Trip Report Golden State of Mind: Our August 2017 California Adventure

11 Days
10 Nights
9 Miles walked on our busiest day
8 Months of planning
7 Days with a rental car
6 Hotels
5 Boat rides
4 Flight segments
3 Disney park days
2 East coasters
1 Unforgettable vacation​

Hello and welcome to my trip report! For those who don't know, here is the essential information:

Me (Bee): 28, opera singer/voice teacher
DW (M): 28, writer/academic administrator
We: grew up in Florida, have visited WDW many times, have been together 10+ years, have been married almost 3 years, now live in NJ just outside of NYC

Dates: August 4-14, 2017
Flights: Southwest, EWR-MDW-SMF and LAX-MDW-EWR
Transportation: Rental car, Lyft, local public transportation
Major locations: Sacramento, Napa Valley, San Francisco, Muir Woods, Sequoia National Forest, Los Angeles, Anaheim
Lodging: 6 different hotels varying from 1-3 nights in each

And here is a link to my PTR: Not our typical Disney trip

I will add the usual disclaimer about us having only smartphone cameras. I am working on uploading all my photos to a third party site which is free and allows me to easily embed them here; however, they only allow 150 uploads per day so it will take some time. All my photos are uploaded and ready to post!

The first six days (August 4-9) we toured various parts of northern and southern California. From August 10-13 we visited Disneyland, including both parks and Downtown Disney. On August 14 we flew home to New Jersey. If you'd like to skip ahead to the Disneyland part of this trip, click here. Otherwise, continue reading for the entire trip report!

 

[bee]

Have you considered NW Jersey along I-80?

I lived in Budd Lake for a few years, much less expensive, but pretty, and easy access to Newark, NYC, etc., although the traffic can be tough.

Excellent idea!!!!!!!!!!!!! Maybe something along the train line. @Tony the Tigger stay safe and I hope you don't get hit by Irma

Thank you both. We're looking at lots of options. We don't have a car and M works in the city and I work in Edgewater (among other places) so we're trying our darndest to stay in Hudson County to keep our commutes short. This, of course, comes at a price!

I don't blame you for being scared seeing the state bird is the mosquito. My boys were never afraid but then again I always had to frisk them for critters

Ha! Yuck!

Really enjoying your trip report. No California Screamin' for you? You were smart to do the dessert party for WOC. We just got fast passes and we got in line at 8. At 8:15, they let us into the viewing area. We found a spot near a railing, maybe in the second level above the water. Thought we had a clear view. Then a little later, they let people fill in the ramp to the lower level to our direct left. Now we had a sea of people between us and the water. We could only see the top half of the water screens. Very disappointing! Plus the CM who was at the top of the ramp must have told this one couple next us about the rope drop because they were hanging out next to us talking to the CM. When the rope dropped, they were the first ones down the ramp. Oh well. Live and learn. My daughters still really enjoyed the show. I enjoyed Fantasmic much more.

We did California Screamin'...it's buried somewhere in here!

It seems really difficult to get a good spot for WoC, whether you have a FP or dining package or what. It's not like IllumiNations where the view is great from all around the lagoon. So yeah, I'm glad we did it at least once to have a guaranteed good spot.

 

[bee]

Day 9: Saturday, August 12
Back to Disneyland!

We started our day with breakfast, and a view of Space Mountain!

We left the hotel around 6:40 and Magic Morning began at 7:00.

This was the only day we waited awhile to get into the parks. It was understandable for a summer weekend day with Magic Morning.

Once inside I purchased MaxPass for the day.

I realized on our first DL day that I didn't get a single photo of the castle. Not one! It was time to remedy that!

Up next: More castle photos!

 

[bee]

Day 9, cont.

We knew our first destination would be Peter Pan since, unlike at MK, the DL PP does not offer FP. But first, I needed some castle pics!

Not bad!

As we waited...

@mcstensrud

Getting closer:

Yay!

After Peter Pan I got a MaxPass for Indy.

But, as you can tell from the time stamp and the FP return time, we still had plenty of time!

Up next: More Fantasyland, and Frontierland rope drop!

 

[bee]

Day 9, cont.

Next we hit some classic Fantasyland attractions.

Snow White's Scary Adventure

King Arthur Carrousel

Mr. Toad's Wild Ride

Our next two tasks were Pirates and Jungle Cruise, since neither uses FP. We got in line behind the hoard waiting for Frontierland. Yes, we know those two rides are in Adventureland but it was easier to just go into Frontierland and take the path over to Adventureland.

The timing went something like this:
7:58 wait for rope drop
8:00 Frontierland rope drop
8:01 in Adventureland
8:02 on line for Pirates
8:03 on Pirates!

We loved DL Pirates!! It was longer and the drops were more thrilling than at WDW. We loved it so much we got right back on line and rode it again!

We headed to Jungle Cruise, and it the meantime scored a BTMR FP.

We thought we'd be riding the...

...but it passed by empty and we actually boarded the...

Skipper Raoul was great with the jokes. There were a couple of kids on our boat and when he asked, "Why do tigers have stripes," they both shouted, "Because they don't want to be spotted!"

Later he said, "You know what they say about the Nile?" One of the kids shouted, "It's in Egypt!!" Raoul said, "That's...exactly what I was going to say." And the adults all had a chuckle.

I know we rode Indiana Jones again but I guess I didn't get any photos.

We passed a few points of interest on our way from Indy to BTMR.

I should note that the weather was humid but cool and cloudy, which we didn't mind AT ALL. We're both very prone to sunburn and didn't mind the humidity since it meant there was plenty of cloud coverage! The previous two days had been VERY sunny and poor M acquired a strangely-shaped sunburn on her arm where she hadn't applied her sunscreen quite evenly enough.

Up next: Big Thunder, Roger Rabbit, and the MPB!

 

[bee]

Day 9, cont.

We soon arrived at our Big Thunder FP! Again lots of people were confused about the new method of entry for FP. Hopefully they get this worked out soon!

Next we acquired a FP for Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin.

This ride was pretty silly but we surely didn't mind the blast of AC after being outside in the humidity!

The whole Toontown area was in pretty sad shape. All the paint looked very faded and we both wondered aloud whether TDA is planning to replace this with something else.

The great thing about Toontown is it's very close to the recently-refurbished Disneyland Railroad! This was on our priority list for the day since we hadn't ridden it on Thursday.

I think we only waited 2-3 minutes for a train to arrive.

If you've only ridden the WDW version (like us!), you may be surprised to learn that this train goes inside a museum-like natural history display!

Rainbow!

Hmmm...these guys look familiar!

We decided to stay on for a full circle, and then some.

Up next: More train, plus DESSERT FIRST!

 

[bee]

Day 9, cont.

As the train passed through Frontierland we could see just a tiny bit of the Star Wars construction.

...I tried...

After another partial loop we exited at Main Street with a mission to get a floofy coffee drink!

We checked out some of the Main Street stores...

We headed toward our caffeinated destination...

Jolly Holiday Bakery!

Iced mocha (oops, blurry!)

Chocolate cake. OMG. SO. GOOD.

We had a lunch reservation coming up, but we were on vacation so we had dessert first!

We visited some bathrooms...

...and headed to check in for our reservation at River Belle Terrace. As we waited we enjoyed some shade under an umbrella, as it had become quite warm by this point.

Up next: FOOD FOOD FOOD

 

[bee]

Day 9, cont.

When I checked us in, the host asked if we had any allergies OR dietary restrictions. I said we had no allergies but were vegetarians, and when we were seated we were give one veg menu.

Our server was Rafael and he was one of the best servers we've ever had, in a Disney park or otherwise. Apparently the host had noted "allergies" on our reservation so he offered to bring an allergy menu but when we told him we were just vegetarians he made sure we knew exactly what items were suitable for us.

We started with the pimento cheese appetizer.

M ordered the barbecue tofu with sides of coleslaw and potato salad.

I ordered the chopped salad with barbecue tofu.

Yum yum yum! But wait, where's my barbecue tofu??

Rafael noticed I didn't have it (TBH my salad looked and tasted so great I didn't even notice it was missing lol) and ran back to the kitchen to quickly bring me my tofu.

This was SO MUCH FOOD and SO DELICIOUS! It ended up being our favorite in-park meal of the entire trip. The tofu was perfectly cooked, which isn't hard to do but so many places get it wrong. My salad had the perfect balance of textures and flavors (a lot of perfection here, haha) and was so huge I had to take some home in a box (so maaaaaybe we shouldn't have had dessert first, oops). As I said, Rafael was an excellent server. We would absolutely return and recommend it.

We had one more mission in mind before we returned to the room for the afternoon. On our way we passed Tiana!

Up next: Is this Mickey Mouse or Harry Potter??

 

[Figgy1]

Poor M

 

[bee]

I am finally all caught up. I am loving every part of your TR! Would love to visit Napa someday. The Disney museum looks like it's right up my alley. So happy you and M enjoyed DLR so much! I definitely want to make a west coast trip and see it all in person. Thanks for sharing and looking forward to more.
Hope the apartment search is going well!

Oops, I missed this comment somehow. I hope you get to visit Napa Valley and the Disney museum!! And of course, Disneyland!!

 

[bee]

Poor M

Yes, poor M indeed! The burn faded into an equally awkward tan and still hasn't completely faded!

 

[DonnaOnTheRocks]

I'm SO late to this party! Just got to the part where you got pulled over and laughed out loud at work
Can't wait to read the rest!

 

[fractal]

Great updates!

Love the photos and the stories. DL Pirates is just awesome!

 

[bee]

I'm SO late to this party! Just got to the part where you got pulled over and laughed out loud at work
Can't wait to read the rest!

Welcome to the party! No one is late!

Great updates!

Love the photos and the stories. DL Pirates is just awesome!

Thank you! I agree, DL Pirates is sooo cool!!

 

[bee]

Day 9, cont.

After lunch we had one more must-do before a nap in the hotel room: Mickey and the Magical Map. We headed over to Fantasyland.

We arrived about half an hour before the 1:00 show.

It was HOT!

Soon the CMs let us into the theater.

And here's where my "Harry Potter or Mickey Mouse?" question comes in. There's already a magic theme, there are wizard hats on stage, and the music...



...tell me this music doesn't sound like the Harry Potter movie theme. (I know the video sound quality isn't good but hopefully you can hear it enough to hear the resemblance.)

I only took one photo, because I <3 Tiana. This was a cute show and the singers/actors/dancers were all good. The poor Mulan singer's mic volume was much too low and we could barely hear her, though. I couldn't believe how many guests were taking videos of the ENTIRE show. Like, just watch and enjoy it! You can watch a crappy YouTube recording of it later that someone else made.

After the show we exited the park and walked back to the Best Western for some rest in the room. I don't normally take naps and I hadn't taken any on this trip, but I hadn't sleep well the night before so I napped for about an hour. After I woke up we relaxed in the room a bit before changing clothes and getting ready for dinner.

Up next: A Grand old time!

 

[sheriffwoody]

Wow that really does sound like music from Harry Potter! Crazy.

 

[Figgy1]

Totally HP and I should know my boys have all the movies.

 

[75disney]

Awesome castle pics! Like you, I forgot to take pictures of it and Main Street until our second day! Loved, loved, loved Pirates. It is so peaceful at the beginning of the ride, the two drops were fun, and the extra scenes and details were interesting. We rode it three times. Aside from my roller coaster loving teenager, the rest of us (including my 12 year old) said it was our favorite ride!

 

[bee]

Wow that really does sound like music from Harry Potter! Crazy.

Thank you!

Totally HP and I should know my boys have all the movies.

Thank you!

Awesome castle pics! Like you, I forgot to take pictures of it and Main Street until our second day! Loved, loved, loved Pirates. It is so peaceful at the beginning of the ride, the two drops were fun, and the extra scenes and details were interesting. We rode it three times. Aside from my roller coaster loving teenager, the rest of us (including my 12 year old) said it was our favorite ride!

Thank you! Yes, we were just so in awe of the castle that we forgot photos the first day. And yay for Pirates!

 

[bee]

Day 9, cont.

After our break in the room we walked back across Harbor Blvd.

This time we were headed to the Grand California, via...

Have I said how much I love the small scale of the entire Disneyland property? The parks, Downtown Disney, and all three resort hotels are within walking distance. It's so convenient!

Inside the GC...

Some fancy bathroom pics for those who I know like them:

Bunny tile in the bathroom for @DisneyShe and my little brother

Loved these subtle Mickey lamps near one of the lounges!

Pool area

Reading @Doc Disney's reports has made me notice interesting lighting fixtures a lot more.

Up next: We make new friends at dinner!

 

[Songbird76]

Day 8, cont.

Although M tells me that we have seen It's Tough to Be a Bug in Animal Kingdom, I have no recollection of this. I believe her, of course, but wanted to see the show in DCA.

I understand why everyone says this show is scary! It made me nervous as a 28-year-old adult; I can't imagine seeing it as a kid!!

We decided to explore the rest of the land.

Flik's Flyers was fun. We loved seeing all the details everywhere.

We were both expecting to be able to spin our own ride vehicles on the Ladybug Boogie...that didn't happen, of course!

Playing with iPhone Portrait Mode.

Up next: Our final rides in DCA

My son was so scared in It's tough to be a Bug that he started screaming and my husband had to rush with him to the exit. We were fortunate to be sitting right next to the aisle on the exit side, so it wasn't far, but man, we're never going back there again.