Completed 4/24 - I Don't Think We Got Enough Treats or Candy... - Sept 2021 Disneyland/Universal Trip Report

[Araminta18]

What a great Universal day! Bummer about Secret Life of Pets - I can't wait to hear how your last day plan goes! The theming in Harry Potter land looks amazing - I can practically hear my kiddos squealing with delight. Which ride was your favorite overall?

Harry Potter was amazing! The theming overall is better at Disney, but man Harry Potter world is right up there. I think overall I liked Forbidden Journey best (despite the propensity to motion sickness), but Jurassic World was super cool too.

 

[Araminta18]

One More Ride (and I don't mean the plane!)
Tuesday, September 22, 2021​

Our last day was dawning! We'd packed up pretty much everything last night, because I HAD A PLAN! I really wanted to ride the Secret Life of Pets ride cause it was new and seemed interesting (even though I've never seen the movie), and after waiting all day yesterday, it was like a personal challenge. And since we'd bought silver annual passes instead of 2 day tickets, it wouldn't cost us anything to go into the park one more day. The timing was a little rough -- our flight was at noon out of Burbank, and the park opened at noon. But I figured if we rope-dropped and were first in line, we could ride the ride, run back to the hotel and pick up our luggage, grab an uber, and be at the airport by 10:45ish. And Burbank was smaller so security shouldn't be too long, right?

Trevor also wanted to ride Secret Life of Pets, but was willing to go with me on this plan even though he did think it was a little...intense. But he's used to me by now, so the plan was set!

So we packed up the night before and were all ready to go by about 9 (so we could be in the front of the line at the turnstiles). We checked out and dropped our stuff with the bellhop, and headed up the hill to the park!

We finally remembered to get a picture with the minion in the background!

We were at the turnstiles by 9:20 - first in line! They opened and let us into the park at 9:45am; we passed the time talking with the other people in line, which was fun. But at 9:45, we were on a mission! We booked it over to Secret Life of Pets, only to see this:

It was closed! Nooooooooooooo! But then we saw an employee and they said that it would open at 10 am, and not earlier. Which we were slightly disappointed about ('cause opening early would have been better for catching the flight) but also excited about 'cause at least it wasn't closed!

And indeed, at a minute or so past 10 am, it opened up and we headed inside! It was a little sad that we had to rush through the queue -- it was really fun theming!

They had animatronics in the queue and everything! This would definitely be a fun queue to wait through - so many details. Trevor took a video: Secret Life of Pets Queue

We got on the ride--you're riding in "cardboard boxes" - super fun!)

And then we turned into puppies -- that's the conceit of the ride - you're turned into pets and you're going to be adopted. You can see the puppies we became here: Turning into puppies!

The family that adopted us!

Celebrating getting adopted!

The ride was fun - I think I'd have understood more what was going on if I'd seen the movie, but it was still a fun ride. Great effects. Trevor took a video: Secret Life of Pets Ridethrough It was lots of fun, though it ended up stopping a few times which didn't do anything good for me worrying about the flight! I do wish we'd been able to ride it before, but I'm glad we got to ride it at all.

As soon as we were off the ride, we raced back to the hotel! It was about 10:15ish, so not super behind schedule but not really ahead of schedule either.

A "we rode all the rides we meant to at Universal!" selfie.

We got an uber very quickly thankfully, and were on our way at 10:25 am. As we drove, we got a different view of the Universal lot.

We also passed a super neat looking bookstore!

No time to stop though.

We were at the airport by about 10:45 - not too bad! There was a little bit of a wait for security -- not too bad though, thankfully.

We were through by 11:05, so we used the restrooms and got some grab and go food -- turkey club sandwich with chips.

This was surprisingly good, for an airport. There wasn't a lot of choice though, so nice that what they had was good. We also broke into one of our treats - Oogie Boogie rice krispie!

Yummy! I love how soft the krispies are even after a few days. I don't want to know how/why they make them stay so soft though!

We boarded at 11:30 - and they had us going in both the front and the back! Never done that before.

Once we got seated, we saw them loading the luggage on and for the first time, saw them loading our own luggage on!

Those two on the ramp? Both ours -- I could tell by the blue "mine mine mine" tags on the luggage. At least we knew for sure our bags were definitely on the plane!

We got lucky and had an empty middle seat between us, which made the flight rather nice. The flight passed quickly, and pretty soon we were landing in Nashville for our layover. We landed at 6, and then our flight was supposed to take off at 9. We got Burger King for dinner (which I didn't take a picture of! I know you're all devastated), and then found out that our flight was delayed. I don't remember why. While waiting, I broke into some of the fancy macarons from Kayla's Cakes!

The top one is smores - it must have been a Halloween thing to have it green! Then raspberry creme and the Halloween one: mummy macarons with cookies and cream buttercream. These were all delicious -- definitely recommend trying them if you're in the area!

Finally, at about the time we should have been landing in DC, we boarded our plane!

The plane was pretty empty, which was nice. And despite the delay, most of us, including the ground crew, were in good spirits. The gal at the counter was telling us jokes. It was great, considering.

Finally, at about 2 am, we were landing!

You can kind of see the Washington Monument there... we were landing at National, which is quite close to downtown DC. Thankfully our baggage came off quickly (I assume the baggage handlers wanted to get home too!) and pretty soon we were in a cab, and were home by 2:47 am. And our trip was officially over.

Fun with Metrics:
Steps walked: 9628 (4.1 miles)
Rides: 1 (The Secret Life of Pets - yay!)

 

[FeistyDisneyMom]

Hooray! you made it on Secret Life of Pets! That was an incredible plan and I am so glad it worked out That was a late night - hopefully you slept well and didn't have to work the next day. Thank you so much for sharing all these pictures and giving such a fun report!

 

[Araminta18]

Treat Haul, Merch Haul...Wrap Up Post!​

You can't escape from me just yet! For a trip report that talks about treats and candy in the title...I feel like I need to end with more pictures of treats. We brought home several treats and candy, so I figured I'd show you some of the things we bought and took home.

Rice krispie treats from one of the Main Street shops in Disneyland:

Chocolate covered marshmallow! Though it looks like there's caramel in there? I honestly don't remember at this point - we ate this as soon as we got home basically, which was literally 6 months ago now.

Isn't this so cute?! Witch Minnie!

More of the macaron's from Kayla's cakes in Downtown Disney:

Birthday Cake Macaron; one is Belgian Chocolate and one is oreo cheesecake. All delicious.

We also got a cake in a jar from Kayla's Cakes - Valrhona Chocolate Cake:

Delicious!

Then some of the Universal treats:
Cauldron cake

It got a little bit squooshed coming home, but not too bad! Still tasted delicious

My minion taffy!

Honeyduke's fudge!

We also bought a Honeyduke's candy bar and some of the packaged treats (the mint chocolate frogs, etc) but I forgot to take pictures. So many treats! All the ones we brought home were really good though.

And now, souvenirs! We kind of went hog.

Trevor's "Crush the Rebellion" shirt, some of our random glow cubes, some pins (Star Wars pin, Oga's Coaster pins, Indiana Jones pin, Jungle Cruise pin and Grumpy pin, and the button from Storyteller's Cafe), some notebooks from Hogwarts, and my Cinderella lounge pants. Trevor got some Jurassic park T-shirts, and an Avengers baseball cap, the Mickey pumpkin with candy corn, Trevor also got a "Hogwarts express" hoodie jacket, Avengers Campus blanket, a Disneyland Journal, and some Snow White princess notebooks, Indiana Jones puzzle, Madame Leota pillow, my Hogwarts express ticket wallet, Avengers Campus metal magnet, Mandalorian car magnet, fun Disney socks (boba Fett, Up, Wall-E), fancy holochess pin, lightsaber belt clip, cup from Pluto's Pumpkin hunt, Batuu ornament, Avengers Campus mug, Hogwarts pillow, Madame Leota Sipper, Jungle Cruise sundae thing, souvenir bags...). We bought a lot, but we're using a bunch of it (I'm literally laying on the Madame Leota pillow right now ). Love it!

We ordered these things to be shipped to our home, as kind of a birthday present to myself:

Alice pillow, table runner, and headbands!

Art pictures!

And our Napa Rose menus. But I've hung all these pictures up already.

And then just cause these arrived at the same time and they're Disney and I think they're cool - some prints I got from an artist on Etsy:

Love the paper-cut aspect!

And then, I caved and bought this off ebay since I tried to get it on the Friday at Disneyland (when I got the other Haunted Mansion bag) but wasn't successful. It's a dust cover for your bags, but I made it into a pillow. The ghosts glow in the dark!

Whew, that's the haul!

And thank you for making it this far! I love reliving the trip via a trip report, so thank you for letting me. We really did have a great time. I think DisneyWorld is probably my preference, but to be fair I only know covid Disneyland with no fastpasses, and I'm basically (or I was...) a fastpass queen so it was a bit of an adjustment. And the crowds kind of threw me too. But I loved the different rides, and trying all the different food, and Avengers Campus and Oogie Boogie Bash were amazing! So so so glad we went out for it (Villain's Grove was amazing!). And Universal was super fun too. I don't think I'd go back to Disneyland for a while -- wait for the crowds to die down and everything to come back -- but we definitely had a great time. (ALSO Disney just announced they are re-theming Tarzan's Treehouse and i'm kind of devastated...an attraction I'll never get to experience ). We got SO LUCKY with the boarding groups - we only missed one boarding group (for Web Slingers) the whole time. Can't believe it. And we really did have so much good food, corn dog experiences aside. and Avengers Campus--awesome!

Anyways. Thank you again for reading! And if you're a glutton for punishment...I just started a pre-trip report for a tentative trip to DisneyWorld and Universal next year (along with probably a side of Disneyland Paris planning): https://www.disboards.com/threads/farts-with-a-side-of-sesame-and-universal-jan-2023-ptr.3881034/ Hope to see you over there!

EPIC Fun with Metrics:
Steps Walked: 224,468 steps (97.9 miles)

Video Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLD2n0Bq57wmrfBkc0CddVVd8-Nhk-d9N

Songs heard while riding Guardians of the Galaxy: 5/6! No duplicates!
Hit Me With Your Best Shot
I Want You Back
Give Up the Funk
Burnin' Love
Free Ride (from Trevor's solo ride)

Marvel Characters met:
Captain Marvel
Black Panther
Iron Man
Spiderman
Thor
Variant Loki
Ant-Man
Black Widow
Captain America

Marvel Characters we saw running around/up on the balcony
Thor x3
Captain Marvel x2
Ant-Man x2
Black Widow x3
Black Panther x2
Doctor Strange
Loki x2
Starlord
Captain America
Shang Chi
Wasp
the Falcon

Ride count: 97 - Trevor had 98
Disneyland total: 76 (Trevor had 77 - he rode Guardians one more time without me)
Rise of the Resistance x6
Guardians of the Galaxy x4
Web Slingers x5
Indiana Jones x4
Radiator Springs Racers x3
Incredi-coaster x3
Pixar Pal-A-Round Swinging x2
Space Mountain x2
Matterhorn x2
Haunted Mansion Holiday x2
Jungle Cruise x2
Millennium Falcon x2
Pirates x2
Swings
Golden Zephyr
Grizzly River Run single rider
Monsters After Dark
Luigi's Rollickin Roadsters
Mr Toad
Tea Cups
Small World
Splash Mountain single rider,
Winnie the Pooh
Monsters Inc
Soarin
Peter Pan
Snow White
Alice's Adventures
Dumbo
Pinocchio
Roger Rabbit
Gadget's Go Coaster
Jumpin Jellyfish
Goofy's Sky School
Emotional Whirlwind
Toy Story Mania
Buzz Lightyear
Star Tours
Casey Jr
Sleeping Beauty Walkthrough
Mater's Jam-Boo-Ree
Ariel's Undersea Adventure
Pixar Pal-A-Round non-Swinging
Redwood Creek Challenge
Astro Orbiter
Canoes
Storybook Canal Boats
Autopia
Disneyland Railroad
Carousel

Universal Ride Count: 21
Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey x5
Jurassic World x3
Revenge of the Mummy x2
Studio Tram Tour x2
Despicable Me x2
Flight of the Hippogriff x2
Transformers
WaterWorld show
Kung Fu Panda
Super Swirly Fun Ride
Secret Life of Pets

 

[Araminta18]

Hooray! you made it on Secret Life of Pets! That was an incredible plan and I am so glad it worked out That was a late night - hopefully you slept well and didn't have to work the next day. Thank you so much for sharing all these pictures and giving such a fun report!

Hooray indeed! I think it was rather more of a bonkers plan than incredible, but we got so lucky it worked out! And we definitely didn't go to work the next day -- I have planned enough of these trips by now to realize that I need a day to recover!

Thank you SO MUCH for reading and commenting and following along -- so nice of you! I so appreciate it, and I'm glad you liked it!

 

[FeistyDisneyMom]

A fabulous haul of treats and merch! Love the pix - definitely making me want to plan a Halloween time trip. I love the metrics too! I'll be following the new ptr!

 

[soon2beastar]

Thank you for all the hard work you put into your trip reports! I found this one and enjoyed it so much I’m reading your WDW ones and they brighten my day.