood and LA overall with C and his gf as our tour guides! I'm hoping to hit up Grauman's, get a nice pic of the Hollywood sign, and also see some less touristy parts of the city from a local's perspective. Then we have 6:00pm tickets for Medieval Times!! I used to work at one as a server back in college and my gf has never been, so I'm excited to take her. Plus, I love that food!

After the show, C will drop us off at our hotel in Anaheim. We're staying at the Del Sol Inn right across from the parks. We were at the Super 8 on Katella last time- which had very nice rooms for the price, but was quite a walk after a long Disney day. After we get settled in, we'll head to Downtown Disney (which we didn't even go to last time, plus our Deluxe APs are blocked out) to look around and hopefully visit Trader Sam's for a nightcap.


Sunday, August 19th
Our first Disney day!! We have 7am AP Early Entry for DCA and plan to spend most of our day there. We're (of course) going to hit up Cars Land first to check out all of the new stuff, then come back to explore Buena Vista and then visit all of our favorites from last time. We have WOC picnics to eat for lunch (I know a lot of people don't like these, but they're preferable to me to spending my early morning in the FP line and I liked the food alright last time. Dinner will be at Flo's V8 Cafe, with snacks at the Cozy Cone and maybe some treats elsewhere (although we'll skip Ghirardelli, we live in SF after all- the original is a little nicer and cheaper)

Monday, August 20th
Disneyland day!! We'll be hitting every attraction we can with Early Mornings starting at 7am. We plan to ride the Haunted Mansion at least three times since we missed it last time. We also have ADRs for the Big Thunder Mountain BBQ, which we're both looking forward to!

Tuesday, August 21st
This will be our day to hit anything we missed, and to re-do our favorites before returning to the real world. Our flight leaves at 8pm, and our SuperShuttle will be picking us up at the Del Sol at 5:45pm.


We'll be using Touring Plans personalized plans in the mornings, then doing our own thing in the afternoons. Let me know if you have any tips, we're just so psyched to be going! I'll keep updating this over the next few days as we get ready, and then (hopefully) while we're on the trip!

 

[DisneytheKid]

Cool! Have a great time and I look forward to reading the TR after!

 

[rokstedy]

Sounds like a good trip. I like to see reports with angles from areas other than Disneyland as well. Looking forward to it!

 

[sftoanaheim]

Thanks for following along everybody! I'll do a full TR after we get back, but here's a little update:

Had excellent seating luck on Southwest Airlines and nabbed the last two seats together! Also, we bought some cocktails on board (only $5, waaay cheaper than San Francisco, LA , or Disney!) and there was a mixup with my gf's so she got a drink then AND a free drink for our return trip! Woot!

Had an awesome dinner at a mexican place in Hollywood with my buddy and his GF, and sat TWO FEET AWAY FROM QUENTIN TARANTINO!!!! He was eating with his wife at the booth next to ours- dinner was great and we had flaming margaritas

Then- our luck ran out!! But just for a minute, we realized this morning that we BOTH managed to leave our Annual Passports in San Francisco. So we'll have to pay $20 a piece to get them replaced, Grrrrrrrrr. Anybody ever had luck talking them out of that charge? I gotta be honest, this just strikes me as greedy on Disney's part- it's a piece of plastic, probably costs them $.08!! Anyway, it throws a wrench in our plans tomorrow evening, as our hotel was booked with an AP discount- so we'll have to go to the ticket booths, then back to our hotel, and THEN to Dowtown Disney- siiiigh.

Oh well, we're moving past that- just about to leave for Universal!! Transformers here we come!

 

[sftoanaheim]

Hi All,

We had the BEST VACATION EVER!!!!!

Full trip report coming as soon as I catch up on all the work I missed . Also waiting on all of our photos. We're already planning to come back in October- and we're both now HUGE fans of Trader Sam's! I probably dropped $200 there over the trip, but so worth it- very near the top of my 'Favorite Bars in the World' list.

Cheers!!

K

 

[sftoanaheim]

Finally ready to sit down and do this trip report! I'm still waiting on my GF to give me the pics- so I'll just do some (amazing, awesome, exciting) text reporting for now and then upload some pictures later! We didn't actually take many photos- as I typically like to simply enjoy and experience my vacations as opposed to photographing them- besides all we had was an iphone and there are TONS of far better pics online- Tom Bricker of *****************.com- I'm looking at you

So, without any further ado- here we go with the trip report!

DAY ONE: Thursday, August 16th

After a seemingly endless day in the office , I left at about 4pm to catch a 4:30 train to the airport. We'd packed the night before and my GF was just chilling at my apartment two blocks from the train until it was time. She gave me a big scare because she wasn't answering her phone! In my mind I was imagining her taking a nap and us missing our train (and thus our flight)! She answered after a few calls and was, in fact, awake- just frantically throwing last minute things together. We caught our train just in time!

After an uneventful train ride, we arrived at San Francisco Airport. I hadn't taken a vacation in months, so I thought we should have a drink to kick things off- sure they're crazy over-priced at the airport- but c'mon, we're on vacation right? Then we found all of the airport bars to be PACKED! So that was a no-go. We had coffee and a snack from Starbucks and waited just a little while before boarding our Southwest flight, which had been delayed ten minutes.

Southwest has general seating on board (meaning you find your own seat when you get on) and GF and I snagged the LAST two seats together! I felt bad for all the folks behind us who had to sit by themselves in middle seats, but oh well After take off, we discovered that cocktails are only $5 on Southwest- WAY cheaper than anywhere in SF, LA or especially Disney! So we ordered a Gin and Tonic for me and a Jack and Coke for her- GF found hers to be a little strong, and the flight attendant happily added more Coke to make it more palatable- and even gave us a coupon for a free cocktail on our return flight. All this to say- I LOVE SOUTHWEST AIRLINES!

We arrived in LAX, took a photo by the giant Cars Land ad that greets you in the baggage claim and then picked up our bag from the carousel. My buddy C and his GF picked us up, we dropped our things off at their awesome apartment in Studio City and then ventured out into Hollywood in search of dinner.

We settled on El Compadre mexican restaurant, which is famous for its Flaming Margaritas- after a short wait we were seated in a nice intimate booth in the back which just so happened to be RIGHT NEXT TO QUENTIN TARANTINO!!!! GF and I were a bit starstruck, but our friends who've lived in LA for a few years were just sort of 'Eh, so it is..." The food was delicious and filling and the Flaming Margaritas were strong and good as well! After dinner we were exhausted, so we went back to C's aparment and crashed on an uber-comfy air bed.

 

[rdkeim]

Great job so far! I'm interested to hear how your trip went. We leave in 33 days!

 

[sftoanaheim]

Cool! Have a great time and I look forward to reading the TR after!

Thanks! Sorry I haven't updated in a while. Posting the rest of the TR tonight!

 

[sftoanaheim]

Sounds like a good trip. I like to see reports with angles from areas other than Disneyland as well. Looking forward to it!

It was a great trip- I'm posting the parts about Universal Hollywood tonight- with Photos! Thanks for following along- her's a smiley for ya

 

[sftoanaheim]

Great job so far! I'm interested to hear how your trip went. We leave in 33 days!

Thanks- sorry I never responded. Hope you're trip was awesome! We're planning to go back in early Jan! More TR coming very soon.

 

[sftoanaheim]

Well, after a stressful transition into a new (and exciting) job, I'm ready to continue this trip report! I've also got photos to share now as well. We're planning another trip for January 5-7 (last one on our APs and we won't be able to afford those again for a long time ), so I figured it's about time to finish this one before starting a PTR! Without further adieu...

DAY TWO

At precisely 6:30am, I snapped awake next to April on our comfy air mattress in my buddy C's awesomely retro Studio City apartment- my Annual Pass!!! Had I packed it? I immediately got up and started looking through my luggage, my GF woke up a few minutes later and asked what was wrong. By that time I realized I'd left it on my desk at home... At that point, my GF thought about it and hers was back in SF as well. We jumped on C's laptop and looked up the Disneyland AP site to see if we could get replacements (we could.... for $20 a piece).

The upside to this was that we were up very early, and could get a ride to Universal Studios with C at 8:00 as he left home to brave 90 min of LA traffic to get to work. After a five minute ride over to the CityWalk entrance, he dropped us off and we made plans for him and his GF to meet us at CityWalk for dinner after the park closed.

We made it! First park of the trip:

We tooled around Citywalk for a little while before the park opened, got coffee at Starbucks and looked in a few stores. We already had our tickets so we walked in just as the park opened and joined the masses heading towards the lower lot for Transformers!

I knew ahead of time this park was going to be different than the Orlando incarnations, but I was struck by how small both the Upper and Lower lots were- and the mish-mash of themeing (Terminator in London, House of Horrors in New York City, Cartoon themed stores near Waterworld, etc). It still seemed very nice though, and since we were there for opening there were a ton of friendly US cast members and Universal Characters welcoming us as we came in. After an EPIC escalator ride with a nice view, we were able to walk right on Transformers!

Now the bad news- something was wrong with our EVAC ride vehicle We faced the wrong direction the entire time, couldn't see any of the screens, and had no sound in our car!! It was really disappointing because we could hear everyone around us having a great time! As soon as the car pulled into the unload station, the attendants seemed to know something was wrong already. It was kind of cool to see the 'backstage' of the ride- and how the elevator sequence worked- but I would have rather it happened our second or third time after we'd seen what the ride was really like first!

Because of the malfunction, we were allowed to go back out and use the Gate A entrance to bypass the smallish line that had now formed (Gate A normally costs extra $$). We got right back on after walking through a quick (and much less detailed) queue and LOVED THE RIDE! It's very much like Spiderman in Orlando, but the visual effects are much better while the physical effects are often non-existent. Still it was very fun and thrilling. After experiencing it once, we exited to find Optimus Prime doing photo ops, we obliged, but the US photo person took a really bad photo so no copy here. Then we jumped back in line while it was still under half an hour (it was 90 min-2 hrs the rest of our day) and rode again!

After Transformers, we walked around and rode the rest of the small Lower Lot area's rides- Revenge of the Mummy and Jurassic Park. Both were fun, but paled in comparison to their Orlando counterparts. For as short and underwhelming as the Mummy ride was, I would've rather they kept E.T. here- there doesn't seem to be enough for families in this park.

Next up was the Backlot Tour, which turned out to be our favorite ride of the day! We saw lots of cool stuff- Wisteria Lane, Whoville, and the Bates Motel. The effects sequences were all a lot of fun- King Kong, Jaws, the Flash Flood, Earthquake- they even had the parting of the Red Seas bit working! I thought the Fast and the Furious part seemed a little pointless and out of place. Both of our Tour Guides- Jimmy Fallon and some friendly US cast member- were very funny and we had a lot of fun. Our favorite from the tour was the War of the Worlds set:

Following the tour, we explored a little bit:

Then decided to get some lunch! Nothing in the park really looked appetizing, so we ended up heading to Karl Strauss Brewery for some delicious microbrews and boneless chicken wings- I highly recommend this place for a relaxing and relatively inexpensive respite from the crowds. Also....beer.

Following lunch, we headed back into the parks and hit up all the attractions we hadn't done yet- Terminator 3D (this was in BAD shape, way outdated, Ahnald was too chubby, effects weren't working, etc), Simpsons (fun, identical to Orlando, but nowhere near as immersive as BTTF was) and Shrek (fun, not really worth a long wait). Then we did the House of Horrors which I loved, because I'm a big fan of Halloween and haunted houses. And that was it.... We'd finished everything to do in the park and a leisurely lunch and it was 3pm.

What else to do but to repeat the favorites!? We did Jurassic Park and the Studio Tour again (the animatronics in JP were not in good shape either- noticed this moreso the second time, I do love the falling jeep much more than Orlando's lame invisible raptor in a box). From JP, we sprinted all the way to near the park entrance to catch the last WaterWorld show of the day- it had a lot of cool effects (the plane crash, anyone?)- but definitely needs an update.

After WaterWorld, the park was just about to close. We were able to sneak in one last walkthrough of the House of Horrors and then caught a bit of the Blues Brothers before heading for the exit. All in all, it was a pretty fun day- but not worth the $80 admission price- there just isn't enough to DO! I could pay $7 more for a One-Day, One-Park ticket at DLR and have too much to get it all in one day.

C and his GF didn't feel like paying the hefty fee to park at CityWalk (which was PACKED anyway)- so they made another suggestion. We drove up to Griffith Observatory to look at some cool exhibits on Space and admire the beautiful view of Los Angeles.

Then we grabbed a bottle of wine and some snacks and watched bad horror movies at their place in Studio City until we all fell asleep from an awesome and exhausting day in Socal.


Stay tuned for Day Three- Hollywood, Wax Museums and Medieval Times (times, times, times times)- COMING SOON!

 

[yupikgal]

Good job, you've hooked me! I too love TRs that mention places other than Disney, and I'm a huge Disney fan!! Looking forward to next episode!

 

[heaven2dc]

What a fun trip already! I haven't visited Universal Studios in FL or CA yet but moved to the LA area four mos ago and would love to visit. I'll def wait to see if I can get a discount because from what you described - I agree it wouldn't be worth the $83 ticket price. Loved the pics and enjoyed a sneak preview of US - can't wait to read all about your DL days!

 

[sftoanaheim]

Day Three

After sleeping in a bit, we pulled ourselves out of bed for a relaxing day tooling around LA. C and his GF had always really wanted to go to Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum so we booked some discount tickets online before leaving. We stopped at a nice little diner for breakfast, then parked near Grauman's Chinese Theater to look around.

The theater itself is very cool to look at in person, but I was really surprised to see a cheesy green-screen photo set-up that you had to through to enter the area with all of the celebrity handprints. They show you the photo after and it was just us in front of the Chinese theater-

I wasn't a big fan of this area, it was really crowded and there were tons of creepy off-brand costumed characters roaming around out front- also lots of cheap t-shirt stores, etc. We ducked into the coolness of Madame Tussauds just a block down the street and gave our tickets to the friendly woman at the front. She called an elevator for us (you start at the top and work your way down), and told us the rules- 1. Take all the photos you like. 2. Do not touch the figure's faces, feel free to touch anywhere else while posing. 3. Have fun!

To be honest, I wasn't really into spending $15 on a wax museum but it turned out to be REALLY fun! We took our time going through and looking at the figures and posing of fun photos. A lot of them were remarkably lifelike, I had a good time trying to copy their poses.

Everyone else had a lot of fun with the figures as well:

Overall, I would recommend Madame Tussaud's for a fun afternoon. I will say that it didn't seem very busy for a Summer day, especially with the crowds outside. After we finished at the museum, we jumped back in the car and began the drive to Buena Park, the drive back through the centuries to MEDIEVAAAAAAAL TIMES! (Times, times times)

We arrived at the Castle with just enough time to check in, decline having our picture taken, and be seated before the show began. Our server was very friendly, and it seemed not a whole lot had changed since my days of slinging dragons (I was a Serf/Server for a MT while in college). The soup was a lot better, the ribs, chicken, and potatoes were just as good as I remembered. The show was a new one since I had worked at MT, and wasn't quite as cool since it didn't have the wizard character I liked from the old script. We had the Yellow Knight, he didn't win , but then again- he never does (Sorry kids!)

After the show, and an epic battle to escape the packed MT parking lot, it was a quick 15 minute drive over to Disneyland- we were here!!! C and his GF dropped us off at the front gates and drove to the DTD parking lot. Now we just had to deal with the matter of those missing APs, (Doh! How could we have forgotten these!? ) we waited in line for ten minutes, then paid our $20 each and got our replacement passes. Won't make that mistake again...

Oh well, now we had them! But our Deluxe APs were blocked out on this busy Summer Saturday, so where to go but, Trader Sam's!

We didn't know about Trader Sam's on our last trip, but I had read about it online, and seen a few pics- but WOW! I'm pretty sure this is now my favorite bar on earth! I ordered the Shipwreck, which caused some fun reactions in the bar. There are so many details to look at, and a number of the drinks make storms happen, ships sink, volcanoes erupt, or the entire bar to chant Uh Oha! Uh Oha! If you've never been to Trader Sam's go. Now.

Cue the instagrammy photo!:

While I don't normally go for souvenir cups, I bought the Trader Sam's mug with the drink (about $20!) deciding it would be my souvenir for this trip. It now lives on my desk at work and reminds me of this visit. We also decided that we would have to visit Sam's at least once more before we left.

Incidentally, I recently heard that there's actually a bar here in San Francisco called Trad'r Sam which is also a Tiki bar. I'm curious which one came first. I'll have to make plans to go check it out- I'll post photos and a review here on DIS when I get the chance!

After the bar we tooled around Downtown Disney (feeling just a little tipsy- they make 'em strong at Sam's!) and looked in the Lego and World of Disney store. C and his GF had a late night show they wanted to catch back in LA, so it was time for them to go! We walked back to their car and they kindly gave us a ride over to Del Sol Inn. We unpacked our luggage and said our goodbyes- it was so great to see them! Then went inside to check-in.

Anaheim Del Sol Inn Mini Review:
We forgot to take pictures of the hotel or our room , but we loved Del Sol Inn! I would absolutely recommend it to anyone visiting DLR. It's literally a 6-7 min walk to the security tents. The front desk staff was friendly (also, free delicious cookies at check-in never hurt), and our room was very clean and spacious. The beds were comfortable, tv and coffeemaker worked fine, nice sitting area with table. The room also came with a fridge and microwave at no extra charge, which was nice.

Del Sol has a small pool and hot tub in a nicely landscaped walled-off area in the parking lot. They only have Valet parking, and I did see tons of cars parked and double and triple parked- This may not be a great hotel to bring your car- but it was perfect for us! I read noise complaints in some reviews, but our room seemed to be right above the front office so we never heard anything.

Overall, we absolutely loved this little tucked-away hotel, and really loved the $90 a night Annual Passholder rate- only available on their website. We've already booked Del Sol Inn again for a late holiday trip in January . We got an even better bargain of $72 with the AP rate- Four Stars!


After getting settled into our room, we had no trouble falling asleep. We had an early day tomorrow!


COMING SOON! DAY FOUR: EMH at Disney California Adventure, Cars Land, Buena Vista Street, World of Color Picnics and more!