Back home in Aus now and still a little jet lagged - our journey home from Calgary was around 34 hours so you can see why. Not sure if I can do that again, it's just too long!
I thought I'd jot down a few comments / thoughts about our 3 day stay at DLR. Not in any particular order, just random thoughts about what we did etc..
This was the first week of our three week trip where we went on to Seattle, cruised Alaska then a week up through Canada with Rocky Mountaineer to Calgary.
If it's a little vague / all over the place I apologise but we had a big two weeks after DL so there's lots that's been going on.
This trip was just my husband and I for our 25th Wedding Anniversary. It was my 8th trip to DLR and my husband's 4th trip. I've been a few times without him with either both our boys or just the youngest on our last visit in 2017.
We flew into LAX on Saturday night. I'd planned to stay in LA one night (Farmer's Daughter Hotel), sleep late, visit the Farmer's Market then head down to Anaheim Sunday afternoon which is what we did. It was fine but in hindsight we probably should have just gone straight to Anaheim from the airport.
We visited the Farmer's Market (I thought I hadn't been before but my husband swears that I have), got Levi's for my son at Macy's and on spur of the moment I decided I needed to go down to Hollywood and Highland and see the Walk of Fame and HW sign (again!).
Caught an Uber down to Anaheim around 2pm on Sunday afternoon and checked into D.I. & S for one night. Stayed here last time. It was perfectly fine again. I'd requested a room at the front like last time but got one at the very back of the property on about level 3. Bit of a pain to drag our luggage all the way to the back of the property for one night but it was fine. I've read that the rooms are quieter down there and I think that would be true. The entry area looked down on a little courtyard garden which was very nice. Didn't have the B/F as we left early. The indoor pool had the very strong chemical smell wafting out as you walked past - smell more strong / obvious I think given that it is an indoor pool.
We had dinner at Tony Roma's because my husband wanted to eat there and it was fine. I watched the fireworks from the D.I. & S viewing deck. It's ok from there but a lot of trees etc.. blocking the view so you can only really see the big ones but a reasonable compromise if you're not in the park.
We were up really early the next morning so had B/F at Denny's at 5am then gathered our luggage and Uber'd over to the Grand Californian Hotel at 6am to store our bags and get checked in to use our EMH that day.
I booked our 3n stay at GCV renting DVC points which cost me half of what it was going to be going through Disney.
My thoughts: it was nice enough of course but TBH, I probably wouldn't do it again. (My son and I did a split stay last time and tried 2n at DLH and I felt the same way) Whilst it's nice to be that close to the parks, particularly DCA with the entrance in to there - we really didn't use any of the facilities at the hotel - pools / lobby / bar etc. so the value probably wasn't there for us. I paid $1,400 ($2,000 AUD) for the 3n and I paid $160 for the one night at D.I. & S.
When my son and I return, likely to be in 2yrs in 2021, we will just stay across the road on Harbor.
We had a 3 day hopper with MP (purchased ~ 1 yr ago before the Jan ticket / MP price increase so MP was $10/day) I purchased direct with Disney.
Last trip my son and I had a 10day hopper pass (pre-MP) and were in the parks 8 days including 2 x MHP's and that nearly wasn't enough time for us!
My son and I are the Disney addicts in the family - my husband was really just doing it this time because I wanted to go there. He likes DL well enough, particularly the history associated with Walt etc.. but he doesn't love it like we do.
After the first day I was thinking I'd made a mistake with the 3days - as in, one day might have actually been enough. Just wasn't feeling it this trip although jet-lag may have impacted this somewhat.
Monday - checked in quickly at GCH and over to line up at DCA by 6.30am for our EMH. This really wasn't necessary. Lines weren't really there (and by lines, I mean 10 - 20 people in queue), till around 6.50am or so.
Shortly after this is when my frustration started. Through the gates at 7am and off to RSR. On the way I am trying to secure our Oga's reservation for 7.30pm that night. It was the only night I had spare to do it and I was trying to tie it in with watching the fireworks from SW:GE after.
I would get all the way through the reservation process and after entering the final credit card details it would come up with an error message.
Over the next hour I tried this at least 20-30 times, entering multiple credit cards (I had 3 different ones with me). I would have to enter all the details again each time, names, credit card details etc..) with no luck, doing it all on my iPhone which is so much harder than using a laptop. I was so frustrated.
I know, I know - I should have gone to guest services earlier but I didn't want to waste the advantage of our EMH : (
I had done a dummy run of this at home which was fine but obviously you can't click through the final payment page otherwise you'll be charged. I had booked stuff with Disney from home like the WOC DP so I knew there shouldn't be a problem with it accepting my credit card.
So after our first hour or so I went to the Chamber of Commerce (Guest Services) and explained the problem I was having. She tried to come up with a few things it might be like there were no bookings left etc.. but it didn't ring true as I had logged in at 6.45am and tried continuously from 7am.
She tried multiple times, also using their iPad to access my Disney account to make the booking. She eventually conceded that, yes, some people had been having issues being able to make the reservation. She didn't say whether they were local or just international guests.
She spent a lot of time going back and forth between front of house and talking to managers out the back. After about 40 minutes she was suddenly able to get the reservation to confirm. It was for 8.35pm but I took it. I'd been trying to get 7.30 - 8pm ish as I expressed that I was concerned about a hold up getting into Oga's based on recent reports and I wanted to watch the fwks but they spoke to a manager over there who said any holdups they'd been having had resolved and they were getting people into Oga's at their reservation time pretty much now.
Due to all the grief I'd been having with it she offered me 2 x 'anytime / any attraction' FP's for us to use. I explained to her that I had MP so I didn't have much use for them but she pointed out that I could use them on non-FP attractions as well so she said I would likely find them useful for something > looking at you Peter Pan's Flight!
So, after that stressful start to our day we continued on after thanking the CM for all her efforts in assisting us ..........
All I can say after that, thank goodness they've quickly moved to being able to book Oga's 14days ahead. It's a real pain to be trying to secure a reservation when you're trying to use your EMH / MM and also book MP etc... It would have saved me so much grief that morning but all's well that ends well I guess : )
We did a few more attractions in DCA then headed over to DL for a while. I hadn't intended to do DL today but we'd already done a fair bit in DCA so I said let's go over there for a while. As reported, crowds were pretty low. We actually had trouble using MP just in the sense that wait times were so low with immediate returns on MP available, I had to stop using it for a while : )
MP is still very much worthwhile to me though for being able to book FP's on the other side of the park or in the opposite park that you're in and a big bonus is being able to stack FP's for the popular attractions for when you plan to return in the evening.
We then ended up going back over to DCA for a while, had lunch at Lamplight (I'd made a reservation for 12.30pm) - I'll review it in next post - before doing Soarin and Grizzly and then heading back to the GCH to check into our room and have a rest around 3pm.
Sidenote: Grizzly was awful!! I haven't been on it in years. Usually the kids go on it repeatedly for an hour or so using SR until I can eventually drag them off it and I sit out front of there enjoying the scenery / atmosphere. I convinced my husband to go on it and we stored our stuff in the free lockers that I'd read about near there but never used as I'm normally waiting out front with our stuff. We changed into our flip flops. For some reason my husband kept his wallet on him rather than storing it in the locker!
Enjoyed the ride, got a bit of a spray here and there, enough to definitely be wet but not unbearably so. Got to the end and just when you think you're safe and have survived - bang!! it hit us out of nowhere. The geyser or whatever it was completely drenched almost everyone in our raft as if we had just gone under a waterfall - literally!! I don't mind getting a bit wet but this was ridiculous. We were completely drenched, unpleasantly so. My husband was not a happy camper! His wallet was completely soaked through (don't ask me why it wasn't in the locker??) . I will definitely remember not to be doing this one in the future and I couldn't convince my husband to go on Splash after this experience so we ended up giving it a miss - I made do with seeing inside the mountain from the Railroad. Luckily, we were right near our entrance to GCH so headed straight back there but just about froze in the freezing lobby whilst waiting to get our room key/number and check our room was now ready at reception. They don't notify international numbers that your room is ready so it wasn't an option for us - they'd told us to come back to reception and check later on.
Our room was on the ground / (? first floor) over near the Mariposa lifts I believe. It was pretty convenient. Once you passed the lifts into the corridor of rooms our door was right there on ground level. Room was nice with everything you need. We had a little courtyard area. I could tell we were just behind Goofy's Sky School or thereabouts, it was over to the right a bit.
We had free use of the laundry which was just down the hall and there was a washing basket in the room. Also bathrobes and nice toiletries.
They don't offer housekeeping for DVC (you can get it by paying a surcharge if you want) but I'm happy not to have someone coming in and worrying about tidying the room up for them.
They did however do the 'security check' each day on the room that I'd read about - I could tell because the bin was emptied each day.
Bed was very comfortable and we had no complaints about the stay.
My husband is a smoker which of course is taboo just about everywhere now. I was helped out with some directions on here (from Nonsuch I believe it was) as to where he could do this which was very helpful. Just down the corridor from us past the laundry there is an exit to a BBQ area that no-one really uses, we never saw any guests in that area at all. There is a smokers ashtray there so it was easy enough for him to duck out as needed. It is out of the way and we never really saw anyone in that area so no-one else is being inconvenienced by the smoke, so he was happy. I'd pre-warned him it was going to be a bit of a problem for him with the new smoking bans at the resort but he managed without too much hassle.
All in all, our stay there was great with no issues but as I said, given we didn't use the facilities of the hotel to their fullest I don't think the value was there for us. We only ended up using the EMH the first morning so even that wasn't really an advantage. Oh well!
This has turned into more of a ramble than I intended so I will leave it there for this post and then post again, (hopefully with a more concise!!) summary of the meals / shows that we did.
I thought I'd jot down a few comments / thoughts about our 3 day stay at DLR. Not in any particular order, just random thoughts about what we did etc..
This was the first week of our three week trip where we went on to Seattle, cruised Alaska then a week up through Canada with Rocky Mountaineer to Calgary.
If it's a little vague / all over the place I apologise but we had a big two weeks after DL so there's lots that's been going on.
This trip was just my husband and I for our 25th Wedding Anniversary. It was my 8th trip to DLR and my husband's 4th trip. I've been a few times without him with either both our boys or just the youngest on our last visit in 2017.
We flew into LAX on Saturday night. I'd planned to stay in LA one night (Farmer's Daughter Hotel), sleep late, visit the Farmer's Market then head down to Anaheim Sunday afternoon which is what we did. It was fine but in hindsight we probably should have just gone straight to Anaheim from the airport.
We visited the Farmer's Market (I thought I hadn't been before but my husband swears that I have), got Levi's for my son at Macy's and on spur of the moment I decided I needed to go down to Hollywood and Highland and see the Walk of Fame and HW sign (again!).
Caught an Uber down to Anaheim around 2pm on Sunday afternoon and checked into D.I. & S for one night. Stayed here last time. It was perfectly fine again. I'd requested a room at the front like last time but got one at the very back of the property on about level 3. Bit of a pain to drag our luggage all the way to the back of the property for one night but it was fine. I've read that the rooms are quieter down there and I think that would be true. The entry area looked down on a little courtyard garden which was very nice. Didn't have the B/F as we left early. The indoor pool had the very strong chemical smell wafting out as you walked past - smell more strong / obvious I think given that it is an indoor pool.
We had dinner at Tony Roma's because my husband wanted to eat there and it was fine. I watched the fireworks from the D.I. & S viewing deck. It's ok from there but a lot of trees etc.. blocking the view so you can only really see the big ones but a reasonable compromise if you're not in the park.
We were up really early the next morning so had B/F at Denny's at 5am then gathered our luggage and Uber'd over to the Grand Californian Hotel at 6am to store our bags and get checked in to use our EMH that day.
I booked our 3n stay at GCV renting DVC points which cost me half of what it was going to be going through Disney.
My thoughts: it was nice enough of course but TBH, I probably wouldn't do it again. (My son and I did a split stay last time and tried 2n at DLH and I felt the same way) Whilst it's nice to be that close to the parks, particularly DCA with the entrance in to there - we really didn't use any of the facilities at the hotel - pools / lobby / bar etc. so the value probably wasn't there for us. I paid $1,400 ($2,000 AUD) for the 3n and I paid $160 for the one night at D.I. & S.
When my son and I return, likely to be in 2yrs in 2021, we will just stay across the road on Harbor.
We had a 3 day hopper with MP (purchased ~ 1 yr ago before the Jan ticket / MP price increase so MP was $10/day) I purchased direct with Disney.
Last trip my son and I had a 10day hopper pass (pre-MP) and were in the parks 8 days including 2 x MHP's and that nearly wasn't enough time for us!
My son and I are the Disney addicts in the family - my husband was really just doing it this time because I wanted to go there. He likes DL well enough, particularly the history associated with Walt etc.. but he doesn't love it like we do.
After the first day I was thinking I'd made a mistake with the 3days - as in, one day might have actually been enough. Just wasn't feeling it this trip although jet-lag may have impacted this somewhat.
Monday - checked in quickly at GCH and over to line up at DCA by 6.30am for our EMH. This really wasn't necessary. Lines weren't really there (and by lines, I mean 10 - 20 people in queue), till around 6.50am or so.
Shortly after this is when my frustration started. Through the gates at 7am and off to RSR. On the way I am trying to secure our Oga's reservation for 7.30pm that night. It was the only night I had spare to do it and I was trying to tie it in with watching the fireworks from SW:GE after.
I would get all the way through the reservation process and after entering the final credit card details it would come up with an error message.
Over the next hour I tried this at least 20-30 times, entering multiple credit cards (I had 3 different ones with me). I would have to enter all the details again each time, names, credit card details etc..) with no luck, doing it all on my iPhone which is so much harder than using a laptop. I was so frustrated.
I know, I know - I should have gone to guest services earlier but I didn't want to waste the advantage of our EMH : (
I had done a dummy run of this at home which was fine but obviously you can't click through the final payment page otherwise you'll be charged. I had booked stuff with Disney from home like the WOC DP so I knew there shouldn't be a problem with it accepting my credit card.
So after our first hour or so I went to the Chamber of Commerce (Guest Services) and explained the problem I was having. She tried to come up with a few things it might be like there were no bookings left etc.. but it didn't ring true as I had logged in at 6.45am and tried continuously from 7am.
She tried multiple times, also using their iPad to access my Disney account to make the booking. She eventually conceded that, yes, some people had been having issues being able to make the reservation. She didn't say whether they were local or just international guests.
She spent a lot of time going back and forth between front of house and talking to managers out the back. After about 40 minutes she was suddenly able to get the reservation to confirm. It was for 8.35pm but I took it. I'd been trying to get 7.30 - 8pm ish as I expressed that I was concerned about a hold up getting into Oga's based on recent reports and I wanted to watch the fwks but they spoke to a manager over there who said any holdups they'd been having had resolved and they were getting people into Oga's at their reservation time pretty much now.
Due to all the grief I'd been having with it she offered me 2 x 'anytime / any attraction' FP's for us to use. I explained to her that I had MP so I didn't have much use for them but she pointed out that I could use them on non-FP attractions as well so she said I would likely find them useful for something > looking at you Peter Pan's Flight!
So, after that stressful start to our day we continued on after thanking the CM for all her efforts in assisting us ..........
All I can say after that, thank goodness they've quickly moved to being able to book Oga's 14days ahead. It's a real pain to be trying to secure a reservation when you're trying to use your EMH / MM and also book MP etc... It would have saved me so much grief that morning but all's well that ends well I guess : )
We did a few more attractions in DCA then headed over to DL for a while. I hadn't intended to do DL today but we'd already done a fair bit in DCA so I said let's go over there for a while. As reported, crowds were pretty low. We actually had trouble using MP just in the sense that wait times were so low with immediate returns on MP available, I had to stop using it for a while : )
MP is still very much worthwhile to me though for being able to book FP's on the other side of the park or in the opposite park that you're in and a big bonus is being able to stack FP's for the popular attractions for when you plan to return in the evening.
We then ended up going back over to DCA for a while, had lunch at Lamplight (I'd made a reservation for 12.30pm) - I'll review it in next post - before doing Soarin and Grizzly and then heading back to the GCH to check into our room and have a rest around 3pm.
Sidenote: Grizzly was awful!! I haven't been on it in years. Usually the kids go on it repeatedly for an hour or so using SR until I can eventually drag them off it and I sit out front of there enjoying the scenery / atmosphere. I convinced my husband to go on it and we stored our stuff in the free lockers that I'd read about near there but never used as I'm normally waiting out front with our stuff. We changed into our flip flops. For some reason my husband kept his wallet on him rather than storing it in the locker!
Enjoyed the ride, got a bit of a spray here and there, enough to definitely be wet but not unbearably so. Got to the end and just when you think you're safe and have survived - bang!! it hit us out of nowhere. The geyser or whatever it was completely drenched almost everyone in our raft as if we had just gone under a waterfall - literally!! I don't mind getting a bit wet but this was ridiculous. We were completely drenched, unpleasantly so. My husband was not a happy camper! His wallet was completely soaked through (don't ask me why it wasn't in the locker??) . I will definitely remember not to be doing this one in the future and I couldn't convince my husband to go on Splash after this experience so we ended up giving it a miss - I made do with seeing inside the mountain from the Railroad. Luckily, we were right near our entrance to GCH so headed straight back there but just about froze in the freezing lobby whilst waiting to get our room key/number and check our room was now ready at reception. They don't notify international numbers that your room is ready so it wasn't an option for us - they'd told us to come back to reception and check later on.
Our room was on the ground / (? first floor) over near the Mariposa lifts I believe. It was pretty convenient. Once you passed the lifts into the corridor of rooms our door was right there on ground level. Room was nice with everything you need. We had a little courtyard area. I could tell we were just behind Goofy's Sky School or thereabouts, it was over to the right a bit.
We had free use of the laundry which was just down the hall and there was a washing basket in the room. Also bathrobes and nice toiletries.
They don't offer housekeeping for DVC (you can get it by paying a surcharge if you want) but I'm happy not to have someone coming in and worrying about tidying the room up for them.
They did however do the 'security check' each day on the room that I'd read about - I could tell because the bin was emptied each day.
Bed was very comfortable and we had no complaints about the stay.
My husband is a smoker which of course is taboo just about everywhere now. I was helped out with some directions on here (from Nonsuch I believe it was) as to where he could do this which was very helpful. Just down the corridor from us past the laundry there is an exit to a BBQ area that no-one really uses, we never saw any guests in that area at all. There is a smokers ashtray there so it was easy enough for him to duck out as needed. It is out of the way and we never really saw anyone in that area so no-one else is being inconvenienced by the smoke, so he was happy. I'd pre-warned him it was going to be a bit of a problem for him with the new smoking bans at the resort but he managed without too much hassle.
All in all, our stay there was great with no issues but as I said, given we didn't use the facilities of the hotel to their fullest I don't think the value was there for us. We only ended up using the EMH the first morning so even that wasn't really an advantage. Oh well!
This has turned into more of a ramble than I intended so I will leave it there for this post and then post again, (hopefully with a more concise!!) summary of the meals / shows that we did.
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