skylynx
DIS Sponsor in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2003
- Messages
- 1,280
Just returned from three days at Disneyland and California Adventure, staying on our DVC points at the Grand Californian. Like almost everyone's vacation, there were great parts and not-so-great parts. Some of the not-so-great parts are just the way things are, and there's nothing that can really be done about it, no matter how much you wish it could change. Happily, the good stuff still far outweighs the not-so-good!
The Good
Paint the Night Parade: We loved the music and how they’d managed to work in some of the old Main Street Electrical Parade’s ‘Baroque Hoedown’ into it, as well as some color-changing aspects of Spectromagic. By the third time we fought the crowds to see it, though, we were singing along with our own words “Don’t make me do this again” instead of “When can we do this again!”
Disneyland Forever: If you saw it from the middle of Main Street, just absolutely awesome. The special effects on the buildings were just stunning. I can’t understand why so many people were queueing up hours before to sit directly in front of the castle. Great fireworks view, yes, but you completely miss the immersion of Main Street AND the fireworks simultaneously if you aren’t back far enough.
Rides that are better than their counterparts at Walt Disney World IMHO: Pirates of the Caribbean, the Haunted Mansion, Big Thunder Railroad
Star Wars Launch Bay: Getting our picture taken with Chewbacca!
The Indiana Jones ride. (In between breakdowns.) Enough said.
Radiator Springs Racers. Just a delight.
Dole Whip. Sublime, despite a line that rivals many attractions.
The Bad
The crowds: I expected high numbers on the weekend, but couldn’t believe a non-holiday Monday was as packed as it was. Seems you can enjoy the parks from rope drop up to around 10 am, and then it is just a steady build of people pouring in that doesn’t let up and culminates in a paralyzing crush before the parades start. People were seriously trying to claim six feet of prime Main Street curb space by leaving beach towels there in the morning and disappearing until 8 pm. CM's were removing them.
Attraction closures: many were announced in advance so people were already coping with that disappointment, but there were also many additional un-announced closures, especially the on-again, off-again Matterhorn with no fast-pass recovery possible. This exacerbated the crowd problems because there were already so many fewer attractions to spread the masses across. :-(
Traffic management blockades: these started two hours or more before the first parade. Sidewalks and pathways were roped off or closed entirely to allow people to stake out their spots before the parades began. It became virtually impossible to walk from the Frontierland side of the park to the Tomorrowland side, as you were forcibly re-routed by CMs, so effectively you could get trapped on one side or the other. The closures for the construction by Critter Country meant the alternative pathways to get from Fantasyland over to Frontierland without accessing the Main Street Hub were also cut off, adding to the frustration of restricted mobility and way-out-of-the-way detour routes hours before the parade even started.
The Ugly
Relentlessly screaming baby in Trader Sam’s. I felt for the poor mom as the child alternatively howled, was taken outside, came back in a minute later quiet, then started screaming again, etc. The mom missed the presentation of the group’s Uh-Oa and most of the food the other adults at her table enjoyed. The dad declined to do a thing to help except hold the baby’s shoe. Didn’t do a lot for the ambiance for everyone else in Trader Sam’s that afternoon, either. Alternative: visit only after 8 pm.
Two very tall men standing together who during the Paint the Night parade put their children on their shoulders even though they were already in the very front row with no one ahead of them, ensuring no one, including a number of other children behind them who were too big to be carried on shoulders, could see. I know there are plenty of people on Disboards who defend this it’s-all-about-me-and-my-child practice, but to me it is just plain anti-social behavior to launch your kid up that high in complete disregard for the other people behind you. Hold your kid in your arms so he or she can still see and you don’t ruin the experience for everyone else, for crying out loud.
Resort hot tubs have been reduced to superheated kiddie pools. The hot tubs at the Grand Californian looked like a shrimp boil. The person limit on one hot tub was eleven, and I counted 14 kids and six adults in it. There wasn’t a liter of water in there where you could just sit without being jumped on or swum over. This isn’t an issue of kids being bad or acting up, it’s just kids being kids, behaving the way they do in a swimming pool, except it isn’t a swimming pool. I wish each resort would designate and enforce an adults-only hot tub. It used to be really nice to just sit quietly and relax and talk about how much your feet hurt without being an unwilling part of a Marco Polo game.
But in Summary...
All grumping aside, you're still lucky if you are able to spend a couple days at Disneyland, and you realize it's just goofy to not brush off the boorish people, and getting run over by strollers the size of Volkswagens, and rides breaking down left and right, and waiting on lines even for the toilet because despite all of those things, magic still lives here!
The Good
Paint the Night Parade: We loved the music and how they’d managed to work in some of the old Main Street Electrical Parade’s ‘Baroque Hoedown’ into it, as well as some color-changing aspects of Spectromagic. By the third time we fought the crowds to see it, though, we were singing along with our own words “Don’t make me do this again” instead of “When can we do this again!”
Disneyland Forever: If you saw it from the middle of Main Street, just absolutely awesome. The special effects on the buildings were just stunning. I can’t understand why so many people were queueing up hours before to sit directly in front of the castle. Great fireworks view, yes, but you completely miss the immersion of Main Street AND the fireworks simultaneously if you aren’t back far enough.
Rides that are better than their counterparts at Walt Disney World IMHO: Pirates of the Caribbean, the Haunted Mansion, Big Thunder Railroad
Star Wars Launch Bay: Getting our picture taken with Chewbacca!
The Indiana Jones ride. (In between breakdowns.) Enough said.
Radiator Springs Racers. Just a delight.
Dole Whip. Sublime, despite a line that rivals many attractions.
The Bad
The crowds: I expected high numbers on the weekend, but couldn’t believe a non-holiday Monday was as packed as it was. Seems you can enjoy the parks from rope drop up to around 10 am, and then it is just a steady build of people pouring in that doesn’t let up and culminates in a paralyzing crush before the parades start. People were seriously trying to claim six feet of prime Main Street curb space by leaving beach towels there in the morning and disappearing until 8 pm. CM's were removing them.
Attraction closures: many were announced in advance so people were already coping with that disappointment, but there were also many additional un-announced closures, especially the on-again, off-again Matterhorn with no fast-pass recovery possible. This exacerbated the crowd problems because there were already so many fewer attractions to spread the masses across. :-(
Traffic management blockades: these started two hours or more before the first parade. Sidewalks and pathways were roped off or closed entirely to allow people to stake out their spots before the parades began. It became virtually impossible to walk from the Frontierland side of the park to the Tomorrowland side, as you were forcibly re-routed by CMs, so effectively you could get trapped on one side or the other. The closures for the construction by Critter Country meant the alternative pathways to get from Fantasyland over to Frontierland without accessing the Main Street Hub were also cut off, adding to the frustration of restricted mobility and way-out-of-the-way detour routes hours before the parade even started.
The Ugly
Relentlessly screaming baby in Trader Sam’s. I felt for the poor mom as the child alternatively howled, was taken outside, came back in a minute later quiet, then started screaming again, etc. The mom missed the presentation of the group’s Uh-Oa and most of the food the other adults at her table enjoyed. The dad declined to do a thing to help except hold the baby’s shoe. Didn’t do a lot for the ambiance for everyone else in Trader Sam’s that afternoon, either. Alternative: visit only after 8 pm.
Two very tall men standing together who during the Paint the Night parade put their children on their shoulders even though they were already in the very front row with no one ahead of them, ensuring no one, including a number of other children behind them who were too big to be carried on shoulders, could see. I know there are plenty of people on Disboards who defend this it’s-all-about-me-and-my-child practice, but to me it is just plain anti-social behavior to launch your kid up that high in complete disregard for the other people behind you. Hold your kid in your arms so he or she can still see and you don’t ruin the experience for everyone else, for crying out loud.
Resort hot tubs have been reduced to superheated kiddie pools. The hot tubs at the Grand Californian looked like a shrimp boil. The person limit on one hot tub was eleven, and I counted 14 kids and six adults in it. There wasn’t a liter of water in there where you could just sit without being jumped on or swum over. This isn’t an issue of kids being bad or acting up, it’s just kids being kids, behaving the way they do in a swimming pool, except it isn’t a swimming pool. I wish each resort would designate and enforce an adults-only hot tub. It used to be really nice to just sit quietly and relax and talk about how much your feet hurt without being an unwilling part of a Marco Polo game.
But in Summary...
All grumping aside, you're still lucky if you are able to spend a couple days at Disneyland, and you realize it's just goofy to not brush off the boorish people, and getting run over by strollers the size of Volkswagens, and rides breaking down left and right, and waiting on lines even for the toilet because despite all of those things, magic still lives here!
