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 4- Disneyland!!
Once again, we were let in 30 minutes before the stated opening time. And once again, some of the characters were out in town square in their 60th Anniversary outfits.

Goof

The Main Mouse

Minnie

We started our day in Adventureland. And guess, what? Indy was not open yet!!

So we decided to ride Jungle Cruise again, to kill some time. This ended up being a great idea.

Don't worry folks, they are all wearing their trunks

Back side of water!!! Always the highlight of every cruise

The real Trader Sam

Whey was this a good idea? All because of our skipper, Larry!! He was awesome. He told all of the usual jokes, but had great timing on them. He even added some extra jokes that we had never heard before. We asked for a photo at the end of the cruise, and he put his hat on my son's head. He then leaned into my son's ear and told him to stay in school, or else he would be destined to ride on a river going around in circles all day for ever.

After leaving the boat, we ran into these three. Looks like Genie is having some issues with his collar.

Genie, Jasmine, Aladdin

Indy finally opened!! We got a fast pass for it, then went thru the stand by line. Tried to get some pics of the queue, but wasn't too successful.

While waiting for our fast pass, we heading over to Tomorrow Land

 

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You asked for it, and you got it, more DAY 4

The line was short, so the boys jump onto the Astro Orbiter.

We met some First Order Stormtroopers

We went into the Star Wars Launch Bay to look around. We met Boba Fett.

Then Chewbacca

R2-KT!!! We also saw her in one of the Star Tours videos

It was now time for our Hyperspace Mountain fast pass. This was an awesome ride.

After riding Space, we went back into the Launch Bay, and met Kylo Ren. Very awkward

What was cool about all the Star Wars characters was that they would speak to you. I think it was all pre-recorded, but still cool.

After Tomorrow Land, we went over to the Fantasy Land theater to catch the Mickey and the Magical Map show

Of course, Mickey is in the show

The King Louie came out to sing "Be Like You". He moved his mouth and eyes and the costume was very flexible.

Disney, let's make this a meet and greet

The Pocahontas came out

And Mulan

And finally Rapunzel. They sang a mash up of their signature songs that was awesome!

 

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Some More DAY 4

Eugene came out to sing with Rapunzel

Stitch!

Tiana

We thought the show was great. There is one part at the end where there was a sleight of hand with Mickey. It had us totally befuddled with how they did it.

We then went down Main Street to see the sights and stake out a spot for the afternoon parade. We met Cruella Da Ville first.

She was great. She was constantly yelling at guests walking by and yelling at guests about if they had any puppies for her.

Pluto was doing a meet and greet right next to her and she kept going over to him and "threatening" to make him into some shoes.

We then got to meet Daisy

Old fashioned fire truck

We then found a spot for the parade. We were going to try to go up to the train platform, but it was closed for a private party. So we just sat down in the shade on the curb. The Wife and kids went off to get some ice cream. Before they could come back, CMs came up to me and the family next to me, dragging some park benches. They dragged them up to the curb we were sitting on and offered the seats to us!! Score!

We were kind of split as to whether we even wanted to see this parade

Mickey could sure jam on those drums. Is there anything he can't do?

But after hearing the catchy song, and seeing the first few floats, we ended up really enjoying the parade.

 

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More DAY 4
the parade continues

This float was beautiful

Terk!! You don't see her out much anymore

Simba could really move it

 

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DAY 4 still

We then decided to go inside the Opera House to see Mr. Lincoln. We stopped to look at the bench that Walt sat on while dreaming of Disneyland.
Unfortunately, Mr. Lincoln was not open.

Had to get a picture of the infamous red/white bulb at Coke Corner.

The figure head from the Columbia

We then decided to stake out a spot for the Paint the Night parade again on Main Street, with the hope of seeing the fireworks after the parade.

Cinderella was in the parade tonight!
Unfortunately, it was too windy and the fireworks were canceled.
We went ahead and headed back to our hotel for the night to get ready for Day 5!!

 

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DAY 5
We once again was allowed to get in about 20 minutes early this morning for our last day at California Adventure.
One of my oldest Son's favorite characters is Oswald. He didn't make an appearance the first day at the park. According to the Disney app, he was supposed to be at the entrance to the park at 8 a.m. So we stake out some spots.

While we were waiting, we checked out some of the shops.

He came out on time, and we got to meet him!

We then proceeded into Cars Land to ride RSR again. But first we stopped to meet Red

More of the RSR queue

Here is what the front of the cars you ride in look like. The headlights do work

The back of the cars

Some pics from the ride itself

You go inside the mountains and travel into Radiator Springs. Along the way you get to meet many of the Cars characters.

This is where you meet up with another car and start your race

Lightning and Mater greet you when you come back from your race

Words to live by

 

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DAY 5 continues

Ancient cave drawings from Cars Land

We then got in line to ride Luigi's again

Apparently white walls are the top of the line tires in Cars Land and the best of the white walls are the Fettuccini Alfredos

Topiary in the queue

Here are the cars you enter before the ride starts. Each holds 2 to 3 people.

The other side of the dance floor

You can see the Tower in the distance

When the ride starts, all the cars start moving in a synchronized pattern with each other

I had read a lot of reviews of this ride online before our trip

Most of the reviews were negative for this ride

But every member of my family loved this ride. We thought it was a lot of fun. So much fun, we rode it three times on this trip.

Next was Mater's again. I had read reviews for this ride that is was only a notch better than Luigis.

But we loved this one too. We rode it three times also. We would have rode this ride and Luigis more if we had time. We especially loved the music on both rides. The Da gum song was our favorite.

We had fast pass for the Frozen show this morning, but we still had some time to kill, so we went inside the visit with the sisters, Anna and Elsa

It was then time for the show.

 

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Some more DAY 5

We were really impressed with the show.

I don't think we have ever seen a theme park show with this level of quality. It really felt like we were seeing a Broadway show

The actor playing Olaf was great. We all enjoyed the show except for my youngest, but he was never a Frozen fan.

So as punishment for not enjoying the show, we sacrificed the children to the Grizzly

We decided to take a small break

The Green Army men drove by

We then had fast pass for Grizzly River. The wait for this ride hovered between 60 to 90 minutes both days we were there. We used fast pass and only waiting in line for 10 minutes!

I think the youngest got the most wet.

The ride itself is OK. The scenery along the way was fantastic

By then, it was supper time. We decided to eat at Flos. Here was our table on the outside.

Here was the view from our table. Fantastic.

Doc Hudson's Piston Cups

He did what in a cup?

Churros for desert from the Cozy Cone. We also tried their bread cones. We thought they were one of the best values in the parks. You got a huge portion for only around $8

By then it was time for the Light Up ceremony for Cars Land. They play the cruisin song from the movie as each building turns on it's neon lights one at a time, just like in the movie.

We then moved over to watch World of Color again. This time we had picked up fast pass for the first show!!! We were in the Blue section this time. We entered the section, and was looking for a spot. A CM came up to us and asked if this was our first time seeing the show. I said, no, but it was the first time seeing it from this section. He then directed us to this section on the left of the seating area. It was a small section that was surrounded by ropes. If you didn't know about this spot, you would probably assume that it was off limits. It was a great spot to see the show with no obstructions and far enough away to not get wet. Plus the added convenience of not being surrounded by other guests as the ropes were keeping people from lining up behind us.

I didn't get any pictures of the spot, but if you need more information, just let me know.

 

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DAY 6- our last day in the parks

We spent our last day back in Disneyland. Our main goal today was to re-ride some of our favorites, and then get a good spot for the fireworks later that night.

It was an early entry morning, so we went to Fantasy Land first to re-ride some of the rides. Including one of our favorites, Peter Pan.

We rode the Matterhorn again

Then made our way into Tomorrow Land

Thought this stroller parking sign was clever

We got a fast pass for Space Mountain, and Buzz Lightyear, then went to Star Tours in the stand by line.

Our fast pass for Buzz was ready by the time we left Star Tours

Then our fast pass for Space Mountain was ready. We timed it perfectly, as we were able to ride all three attractions in about 30 minutes.

We strolled past Snow White's Grotto

Sleeping Beauty fountain

Sign from Mr. Toad's Wild Ride

We got one more ride in on Mr. Toad

None of the dark rides had a line, so we rode them all again

We were crossing thru Fantasy Faire again, and ran into Rapunzel and Eugene. This is the kids version of the "smolder"

 

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DAY 6 continued

We got a fast pass for Big Thunder, but had about 40 minutes to kill before it would take effect. So the kids went to Haunted Mansion

I took the opportunity to visit the river boat again for more pictures.

It was crowded this day.
Time for a small rant. Not sure what the deal was, but it seemed like no one in the parks could pick a side of the sidewalk to walk on. We were constantly having to stop in our tracks and having guests bump into us all the time. We tried to stay on the right hand side on the sidewalks, but almost always ended up on the left hand side at some point.
Ok, rant over.

You can see the decorative scrim they were using to block off the river, plus block your view into the Star Wars land construction.

This was us trying to look thru the hole in the fence to see some of the Star Wars land construction.

We then made our way over to the train station in the hopes to see the Lilly Bell caboose. Unfortunately, it was in for refurbishment.

We we did get to check out the Ernest S. Marsh engine and talk to some of the engineers and conductors

We also got to cross the tracks. You normally are not allowed on this side of the tracks.

We got to see this picture of Walt on the push cart

Then got to see the actual cart

This engineer was so happy that we came over to see him. Apparently they get few visitors on this side of the track. The object behind us is an actual boiler that they had used in one of the trains in the past. They now us it for education purposes.

We even got to blow the whistle!

The tunnel to Fantasy Land

We then stopped to get some beignets, then got in line for Haunted Mansion again

We got to hold the coveted red card while in line!

 

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DAY 6 some more

More Haunted Mansion pics

Hit the Alice ride again

We finally got to meet Woody

We then went to the hub about 3 hours before the first parade to make sure we had a good spot for the fireworks. We tried to get artsy with these light up balloons.

This was a great spot to watch the parade.

 

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Almost done with DAY 6

Just can't express how much we enjoyed this parade

Now the waiting began. Would we be able to see the fireworks? Or would they be canceled again? I talk to one of the crowd control CMs, and he told me to keep an eye on the flag above the train station. If it was blowing steadily, then they would probably be canceled. My daughter then noticed some white balloons flying above the Photo Supply store on Main Street. We had no idea what they were. I motioned what looked to be a manager CM over and asked her what they were. She told me that they were weather balloons. They release them periodically before the fireworks each night to determine the wind speed. If the balloon goes straight up, yes to the fireworks, if the balloon goes sideways, no fireworks. We missed the first few balloons due to watching the parade. But after we took our spots in the middle of the hub, i turned and watched the last balloon. About 2 minutes before the fireworks, they released the last balloon, and it went straight up!!! The fireworks started on time and they were great. Much better in front of the castle.

We have another tradition where we try to make our last ride on the carousel. We tried to ride Jingles, but found out she was out for refurbishment.

Once last tribute to Uncle Walt

Good Bye Disneyland

Last pictures

Loved the benches in the Esplanade

We had a good nights rest, then made our way to the airport for the return flight home. We had a layover in Denver. For it supposedly being the one of the best airports in the world, the terminal where Southwest had their gates was very cramped. We arrived back in Louisville around midnight, went over and picked up our car and drove home. We made it home by 3 a.m. and immediately went to bed.

Overall it was a great trip. Except for the various ride closures and the occasional frustration with the crowds doing stupid things, everything went off without a hitch. Can't wait to go back.
Thanks for reading!!

 

[FlaggNL]

Thanks for sharing this great report! Love the pics! California is on our wishlist! First 2016 and 2017 a WDW holiday!!

 

[blreinsel]

Enjoyed your report.. Seems like you accomplished a lot! Thanks for sharing!