Goodbye Grand Chateau - Thursday May 29, 2025 (part 11)
We got off the ride at 9:55, and with checkout of our hotel at 12 (I thought it was 11 but I just checked and it was 12 noon), it was time to head back to the hotel and pack up!
We were back in the room by 10:05, and packing commenced, but we'd gotten pretty good at it by this time, so by 10:40 we were done. Not too shabby! We weren't quite ready to leave yet, so we decided to spend some time on the balcony, watching the park and having a drink:
Peach fanta! Fancy fancy people are we.
So nice
Anna and Elsa were out -
And I realized we could see Rapunzel's tower from our room!
After about 15 minutes, we were ready to go. Though I did ask Trevor to run back into the park and take a picture of me on our balcony.
You can kind of see me there - on the balcony next to the tiny little window balcony area.
I took a picture of Trevor too.
While I was waiting for Trevor to get out there though, I saw Anna and Elsa leaving, and they exit through that path where Trevor is, which goes right underneath our balcony.
That was really cool! Bummer Trevor missed it, but a nice little magical moment.
But sadly, it was time to go. We checked out on the tv and left the bags in the room, and headed back into the park. Just a couple more pictures of the hotel -
Butterflies and lizards in the carpet!
One last hallway picture:
Trying to give a better view of what the whole hallway looks like. Not really i just think it's pretty but that's my excuse.
Goodbye lobby!
Though we did have a couple more places in the hotel to look - there's rockwork statue out in front of the hotel:
Mickey as the Brave Little Tailor giant slayer!
Also pretty flower on the Porte Cochere:
We also went back inside over to the Fantasy Springs side of the hotel to check out one more thing -
Different perspective on the hotel!
But really what we were looking for was the one last rock statue:
Beauty and the Beast! The only way to see this one is if you're staying at the hotel, so I wanted to make sure we saw it and didn't forget. And how cool that they have roses around it!
Touring Arendelle - Thursday May 29, 2025 (part 13)
With that, we really left the hotel and headed back into Fantasy Springs, with a plan to use our first of the 4 "extra" fastpasses that came with the Grand Chateau room on Frozen! But we got distracted with looking at the theming in Arendelle.
Snail doorknocker!
Wooden Mike Wazowski! Not really but kind of, right?
Pinocchio over there!
How cute is this restroom sign with the trolls and the statues of Kristoff!
So cute that Arendelle has a "register of historical places".
At this point, we hopped into the fastpass line (basically right at noon). While the fastpass line was very different than the standby line, it still had it's own cute theming:
The fabric version of the proclamation of Kristoff as the Official Ice Master.
Best Food in Fantasy Springs - Thursday May 29, 2025 (part 15)
See, Anna and Elsa and Olaf!
It was about 10 minutes from getting in line to getting in the boat:
Yay front row again! I don't think we asked for it - I think we just got lucky. And this time, we filmed.
Definitely a good ride!
At this point we were hungry and dragging a bit - neither of us slept super well - so we decided to head to Lookout Cookout for lunch. This was the last restaurant in Fantasy Springs on our list!
We got the lemon tea chicken, and the curry chicken, as well as the brownie:
We also got the kiwi drinks - the hot one and the cold one:
This was all REALLY good. Well the brownie was fine, nothing exceptional, but the chicken was just so good. It had 3 chicken tenders and then these freeze dried/crunchy things which were a good mixture of tastes and textures, but you could eat them all separately instead of having all the flavors piled on top of each other in a burger for example. We really liked it. I liked the lemon tea chicken enough that I went back and got another order of the chicken! Hands down (and not even close) the best food in Fantasy Springs.
However, I also have to call out the food packaging - it was SO cute!!!
How cute is that little tray for the chicken? Just adorable.
We finished eating around 1 pm, and while we had an Indy fastpass around 3 we were tired, and decided to look around the pirate ship there in Fantasy Springs, and then just make our way slowly out of the park, maybe doing some of the rides in the Little Mermaid area if they had a short wait. But first, we spent some time looking around the restaurant cause ADORABLE!
Peter Pan Theming - Thursday May 29, 2025 (part 16)
The more we looked around LookOut CookOut the more cute theming I found! The amount of effort they put into it is just crazy:
map!
Not sure what this banner is but I love it.
But actually, my hands-down favorite piece of theming was this:
the Lost Boys' outfits! This is in the food pickup area - aren't they just adorable? Goodness gracious.
After looking around there, we decided to head over to Hook's ship and Skull Rock and explore that area.
Even on the walk over, so much theming! I love the Hook and Smee totem pole.
This is the view looking into/at LookOut CookOut. The entrance is there on the left - you can kind of seen the sign - and then on the right is that dining area with the upside down boat as the roof!
I love that there are footprints in the sand.
This made me laugh out loud - the crocodile eating someone! (maybe Hook?)
The ship was crowded, though it kind of went in waves where everyone would be at one particular thing and then they'd kind of scatter. I feel like crowds at theme parks could be an interesting study for how crowds and individuals who make up crowds behave. But I'm no scientist. Anyways!
Hook's ship was, as you'd expect at this point, very well themed.
Hook's desk! We definitely waited in the short little line to get pictures at his desk:
Trevor just smiled but I decided to Act - I'm studying that map very hard!
Apparently we weren't the only trespassers on the ship - clearly the lost boys had been here at some point!
LOL
Hook's hooks!
Hook's logo? seal? crest? whatever it is
And those mountains there in the distance!
weapons!
Trevor got to drive the ship! Also notice the hooks there in the wheel.
Trevor Wants to Be a Pirate - Thursday May 29, 2025 (part 19)
Action shot of Trevor driving.
And from a distance. Trevor's such a good captain!
This just made me laugh - a whole barrel of cologne.
And I didn't notice earlier, but Hook's hooks are on a crate labeled:
Puffy shirts! LOL
They also had a bell you could ring -
That's basically the entire ship - we didn't spend too long on there cause it was crowded but it was still really neat to look around.
We then decided to head over to the Little Mermaid area, but as I'm sure will surprise you, we found yet more cute little theming things:
Peter and Tink flying in London!
Fancy back of the ship!
Croc!
a map! I don't remember now if it was accurate direction-wise, but maybe!
Who Knew Sebastian Made Donuts? - Thursday May 29, 2025 (part 20)
Just a few more - I'd apologize but I'm not sorry:
I love that it's turkeys clearly made by tracing hands cause I remember doing that as a kid in school!
The mountains!
Ok, that is the last picture from that area. It's such an awesome little area - if you get a chance, look out for those lost boys drawings and such. So cute!
We walked out of Fantasy Springs heading towards the Little Mermaid area, with the thought that we'd ride some of those rides if the lines were short.
Love this statue of King Triton!
You enter this area on essentially the second floor, and you can look down into the first floor area where folks are walking around.
Again just really well done.
So cool looking! And how cute are those shell lamps?!
Unfortunately all the lines were pretty long so we did a mobile order for one of the last snacks that I was looking for -
donuts! Specifically plant based donuts made without eggs or dairy - one is strawberry icing and one is chocolate icing.
We wanted to find a seat to eat them which we found eventually but it did take us a little bit. Finally we snagged a seat in this area:
The donuts were fine - a bit of an odd texture but the taste was pretty good. A nice little snack!
Look at This Stuff, Isn't It Neat? - Thursday May 29, 2025 (part 21)
After eating, we headed into the gift shops they had in that area, which were also just themed over-the-top:
I think this is in the movie, where Ariel has a candelabra with the utensils in it - such a cute touch.
Cute mural!
In here they also had another gachapon machine (no standby pass needed), so we did that - this prize was slap bracelets, and we got a Soarin' one. We have no use for slap bracelets which I realize is surprising to everyone, but still a fun little remembrance.
The two gift shops are connected, so we exited through the:
Sleepy Whale! And the eyes actually do open and close, in a sleepy manner.
It reminds me of Pinocchio, actually - walking into the whale's mouth.
Then it was time to head out - we were a bit tired so we decided to head over to our hotel to take a brief nap. We were back at the Disneyland Hotel for the next two nights. But a couple more pics on our way out!
Love this theming.
Hidden mickey!
As we slowly made our way to the front of the park, we definitely got sidetracked by some snacks -
I really love this peach raspberry ice pop.
Trevor though went for the black pepper popcorn:
Snacks procured, we kept heading out, and we ran into Flynn and Rapunzel finishing up their meet and greet!
I managed to get a selfie with them as they were leaving:
Not sure why I'm making that face but oh well.
There were a bunch of characters all pretty much leaving right then, which meant that area kind of emptied out, so we got a pic with the globe:
Checking In to our Beauty and the Beast Room - Thursday May 29, 2025 (part 22)
As we headed towards the monorail, we passed a Mickey statue that I made Trevor take a picture with.
We got off at the next stop (the Ikspiairi stop) cause I needed to stop at the Starbucks to get a You Are Here mug for a friend.
I liked this mural they had there.
Trevor and I split up a bit - I went to Starbucks while he went to the little convenience store they had right there to look around and get egg salad sandwiches for me cause I LOVE THEM SO MUCH.
Mug acquired, though there was a bit of drama - there was a bit of a line and the guy in front of me was with his toddler daughter who was NOT happy and basically screaming at full volume the entire time. Poor thing! But I got my mug, and then got suckered into the strawberry milk they were advertising:
Doesn't look like much but it was surprisingly good.
Then we decided to keep walking over to Tokyo Disneyland, vs backtracking to get on the monorail (since Starbucks is about halfway between the two monorail stops).
And then we were back to the hotel!
We got all checked in - this time we were staying in a Beauty and the Beast room. I'd seen pictures of these rooms all over the internet and could not wait to stay in one! We were up on a high floor too, so we got a lovely lobby view as we headed to the room:
Though as a note for timing - that picture of the outside of the hotel is at 3:07 and the picture right after we finished checking in is 3:28. So 20 minutes to check in - which isn't horrible but is a bit different than back home so factor that in.
We were staying in room 8202 which was SUPER close to the elevators, which was nice. Prep yourself - here come the room pictures!
I love that wallpaper - I can't even tell you how much.
Also this wallpaper - notice the hidden Lumiere and Cogsworth!
Beauty and the Beast Room Tour - Thursday May 29, 2025 (part 23)
Ok, all the pictures! We got a "triple room" not because I wanted three beds but because that was the only BatB room type available for both nights. But it worked out -
Look at all that space!
a rose in the window!
I so want this door at home.
Look at that wallpaper and headboards and everything!
The view was not of the park - it looks like most of the BatB rooms have the not great view, whereas the park view rooms don't have the special theming.
It's a view of the gardens and Bon Voyage, which is not a bad view at all.
Roses in the carpet
Belle in the bed runner. I wanted this too but I assume they frown on stealing things like linens or doors from rooms.
Back to Fantasy Springs - Thursday May 29, 2025 (part 24)
Just a couple more pics -
How cute is that stool? I'm dying. They don't sell the stool, but they do sell a pillow that looks like the stool and you best believe I bought that (especially when the other pillow I wanted was out of stock - I definitely had room in the suitcase for it.) - I'm actually using it right now as I write this.
Cute wallpaper again.
This time our bags weren't already in our room, but we just called the front desk and they brought them up very quickly. Honestly, that one thing - being able to leave bags in the room and have them show up in our room - really made switching hotels way less stressful. For anyone looking at switching hotels, if you're switching from Disney hotel to Disney hotel and you're ok with not having a room between 12 and 3 pm, absolutely do it. It really worked out nicely for us.
Snack time!
The egg salad sandwiches in Tokyo were like my favorite thing.
Anyways, that picture is timestamped 3:36 pm. The next picture I have is timestamped at 6:22, on the monorail escalator. So we definitely had about 2 hours of resting/napping, which was lovely. The plan for the night was to head over to Fantasy Springs and use our fancy fastpasses to ride Frozen again - we had 3 left! And I was gonna be mad if we let them go to waste. And we did realize that since it was the day we checked out of the Fantasy Springs hotel, we could still use the Fantasy Springs park entrance! Brilliant.
Had to take a picture with the sign.
Also I didn't realize that in that entrance they had ride posters!
How cute are those?
We got into the park quickly and easily, though it did feel a bit like we were doing something illegal, using it when we'd already checked into a new hotel! But off we went to Frozen, with one cute pic of Ariel on the way:
I love that you can see the colors in this one - Ariel's green tail and faintly red hair.
Why Frozen, Why! - Thursday May 29, 2025 (part 25)
As we were walking to Frozen, I noticed a sign I'd missed earlier in the day:
Shaky Ship Tavern! LOL
We got in the fastpass line at Frozen, and realized we got a few feet past the entrance and just weren't moving. Oh no! Turns out the ride had gone down basically right after we got down, though we ended up waiting for about 15 minutes before we figured that out, and before they started dumping the queue. And we had bought the fastpass for Believe Sea of Dreams which started at 7:30 so we didn't really have a lot of time to dilly dally, since it was basically 6:50 at that point. Blargh. I was also lowkey being like "oh no we're not going to be able to use all four of our fastpasses and they'll go to waste!" (foreshadowing...)
But, Disney magic - the fastpass we had was a paper one that they physically holepunched, and so the CM put a stamp on it so we could use it again (showing that despite the holepunch we didn't actually use it), and then not only that, we got a digital "multiexperience fastpass" good for anytime in the next YEAR!
How cool is that! That was super nice of the CM - I couldn't quite tell if they do that normally or not, but I was really grateful for it.
At this point, it was 7 pm, so we left Fantasy Springs and booked it over to the harbor area for our fastpass. We were also hungry, so we ended up doing a mobile order that we picked up and brought with us to the fastpass area.
What all did we get? milk, Sparkling drink (pineapple and coconut flavor), wild grape drink, an order of the little green mochis (cause they had them and like I'm gonna not get them), a "long pizza" (tomato and basil), and then two orders of chicken tenders with yogurt & olive dip (I knew they only came with three chicken tenders and thought it may be too few tenders for Trevor - the long pizza was for me). Oh, and the creme brulee churro (milk tea flavor). All of that was 4510 yen, about $30 - not bad! The food was pretty good too - I liked the pizza, and the chicken tenders were good, as well as the churro. All of it was good.
The part that was not good was our view. I was really disappointed with this, actually. I'd done my research yesterday about where to buy the fastpass, cause there were a couple different sections, and one section I specifically avoided because the vacation package people were sat in front of the fastpass people. But this section was supposed to have the fastpass people right up front, and I bought our passes first thing in the morning so I knew we'd have the best view. But when we got here, my research must have been wrong or they must have changed something, cause we were four rows back. Womp womp.
I mean it was fine - we were in a seated section - but it wasn't the experience I was looking for of being right at the front to be able to get a whole view of the show with no obstructions. If I'd known I wouldn't have paid for it. Oh well! We did still have fun. And we did see some things that were cut off/that we'd missed yesterday, so it was still fun.
I'd also been checking the app to see if Frozen was back up, and it wasn't! It was still showing down. So we decided to head back to Fantasy Springs and use our fastpasses (we had 3 left...woof) on Peter Pan and then hope that Frozen came back up. We made our way back to Frozen and after 15 minutes (cause while we basically walked into the pre-show, then we had that merge crowd), we were boarding!
Queasy Codfish! We had a great ride - probably our last ride, but a good one.
Then it was a bit past 8:30, and Frozen was still showing down (womp womp), so we decided to ride Rapunzel. This time I asked for the front row - yay!
I wanted to ride that in the front at least once! And then I filmed it 'cause we were in the front:
Delightful.
Our plan was to exit via the Fantasy Springs entrance/exit, so we started heading that way, which took us past Frozen and GUYS! It was up! But only open for folks with fastpasses - so it may have been up for a while and I just misinterpreted the app icon. DANG IT. We could have ridden it twice instead of Rapunzel or something. But we didn't know. But we were able to get on and get one last ride right before the park closed.
And we got front row again ('cause I asked. - the line was basically non-existent so why not. ) It was a great ride, and it meant we used up all our fastpasses! If Frozen hadn't been open, I absolutely would have been talking to the concierge folks in the Grand Chateau to see if we could get the remaining fastpass able to be used on the next day, but no need. Worked out really well! And we still had one extra 'multi-experience' fastpass that we could use at any point!
We got off at about 9:07 per my picture timestamps, so we headed over to the Grand Chateau to exit that way.
One last picture of Sleeping Beauty at night!
We realized we could exit via the Grand Chateau (vs exiting via the way we'd come in) so we did that, cause it meant we got one last glimpse of the fancy dresses, and there were two pictures I wanted!
I had my Sleeping Beauty purse and I wanted a picture of the purse with the dress.
The other one I wanted was with Cinderella - I was wearing my Cinderella 70th anniversary spirit jersey, as well as my Cinderella hair bow (that I'd bought the other day at Disneyland).
Yay! We took way too many shots trying to get the pic of Cinderella on the back of the spirit jersey looking ok and not crumpled or anything. Poor Trevor - he was such a good sport.
And since we were in the hotel, we also took advantage to go see the Beauty and the Beast rockwork at night!
So pretty all lit up at night!
We did one last look in the convenience store then and ended up buying some snacks for the next day. Then it really was time to leave the Fantasy Springs hotel for the last time...we'd definitely made good use of our time there!
Over to the monorail we went, and by 10 pm we were back at our hotel:
You can see Big Thunder Mountain there on the right - so kind of a park view.
We also stopped off in the convenience store at the Disneyland hotel too, and got some additional snacks. Time for bed! Tomorrow we were planning to rope drop Disneyland to ride Happy Ride with Baymax, cause it had been closed our whole trip so far, and it reopened today (same as Frozen) and I was excited to ride it. Couldn't wait!
Fun with Metrics:
Steps walked: 19407 steps (7.4 miles)
Ride Count: 7 (Frozen x3, Rapunzel x2, TinkerBell's Busy Buggies, Peter Pan)
Happy Rides with Baymax! - Friday May 30, 2025 (part 1)
Today we were rope-dropping Happy Ride with Baymax, on it's second day back open after being down for maintenance/refurbishment. But after having done a couple rope-drops at Disneyland and getting a bit of the lay of the land, we planned to head down at about 8:30, so we were up just a bit before 8 am.
Breakfast was some of the snacks we got last night:
chocolate waffle - this was fine. Nothing amazing but it did the job.
And Cars milk!
I mostly took a picture of this 'cause it's Cars milk!
As we headed out to the park, it was raining. Boo.
We had my umbrella and so we didn't get soaked but everyone got a bit damp - it was a pretty steady rain. Oh well!
By 8:48 we were in the park, and buying our fastpasses: we weren't sure how the line would be for Baymax so we bought a fastpass for 9 am, and got a Pooh's Hunny Hunt fastpass for 9:10 am. Though as we kept walking, it seemed like most folks were going towards Beauty and the Beast - when we got to the Happy Ride with Baymax (at 8:53 am ) it was only a 5 minute wait!
So of course we got in the standby line. They definitely had opened early - people seemed to be getting on! And since the line was so short we hardly had time to enjoy the cute theming (though part of that was because some of the queue theming was outdoors and you know, still raining.
Baymax's handprints!
We did end up waiting one rotation to get on, and Trevor took a video:
Then, it was our turn!
I was wearing my Baymax shirt.
It's such a cute little ride - the ride vehicle/mechanics are the same as Alien Swirling Saucers, but there are like 6 different songs that get played, and then each song has slightly different dance moves/choreography that the CMs will do while the ride is running. I'd purposefully avoided listening to any of the songs so it was all a surprise. We got the song "Ba La La La La La La La La". Just a fun experience!
When we got off it was 9:01, and the ride was still posting 5 minutes, so we hopped back in the standby line. Obviously we didn't need to buy the fastpass but oh well - we didn't know.
Definitely a bit of a longer line now, but that meant we got to see more of the theming!
The signs were hilarious - "this ride will be sick!* *It is just an expression. It means "really good"".
Happy Rides and Honey Rides - Friday May 30, 2025 (part 2)
This I think was my favorite piece of theming:
tape as leak repair!
We waited about 13 minutes for our second ride, which was kind of nice cause we got to hear a couple different songs and see the CMs dancing. Also Trevor called the song! He said it was going to be the B-A-Y-M-A-X song, and it was!
Then, time to use our fastpass:
The standby line had definitely gotten longer, so it was nice to have the fastpass. And despite the rain not having stopped, we took some pictures in the handprints!
Trevor's hands are much smaller than Baymax's, unsurprisingly.
5 minutes later, we were on the ride!
We got Koo Loo Lee - 3 rides, and 3 different songs, out of the 6. Not too bad!
With that, we'd done the main thing I wanted to make sure we do that day! So we had a nice lowkey day ahead of us. Since we were right by the gift shop in Tomorrowland, we went over there to try the gachapon machine they had (no standby pass needed). They actually had two: one of different foods:
And one of ride vehicles!
We played probably more than we should have, but it was fun - I wanted to get the waffle toy from the one, and then the Baymax ride vehicle, but I ended up getting all the all of the other items first. At least I got it in the end!
The rain had calmed down a bit by that point - it wasn't bad at all. We had our Pooh's Hunny Hunt fastpass, but we decided to go by way of the Beauty and the Beast gift shop, as I needed to get some things for a friend. As we walked there though we passed the caramel popcorn stand which had ALWAYS had a huge line and now had a short line! So Trevor stopped to get caramel popcorn.
In the gift shop I got all the things for my friend but then guys! I'd pretty much not looked at any of the clothing, cause everything I'd seen online said that they wouldn't have sizes that would fit plus size American women. But I noticed this adorable 101 dalmatians sweatshirt thing, and it seemed pretty large, so I tried it on and it fit!! And fit loosely, which is how I like my sweatshirts to fit. Yay! I totally bought it and wore it out of the store, cause it was just a bit chilly. Mostly I was just excited that it fit!
Ok, now time for Pooh's Hunny Hunt!
I love these little markers, of a honeypot and honeybee as you wait to get into your honeypot. And the ride was great, as expected.
We had a fun time in the gift shop too - we bought several things, including some new sunglasses for Trevor:
So fun.
Surprise Cat Appearance - Friday May 30, 2025 (part 3)
It continued lightly sprinkling, and with our stuff we decided to make our way to the front of the park and back to the hotel to drop our stuff back in the room. But we made our way there by way of Snow White's Grotto!
I don't know how this grotto compares to the Disneyland version, but I enjoyed it.
Just a cute little spot.
We kept going towards the front and as we entered World Bazaar (which was thankfully covered from the rain ), we saw a photographer! With a very short line! So of course we stopped and got our photo with the castle.
I'm wearing my new sweatshirt, though clearly it's hard to see the design.
We also passed the ride poster for Baymax on the way out so I had to take a photo, since we'd had such fun on it this morning.
20 minutes later, we were back in the park, after having dropped our stuff in the room. The rain seemed to have mostly stopped, though sometimes it would still sprinkle lightly, a bit. We were heading towards Monsters Inc, as I'd gotten us a fastpass for it at 10:30 am. BUT! Guess who we saw on the way?
Toulouse from the Aristocats!
I'm petting him and he's leaning in to Trevor for pets - adorbs.
We then moved into the ride queue - Baymax was joining us as well!
Monsters Inc is such a cute little ride, and the fun Roz animatronic at the end:
I mostly like the "Document Control" sign on the door there cause that's literally what I used to do at work.
The ride even has a ride picture but not one you can download or buy, so I just took a picture of us on the monitor.
Then we went back to the giftshop there with the gachapon - I was wrong earlier, I think this is when I tried it again and got Baymax. Yay! But also, fun mural!
Outside it was unfortunately raining a bit more heavily, but we had to try the most iconic vending machines of all:
Big Hero 6 kitty vending machines! And I did notice Mochi up there...
Next up, we headed for ToonTown! I wanted to spend a little bit of time exploring it and the effects, and the other days we hadn't had time and it had been super crowded, but today we had time. Unfortunately it was still raining. Not horribly, but pretty steadily. Oh well! We persevered:
It's hard to see but I love the little signs on the bottom of this sign - ones for the DAR: Daughters of the Animated Reel. One of my friends is a big Daughters of the American Revolution supporter so I had to send her a pic of that one.
ToonTown, even in the rain, was adorable.
And on the bright side, no crowds!
Dangerous Trevor! That's his dangerous face.
love this cute little door!
Trevor almost got gotten by the safe!!
and chose to celebrate by driving a trolley...seems like a bad idea.
Trevor's such a good captain!
So we decided to head back to Fantasy Springs and use our fastpasses (we had 3 left...woof) on Peter Pan and then hope that Frozen came back up. We made our way back to Frozen and after 15 minutes (cause while we basically walked into the pre-show, then we had that merge crowd), we were boarding!
