wbl2745
Pointless infinite loops are prohibited.
- Joined
- Feb 8, 2010
- Messages
- 709
Disneyland Resort Trip Report
6/4/2010 - 6/6/2010
“Solo”
Participants: Just me
Dates
Hotels
Context
After a business trip in Los Angeles that ended on 6/4, I added on two days at Disneyland. In April my family was here but I didn’t have time to just wander around and look in the Disney Gallery and so forth. We were in commando mode. My wife is putting on a baby shower for the daughter of some dear friends on Saturday, so she couldn’t join me.
Planning
When I planned the business trip about four months ago I decided to add the two nights at Disneyland. Since we’re members of DVC I considered getting a studio at the Villas at the Grand Californian, but the number of points required (58) is more than a third of our yearly allocation (160). I decided that if my wife were coming with me I would have done it, but I’d rather hold on to the points for a time when we’re both going to enjoy them. Anyway, we’re using all of our remaining 2009 points and all of our 2010 points arranging a trip to WDW staying at the Animal Kingdom Villas with my two brothers and their wives.
So having decided to stay at the Disneyland Resort I started looking at the rates for the Grand Californian and the Disneyland Hotel. I’ve stayed at the Paradise Pier Hotel and didn’t really feel like it was a Disney hotel and not worth the money. The Grand Californian was really pricey, so I tried to find rates at the Disneyland Hotel. My initial thought was that AAA could find me a good rate. Although it was better than rack rates, it wasn’t that good. In April I bought a deluxe annual pass given the number of times this year I would be at the resort, an unusual occurrence. About two weeks before the trip I checked into AP rates at the Disneyland Hotel and found that I could save about $200 by switching reservations, so I did.
I considered staying at a non-Disney hotel, such as the Tropicana across the street from the resort. Interestingly, all of its rooms are closer to the entrances to Disneyland and California Adventure than any of the Disney hotel rooms, excepting some (but not all) in the Grand Californian. The last time I stayed at the Disneyland Hotel I thought that the walk back to the hotel was way too long, particularly when I was tired. We’ll see whether I still think this is a problem.
I’m flying in and out of the Long Beach airport. For those who haven’t used Long Beach, you should. It is a little further from the Disneyland Resort than the John Wayne Airport in Orange County, but the speed of everything can’t be beat. From the time I got off the plane it was fifteen minutes until I was driving out of the parking lot with my rental car. It would have been less than that but they had misplaced the car I had been assigned and had to look for it. You just can’t beat that.
I haven’t made any dining reservations or tours. I’ll think about that later. I’m really just looking forward to bumbling about, going back to the room when I want, staying at the park as long as I want, taking as much time as I want on things. I also want to do things that I’ve never done before. I’ve probably been to Disneyland more than 40 times in my entire life, so there aren’t many things I haven’t done, other than new things.
Tuesday, June 1 through June 4, 2010 (Business Trip)
The business trip to a conference at the Biltmore Hotel was very good, but here are a couple of things that might be of interest.
Just down the street from the hotel is the Grand Central Market, which is full of small eating stands and what appear to be farmer’s market stalls. I’ve recently been introduced to mole, a Mexican sauce that uses unsweetened chocolate. This picture of the mole was fun.
The hotel itself was a little creepy. I just reminded me too much of the film of the Stephen King novel “The Shining”. Here’s a creepy hallway that seemed to jump right out of the movie.
And remember the end of the film when Jack Nicholson loses it and finds himself in the photo. So where’s Jack?
Lastly, look at this lobby. Doesn’t it remind you of the lobby of the Tower of Terror at Disney World? The lobby at California Adventure does not have the curved ceiling, but I think that the lobby at the Disney Studios does. By the way, the Tower of Terror at the Disney Studios is much better than the one at California Adventure.
Friday, June 4. Check-in, Disney’s California Adventure
Once the conference was over at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, I drove down I5 to Anaheim. I used to live in Orange County 30 years ago and was always amazed that there could be traffic jams going in both directions. Well, that’s still the case. The traffic was stop and go in both directions most of the way from downtown LA to the Disneyland turn off. Once I pulled off the freeway, though, I was in the “zone”. There was the Disneyland Hotel and the park itself, beckoning me. I pulled into the self park for the hotel and went to check in. It was still before the official check-in time so they took my cell phone number and said they’d text me when the room was ready. They gave me the card for the room and the text message would include the room number. This is the same thing they did when we stayed at the Villas of the Grand Californian in April. It really works well since you just go about your business, you already have your room card and once you get your page you can just go directly to your room. I checked my luggage with bell services and off I went.
Rather than going all the way to the central plaza between the two parks, I cut through the Grand Californian to their entry. First was Aladdin, which I really love. I was sorry to hear that it was going to be replaced, but then they changed their mind and it will be with us for a while. Who plays the genie? He’s fantastic. Every time I go hear him he has new material based on current events. I just barely got there before they closed the performance. I was on the top balcony on the right side. There are advantages and disadvantages to that location. When the parade comes through you can only see about a fifth of the happenings, but when Aladdin and Jasmine fly around the world they are at your level. The kids like being able to wave to them.
As I was leaving the theater I got this picture of the jacaranda tree in bloom. Everywhere you turned the trees were in full bloom. When landing at Long Beach whole neighborhoods were purple.
Here’s another tree by the Disneyland Hotel,
and a close-up.
Since I’m right there I head over to the Tower of Terror, which has virtually no line. Here’s a picture of what appears to be a hidden Mickey in the area by the elevator entrances. The only thing is that when you go look at it from directly underneath it doesn’t look like a Mickey, so you decide.
By now it was late afternoon and I was a little peckish, so I went over to the Farmer’s Market area and had a corn dog, which I really like. The HSM3 performance was happening right there, so I watched it. Not much to it really. There weren’t very many people who had stopped.
Since this was a time for doing things that I’ve never done before, I did the Bourdin Bakery Tour. I got a piece of sourdough bread! Wanting to make a clean sweep I then went to the Tortilla Factory, but it was closed due to a broken machine.
By now the text message had come through and I went back to the Disneyland Hotel and had my luggage delivered. I was on the ninth floor of the Magic tower, which is the one that is being refurbished and will be renamed the Adventureland tower. Nothing really looked all that themed to Adventureland yet. Are they going to add it on later?
I had a king bed room facing the pool. Now, I’m actually extremely fussy about my hotel room and usually ask for a room as far from the elevator as possible. I don’t recall if I placed that request on my reservation (I suspect that I forgot) but the elevator shaft was actually “in” my room. If you consider every room to have a rectangular footprint out of which the bedroom, bathroom, and closet are cut out, then in this room the entry way was unusually long and the bedroom actually pretty small. This was because the shaft of the elevator took up part of the room’s rectangular foot print. I considered going back to the lobby and asking for a new room, but decided to sit it out and see if I could hear the elevator. In the bathroom, you could hear the swoosh as the elevator or its counterweight went past, but in the bedroom you couldn’t. This was a little surprising, but since it didn’t really bother me, I didn’t change rooms. It certainly made for a short walk from the elevator to the room.
Here’s the bedroom
and the bathroom sink. Notice Mickey’s hands holding the lights to the side of the mirror.
The room itself is quite nice. I haven’t stayed in the other parts of the hotel for years so I can’t compare, but I suppose that since it is new it is in better condition. There was a large flat screen TV, a refrigerator, and wireless. The bed had a duvet rather than blankets, and there were plenty of pillows. One of the lights didn’t work, or I didn’t figure out the combination of some wall switch and the light switch. The view was of the pool, as promised, which is neither here nor there as far as I’m concerned. I don’t mean to offend but Anaheim, and LA in general are desolate. “LA is one great big freeway,” and strip malls, and housing developments. I think that is one of the reasons we bought DVC, so that we can ensconce ourselves in Disney.
The headboard of the bed has a relief of Sleeping Beauty castle and there’s a switch that plays “When You Wish Upon a Star” and then lights up the headboard. A nice effect.
There was one strangeness. The air conditioning was quite loud. Normally the centralized AC in a hotel such as this isn’t loud at all. But there was another odd feature. When I left the room the AC turned off. Since my room faced west, when I returned late afternoon the sun was beating down on that side of the hotel. The room temperature was 77, which was a lot warmer than the 70 degrees I had set the thermostat to. When I walked in the room the AC jumped on full blast and the room was cool within 20 minutes, but I find that surprising. I’ve seen AC like this in cheaper rooms, such as Candlewood Suites, but I would not expect this on a hotel of the quality or price of the Disneyland Hotel. Can anyone confirm this?
Having rested up (I’m too old for Disney...) I went back to California Adventure, again cutting through the Grand Californian. There was a discussion in one of the forums about access to DCA through the GCH entrance. I’ve never been stopped, nor even asked for ID when going through that entrance. Albeit, I have not used it in the morning, when I suspect they really do care who goes through. (Reports since the opening of the World of Color are that they are very strict about this entrance, at least in the morning. Don’t know about the rest of the day.)
My first stop was Soarin’, which I really love. This was the first of many rides where I used the single rider line. I haven’t heard a lot of talk about this, but it is almost as good as a Fast Pass. You get a single rider card from the person checking Fast Passes and the rules are that you will be put where ever they want. You can’t ask for a specific location and if there are more than one of you in a party, you will be broken up. In any case, the standby time was about an hour and I was soarin’ over the Golden Gate in about 10 minutes, whereas the stand-by line was about 50 minutes. I saw some parties of people get in this line and I guess Disney doesn’t care as long as you realize that the party will be broken up when you get on the rid.
Next I wandered over to the Silly Symphony Swing, which had opened just a week or two before. This is a stop and reload type of attraction so it spends the bulk of its time stopped as people get off and a new group gets on. These are the lowest hourly capacity rides in the park (think Dumbo, Tea Cups, Astro Orbiters, etc.) compared to continuously running rides (think Pirates of the Caribbean, the Haunted Mansion, etc.). My girth is, shall we say, a little broad and I was concerned about fitting in the seat. It wasn’t bad, but it could be a problem. I’m sure that the reference to the Mickey Mouse cartoon of the same name, is completely lost on 90% of the riders. They ought to play it in the film theater on Main Street in Disneyland. I actually really enjoyed it.
I never rode the Orange Stinger, its predecessor of the same ilk. It was nice being in the open air, flying around in the air. It almost seemed like you were going to hit some of the surrounding structure, but upon looking there was no way. This ride actually came in handy the next day. Here’s a picture I took of California Screaming from the Silly Symphony Swings. You really feel like you’re going to hit something.
Since I was in that part of the park, I went over to California Screamin’ and rode it twice in a row using the single rider line.
By now it was getting close to closing time. It was clear that in Paradise Park there was a private party underway. A lot of people were standing around waiting to see what was going to happen. The announcement of the park closure came over the PA, but we all just milled around. The private party was for the Imagineers, their family and friends who had worked on the World of Color. Still we just waited. They wanted to take a picture of the Imagineers and they turned on the fountains so that they were running about 5 feet high. The colors! Even at this low level it was incredible! They were gradually rotating through the spectrum, but the colors themselves were so intense! It was really like they were using liquid color. This will be an incredible show! Disney security, please their hearts, became VERY insistent that all of us squatters get out of the park. They announced that we might as well leave since they were not going to run the show until we left. Sigh... So close, yet so far. I still haven’t seen the World of Color. I’m back again in October for another business trip. I hope they don’t shut it down after the summer season.
As I was waiting a young man asked me, in a German accent, if I thought they would let us stay? I speak German since I served a mission for the Mormon Church many, many years ago in Germany. My wife is also from Germany. We had a nice conversation. When they booted all of us out of the park, the two of us went over to Disneyland for the rest of the evening.
There wasn’t much to the evening since we went first to Space Mountain and saw that the standby line was 60 minutes. Then we walked over to Indiana Jones and the line was a more manageable 30 minutes. Except, about half way through the line the ride broke down. All the while Fantasmic! was running but of course we couldn’t see it. It was late and I was ready to go back to the hotel when the line started up again.
Our German visitor was making a pilgrimage to theme parks all over the US. He had nationwide annual passes to Great America and Six Flags. He asked me whether Disney World was the same as Disneyland and I had to break it to him that it was very, very different. What can I say? He also didn’t understand the Fast Pass system and though that it was like what they have at Universal where they charge you for it. Too bad this was his last day at Disney and had never used the Fast Passes since he didn’t understand them.
After Indiana Jones I wished my new friend well on his journeys and went back to my hotel.
6/4/2010 - 6/6/2010
“Solo”
Participants: Just me
Dates
6/1/2010 to 6/4/2010: Business Trip in LA
6/4/2010 to 6/6/2010: Disneyland
6/4/2010 to 6/6/2010: Disneyland
Hotels
Business Trip: Millennium Biltmore Hotel in downtown LA
Disneyland Resort: Disneyland Hotel
Disneyland Resort: Disneyland Hotel
Context
After a business trip in Los Angeles that ended on 6/4, I added on two days at Disneyland. In April my family was here but I didn’t have time to just wander around and look in the Disney Gallery and so forth. We were in commando mode. My wife is putting on a baby shower for the daughter of some dear friends on Saturday, so she couldn’t join me.
Planning
When I planned the business trip about four months ago I decided to add the two nights at Disneyland. Since we’re members of DVC I considered getting a studio at the Villas at the Grand Californian, but the number of points required (58) is more than a third of our yearly allocation (160). I decided that if my wife were coming with me I would have done it, but I’d rather hold on to the points for a time when we’re both going to enjoy them. Anyway, we’re using all of our remaining 2009 points and all of our 2010 points arranging a trip to WDW staying at the Animal Kingdom Villas with my two brothers and their wives.
So having decided to stay at the Disneyland Resort I started looking at the rates for the Grand Californian and the Disneyland Hotel. I’ve stayed at the Paradise Pier Hotel and didn’t really feel like it was a Disney hotel and not worth the money. The Grand Californian was really pricey, so I tried to find rates at the Disneyland Hotel. My initial thought was that AAA could find me a good rate. Although it was better than rack rates, it wasn’t that good. In April I bought a deluxe annual pass given the number of times this year I would be at the resort, an unusual occurrence. About two weeks before the trip I checked into AP rates at the Disneyland Hotel and found that I could save about $200 by switching reservations, so I did.
I considered staying at a non-Disney hotel, such as the Tropicana across the street from the resort. Interestingly, all of its rooms are closer to the entrances to Disneyland and California Adventure than any of the Disney hotel rooms, excepting some (but not all) in the Grand Californian. The last time I stayed at the Disneyland Hotel I thought that the walk back to the hotel was way too long, particularly when I was tired. We’ll see whether I still think this is a problem.
I’m flying in and out of the Long Beach airport. For those who haven’t used Long Beach, you should. It is a little further from the Disneyland Resort than the John Wayne Airport in Orange County, but the speed of everything can’t be beat. From the time I got off the plane it was fifteen minutes until I was driving out of the parking lot with my rental car. It would have been less than that but they had misplaced the car I had been assigned and had to look for it. You just can’t beat that.
I haven’t made any dining reservations or tours. I’ll think about that later. I’m really just looking forward to bumbling about, going back to the room when I want, staying at the park as long as I want, taking as much time as I want on things. I also want to do things that I’ve never done before. I’ve probably been to Disneyland more than 40 times in my entire life, so there aren’t many things I haven’t done, other than new things.
Tuesday, June 1 through June 4, 2010 (Business Trip)
The business trip to a conference at the Biltmore Hotel was very good, but here are a couple of things that might be of interest.
Just down the street from the hotel is the Grand Central Market, which is full of small eating stands and what appear to be farmer’s market stalls. I’ve recently been introduced to mole, a Mexican sauce that uses unsweetened chocolate. This picture of the mole was fun.
The hotel itself was a little creepy. I just reminded me too much of the film of the Stephen King novel “The Shining”. Here’s a creepy hallway that seemed to jump right out of the movie.
And remember the end of the film when Jack Nicholson loses it and finds himself in the photo. So where’s Jack?
Lastly, look at this lobby. Doesn’t it remind you of the lobby of the Tower of Terror at Disney World? The lobby at California Adventure does not have the curved ceiling, but I think that the lobby at the Disney Studios does. By the way, the Tower of Terror at the Disney Studios is much better than the one at California Adventure.
Friday, June 4. Check-in, Disney’s California Adventure
Once the conference was over at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, I drove down I5 to Anaheim. I used to live in Orange County 30 years ago and was always amazed that there could be traffic jams going in both directions. Well, that’s still the case. The traffic was stop and go in both directions most of the way from downtown LA to the Disneyland turn off. Once I pulled off the freeway, though, I was in the “zone”. There was the Disneyland Hotel and the park itself, beckoning me. I pulled into the self park for the hotel and went to check in. It was still before the official check-in time so they took my cell phone number and said they’d text me when the room was ready. They gave me the card for the room and the text message would include the room number. This is the same thing they did when we stayed at the Villas of the Grand Californian in April. It really works well since you just go about your business, you already have your room card and once you get your page you can just go directly to your room. I checked my luggage with bell services and off I went.
Rather than going all the way to the central plaza between the two parks, I cut through the Grand Californian to their entry. First was Aladdin, which I really love. I was sorry to hear that it was going to be replaced, but then they changed their mind and it will be with us for a while. Who plays the genie? He’s fantastic. Every time I go hear him he has new material based on current events. I just barely got there before they closed the performance. I was on the top balcony on the right side. There are advantages and disadvantages to that location. When the parade comes through you can only see about a fifth of the happenings, but when Aladdin and Jasmine fly around the world they are at your level. The kids like being able to wave to them.
As I was leaving the theater I got this picture of the jacaranda tree in bloom. Everywhere you turned the trees were in full bloom. When landing at Long Beach whole neighborhoods were purple.
Here’s another tree by the Disneyland Hotel,
and a close-up.
Since I’m right there I head over to the Tower of Terror, which has virtually no line. Here’s a picture of what appears to be a hidden Mickey in the area by the elevator entrances. The only thing is that when you go look at it from directly underneath it doesn’t look like a Mickey, so you decide.
By now it was late afternoon and I was a little peckish, so I went over to the Farmer’s Market area and had a corn dog, which I really like. The HSM3 performance was happening right there, so I watched it. Not much to it really. There weren’t very many people who had stopped.
Since this was a time for doing things that I’ve never done before, I did the Bourdin Bakery Tour. I got a piece of sourdough bread! Wanting to make a clean sweep I then went to the Tortilla Factory, but it was closed due to a broken machine.
By now the text message had come through and I went back to the Disneyland Hotel and had my luggage delivered. I was on the ninth floor of the Magic tower, which is the one that is being refurbished and will be renamed the Adventureland tower. Nothing really looked all that themed to Adventureland yet. Are they going to add it on later?
I had a king bed room facing the pool. Now, I’m actually extremely fussy about my hotel room and usually ask for a room as far from the elevator as possible. I don’t recall if I placed that request on my reservation (I suspect that I forgot) but the elevator shaft was actually “in” my room. If you consider every room to have a rectangular footprint out of which the bedroom, bathroom, and closet are cut out, then in this room the entry way was unusually long and the bedroom actually pretty small. This was because the shaft of the elevator took up part of the room’s rectangular foot print. I considered going back to the lobby and asking for a new room, but decided to sit it out and see if I could hear the elevator. In the bathroom, you could hear the swoosh as the elevator or its counterweight went past, but in the bedroom you couldn’t. This was a little surprising, but since it didn’t really bother me, I didn’t change rooms. It certainly made for a short walk from the elevator to the room.
Here’s the bedroom
and the bathroom sink. Notice Mickey’s hands holding the lights to the side of the mirror.
The room itself is quite nice. I haven’t stayed in the other parts of the hotel for years so I can’t compare, but I suppose that since it is new it is in better condition. There was a large flat screen TV, a refrigerator, and wireless. The bed had a duvet rather than blankets, and there were plenty of pillows. One of the lights didn’t work, or I didn’t figure out the combination of some wall switch and the light switch. The view was of the pool, as promised, which is neither here nor there as far as I’m concerned. I don’t mean to offend but Anaheim, and LA in general are desolate. “LA is one great big freeway,” and strip malls, and housing developments. I think that is one of the reasons we bought DVC, so that we can ensconce ourselves in Disney.
The headboard of the bed has a relief of Sleeping Beauty castle and there’s a switch that plays “When You Wish Upon a Star” and then lights up the headboard. A nice effect.
There was one strangeness. The air conditioning was quite loud. Normally the centralized AC in a hotel such as this isn’t loud at all. But there was another odd feature. When I left the room the AC turned off. Since my room faced west, when I returned late afternoon the sun was beating down on that side of the hotel. The room temperature was 77, which was a lot warmer than the 70 degrees I had set the thermostat to. When I walked in the room the AC jumped on full blast and the room was cool within 20 minutes, but I find that surprising. I’ve seen AC like this in cheaper rooms, such as Candlewood Suites, but I would not expect this on a hotel of the quality or price of the Disneyland Hotel. Can anyone confirm this?
Having rested up (I’m too old for Disney...) I went back to California Adventure, again cutting through the Grand Californian. There was a discussion in one of the forums about access to DCA through the GCH entrance. I’ve never been stopped, nor even asked for ID when going through that entrance. Albeit, I have not used it in the morning, when I suspect they really do care who goes through. (Reports since the opening of the World of Color are that they are very strict about this entrance, at least in the morning. Don’t know about the rest of the day.)
My first stop was Soarin’, which I really love. This was the first of many rides where I used the single rider line. I haven’t heard a lot of talk about this, but it is almost as good as a Fast Pass. You get a single rider card from the person checking Fast Passes and the rules are that you will be put where ever they want. You can’t ask for a specific location and if there are more than one of you in a party, you will be broken up. In any case, the standby time was about an hour and I was soarin’ over the Golden Gate in about 10 minutes, whereas the stand-by line was about 50 minutes. I saw some parties of people get in this line and I guess Disney doesn’t care as long as you realize that the party will be broken up when you get on the rid.
Next I wandered over to the Silly Symphony Swing, which had opened just a week or two before. This is a stop and reload type of attraction so it spends the bulk of its time stopped as people get off and a new group gets on. These are the lowest hourly capacity rides in the park (think Dumbo, Tea Cups, Astro Orbiters, etc.) compared to continuously running rides (think Pirates of the Caribbean, the Haunted Mansion, etc.). My girth is, shall we say, a little broad and I was concerned about fitting in the seat. It wasn’t bad, but it could be a problem. I’m sure that the reference to the Mickey Mouse cartoon of the same name, is completely lost on 90% of the riders. They ought to play it in the film theater on Main Street in Disneyland. I actually really enjoyed it.
I never rode the Orange Stinger, its predecessor of the same ilk. It was nice being in the open air, flying around in the air. It almost seemed like you were going to hit some of the surrounding structure, but upon looking there was no way. This ride actually came in handy the next day. Here’s a picture I took of California Screaming from the Silly Symphony Swings. You really feel like you’re going to hit something.
Since I was in that part of the park, I went over to California Screamin’ and rode it twice in a row using the single rider line.
By now it was getting close to closing time. It was clear that in Paradise Park there was a private party underway. A lot of people were standing around waiting to see what was going to happen. The announcement of the park closure came over the PA, but we all just milled around. The private party was for the Imagineers, their family and friends who had worked on the World of Color. Still we just waited. They wanted to take a picture of the Imagineers and they turned on the fountains so that they were running about 5 feet high. The colors! Even at this low level it was incredible! They were gradually rotating through the spectrum, but the colors themselves were so intense! It was really like they were using liquid color. This will be an incredible show! Disney security, please their hearts, became VERY insistent that all of us squatters get out of the park. They announced that we might as well leave since they were not going to run the show until we left. Sigh... So close, yet so far. I still haven’t seen the World of Color. I’m back again in October for another business trip. I hope they don’t shut it down after the summer season.
As I was waiting a young man asked me, in a German accent, if I thought they would let us stay? I speak German since I served a mission for the Mormon Church many, many years ago in Germany. My wife is also from Germany. We had a nice conversation. When they booted all of us out of the park, the two of us went over to Disneyland for the rest of the evening.
There wasn’t much to the evening since we went first to Space Mountain and saw that the standby line was 60 minutes. Then we walked over to Indiana Jones and the line was a more manageable 30 minutes. Except, about half way through the line the ride broke down. All the while Fantasmic! was running but of course we couldn’t see it. It was late and I was ready to go back to the hotel when the line started up again.
Our German visitor was making a pilgrimage to theme parks all over the US. He had nationwide annual passes to Great America and Six Flags. He asked me whether Disney World was the same as Disneyland and I had to break it to him that it was very, very different. What can I say? He also didn’t understand the Fast Pass system and though that it was like what they have at Universal where they charge you for it. Too bad this was his last day at Disney and had never used the Fast Passes since he didn’t understand them.
After Indiana Jones I wished my new friend well on his journeys and went back to my hotel.
