A heapin' helpin' of Disneyland questions...

[brkgnews]

Hello, friendly west coasters. Thanks to a motherlode of double developer points from my recent DVC purchase, I'm planning to burn off a ton of points by finally taking a trip to Disneyland. Right now, I'm leaning toward two potential timeframes... last week of January (actually includes a day or two in February as well); or the first week of May (actually includes a few days in May). I perosnally am leaning toward the January date, but there are others involved in the travel scenario, so that may change.

So... I've got a boatload of questions.

1) If I were to go with the week of Jan26-Feb2, will Haunted Mansion and Small World be out from under their post-holiday rehabs (returning them to their normal state following their holiday overlays)?

2) What about other potential rehabs? I'm sure that the rehab schedule isn't out yet, but I'm just wondering about in general. I really don't want to risk something major (Matterhorn, etc) being down during what will likely be a once-in-a-lifetime trip.

3) What about fireworks and parades (specifically the nighttime parade at DCA) in both of those timeframes? I know from other posts that some of the events are limited in the off season.

4) Crowd levels? 'Nuff said.

5) Weather conditions for the two periods, generally speaking?

6) Anything else I might not have thought of that needs to be considered for those two periods?

7) Given the choice, which of the two periods would you pick?

8) I read on AllEars about a Fantasmic dessert thing on the balcony at Disney Gallery. Is that defunct now that the gallery is supposedly going away? If not, any ideas on price?

9) Anybody got any insight on the tours offered at DLR?

I'm sure there will be more questions soon, but that'll get me started. Thanks in advance!

 

[Nicole220]

Yay for first trips!! The online calendar doesn't come up until a month or two before. I'll try to help as much as I can from what I can remember.

1. Last year, HM was down Jan 8-18th, so I think you'll be good. IASW didn't go down till the 21st, so you'll miss that if it goes by the same schedule.

2. Last year, the Matterhorn was down in January, but I don't know if it's going down again this coming year. I also heard Indiana Jones was going to be down from Jan - some unknown date. This is a must see and it would really be a bummer if it does indeed go down for a refurb.

3. Parade of Dreams will run twice daily, so no worries about that. Remember...Dreams Come True will run on Fri-Sun only during the off season. Not sure about Fantasmic and the MSEP.

4. Amazingly empty during the week! Weekends are almost always crowded.

5. Cold, for a born and raised Southern Californian. Maybe a tiny bit of rain here or there, temperatures in the 60's (I'm not good at remembering what the weather was like in past months, so I might not be correct).

7. I'd pick January because of the light crowds. In May, you will start to get the out of state people for the start of summer....definitely more crowds in May than in January. However, if my info is correct and Indy does go down in Jan, I would face the bigger crowds and go in May.

8. I believe the Fantasmic dessert is gone.

9. There's the A Walk in Walt's Footsteps tour at DL. It seems to be very popular and a favorite of many!

Hope this helps! If you have any other questions, feel free to ask! :wave:

 

[brkgnews]

Thanks for the info! I normally would have planned something like this out for a good year, but these points were really an unexpected surprise (well, actually the amount of points -- thought I'd be getting half that many!) so I've had to fast-track everything since they'll expire in July.

 

[brkgnews]

Well I went ahead with the January dates. I might have been better off with April/May, but I'm just gonna risk it (refurb-wise). Here's hoping.

 

[Nicole220]

I honestly haven't heard anything new about the January Indy refurb, so I'm pretty sure you'll be good.

If I hear anything about it, I'll let you know.

 

[brkgnews]

In all honesty, a matterhorn refurb would break my heart worse than Indy -- I know they're world's apart, but I guess I'm just a softie.