This and that from our Disneyland trip last week... (Things I've learned, etc.)

[jory29]

*We won't ever attend the parks in October again. The massive crowds, (Oct. 12 - 18th) compared to Sept.and Nov. when we have previous gone, were a huge turnoff for our family

*Disneyland still has to figure out how to let people out of the park when it is at a gridlock; upon leaving the park, they wave everyone down to a few gate openings, when it would be better if they opened all the gates for people to exit the parks.

*When it's crowded, you rarely, if ever, see a character walking around in Disneyland. The only character we saw was Tigger as he was leaving the photo centre just past the Pooh ride. This was on 6 days total in the parks. (California Adventure Park had more characters.)

*Some cast members trying to control where crowds might walk are totally rude. One cast member kept telling people as they walked out of the animation studio to 'walk this way, don't cut in front of dopey or snow white, etc.' It was so rudely stated, and no one would have walked right in front of that line up anyway. I found her to be so annoying. One cast member hit me with the light wand that they use. It was an accident, but the crowd was so heavy that I couldn't avoid being that close to him.

*Hand sanitizer in the park for $1 is a good value. We used it after every ride. Maybe over-doing it, but maybe not. The amount of children and adults touching the handrails and ropes in the ques was alarming. I admit I am a germ freak, though.

*The Hojo Anaheim hotel family suite is a good deal - it was louder than I expected it to be on the freeway side, but it wasn't bothersome. I would recommend a white noise device if you are sensitive to it.

*The Hojo Anaheim hotel has RCA and S-video components easily available on the side of their family pirate suite TV's, if you wanted to hook up an external device such as a cam or dvd player.

*I left our safe wide open, unlocked one day last week, at the Hojo family suite. I had a feeling I forgot to lock it up, but tried to dismissed the feeling 10 min. into the park, because I never *ever* forget to do important things like that; it had our passports, around $700 cash, 3 cell phones, 2 psp's, an mp3 player, our netbook, and more. Upon arriving back to the hotel, house keeping had already been in. The safe door was still wide open of course, as we had left it, and nothing was missing. I wouldn't have expected for anything to have been touched anyway, but I was greatly relieved that all was well.


*I learned that I get motion sick when on a tour bus back from Sea World; dramamine, dramamine, folks, if you are sensitive to the motion of a bus. I was ill for 2 hours after getting off of the bus.

*If you want to buy candy or merchandise, buy it before heading back to your hotel for a break in the afternoon. If you wait until evening, it will be far too busy.

*You can purchase one large soda and ask for an extra cup, to split.

*I have learned that the $4 frozen slushies are a huge rip-off- they are small, and very very light in weight, I am sure they whip air into them or something like that. When my spouse went on the maliboomer and returned on a hot day, there wasn't much left after it melted.

* The fishing game on the Pier is a great one for kids - only $2.50 wins them a small plush toy, and maybe a large one.

* The baseball throwing game is a huge rip-off - $5 for 8 balls, and it's so hard for kids to do that game.

*Raspberry lemonade at Mimi's is the best in the world. Wow. Totally refreshing!

*The Halloween Party wasn't our cup of tea for the price paid. Just not worth it IMO. I am glad we tried it once, though.

*California Screamin' is more smooth than BTMR. This is the first year my spouse and I both enjoyed the Matterhorn more so than BTMR, not sure why, maybe as we age BTMR is too much?

*Screamers on rides are so hard on the ears.

*The gumbo, pommes frites, loaded baked potato soup, and churros are NOT to be missed when in DL!

*More Dis'ers should wear their lime green Mickey heads on their purses, etc. I only saw one in the parks during the 6 days that we were there, and she was the one that noticed mine, hanging off of my - ugh - fanny pack that was on my waist. (Ugh.)

*The Haunted Mansion was so busy that we left it until the last day. Got a fast pass around noon I think, and had to come back after 5:30 PM. Came back in the evening and it was closed down. Came back again, and it was a walk on for fast pass holders. It was amazing, to walk past the HUGE que! When we were done the ride, we exited the park to the fireworks going off in the background. It was an awesome end to an awesome trip.

 

[darph nader]

*We won't ever attend the parks in October again. The massive crowds, compared to Sept.and Nov. when we have previous gone, were a huge turnoff for our family

It's getting to be that way darn near all the time

*Disneyland still has to figure out how to let people out of the park when it is at a gridlock; upon leaving the park, they wave everyone down to a few gate openings, when it would be better if they opened all the gates for people to exit the parks.

That would be nice,except 'some' people would be trying to sneek in.

*When it's crowded, you rarely, if ever, see a character walking around in Disneyland. The only character we saw was Tigger as he was leaving the photo centre just past the Pooh ride. This was on 6 days total in the parks. (California Adventure Park had more characters.)

Could you imangine how crowded it would be in sone certain areas if characters were present?

*Some cast members trying to control where crowds might walk are totally rude. One cast member kept telling people as they walked out of the animation studio to 'walk this way, don't cut in front of dopey or snow white, etc.' It was so rudely stated, and no one would have walked right in front of that line up anyway. I found her to be so annoying. One cast member hit me with the light wand that they use. It was an accident, but the crowd was so heavy that I couldn't avoid being that close to him.

Could you imagane being 1 against 100s day in and day out?

*Hand sanitizer in the park for $1 is a good value. We used it after every ride. Maybe over-doing it, but maybe not. The amount of children and adults touching the handrails and ropes in the ques was alarming. I admit I am a germ freak, though.

Goog value,YES. People do touch stuff. Fact of life.

*The Hojo Anaheim hotel family suite is a good deal - it was louder than I expected it to be on the freeway side, but it wasn't bothersome. I would recommend a white noise device if you are sensitive to it.

*The Hojo Anaheim hotel has RCA and S-video components easily available on the side of their family pirate suite TV's, if you wanted to hook up an external device such as a cam or dvd player.

*I left our safe wide open, unlocked one day last week, at the Hojo family suite. I had a feeling I forgot to lock it up, but tried to dismissed the feeling 10 min. into the park, because I never *ever* forget to do important things like that; it had our passports, around $700 cash, 3 cell phones, 2 psp's, an mp3 player, our netbook, and more. Upon arriving back to the hotel, house keeping had already been in. The safe door was still wide open of course, as we had left it, and nothing was missing. I wouldn't have expected for anything to have been touched anyway, but I was greatly relieved that all was well.

Shows the honosty of the HOJO staff.



*I learned that I get motion sick when on a tour bus back from Sea World; dramamine, dramamine, folks, if you are sensitive to the motion of a bus. I was ill for 2 hours after getting off of the bus.

*If you want to buy candy or merchandise, buy it before heading back to your hotel for a break in the afternoon. If you wait until evening, it will be far too busy.

*You can purchase one large soda and ask for an extra cup, to split.

*I have learned that the $4 frozen slushies are a huge rip-off- they are small, and very very light in weight, I am sure they whip air into them or something like that. When my spouse went on the maliboomer and returned on a hot day, there wasn't much left after it melted.

Pure thermodynamics

* The fishing game on the Pier is a great one for kids - only $2.50 wins them a small plush toy, and maybe a large one.

Good deal.

* The baseball throwing game is a huge rip-off - $5 for 8 balls, and it's so hard for kids to do that game.

Bad deal.

*Raspberry lemonade at Mimi's is the best in the world. Wow. Totally refreshing!

*The Halloween Party wasn't our cup of tea for the price paid. Just not worth it IMO. I am glad we tried it once, though.

*California Screamin' is more smooth than BTMR. This is the first year my spouse and I both enjoyed the Matterhorn more so than BTMR, not sure why, maybe as we age BTMR is too much?

*Screamers on rides are so hard on the ears.

This is a given. Some people just don't care about those around them.

*The gumbo, pommes frites, loaded baked potato soup, and churros are NOT to be missed when in DL!

*More Dis'ers should wear their lime green Mickey heads on their purses, etc. I only saw one in the parks during the 6 days that we were there, and she was the one that noticed mine, hanging off of my - ugh - fanny pack that was on my waist. (Ugh.)

*The Haunted Mansion was so busy that we left it until the last day. Got a fast pass around noon I think, and had to come back after 5:30 PM. Came back in the evening and it was closed down. Came back again, and it was a walk on for fast pass holders. It was amazing, to walk past the HUGE que! When we were done the ride, we exited the park to the fireworks going off in the background. It was an awesome end to an awesome trip.

It's that time of year for HM. I miss the days when there were no fireworks.

 

[jory29]

It's that time of year for HM. I miss the days when there were no fireworks.

It was like that for so many of the rides though, we found. (You're right though, HM was the busiest ride.) The fireworks were what made everything go into a gridlock. That, and Fantasmic. It made me sad to read today how slow the park has been this week. Just a few days difference and suddenly things slowed down. I am glad for DIS'ers though, who are going this week, that it should be less busy than it has been.

Oh, I see now that you posted comments about my comments, within the quoted text box. Thanks for your replies. I just noticed that the slushies weren't the same as 7-11 ones - they were more 'whipped' and felt so much lighted in the hand for some reason than the 7-11 slurpees. Anyone else notice that?

It would be hard to be a cast member controlling crowds, I agree!(1 against 100's.) The weird thing was, she said it even if people started going in the opposite direction of where she was yelling out for them not to go.

 

[darph nader]

Holy cow. I messed up that quote and reply.

 

[jory29]

Holy cow. I messed up that quote and reply.

It's o.k., it's not a big deal.

 

[jacs1234]

Thanks for your info. I'm glad you had an awesome time despite the crowds. I hope it's not crowdy when we are there. I think we'll give that fishing game a go. We wouldn't have if you hadn't said it was good.

I hate screamers.

 

[rossip]

*We won't ever attend the parks in October again. The massive crowds, (Oct. 12 - 18th) compared to Sept.and Nov. when we have previous gone, were a huge turnoff for our family

.

Well Jory they may have been things you learnt but there are some really good tips in there for the rest of us ! Thanks !!

 

[bumbershoot]

What's scary is that by the 12th, the crowds had *dropped*.

I mean, on the 10th when we *entered* DCA, they gave us handstamps. We have APs, and my guys have *never* needed a handstamp, while I have once, in March (aka spring break time). But those were given upon exiting. But the 9th had been SO bad that they were stamping as you entered, to make sure you got stamped.

So your crowds were actually lighter than what they had been starting the holiday weekend...which is frightening.


I noticed that if you were exiting at the very very very end, they would throw the gates open. In May they even had the big gates open, you didn't even have to go through a turnstile. But on this trip, exiting before the full-on end, we did experience the CMs telling people where to go to exit. Kinda strange, but kinda cool, too, to us, sort of.


The fishing midway game was indeed neat. I haven't gotten to it in my trip report, but the guys put $20 on a card, and it was basically "here's 20 bucks, give me 5 (6?) plushies now". Better than midway games at a fair, that's for sure!

"If you want to buy candy or merchandise, buy it before heading back to your hotel for a break in the afternoon. If you wait until evening, it will be far too busy."

I think that applies to everything. If you want to do something, and it's right there, DO IT. Things might be too busy, it might be closed, your feet might be screaming an hour from now...just do what you want to do at that time, if it's available and you have any time to do it.

 

[Kalice]

thanks for the great tips. We'dd definately give the fishing game a go. The baseball one is near impossible. My kids selected a go at the attraction that you throw the rings on the glass bottles (coke I think), it looks easy because there are hundreds of bottles. Anyhow, the guy gave each of the kids a couple of buckets of the rings, he said that no-one had ever won in his year there! Kids had fun tho'.

 

[jory29]

What's scary is that by the 12th, the crowds had *dropped*.

I mean, on the 10th when we *entered* DCA, they gave us handstamps. We have APs, and my guys have *never* needed a handstamp, while I have once, in March (aka spring break time). But those were given upon exiting. But the 9th had been SO bad that they were stamping as you entered, to make sure you got stamped.

So your crowds were actually lighter than what they had been starting the holiday weekend...which is frightening.


I noticed that if you were exiting at the very very very end, they would throw the gates open. In May they even had the big gates open, you didn't even have to go through a turnstile. But on this trip, exiting before the full-on end, we did experience the CMs telling people where to go to exit. Kinda strange, but kinda cool, too, to us, sort of.


The fishing midway game was indeed neat. I haven't gotten to it in my trip report, but the guys put $20 on a card, and it was basically "here's 20 bucks, give me 5 (6?) plushies now". Better than midway games at a fair, that's for sure!

"If you want to buy candy or merchandise, buy it before heading back to your hotel for a break in the afternoon. If you wait until evening, it will be far too busy."

I think that applies to everything. If you want to do something, and it's right there, DO IT. Things might be too busy, it might be closed, your feet might be screaming an hour from now...just do what you want to do at that time, if it's available and you have any time to do it.

On one of the days at California Park, they gave us handstamps upon entry. I can't imagine it being any more crowded than what it was, but I believe it was, as I had read about the crowds before we left, and we were definitely worried about them. You are so right about doing what you want when - we walked away from merchandise a few times, then later had to do a long search for the items, not remembering which store, etc. Amen to the screaming feet! I beg everyone here to bring some Avon cooling green tea mint lotion for their legs/feet. It was my salvation at the end of a long day. The water shooting game was fun, too, our son won a Timothy from Dumbo. He played against only one other player. I should post a couple of the crowd photos on here. I'll try to get around to that, I think, as well as photos of the prizes won in the games. We were almost morbidly fascinated by the crowds. It was amazing to think we were able to get through them. The capacity day would have been very scary, I think. Kudos to you, you did it. I'm going to start selling 'I survived Gridlock at Disneyland' shirts I think. We only had the option of going through the turnstiles on the way out, and there was a line up just to get out.

 

[Mugglemama]

our last visit to DLR was on the last 2 days of september last year, a monday and tuesday. and the crowds really took away from the fun for us, as well. we were sure we'd picked a good time to go to avoid big crowds, but we were wrong.

glad you had so many days to spend there, so that you could still do the things you wanted, despite the crazy crowds.

 

[jory29]

Thanks for your info. I'm glad you had an awesome time despite the crowds. I hope it's not crowdy when we are there. I think we'll give that fishing game a go. We wouldn't have if you hadn't said it was good.

I hate screamers.

Thanks for replying. I only gave the games a go because someone else spoke here before of winning the Dumbo game, too. The fishing game is good because everyone wins something.

Well Jory they may have been things you learnt but there are some really good tips in there for the rest of us ! Thanks !!

Thanks for your reply as well. Glad you got something out of the post.

thanks for the great tips. We'dd definately give the fishing game a go. The baseball one is near impossible. My kids selected a go at the attraction that you throw the rings on the glass bottles (coke I think), it looks easy because there are hundreds of bottles. Anyhow, the guy gave each of the kids a couple of buckets of the rings, he said that no-one had ever won in his year there! Kids had fun tho'.

I agree with the baseball game being near impossible. I was so upset because I didn't notice it is twice the cost of the fishing and Dumbo water shooting game, but your chances to get 3 in the hole are fairly slim, especially for kids. We blew $10 on that one because 2 played it at the same time and only then did I notice that the charge is twice that as for other games. (500 points, $5, instead of 250 points, $2.50.) That was nice that your kids got more rings to try, but sad that he said no one had ever won in his year there.

 

[bumbershoot]

"I beg everyone here to bring some Avon cooling green tea mint lotion for their legs/feet. It was my salvation."

Or at least something, definitely. I had to soak my feet in HOT water twice a day (oh who am I kidding, each time it started as a foot soak and turned into a bath for my spine) and put arnica on them each night to stay sane.


DS got a Timothy, too. I'm not embarrassed to say that I didn't let him play against anyone who was not DH. We had to try the ball game (with the woody/jesse themed things) a few times, because as we'd get ready to go someone else would walk up, and I'm sorry, I'm NOT paying money for my family to NOT win something. So for that, where it required two people to play, we just waited until it was only Robert and Eamon playing. The CM thought we were nuts, but I just do not like gambling!


I get fascinated by the crowds too. It's like studying an alien culture, LOL. But I know that I can separate from it a bit b/c we've gone so often in the last 2 years...if this were my one and only trip, and if I didn't plan plenty of days to come back and try again, it would be so upsetting.

 

[jory29]

our last visit to DLR was on the last 2 days of september last year, a monday and tuesday. and the crowds really took away from the fun for us, as well. we were sure we'd picked a good time to go to avoid big crowds, but we were wrong.

glad you had so many days to spend there, so that you could still do the things you wanted, despite the crazy crowds.

I hear you! We thought we had picked the perfect week months in advance but as the months went by we began to realize the timing wasn't so good. Sorry you were there during the wrong time. We were lucky to have that many days to get things done.

 

[Husker Mickey]

*More Dis'ers should wear their lime green Mickey heads on their purses, etc. I only saw one in the parks during the 6 days that we were there, and she was the one that noticed mine, hanging off of my - ugh - fanny pack that was on my waist. (Ugh.)

Hi Jory - I'm the DISer that spotted your LGMH. I was so glad to see it and meet you and your family. I saw two other LGMH on our trip - Pam from Utah and (I hope I get this right - Mr. Mustard?) He made a great LGMH for me and I had that on the backpack that we carried.

No one spotted my LGMHs but I now have my family finding them for me and telling me who they spotted. I'm not shy, so I have no problem talking to people, especially if they are on the boards.

Once again, thanks for the visit and yes the parks were very, very crowded while we were there on Fri. & Sat. the 15th and 16th!

 

[jory29]

Hi Jory - I'm the DISer that spotted your LGMH. I was so glad to see it and meet you and your family. I saw two other LGMH on our trip - Pam from Utah and (I hope I get this right - Muggle Mike?) He made a great LGMH for me and I had that on the backpack that we carried.

No one spotted my LGMHs but I now have my family finding them for me and telling me who they spotted. I'm not shy, so I have no problem talking to people, especially if they are on the boards.

Once again, thanks for the visit and yes the parks were very, very crowded while we were there on Fri. & Sat. the 15th and 16th!

Hey, great to hear from you! I sent you a PM a couple of days ago. I also spoke in another thread (where I spoke of riding the Lilly Belle) about meeting you, and in that thread I mentioned your DISboard name. I'm glad you weren't shy to come up to us to say Hi. That was really cool. Like I said in the other thread where I mentioned you, meeting another DISer was a huge highlight of our trip. I wish I could have met the DISers that you met, as well.

 

[Pamb]

Hi Jory - I'm the DISer that spotted your LGMH. I was so glad to see it and meet you and your family. I saw two other LGMH on our trip - Pam from Utah and (I hope I get this right - Muggle Mike?) He made a great LGMH for me and I had that on the backpack that we carried.


This is Pam from Utah. It was really fun meeting you at HOJO's! Unfortunately my LGMH fell off of my backpack after the 2nd day so I wasn't able to meet any other Dissers but I did meet several very nice people in lines for rides or waiting for the parades. I hope post some photos and a trip report soon.

 

[Pamb]

*We won't ever attend the parks in October again. The massive crowds, (Oct. 12 - 18th) compared to Sept.and Nov. when we have previous gone, were a huge turnoff for our family

We enjoyed it in spite of the crowds. Last time F! and Aladin were not playing and several rides were closed. I also loved the Halloween theme. LOVED SMGG and HMH tons. I would go again this time of year.

*When it's crowded, you rarely, if ever, see a character walking around in Disneyland. The only character we saw was Tigger as he was leaving the photo centre just past the Pooh ride. This was on 6 days total in the parks. (California Adventure Park had more characters.)

We saw a bunch of characters. They are herded to specific places my handlers because lines form so fast and they have the princess and the villains captive in there photo locations but it helped to find them. This time I saw Jack and Sally (Nightmare before Christmas) Jafar, The Hag (Snow White), Queen of Hearts, Captain Hook, Tigger, Pooh, Rabbit, as well as the big five; Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, and Pluto. Plus those at DCA that were not there last year. Maybe we were just in the right place at the right time.

*Some cast members trying to control where crowds might walk are totally rude.

I felt sorry for them. What a hard job to try to control traffic and be Disney nice to some of the jerks in the park.

*Hand sanitizer in the park for $1 is a good value.

Amen!!

*The Hojo Anaheim hotel family suite is a good deal - it was louder than I expected it to be on the freeway side, but it wasn't bothersome. I would recommend a white noise device if you are sensitive to it.

We stayed in Bldg 2 and were so tired didn't hear a thing.


*If you want to buy candy or merchandise, buy it before heading back to your hotel for a break in the afternoon. If you wait until evening, it will be far too busy.

Another Amen

*You can purchase one large soda and ask for an extra cup, to split.

I got several free cups of ice water during our stay too. YUM!

*The gumbo, pommes frites, loaded baked potato soup, and churros are NOT to be missed when in DL!

I already miss the food! Does anyone have the recipe for the pomme frites?


*The Haunted Mansion was so busy that we left it until the last day.

We went on it every day..Fastpass baby! That and SMGG! LOVE THEM!!

 

[dizneedoll]

You're lucky you didn't have your $700 ect. stolen at HOJO. When we were staying there a housekeeper took a bag full of Disneyland merchandise. When I asked her if she knew where it was (since she had just been in the room) she claimed she didn't know what I was talking about. I went to the front office manager and she did get the bag back from the housekeeper who claimed she thought it was trash. Yeah, right.

Glad you had a good time and thanks for sharing your thoughts!

 

[PHXscuba]

I agree that BTMRR can be really jarring. I rode it three times in two days and noticed a big difference -- the front car was the worst and further back was better. Matterhorn sometimes gets me too, but we were riding it in the rain, so I was distracted.

I didn't know about splitting the sodas. Will they do that with a medium too? My girls want their "own" drink but don't suck down a full soda before it's time for another ride. Luckily/unluckily, no one wants to split my diet Coke.

We were in the parks the 12th through the 14th. I went knowing the 12th would be busy, but we did get to see Fantasmic because of the holiday. It seemed to me that the rain cut the crowds down on the 13th and (especially)14th. Of course everything grinds to a halt during the fireworks and parades.

We really liked seeing HMH, Ghost Galaxy, and fireworks, and eating the fall goodies. October is a great time for us to travel, especially when our only good alternatives for a multi-day trip are spring break or summer.

I still remember going to Disneyland as a teen in the '80s in mid-December and having the run of the park with a few foreign tourists. The way it's set up now, I don't think we're going to be seeing that any month any more -- it's just a matter of degree.

PHXscuba