Barbanellie
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- May 7, 2014
- Messages
- 285
We flew back home on Sunday after our week in Southern California. We had such a great time! I figured I'd share some of my random thoughts about our two days in Disneyland. I wouldn't say we're WDW vets, but that's sort of the mindframe we were in when planning 
- Space - I know it's been said a lot, but it sure is fun to stroll from park to park to DTD, with everything close.
- Tickets - We bought the park hopper for our two days, and were really glad we did. On our first day, we went to DCA to grab a FP for Guardians before heading back to DLR where we rode some new-to-us stuff (Indy, Matterhorn and the Subs) and grabbed a FP for Space. We then went back to DCA, rode GOTG and single-rider on RSR, had lunch in Cars Land, then back to DLR for our Space Mountain FP and probably something like Mr. Toad before heading back to the hotel for a nap and a swim. Anyway, I won't go into details of every ride we rode, but this is pretty much how our days went, just crossing over to whichever park we felt like going. We did everything we absolutely wanted to do, plus a few things we hadn't planned on, and we even did RSR and GOTG twice!
- Tickets part 2 - The amount of time we spent behind people at the turnstile who were turned away because their ticket was not valid (for whatever reason) was incredible. But otherwise, it was very efficient. We had the tickets on my phone (screenshot of the barcodes), and then we kept the tickets in a lanyard. It was no bother getting them in and out for FP, but I'm fairly sure they'll be moving to something magic-band-like at some point.
- World of Color - This is what they should aim for to replace Illuminations at Epcot. We are not fans of evening entertainment. It usually feels like trying to cram as many Disney characters as they can, kind of like name dropping. But WoC is just awesome, and we didn't mind about the other stuff as much!
- Disneyland fireworks - Like I said, we're not big on evening entertainment, but we also liked this one. We watched from New Orleans Square, and it was cool seeing the projections in front of Tom Sawyer's Island.
- Wifi - My Canadian cellphone provider had a really sucky roaming plan, so we didn't buy it and relied exclusively on wifi. It was OK in the parks, it at least remembered me and whenever I got close to a hotspot it would connect automatically. But finding the hotspots, even with the map, was a bit hit-or-miss. I hope they figure out a better wifi system before they release MaxPass.
- Feeling - I had read a lot here about the differences between DLR and WDW. I loved walking in Walt's park, and going on all the old dark rides that really do feel like they're from a different time period. The parks in general felt more laid back (although we are not uber-planners-military-style at WDW), I guess it's just how things are in California I loved the smaller castle and everything that was different.
- Food - We had some really nice food here, although sometimes I settled for whatever was closest because I was getting too tired and cranky to find the "best place". We loved the Cozy Cones in Cars Land, and had a great meal in Cafe Orleans. I didn't keep my Blue Bayou reservation after all and booked Cafe Orleans instead. It was more laid back, and it fit better for us on this trip. It was cool looking at BB from Pirates, and it does look very nice. Maybe next time
- Hotels and the Disney bubble - we are Moderates kind of people at WDW, and not being able to stay on Disney property was kind of sad, and we did miss that Disney bubble we get at WDW. We stayed at the Quality Inn on Manchester. We're good walkers, so it wasn't too far, we don't have kids so didn't need a pool slide or anything, so it was really just fine for us. Free Wifi, free breakfast, pool, walking distance to the parks. I'd gotten a good price through CAA, and we really liked it, especially for the price.
