Araminta18
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2016
Churros and Lamplight Lounge!
Thursday, September 16, 2022 (part 2)
Thursday, September 16, 2022 (part 2)
Having met the boy who never grows up, we decided that we should revisit our own childhood selves and we got in line to ride Casey Jr! The line was a bit long, but it was 11:15 -- all the lines were long.
This was the end of the line -- it wraps around there to the other side of the building. The line on the left side in the picture on the right was the Dumbo line, I think. It got hard to tell which line was for which! Both lines were completely outside their queues.
We ended up waiting a solid 15 minutes, which isn't bad but felt like a while, especially for Casey's. We did get the car we wanted - the caboose!
Then off we went! I really love the Casey Jr song, and this was a cute ride around and a fun glimpse of the Storybook lands.
Casey Jr coming down the track....
Off Casey Jr, I finally dragged Trevor over to the castle to do the Sleeping Beauty Walkthrough! Sleeping Beauty is my favorite Disney movie, and there's too little of her in the parks (her, not Maleficent -- I'm not a villains gal), so I was excited for this walkthrough. I had vague memories of it from years ago when I was a kid, but I was excited to do it again. And it was so cute! I loved all the little touches and details as you peek through doors and see Maleficent's goblin, or her shadow going across the hallway (video of Maleficent's shadow)
And at the end of the storybook, Sleeping Beauty's dress changed colors in the book! Video of her dress changing colors Love it!
We had to take pictures with the statue of Sleeping Beauty and Prince Philip dancing.
And the mural, of course!
So, it was a little before noon, and our next plan was a 1:15 lunch reservation over in DCA (any guesses where?!) (and yes, I timed that for right after park hopping was allowed), so we had a little bit of time to kill! We popped into the Christmas shop right there, as I was on the lookout for the Great Mouse Detective ornament that they'd released last year. No luck, but Trevor found a fun Star Wars ornament that he liked -- it was a little diorama of Batuu with the Falcon taking off.
We were starting to get hungry after that, but we didn't want to ruin our appetites for lunch, so......snack time! Since we were right there by the castle and the hub, we decided to go for the nearest treat: the Maleficent churro! (ooh a theme! I didn't even plan that!). So we headed through the Castle and over to the churro cart in the hub.
But we got distracted -- unsurprisingly. There were photographers! We had to take pictures! He actually took us over to the side of the Castle and we got some fun pics over there.
Yay!
We then got in line for churros, but the line was a bit long and I got distracted, 'cause some characters were out! So I ditched Trevor and went to say hi.
Alice and the Cheshire Cat and Winnie the Pooh!
And then Eeyore came out! This pose of his cracked me up. I was dying.
While Trevor was waiting in line, he took a creeper photo of me trying to take pics of the characters.
I'm right in front of Winnie the Pooh. And this is kind of what I mean with it being a bit hard to take pics/meet these characters -- it's just kind of a free for all. Definitely has it's perks (like no line) but it can get chaotic.
When Trevor got the churro (with the requisite marshmallow sauce ) he came over and joined me.
Ok, pictures done, characters all met -- time for the churro!
So the whole point of the Maleficent churro is that it's covered in oreo crumbs and green sprinkles. I didn't really get the green sprinkles, but the oreo crumbs were good. And the marshmallow sauce was good too -- very thick Good snack, very enjoyable - again, I don't think churros are my jam, but this was pretty good.
It was only about 12:20, but we figured we'd head over to DCA and wait to park hop, and maybe they'd let us in early. But as we left Disneyland, I had to take a picture with the Tarzan Treehouse sign in the exit tunnel.
My poor Tarzan's Treehouse. Which is STILL under scrim. I'm not bitter at all.
Over at DCA, we were one of the first people there at the park hop gate, so we decided to sit and hang out in the shade.
By 12:50, the line had gotten muuuuuuuuuuch longer.
They did let us in about 5 minutes early, so we took the win and headed to our dining reservation. But on the way we saw Clarabelle and Horace waving hello!
Where was our dining reservation? Lamplight Lounge!! We were pretty excited - we'd heard such great things about Lamplight and I was super excited to see all the fun Pixar decorations and touches in there. We checked in a few minutes early and then went looking around at the Pixar gift shop nearby while waiting to be called.
They had the animators back! This was the first time we'd seen them all trip -- I think it was a Covid thing.
So fun to see.
I love this stained glass window - so cute!
They called us back at 1:20 -- 5 minutes after our reservation and 20 minutes after we checked in. Not too bad! They led us downstairs to the bar, and to my disappointment we were on the outside side (so couldn't really see the fun Pixar decorations), but the worst part was that we were seated full-on in the sun.
We should have said something immediately, but I think I was just a bit flabbergasted that with empty seats around they'd sit anyone here full in the sun - too hot and unpleasant! And then after that I felt weird asking to be moved. Trevor was asking me if I wanted to move and I just didn't want to cause trouble, but man -- I should have said yes. This was not a nice seat.
For drinks, we ordered the Goofball Island (Simply Fruit Punch®, Minute Maid® Lemonade and Raspberry Purée) and the Mint to Be (Simply Limeade®, Watermelon and Berry Purée and fresh Mint topped with Soda Water)
The Goofball Island is on the left; the Mint to Be is on the right. These were both pretty good, and they came quickly.
For food, we ended up getting the lobster nachos!
I don't like lobster, but these nachos had gotten such good reviews so we decided to try them. They were really good! We liked them a lot.
Our plan was to start with the nachos and then get more based on how hungry we were, but our experience went downhill from there - our server disappeared and never really came back to ask if we wanted anything else. Our waters never got refilled, and we never really got the chance to order anything more. By the time we did flag down a server, we were so disappointed with our experience (sun beating down on us, long waits for anything) that we just asked for the check. And then it took forever for us to actually get the check.
The food was delicious, and we liked the drinks, but overall it was just a really really disappointing visit to a restaurant we were really looking forward to. Some of that is our fault - we should have asked to move, but why would they seat people there in the first place?
We also did like the decorations/decor that we could see - look at the bathrooms sign!
Anyways. We did have a reservation for Lamplight Lounge brunch the next day, but after our experience today, we weren't entirely sure we wanted to keep it. But we figured we'd wait and decide.
After eating, we were tired and decided to head back to the hotel for a nap (maybe grumpiness contributed to our attitude about our experience). Naps are always good ideas!