Disneyland trip report

[TimK]

Thought I'd spend a few minutes throwing something together. Writing on my iPad so please forgive any typos and poor grammar. :p

We arrived late Saturday night. Flew into SNA (Orange co airport) which is MUCH more convenient than LAX. Spent the first night off-site and then moved to the Grand Cal Sunday morning. Room wasn't ready when we arrived so we checked bags and headed to DCA. We rode a number of attractions including Soarin, Monsters Inc, Muppetvision and Mulholland Madness. Also had a mediocre fast food lunch at Taste Pilots Grill.

Room was ready around 3pm. We are sharing a two bedroom with dwelty and family--four adults and four kids under age 9. Works out pretty well. Dave and his wife have their youngest sleeping in the master bedroom. My wife and I have the other bedroom and three kids are sharing the living room. Room is in great shape. View is just what we requested--fifth floor overlooking the redwood playground. On the balcony we can literally see World of Color to the right and high Disneyland fireworks to the left. But I'll warn everyone these are now pretty loud rooms. Even from this location WoC and the fireworks can easily be heard with the doors closed. And WoC is running 3x per night. Consider yourself warned before requesting that theme park view!

After getting settled we made some dinner in the room and then simply visited Downtown Disney in the evening.

Monday we went to Disneyland for a pretty good selection of rides--Nemo subs, Space Mountain, Indy, Matterhorn, Pirates, Haunted Mansion and more. For dinner we cooked steaks out on the resort BBQ grill. Great facilities and fun location just outside of DCA near Mulholland Madness.

While walking through the resort at one point, dw and I shared an elevator with a bellman who sadly had some not too favorable opinions of DVC members. We solicited his opinion so it wasn't like he came out and attacked us. His frankness was both refreshing and a little sad to hear. They were sentiments I've heard before--essentially that DVC members tend to be among the most...challenging guests to deal with while being notoriously bad tippers.

Tuesday we split up with my family heading south to Legoland for the day and the weltys staying behind to enjoy the resort. Legoland is no Disneyland but it does have a few fun attractions--particularly for the kids. Park was also very clean and food was decent. I was even more impressed with their nearby aquarium. Very fun presentation for kids. I tweeted a bunch of photos from Legoland itself.

Dinner was hamburgers on the hotel grill. Better than any DL burgers bu a wide margin!!! Then we took in a showing of Toy Story 3 at the Downtown Disney theaters. Just an amazing film. Loved every moment of it.

Tomorrow we have breakfast at Storyteller's and then off to DCA. Planning to see World of Color tomorrow. SoCal pass holders are blacked out the rest of the week so I'm curious to see how it impacts crowds.

More to come...
Posted via Mobile Device

[newjerseynick]

Thought I'd spend a few minutes throwing something together. Writing on my iPad so please forgive any typos and poor grammar. :p

We arrived late Saturday night. Flew into SNA (Orange co airport) which is MUCH more convenient than LAX. Spent the first night off-site and then moved to the Grand Cal Sunday morning. Room wasn't ready when we arrived so we checked bags and headed to DCA. We rode a number of attractions including Soarin, Monsters Inc, Muppetvision and Mulholland Madness. Also had a mediocre fast food lunch at Taste Pilots Grill.

Room was ready around 3pm. We are sharing a two bedroom with dwelty and family--four adults and four kids under age 9. Works out pretty well. Dave and his wife have their youngest sleeping in the master bedroom. My wife and I have the other bedroom and three kids are sharing the living room. Room is in great shape. View is just what we requested--fifth floor overlooking the redwood playground. On the balcony we can literally see World of Color to the right and high Disneyland fireworks to the left. But I'll warn everyone these are now pretty loud rooms. Even from this location WoC and the fireworks can easily be heard with the doors closed. And WoC is running 3x per night. Consider yourself warned before requesting that theme park view!

After getting settled we made some dinner in the room and then simply visited Downtown Disney in the evening.

Monday we went to Disneyland for a pretty good selection of rides--Nemo subs, Space Mountain, Indy, Matterhorn, Pirates, Haunted Mansion and more. For dinner we cooked steaks out on the resort BBQ grill. Great facilities and fun location just outside of DCA near Mulholland Madness.

While walking through the resort at one point, dw and I shared an elevator with a bellman who sadly had some not too favorable opinions of DVC members. We solicited his opinion so it wasn't like he came out and attacked us. His frankness was both refreshing and a little sad to hear. They were sentiments I've heard before--essentially that DVC members tend to be among the most...challenging guests to deal with while being notoriously bad tippers.

Tuesday we split up with my family heading south to Legoland for the day and the weltys staying behind to enjoy the resort. Legoland is no Disneyland but it does have a few fun attractions--particularly for the kids. Park was also very clean and food was decent. I was even more impressed with their nearby aquarium. Very fun presentation for kids. I tweeted a bunch of photos from Legoland itself.

Dinner was hamburgers on the hotel grill. Better than any DL burgers bu a wide margin!!! Then we took in a showing of Toy Story 3 at the Downtown Disney theaters. Just an amazing film. Loved every moment of it.

Tomorrow we have breakfast at Storyteller's and then off to DCA. Planning to see World of Color tomorrow. SoCal pass holders are blacked out the rest of the week so I'm curious to see how it impacts crowds.

More to come...
Posted via Mobile Device

Thanks for the info Tim.

What did you have a Taste Pilots? We really liked the burgers and onion rings.

I never knew DVC members had a reputation for poor tipping!

Will you be putting up pics here?
I don't Tweet, Facebook, Upfront, Midrise, or Backdown.

Nick

[idratherbeinwdw]

I don't Tweet, Facebook, Upfront, Midrise, or Backdown.

Nick

Do you do the hokey pokey? :D

[newjerseynick]

Do you do the hokey pokey? :D

Under protest, I have.

Nick
Posted via Mobile Device

[matysgranma]

Under protest, I have.

Nick
Posted via Mobile Device
.....and I bet with a couple of :biggulp::biggulp:under your belt, right?

[newjerseynick]

.....and I bet with a couple of :biggulp::biggulp:under your belt, right?

Maaaaayybeeee.


:rolleyes:

Nick

[TimK]

Will you be putting up pics here?
I don't Tweet, Facebook, Upfront, Midrise, or Backdown.

Nick

I don't think you need to have a Twitter account in order to follow the posts. Just browse to http://Twitter.com/dvcnews
Posted via Mobile Device

[Colorado Belle]

Sounds like you're having fun! Thanks for checking in. How are the crowds?

[TimK]

Hey, all. Too much tweeting and not enough trip reporting, I guess. :blush:

Rather than taking you through every step of the trip I'll just share some general thoughts.

Wednesday we saw World of Color. Great show! Also the resort staff did an excellent job with the FastPass setup. If memory serves we had 8:30am reservations for Storyteller's Cafe at the Grand Cal. As we finished round 9:20, a line was just starting to form for DCA entry. They are now very strict about checking resort keys for every adult trying to enter DCA through the special Grand Cal gate.

I figured we were in for a 40 minute wait leading up to the 10am park opening. Instead they started letting folks in a 9:30am. Grand Cal guests appeared to get into the park before anyone waiting at the main entrance. By 9:45 we had our passes for the first WoC show of the day and headed back toward Paradise Pier for rope drop.

The show time was 9pm that night and the passes said to arrive between 7:30-8:30. We probably got there at 8:15. We were toward the back of the viewing area, but had a nice clear angle on the festivities. I never did get a good sense for exactly who was allowed where in the viewing plaza. Some of the front-most sections were apparently reserved for dining package participants and other VIPs. I have no idea how much closer we could have gotten if we had arrived earlier. But honestly being back further gives you a better perspective on the entire show. And it keeps you dryer. :D

Surprisingly Disney wasn't going overboard trying to cram as many people as possible into the viewing area. There was plenty of unclaimed space right around us, and CMs could certainly see that. I think part of it is Disney still trying to figure out how best to operate these shows on a nightly basis.

The night we attended was the first day of summer-long SoCal passholder blackouts. Crowds were down noticeably from the prior couple of days. They still did 3 WoC shows that night but even the second was pretty sparsely attended. Can't imagine how light the crowds must have been during the third show around 11:15pm.

We did take a peek at the 6th floor viewing deck at the Grand Cal. The deck is apparently accessible to guests 24/7--all you need is a room key to open the door. But the WoC view is pretty poor. I guess it's a good last-resort if you can't get a FastPass buy still want to see the show. However, the view has you looking at the show on an angle and there are a couple of attractions in the way. I get the sense that hotel designers were still working from vague details regarding WoC when plans for the new wing were finalized 2-3 years ago.

Thursday we saw the MK fireworks and Fantasmic. I was a little under-whelmed by the fireworks show. The show did feature both Tinkerbell and Dumbo "flying" above the castle, but other than that it seemed pretty run-of-the mill. The flying segment was also sub-par that night due to an early show time because of grad nights. You could easily see all of the wires and rigging for the flying segments.

With fireworks at 8:40 and Fantasmic at 9, there was little time to make our way over to the Rivers of America. As such we got a really crappy view of Fantasmic and actually left before the end. Dragon was cool, though.

By Friday the summer crowds really started to pick up. We spent a little time at DL, little time at DCA and about an hour swimming before heading to the airport for our redeye flight.

Some other general comments about our stay:

* The Grand Cal villas don't have any ceiling fans. :confused24: No idea why. Can't believe it would have been a cost cutting measure--we aren't talking about thousands of dollars per room here.

* Other than that one thing (which really didn't put a damper on the trip) our villa was excellent. Great rooms. Although it does take some getting used to the fact that there is no balcony in the living room.

* With World of Color, you're going to get a lot of noise in many of the villas at night. We were on the side of the resort facing the Brother Bear playground (always forget the name) and still got a LOT of noise from all 3 nightly showings of WoC. I can't imagine how loud it might have been in rooms with the Paradise Pier view. Honestly I think we will request a pool view next time we visit. (The pool area looks pretty cool when it's all lit up at night, too.)

* I was really disappointed with quick service food on this trip. For kids every restaurant seemed to have the exact same thing--chicken nuggets and a "power pack" (yogurt, string cheese, goldfish, apples.) How about some pizza, mac and cheese, PB&J, etc??? And even the food we adults ordered was very mediocre. Never thought WDW food would look good in comparison to anything. :rotfl2: On our last day we went to the Tomorrowland burger joint (Tomorrowland Terrace?) Waited 18 minutes for our food after ordering and by the time we got to the table the hamburger patties were not even lukewarm. Meanwhile I could see two managers back in the food prep area doing absolutely nothing to help. Hey managers--when your staff is getting crushed, DO SOMETHING TO HELP!!!!!

* White Water Snacks at the Grand Cal was the one reliable quick service place. Takes a little longer to get your food but since everything is made to order, quality is usually better than average.

That's about all I can think of at the moment. Let me know if you have any questions!

[dizfan]

How about some pizza, mac and cheese, PB&J, etc??? And even the food we adults ordered was very mediocre.

All of that is available for children throughout the parks. Pizza at the Pizza restaurants, PB&J at the Bakery. I've ordered Mac and Cheese, but I can't remember at which restaurant.

Tomorrowland Terrace just reopened after some "improvements" so if that's the quality you got, I would have had a word with those managers.

[worldfanatic]

I was really disappointed with quick service food on this trip. Never thought WDW food would look good in comparison to anything. :rotfl2:

White Water Snacks at the Grand Cal was the one reliable quick service place. Takes a little longer to get your food but since everything is made to order, quality is usually better than average.


:rotfl2:Had a good laugh on your WDW versus DLR quick service comparison. :rotfl2:

AGREE COMPLETELY!
We're hardly fans of WDW's quick service meals and generally stick with table service, but it's much, much better than DLR's limited and poor quick service menus.

Also agree that White Water snacks is a nice exception to this rule.
The fact that it's located in an off the beaten track spot also means it's usually not too packed either. HIDDEN GEM!:eating:

[TimK]

All of that is available for children throughout the parks. Pizza at the Pizza restaurants, PB&J at the Bakery. I've ordered Mac and Cheese, but I can't remember at which restaurant.


Must have been luck of the draw then because we seemed to hit every chicken nugget location. We didn't plan quick service meals in advance and didn't want to criss-cross the park getting different things for members of our group (not to mention waiting in multiple lines.)

But every place we went during the week seemed to have the chicken: Taste Pilot's, Golden Horseshoe, Tomorrowland Terrace, even White Water (although that time we bought pizza off of the adult menu for my son.)

I guess the bigger issue was this "Power Pack" thing offered so much as a second selection. I have absolutely no problem with Disney offering healthy choices--particularly for kids. We actually bought the Power Pack a couple of times because my daughter likes apples, yogurt, etc. But the items offered in that selection were more like a collection of side dishes rather than a full meal. I'd rather they had offered another legitimate kids entree (PB&J, grilled cheese, pizza, etc.) with things like the yogurt or string cheese available to substitute for french fries.

[dizfan]

Chicken Nuggets and the Power packs seem to be everywhere because they sell well and it's usually the safest bet for parents. But at the end of the day, options are still there.

Here a some suggestions from kid's menus for anyone's future trips to Disneyland:

@ French Market in New Orleans Square
Macaroni and Cheese (Child or Toddler portions)

@ Riverbelle Terrace in Frontierland:
Little Carver's Turkey Sandwich
Little Carver's Roast New York Sandwich
Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich

@ Farmer's Market in a bug's land
Kid's Turkey Wrap

@ Bengal Barbeque in Adventureland
Chicken and Beef Skewers

@ Plaza Inn, Main Street
Chicken Leg Dinner or Penne Pasta Dinner

In ToonTown:
Turkey Hot Dog or Mac and Cheese

Rancho De Zacalo, Frontierland:
Chicken Taco or Bean Burrito

These are a few that I remember my nieces and nephew eating throughout our trips. Enjoy!

[worldfanatic]

Didn't feel the need to start a fresh thread. But I wanted to chime in that Tracy and I saw World of Color for the first time on thursday night, and it's UNREAL!!!

As much as I love Fantasmic, this is in a completely different Universe. No comparison!!
Disney's hit it out of the park!

[idratherbeinwdw]

Didn't feel the need to start a fresh thread. But I wanted to chime in that Tracy and I saw World of Color for the first time on thursday night, and it's UNREAL!!!

As much as I love Fantasmic, this is in a completely different Universe. No comparison!!
Disney's hit it out of the park!

Wow Jeff what rave review! Where did you see it from? Do you plan to go see it again? Thanks for the post. :thumbsup2:

[dwelty]

I agree with Tim's assesment of Quick Service food at DLR. There is a large minority of Annual Pass holders who bring lunch into the parks in California, and while some people are trying to save money, there are others who are just trying to avoid bad food.

I am convinced that if they could improve counter service food quality in the CA parks, sales would increase. I will say that Disneyland Park has a large selection of excellent sit down options, more than any other Disney park except perhaps EPCOT. I also like the fact that all of these places have plates and real silverware.

During our trip with Tim and his family, we ate the majority of our meals in our villa. Having the Villa so close to both parks makes this a great option for DVC members!

[MatterhornMiss]

It's been a few years, but I remember basically eating lots of fries or stopping by Redd Rockett's whenever I ate in the parks. Though I did like Rancho del Zocalo as well, I just don't remember eating there as often.

[DisneyGeek]

In 2008 I really liked "Bengal Barbecue (http://allears.net/dlr/din/menu/men_bb.htm)", and am looking forward to eating there again. Also HAVE to get Dole Whips. Nothing else really stood out for me as being particularly good or really terrible. I'll have to pay more attention during my fast (but not fast enough ;)) approaching Oct. trip, especially as I'm staying longer and WILL be trying some sit-down options. :eating: