Trip Report Completed- Heavy PTR- California or Bust!! Hint: No Busts!!!

Hello everyone!! Finally made it back from my family trip to DL!! We had a great time.
If you haven't seen my Pre-Trip report, it can be found here: http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/disneyland-july-2016-california-or-bust.911040/#post-7113354

We left our house at 2:30 a.m. to make the 2 hour drive south to Louisville, Ky. We parked our car in the Spring Hill/ Hampton Inn parking lot, close to the airport. They will let you park in their lot for the length of your stay. They have 24 hour security monitoring the lot, plus a 24 hour shuttle that will pick you up from your parking spot and drop you off at the terminal. Much cheaper than the airport's long term parking.

We had great flights out of Louisville, Ky into Phoenix, then into John Wayne. We flew on Southwest and had no issues with them what so ever. I had found a place called the SNA Shuttle Association for our shuttle from the airport to the hotel. They were much cheaper than the other shuttle companies, but I wasn't sure of this outfit, as I could find no reviews for them. We bit the bullet, but it turned out great!!! When we checked in with them, they had an empty shuttle waiting for us that took us straight to our hotel. I called them back the day before we were leaving to set up a pick-up time and they showed up 10 minutes early!! I would recommend them.

Next Day 1

 

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Day 1

We arrived at our hotel the Anaheim Fairfield Marriott around 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time. Check in time wasn't until 4 p.m., but they let us do a pre-check in, and then took my cell phone number to call us to let us know when the room was ready. They had a locked closet in the lobby that was staffed continuously by an employee where we could store our luggage.

I can't say enough good things about this hotel. The rooms were nicely sized. We had two queen sized beds and one love seat that folded out to a single bed. All of the mattresses were very comfortable. The water was nice and hot in the shower, and there was a small safe in the room where you could set your own pass code to get things in and out of it. The hotel was full, but we didn't have any issues with any noise coming from the other rooms or walkways. There is small restaurant onsite that serves Pizza Hut products plus some breakfast items. Prices were a little high, but in line with other restaurants in the resort area. There is a Panera Bread and a McDonald's just in front of the hotel, and it was only a 10 minute walk from our room to the security stations in Disneyland.

So with our luggage stored away, we decided to spend this day in Downtown Disney and checking out the hotels. We went to the Disneyland Hotel first and checked it out, as it had been remodeled since the last time we had been at the resort. While there, we decided to have lunch at Trader Sam's

Even though the place is very small, we loved walking around looking at the theming. There are references to Indiana Jones, Jungle Cruise, Tiki Room, Adventurer's Club, etc...

The food was very good. It was fun watching the bar tenders go crazy whenever some one ordered one of their signature drinks. My oldest son ordered one, and he said it was very good. After finishing the drink, they will give you an unused version of the glass in a box for you to take home. So what was the final outcome?

Three thumbs up!!!
We then proceeded to walk thru the rest of Downtown Disney. Browsing thru the shops. One thing we noticed on this trip was there was no souvenirs that knocked our socks off. Normally all of us will find something that we just can't live without, but not so much on this trip.

We finally received a call around 3 p.m. that our room was ready. So our plan was to go back to the hotel, settle in, and then watch the fireworks from the balcony of the hotel. But since we had been awake since 1:30 a.m. and it was now approx. 11 p.m. eastern time, we all went to bed at 8 p.m. local time to get ready for our first day in the parks. So we missed the fireworks from our hotel room. We would have had a great view if we had been able to stay up!

 

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DAY 2

We got up bright and early this morning to go to Disneyland!! The parks opened each day at 8 a.m., but they would usually open the gates around 7:30. We could then enter Main Street or Buena Vista Street at that time.

Always have to pay our respects to Mr. Disney.

Had to stop at City Hall to get our buttons. The Wife and I are celebrating our 25th Wedding Anniversary this month, and I am celebrating 5 years cancer free!!

Had to check out some of the awesome windows in the Emporium.

Many of the characters come out before they opened the park in their 60th Birthday Gear.
Pluto!!

Donald!! He was great.

Chip!!

All of the Main Street vehicles were out and about this morning.
Interesting note, you cannot pet the horses while they are "on the clock".

 

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DAY 2 continued

We have a few family traditions when visiting the Disney Parks.
Our first one is to always go to Fantasy Land first and ride Dumbo!

No King of England this trip, not for lack of trying. We still miss the Merlin show.

Peter Pan!!

We miss Mr. Toad from WDW, so we made sure we rode it a few times while we were here.

The ride is just as wild as it sounds!!

Evil Queen doing evil things.

My Wife's favorite ride. Still can't get over how long the lines are for this ride.

Don't forget to touch the apple

All of the tips you read about Disneyland tell you to get there as soon as the gates open. This advice couldn't be more correct. This empty queue would be filled in about another hour. We were able to ride everything in Fantasy Land the first hour the park was open.

We like no wait lines!!

 

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Day 2 Continued

Hidden Mickey. Not sure if this is intentional or not, but it was being formed by the chairs and table.

I can't believe all five of us fit in the "Monkey" car.

The teacups are the one ride that ol' Dad has to sit out. Can't handle spinners like this

My Son is a big fan of the villains. He went nuts when we saw the Evil Queen. She was great. She asked my Son if my Wife was his servant. Then made him grovel at her feet before she would agree to take a picture.

 

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Day Two Continues

The children decided to climb the Matterhorn.

Oh no!! Looks like we lost one!!

The Disneyland Band!! They were great. Not only great musicians, but great entertainers

We loved the Disney characters in the ride. We all thought it would be a nice addition to the Florida version of the ride.

Next stop Pixie Hollow!

Faun!!

Tink!

Off to the Frontier!

Even though none of the boats on the river were working, it was still fun to go on board and explore inside. This seemed to be a favorite spot for folks to take a nap.

Tiana! She was so pretty.

My son asked Dr. Facilier if he good take a picture. The Dr. said "Sure, let me step out of the way" It took some explaining to the good Dr. that we wanted the picture of him. He said "Fine, as long as you don't force me to pose with that 'Swamp Princess' over there"

 

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Day 2 Still...

We then stopped to have lunch at Cafe Orleans. The five of us split 3 Monte Cristo sandwiches and one order of their fries. Everything was so good. We ate inside and felt that the atmosphere inside was so so, I would recommend eating outside for better atmosphere.

We were told that this was Walt's personal cappuccino machine

Listened to the Pirate Band next. Such a great sound for only 5 people.

Haunted Mansion was next.

We all thought that the WDW version of the Mansion is better except for two things. We think the outside section of this Mansion is better looking, and the the Hat Box Ghost was awesome.
We didn't care for how the operations were handled here. The CMs were not trying to stay in character and they crammed as many people into the stretch room as they could. Then when we exited the stretch room, everyone was crammed into the hallway leading to the Doom Buggys. The line was moving very slow moving, and would routinely still be backed up to the stretch room doors when the other room would open up. The guests in that room could not even exit the stretch room due to the back-up. I couldn't help thinking that if a fire or worse broke out, there would be no way for us to get out of that tight space. This was really the only attraction on our whole trip that we had issues with operations.

The version of the Mansion had different singing busts than what we were used to.

This ride had the 2nd longest lines in the whole park. Thank goodness they had fast pass for it.

Definitely like the WDW version better.

Eeyore's House?

Went on (at the time) favorite ride. It would soon be knocked off the top spot.

All agreed this version is better than WDW. Does anyone know if the scene between the jail cell pirates and the drunken shooting pirates before you go up the lift hill used to have some thing there? We felt that scene was missing something.

We love trying on silly hats

 

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Day 3, just kidding, still Day 2
Next was Adventure Land

This was our first cruise on this trip. It was hard to understand the skipper while she talked on her mike, and we were the only people on the boat that spoke English, so I'm sure the skipper tried her best, but hard to play to a boat load of people when only five of them understand you.

My Daughter graduated from High School this year, so had to get this picture.
We were going to ride Indy next, but it was broke down.

Not impressed with the pre-show.
One of the tips you see everywhere online is to go inside the Tiki Room pre-show area as the line for Dole Whip is shorter. I think everyone knows this tip now, as the line inside was almost always longer than the outside line. We ended up getting some sweet pineapple frozen goodness later in the trip. As we were waiting in the outside line, a CM was walking the line with some sort of iPad. He would take your order and you could pay with a credit card! By then time we made it to the front of the line, our order was ready!! This seemed to worked much better than the normal way.

ToonTown was next

He wanted to know why the hand set was attached to the phone by a wire.
Made me feel old.

Open these doors for a "shocking" surprise

Goofy's house. No more bouncin thou

Minnie's House

Tea at Minnie's

Donald's House.

Mickey's welcome mat

Only had to wait 10 minutes to meet the Mouse!!

 

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Still on Day 2

Do kids now a days even know who Gadget is any more?

Even with her picture, it probably still doesn't ring any bells.

The kids and I watched Rescue Rangers every afternoon when it was on.

Chip and Dale's house

It's nice that they have their own house, but it is kind of a waste of space in our opinion. We all felt ToonTown could use an update.

Gadget's coaster is still a fun ride

Still a fun ride. Wish they had more Roger Rabbit in the parks

Then we took a ride on the ToonTown Trolley! Love how they put a DVC booth right next to this so they could try to get you while you take a break on the trolley.

Loved the Baymax balloons!! The light up!

Now for the surprise hit of the trip. We always loved Space Mountain, but was skeptical of the Star Wars overlay. But as soon as you leave the station and the main title music kicks in, it was non-stop fun from start to finish. My daughter is not a big Star Wars fan, and even she said it was great.

We love Star Tours. The new scenes with Episode 7 stuff were great.

Rex!!

This guy was too funny. We thought his voice sounded like Patrick Warburton. Does anyone know who did the voice?

 

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Day 2 some more

More silly hats

Didn't quite know what Princess Fantasy Faire was, but were forced to cut thru here to avoid the afternoon parade. Didn't have time to check it out on this day, but we did later.

Zorro restaurant

We thought we would watch the night parade and the fireworks from the Small World plaza this first night. They show the same projections on the facade that they show on the castle, and the crowds are not as insane, but it is no where near as good a show as being in front of the castle.

Waiting for the parade

Tink!

Peter Pan!!

Sully

Mike

Lightning McQueen

These guys were awesome, and a crowd favorite based on their reaction
More parade pics coming

 

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Day 2 still, almost done.

Mac
Let me say that I've personally seen every night time parade that the American Parks have produced and this parade is hands down the best I have every seen. The colors are so vibrant. The effects (especially Mac's trailer) are fantastic. The costumes and choreography are great. The music is great. We saw the parade three times on this trip and I smiled the entire time for all three parades.

Hard to describe how awesome this is

DJ on the back of Mac

Little Mermaid float

Blurry, but they had Nemo and Marlin puppets

Woody riding on Slinky. Yes, those are light bright pegs Slinky is walking on

If you seen the parade or heard the sound track, say it with me "Buzz Lightyear!!"

LGMs. What came first, this version of the float? Or the Pixar Play Parade version?

The start of the Princess float. Loved these costumes

Belle, so beautiful and elegant

Rapunzel

A little ironic that Cinderella was absent from the parade tonight, but she left her glass slipper behind

 

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Day 2 in infinity

Anna and Elsa on the Frozen float
As much as people say they hate this movie now, this float always received the biggest response every night from the crowd. The fireworks show sings "Let It Go" during the show, and you could hear everyone singing along. I would guess Frozen is going to be in the parks for a little while longer.

Olaf!

Goofy! Loved the ELP throwbacks in this parade

Donald could really shake his tail feathers

Minnie

And finally the last float, featuring Mickey!!

Not sure what this thing is supposed to be, but it was mesmerizing

If you can stay up late enough, you should wait for the second parade as the crowds are not as crazy. We saw people lining up for 4 hours before the first parade on Main Street to reserve a spot. You could still get a decent spot in the Small World area minutes before the first parade came thru. But you could find spots anywhere along the parade route minutes before during the second parade.

Finally done with Day 2. Day 3 and California Adventure coming soon

 

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DAY 3- the morning when nothing was open
This day we went to DCA. We arrived at the park at 7:30 a.m. and was in the park shortly after. We went to the rope drop area to get in line for Radiator Springs fast passes. Before the CMs dropped the rope, they announced that the entirety of Cars Land would not be opening with the rest of the park. So we decided to head for California Screamin.

We made it to the coaster, only to find out it was open yet.

So we figured we would try TSMM, but it was closed!!

So we started walking around looking for something that was open.

Finally found Mickey's Fun Wheel and took a ride on it. We noticed that the Silly Symphony swings were running also.

So we rode them next.

We checked the Disneyland app, which told us that Cars Land, TSMM, and California Screamin were all still closed, so we started making our way around the lagoon.

Finally, the app said that Cars Land was open!!

The family and I found this land stunning.

I had seen plenty of pictures of this land online, but they don't prepare you for what it looks like in person.

 

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Day 3 continued

It was truly like stepping into the Cars movie. Everything was to scale and almost exact reproductions of what they buildings and atmosphere looks like in the movie.

They even had some of the cars characters out and about. They would have meet and greets with them.

After much oohing and awing, we finally made it down to the end of the street to the E-ticket for this land, Radiator Springs Racers. We had picked up our fast passes for the ride before entering Cars Land, but the stand by time was only 40 minutes at this point, so we went ahead and jumped in line.

Some shots from the queue for RSR

There it is, the world famous Radiator Springs!!

 

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Day 3 continued

This was one ride that lived up to it's hype. It was fantastic!! I'll have more pics later.

Even the plants are themed to cars! They even lit up at night.

Since we had about an hour before our fast pass was available, we decided to check out the rest of what Cars Land has to offer. We started with Luigi's Rollickin' Roadsters. More on this ride later.

Each one of these "cones" offered different food items.

We got to meet Mater!! He would move his eyes around, and would talk to you. He thought Jacob's shirt was on high beams and asked him to turn them down.

 

[bauton]

Day 3 still...

We made a stop to pet the baby tractor.

We then road Mater's Junkyard Jamboree

Our RSR fast pass was ready, so we rode it again. Then we decided to head over to Soarin to get a fast pass.

Took a short cut, or long cut, depending on how you look at it, thru Bugs Land.

Walked by Grizzly River

Decided to enter the Challenge Trail. This is a true hidden gem. The place was deserted but was a lot of fun with a lot of fun activities to try out. We took the Wilderness Explorer challenge and passed!! After reciting the same salute from the Up movie, we all became official Wilderness Explorers!!

We got our Soarin fast pass, but had some time before it became valid, so started checking out some other areas of the park. No, that is not Indiana Jones with Mickey.

This park is relatively small and easy to get around, so you could walk from one end of the park to the other in 5 minutes if you wanted.

We were just walking towards the Monster's Inc. ride when a CM ran out of no where and yelled "Do you want to meet Olaf?" We were like, OK whatever crazy CM person. She then led us to the side of this building where sure enough, Olaf was doing meet and greets!! We had him to ourselves for a good 15 minutes.

Yes, Olaf is one of my favorites.

We then went on the Monster's Inc ride.

It's an OK ride. I wouldn't wait more than 10 minutes to ride it.

We then got to meet Nick and Judy from Zootopia!

Five and Dime were great. Such a great sound.

 

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You guessed it, still on DAY 3

By this time, we could get another fast pass, so we got one for RSR again!! We walked thru the land again. This land made me smile every time we went thru it.

That's the Cadillac mountain range

I'm sure no one on these boards has ever seen this picture before.

Screamin was finally open and we got to ride it with only a 15 minute wait. I think the on ride photo would be better if it looked like this.

Another tradition for our family is to get a frozen Mickey ice cream bar

It just tastes better when your in a Disney park

Buzz Lightyear

He was recruiting Space Rangers today, but Mom wouldn't let him join.

Now for the Marvel area. That is Peter Parker's camera webbed to the side of the wall

Captain America

He was everything you expected the Captain to be. Bravo to the CM

SpiderMan

He was perfect too. The perfect mix of awkwardness and snark

 

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Half way thru DAY 3
Next was the Pixar Play Parade

Sully
Notice that Sully and Mike are in their Monster's University costumes. It seemed like the number one selling ball cap in the parks, especially for Women, was the blue MU ball cap. I agree that the movie was entertaining, but we could come up with no reason why these caps were so popular. Anyone out there know why?

We had experienced the parade 10 years ago, so pretty much expected the same parade. We didn't realize that they had updated it

Mike on the back with the CDA

Bob Parr

Helen Parr

Jack-Jack. His hair would catch on fire!!

This was the float we started to notice a difference in the parade. We starting feeling water hitting us on the head. I at first thought it was a rogue rain shower or some one behind me with one of those squirt bottles. But it was the arms on this Omni-Droid squirting water!!

Violet. Dash was in the parade also along with Frozone, but didn't get pics of them.

Squirt from Finding Nemo

Dude, it's the Crush

I was always a fan of Heimlich, until I saw this monstrosity. His different body parts would become detached from the main body and would just wander around the parade route. I may have to seek counseling.

Flik and Atta

Some of the other floats up to this point had also squirted some water, but with this demon spawn, we quickly reached levels of unacceptable wetness. He would squirt out copious amounts of water where ever he roamed.

Here is that LGM float again, this time with no lights, but with squirting water.

Buzz!!

We were hoping Lotso was still in the parade, but got Mr. Potato Head instead

Woody, with Jesse behind him. And yes, that gun squirted water. By this time, i had my soap and loufa out.

 

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You asked for it, More DAY 3

Slinky!! His butt would swing around looking for butt rubs.
This was a fun parade, especially if you liked getting wet. It seemed to us that the squirt guns on the different floats are controlled by some one inside the float, as kids who were standing on the parade route begging to be squirted would get drenched.

I'm sorry West Coast, it is still the bad tower.

But still a great ride

We made sure to ride it one last time just in case they do change the theming

Back to Radiator Springs. Love how they acknowledge the Mater tales

All the buildings are lit in neon at night.

 

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Day 3 still

The whole land is just stunning, even at night

It was now time for World of Color. We made what we thought was a major mistake. We kept checking the fast pass for the shows, as we wanted to wait until the second showing to watch it. Every time we went to the fast pass machines, they were still giving away passes to the first showing. We got distracted with all of the other goings on, that by the time we remembered to get our fast pass, they were no longer giving them out. I asked around to a few CMs and they all told me the same thing, that we would just have to find a spot around the lagoon to watch it. We staked out a spot in front of the Little Mermaid, but back behind all of the reserved areas. About 10 minutes before the show started, a CM came up and told us we could find a spot in the Yellow section, as it was not crowded. So we ended up getting a great spot to watch the show, without a fast pass!

The park would turn on wi-fi just for the show, and you could go onto a web page and play a game with other guests. If you won, you could change the colors on Mickey's Fun Wheel for the next 60 seconds. Sadly, we never won.

The show was fantastic. It's hard to describe exactly what it is. Just think a lot of water, fountains, fire balls, lasers, videos, but on steroids. This show ended up being my daughters favorite.

We finally made our way out of the park, and made it back to our hotel.
Day 4 coming up!!