We’re off to see the Magic! TR

[GBRforWDW]

Thursday August 5th:

This was our planned rest and relax day, so naturally, I'm wide awake at 5am. Uggh stupid time difference. So I mainly worked while the family slept til 9. The morning views of the park were even more exciting than the night views.







At 9:30, I took my daughter down to breakfast. They have an excellent selection with a large dining area. Food options included sausage, eggs, potatoes, these are usually buffet style, but served by kitchen staff now, as well as make your own Mickey waffles, cereal, coffee, juices and milk. The food was good. Better than most free hotel breakfast options.

We went down to the pool at 11:30 or so, well first we had to stop by the front desk for pool access bands, then with those on, we walked to the pool area. They have a security area set up with people staff that are checking for access bands. They are also opening the gates for you to enter. I didn't get pictures during the day with full sunlight, but did get a few later in the day:



I tried not to take pictures of people in the pool, but in the above, there's a small splash pad on the left, a sort of blocked view of the hot tub just to the right of the splash pad, in the middle is the main pool and far right is kiddie pool.



The water slides are a lot of fun. My daughter and I are terrible swimmers and neither of us would go on a slide into a pool, but these micro pools at the ends of the slide are so cool!



The blue slide has a lot of twists and turns that kinda make you go slower. The orange slide is a fully covered slide that is really fast. When you hit the little pool at the end you get a nice big splash.



My daughter really enjoyed this splash pad. Lots of places to fun around and enjoy.

You can also see the highway in this picture, which gives you an idea how close it is. There's usually enough noise in the pool area to drown out the highway noise though.

Both times we were in the pool area, from 11:30 to 1:15 and again from 7 to 8:30, there was less than 2 dozen people in the main pool and about a half a dozen in the kid pool and half to full dozen in the hot tub and slides, plus lots of chairs and tables available. It was certainly not crowded and we weren't overrun by locals as the Yelp reviews suggested.

I also got a 360 of the pool area:

https://www.google.com/maps/@33.804...ipP_6RtB2ScLfWHjmtms_YCTZaUkBtNZ_nQYycrG!2e10

At 8pm, they have a movie next to the kiddie pool, so we ordered a pizza at the bar area and watches the movie for a bit before heading up to our room for the Disneyland fireworks!







We also walked over to the Garden Walk area, which is an outdoor shopping mall. It's about a quarter mile from the hotel, just on the other side of the Marriott down the street. I took a couple of fun 360 shots over there:

https://www.google.com/maps/@33.803...ipN7hWgpkJwc4z6JCto4CDqDB5tY9dXBxYFuuAC2!2e10
https://www.google.com/maps/@33.804...ipOwQD-q5VIlISEYKQxRNizbjvWZUfNzWMcMRxC4!2e10

 

[GBRforWDW]

Friday Aug 6th

We have reservations to go on a whale and dolphin sightseeing boat. We booked an 8am tour wit Captain Dave's Dolphin and Whale Safari out of Dana Point.



We had to get up and leave around 6:30 as they ask the guests to arrive 45-60 minutes before the boat leaves. The drive down was about 35 minutes in the morning and not too much traffic.

The harbor was chilly. They said to wear long sleeves, but I totally forgot to pack anything, so I bought a new sweatshirt from their store. The rest of the family had long sleeve shirts on. We also grabbed some snacks for the adventure. You can buy some at their store or bring your own.

Then it was time to jump on the boat and go!



About 30 minutes in, my daughter started feeling sick . Poor thing did not enjoy the boat ride at all. She also refused to try the ginger chew that was offered to her, so not much we could do to make her feel better. Some of the other kids on the boat had some sea sickness issues as well.

As far as the animal watching, it took about an hour and a half before we really saw anything other than more boats.





But we did eventually see a few pods of dolphins.





And came across some sea lions just chilling



I was glad I bought the sweatshirt. It was very cool on the boat. I ended up having to unzip it and cover my daughter with part of it to keep her head warm. She never really felt good on the boat and looked miserable trying to see the animals. But when the boat slowed to get into the harbor, she started feeling better and by the time we docked, she was back to full energy.

I tried to grab some 360 and panoramic pictures from the boat, but it just didn't work, so here's a couple in the harbor area:

https://www.google.com/maps/@33.462...ipMVdaKRd0LBdqOsZBJGs1YFIO9GCxA9_LA7ty8I!2e10
https://www.google.com/maps/@33.462...ipO757_NM4n33bMBJe5QajAn6pZap7HHjHtthAFO!2e10
About a week before our trip, I was talking to my grandparents and found out my aunt was visiting her daughter in California. I didn't know what town she lived in, but turns out, they're in Dana Point 10 minutes from the harbor! So after our boat ride, we drove over and had lunch and visited with them for awhile.

My cousin has 2 boys, one of which is the same age as my daughter, so the kids played all sorts of fun games together while the adults chatted. I last saw my cousin 4 years ago and my aunt 2 years ago, so that was a lot of fun.

 

[GBRforWDW]

After that, we drove up the Pacific Coast Highway. We had planned to check out some beaches along the way. Our first stop was Crystal Cove Beach. There are 2 places to turn off for it. We took the first one, but decided we needed bottles of water to hydrate while at the beach, so they sent us up the road to Trader Joe's. The entrance to that ended up being right across from the other entrance to Crystal Cove, so we just went there.



Parking is $5 per hour or $15 all day until sunset. It was already late afternoon, so I just did 2 hours to save 5 bucks. I shouldn't be so cheap... Lol.

This entrance has quite a few hiking and sightseeing trails. We just took the path down to the beach, but it is steep. Yikes. Don't go to this location if you have trouble walking.

This was this first view from up in the parking lot:


And a couple panoramic shots of the water and cliff behind the beach:





And a few waves. Most waves coming in were small, just fun to watch mostly.




I followed the gulls around trying to watch them get food. They'd pick up shells and run off with them.


After this, it was almost 6 and still 30 minutes from Anaheim, so we decided the one beach was enough today. Traffic was picking up along the PCH as well.

Once we got back, we were all too tired to do much else, so for dinner, we walked over to the Luna Grill in the hotel parking lot and had dinner. Most adult plates are $15 and kids are 10, but they give you a good size plate of food made fresh and is really good too.

On our way to dinner, there were a log of security guards and police officers around, some of them talking to a group of people. When we got back to the hotel, I saw one security guard escorting a few of the same people out of the hotel. Not sure what happened, but glad we missed it.

After dinner, we hung out in the room waiting for fireworks to begin. I was so sleepy, I nearly fell asleep before they began, then was nodding off as they were going. It was terrible, lol. Still though, it's such a great view of the fireworks.

 

[MAJPLO]

I’m really enjoying your trip report. It’s been entertaining, informative, and very well written!

 

[GBRforWDW]

I’m really enjoying your trip report. It’s been entertaining, informative, and very well written!

Thank you! I wish it could go on forever, but today is the last day . More updates to come though

 

[Matrixleos]

Great job on your Trip Report, really been enjoying reading them and seeing your beautiful families pictures. Hope you have a great time on your last day in the parks.

 

[deejdigsdis]

I'm sorry your daughter didn't feel well during the boat excursion. That sounds miserable. I hate nausea. That would be fun to see the animals in their natural habitat, though.

 

[GBRforWDW]

Saturday August 7th

Today, (well yesterday now, I began the post last night) I started the day alone. My wife and daughter wanted to sleep in, which gave me an opportunity to ride the rides they're not interested in. First thing I had to do was return the rental car to the enterprise on Harbor. It's about a mile from the park entrance, so not a big deal. First I had to get gas. The dumb gas station I stopped at, Arco on Harbor and Orange only took cash or debit. I had a 20, so I gave it to them, but it wasn't enough. I had to go across the street to shell to finish filling up. Enterprise was a business or 2 down the street.

Once I dropped that off, it took me about 20 minutes to get to park entrance, right around 650. This time, I was between bus 2 and 3 dropoff. As the seconds ticked down to 7, I patiently waited.

Something I hadn't mentioned previously, There are security guards out there yelling out instructions about boarding groups and what to do and how much time, etc, but they're doing it with less than 5 minutes to go, the information is terrible, and they try to tell you how much time is left and that is off as well. For example, at 6:58 they tell everyone to start refreshing. Or they try counting down the time and are a minute and a half off. So, just block that noise out! I got Rise of the Resistance boarding group 1!

Again today, security was opened at 7:15 and admission booths at 7:30.



I forgot my mask in the hotel room, so had to find one quick so I could ride the Indoor rides. The first outdoor merchandise stand just past the railroad tunnel had a few to choose from, so I grabbed one and headed for the Adventureland entrance.



Before rope drop, the CMs announced we would need to follow one of them to the Indiana Jones ride if that's where we were starting, which I was. Got there as quick as I could and had very little wait to get on.


I really enjoyed the ride. It was thrilling and fun. However, just as we were pulling back to the unloading area, the ride broke down and we were stuck for 30 minutes looking at the exit. I ended up skipping jungle cruise because of it. ☹ I figured the line would get better throughout the day but it just stayed at 45 minutes to an hour all day.

So next, I went to Pirates because I knew that line would be long throughout the day and had about a 15 minute wait to get on.



Then to the haunted mansion which was near walk-in.





Then on to Splash Mountain also near walk-in.



And then over to Star Wars Galaxy Edge. I got a bunch of 360 shots over here that I'll post when I get home.

I rode Millennium Falcon twice in a row using single rider line. Unfortunately I was engineer both times, but I knew that was a probability.



Rise boarding groups were delayed today and I was called while on the falcon, so I headed over there. The queue was longer today, might have taken 20-30 minutes to walk through.



I grabbed lunch next at Docking Bay 7, but I'll do a new post with food.

I then went on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad around noon while my wife was trying to figure out how to work the bus system.



The bus system is terrible. Even if they don't want to run buses all over the city, they really need a hotel loop one throughout the day to make it convenient for Disneyland visitors. She struggled for 30+ minutes trying to get it all working, then just walked over.

I'll add a new post for our afternoon adventures later in the day or sometime after I get home. It's fly home day

 

[smartlabelprint]

What bus system? ART? We never use ART. We just walk.

 

[GBRforWDW]

What bus system? ART? We never use ART. We just walk.

Yes it was ART. Our hotel was a mile away and tried saving the kids legs for the park

 

[colormegreen]

Thanks for sharing. It sounds like an amazing trip. You probably lucked out in leaving the dodger game early, getting out of there is hectic.

 

[Matrixleos]

As a big baseball fan myself, which stadium did you enjoy visiting more, the Dodgers or Angel's home fields?

 

[GBRforWDW]

As a big baseball fan myself, which stadium did you enjoy visiting more, the Dodgers or Angel's home fields?

Dodger stadium was alive, so the was fun.

angels stadium was newer and cleaner and definitely easier to get to from the Disneyland area, just down the road.

If you want to be with a crowd that’s into the game, definitely go to Dodger stadium.

 

[Matrixleos]

Always interesting to compare two stadiums in a similar area.

I was in NYC in 2015 and checked out both MetLife Stadium and new Yankee Stadium. I loved the brick exterior of MetLife, it was modeled after old Ebbets Field. Plus the interior plaza was very modern and cool vibe.

New Yankee Stadium was just sooo "Cold", just a bland grey concrete jungle and so corporate type feel. Only thing I liked about it was the Yankees Museum in the stadium that has alot of history to it. Baseballs and signed bats from players from 30's to 60's. Plus there was a cool display of all their championship World Series rings. Cool to see how they differ and change over the years. Not to many diamonds in the early years.

 

[GBRforWDW]

Always interesting to compare two stadiums in a similar area.

I was in NYC in 2015 and checked out both MetLife Stadium and new Yankee Stadium. I loved the brick exterior of MetLife, it was modeled after old Ebbets Field. Plus the interior plaza was very modern and cool vibe.

New Yankee Stadium was just sooo "Cold", just a bland grey concrete jungle and so corporate type feel. Only thing I liked about it was the Yankees Museum in the stadium that has alot of history to it. Baseballs and signed bats from players from 30's to 60's. Plus there was a cool display of all their championship World Series rings. Cool to see how they differ and change over the years. Not to many diamonds in the early years.

Yeah Angels stadium was definitely a corporate feel. There were nice parts to it though. The rocky area in center field, the front entrance is unique and cool. They certainly lack history to have much more than a trophy case by the team store.

Dodger stadium, I didn’t explore much other than things in the left field seating area. Lots of history in just a small area though

 

[GBRforWDW]

For lunch yesterday, I finally got to go to Docking Bay 7. I put in my order as I was waiting in the RotR queue and said I was there as I walked over, so the food was ready when I got there.

It's such a cool restaurant keeping in line with the Galaxies Edge theming.





The food was really good too. I had the Endorian Fried Chicken Tip-Yip.



We had a lunch reservations at River Belle Terrace. I was really looking forward to the Brisket Mac n cheese.



This was just ok for me. The brisket was kind of bland and the Mac n cheese sauce had a taste similar to chili fritos. The restaurant has a neat look inside





For a snack, I found the Jolly Holiday Bakery was still offering the Disneyland 66th birthday cupcake, so I grabbed one



My daughter once again grabbed the top decoration and ate it. There's a cream cheese frosting that holds it in place. The cupcake was decent. The rest of the cupcake had a regular frosting, the cake itself was a little dense, but there was a cookies and cream mousse in the middle that was so good.

We also had a couple of scoops of ice cream at Gibson Girl. Their ice cream is really good, with large scoops.

 

[GBRforWDW]

The family finally arrived around 2pm and we set out to do a few more rides. First we headed to Autopia



Then headed hung out near the castle waiting for our dining reservation. We also found some characters in the royal theater as well as additional info that I'll share in a character post next.

After lunch, it was time for another ride on Small world and the Tea Cups. We then headed for the Toon Town train station to try to get a ride to the front, however, very few got off the train, so we decided to walk instead, heading for our desserts at Jolly Holiday and Gibson Girl mentioned above. When I went inside Gibson Girl to grab our mobile order, I forgot my mask and they quickly reminded me. Whoops

Next we walked back through the castle to go ride Peter Pan. At first, it said there was a 20 minute wait, but that was updated to 40 minutes just after we got in line and it was right about 40 minutes.





Then we headed over to Alice in Wonderland, completing the Fantasyland rides between the 2 Disneyland park days.




(Sorry, not us on the ride so hid the faces)

After Alice, we decided to leave the park for the night. We looked up on the bus app and found the hotel loop bus was close, so we went out and waited. Might have been 5-10 minutes and we were the only ones to get on, so they drove us straight to our hotel. The bus system isn't so bad during the scheduled times, it's just the middle of the day when they only use the on demand service that is terrible to figure out.

Before heading to the room, we stopped for food at the restaurants in the Cambria parking lot, then headed up in time to watch the fireworks. This time I remembered to search for the Mickey Mix Magic songs and found something on YouTube that was a similar length. As soon as the spotlights in the park lit up, I started the YouTube audio file. The spotlights moving around made more sense as we listened to the music. They appeared to dance and move with the different songs. Then it was off to bed to prepare for a long day of travel.

 

[GBRforWDW]

We saw several characters on our final day as well as talked to a couple CMs to get more info on times, etc.

I saw Chewy in Galaxies Edge around 10am:



People were saying hi to him and he'd give his growl greeting.

I didn't see any more until 2pm. Then I saw Chip and Dale and Pluto at the train station:





Then we spotted Elena of Avalor and Ariel in the Royal Theater just before 3pm:





I was talking to the character CM and she said princesses change every 30 minutes while open. They also occasionally have characters in a near y tower, not sure, but I think it's around behind the Royal Theater.

At 4, we saw an Anna and Elsa cavalcade:



This one has been running at 3 and 4 every day according to the same CM above. This was the only cavalcade we saw up close, so unfortunately, I don't have any more cavalcade info.

At the same time, We also saw Pooh and Eyeore back at the grassy spot near the hub where we saw them Monday. Eyeore was dancing along to the Cavalcade music.

Just after 4:15, we found Mary Poppins and Bert in front of it's a small world where we saw Hook the other day. Unfortunately, just as we arrived, they were taking off. Mary is one of my daughters favorite characters, so she was shouting hi to her and they both turned to say hi allowing me to get this great pic:



Her favorite characters in front of her favorite ride.

I was talking to the character CM here and he let me know the characters come out every 30 minutes and stay for 15-20 minutes.

About 10 minutes later, Wendy came out with Hook:



This one was so funny. A young boy had a stuffed ewok toy from Galaxy’s Edge that scared Hook and he started Taunting Hook with it while Wendy tried to convince him it was ok.

These were the last characters of our trip . They are all so fun and had great interaction with all the guests.

 

[GBRforWDW]

Going to Disneyland alone also allowed me an opportunity to get several 360 shots!

Main Street:
https://www.google.com/maps/@33.810...ipNyVSmjTVIk-TiSdoWzBCWsTitXEtMz2PXZJp5G!2e10
I don't know what happened to the building on the right when it first opens, but it's kinda funny.

Adventureland before rope drop:
https://www.google.com/maps/@33.811...ipNweWJBthz0_PLAvDzBKjwtdDRqQnJOxgNvCUqi!2e10
Between Winnie the Pooh and Splash Mountain:
https://www.google.com/maps/@33.812...ipNGAhyf4c8ZtDpw392as_lpfRnPzRyFICoZkEEW!2e10
In front of Golden Horseshoe and Columbia Sailing Ship with a view of Big Thunder Mountain:
https://www.google.com/maps/@33.812...ipND_b-VLbMozYpBjpdjNlMO2N_nc20ZOAt5vZAp!2e10
And several of Galaxy's Edge:
Rise of the Resistance entrance (no ride spoilers):
https://www.google.com/maps/@33.813...ipP8TeKbv9muT3mZ__lcRwes0yoTdHBT-zNnll-Z!2e10
Millennium Falcon:
https://www.google.com/maps/@33.814...ipNq2R8A2Vc6t2pUJRTMYEpFNDs-umQMXpFz8Egd!2e10
Between First Order Cargo and the Milk Stand:
https://www.google.com/maps/@33.814...ipM8de8TqGAdDvRlcGJYoH4qTlYYFK-Puuknon9J!2e10
Outside Creature Stall near Ronto Roasters:
https://www.google.com/maps/@33.814...ipNMe33puQesQ2JSni42EnqaO_bx1Xq5cfweTwZ1!2e10
Hidden Surprise:
https://www.google.com/maps/@33.814...ipNhLJjbL7OoPzL_Q89qTB3xOOP34LR49x6FBf1p!2e10
Hit love when you see it!

This is about it for the final day while in the LA area. I'll have one more post with travel home. Thanks everyone for following along. Hopefully some of what we experienced will be helpful for those going soon. I know everything is changing rapidly, so this won't be relevant long, but it was fun to chronicle the adventures for everyone!

 

[bapcap]

Great trip report! My granddaughter loves Mary Poppins too and she was so excited to ride the carousel with her back in 2019.