It's a month later and now I'm finally posting my trip report. But late is better than never!
September 5th (Labor Day): Jeff and I drove from Sacramento to Anaheim at 4:30am. There wasn’t much traffic during our trip (though we ran into some disgusting gas station/diners.) We arrived at The Carousel Inns and Suites around noon. Check in wasn’t ready yet, but we did let them know that we were here and ready to check in to relax. So we decided to park our car at the hotel and walk to Downtown Disney. The hotel was right in front of the park. You cross the street and you walk to the parks. We decided to shop around Downtown Disney to get some souvenirs. There wasn’t as much of a shopping district as the one at WDW, but it was nice. We ate at the ESPN Zone and I got the cookie sundae and it was absolutely yummy. The prices are a bit high but they give him huge portions for your meal. Jeff and I decided to walk around The Disney Hotel to get the feel of the hotel. I noticed at one section of the hotel a window is broken (I believe it’s a banquet hall). Around 2:30pm Jeff and I walked back to the hotel and checked in. Our room was pretty nice. I was very surprised about how nice our room was. We took a shower and headed over to visit Jeff’s parents who live about 45 minutes away.
September 6th (Disneyland): Jeff and I arrived at the park around 8:20am and there were lines waiting to let you in early into the parks. We arrived and it was magical. Just to see the park again brought tears into my eyes. Everything was clean and one of my favorite “lands” at Disneyland is Main Street USA. Something about it makes you feel like home. Walking through the park and seeing the castle was great, though the castle is tiny compared to the one at MK at WDW. We headed over to Space Mountain. The wait was ten minutes. We were able to ride in the front and being on that ride was absolutely amazing!!! I prefer the previous music but I think the music they have for it now fits perfectly. It seems the ride goes so much faster, plus the tracks are smooth, and it’s very dark. The music on the ride does need to be a lot louder. It was great…after the ride was over everyone in our “rocket ship” applauded. Jeff and I went on that ride at least twenty times throughout our trip. Afterwards we were all over the park. From riding POTC (the ride is back in PC mode), HM, (which both of those rides only had a five minute wait time throughout our time at on our trip), Splash Mountain (wait times during later part of the day were less than an hour), BTMRR (was only a 15 minute wait throughout our time during our trip), and pretty much every single other ride you can think of we were able to get every ride with little or no wait. The only time where there was a wait that went up to 45-55 waits on some of the “bigger attraction” rides were today later on during the day. We had a reservation at the Blue Bayou at 1:30pm and we arrived at 1:15pm and asked to be seated by the water. The CM told us it would be about 15-20 minute wait. We told him that was fine. We waited to 45 minutes and we still were not seated! Other people who had reservations after us were seated ahead of us. Finally, I approached a CM and told her about not being seated when we had reservations, and we were seated immediately and had a great view of the water. I was pretty annoyed throughout that time, because even though they should have apologized they never made any effort to correct their mistake. I don’t expect us to get a free meal or whatnot. I at least expected for the manager to come to our table and conspenstate us for their mistake. But, at this point, I was hungry and wanted to eat and enjoy the rest of my day at the park. Our food was served quickly and our meal was excellent.
The following below is a rant. If you want to bypass this, feel free to skip past my rant and read the rest of the review:
I just expected more from Disney, because part of the reason you pay a bit more to going to the Disney parks is because of the excellent staff/CM. Jeff and I were able to enjoy the rest of our day but throughout our three day vacation at DL/DCA, I noticed that CM weren’t as friendly then at WDW. I just noticed a lot of the CM who worked there seemed to be just working because they have to; not because they love their job. (Example: when riding Space Mountain, and when you see the CM in the control tower, out of all the times I’ve been on that ride when I waived to the CM in the control tower I was waived back five times. One guy saw me waived and rolled his eyes at me. Another time I caught a different guy just chewing on his fingernails…gross!) I don’t expect the CM to be “high on life” 24/7, but I guess I expected a bit more. The Disney Co. cannot be perfect, but I guess we all know that. (I guess I’m a bit annoyed because when Jeff and I arrived at WDW everyone was all smiles and polite to anyone we encountered.)
The one thing I really liked about DL is how the characters would interact with each other and played games, improved, etc. That was great to see. There was no parade and firework show this day.
September 7th (DCA): Jeff and I arrived with my in-laws at 10am. There was quit a line to enter the park but by the time you got in, you realized how dead the park was. Everything was a 5-13 minute wait…nothing more than that. The park was so dead that even though their FP machine was seat up, they didn’t accept them at the front of the ride because the park was so slow. Jeff and I rode ToT and it was wonderful. In fact, I like the ride better here than at MGM. Though, I believe the interior needs more work (as for interior MGM has it set up much better (as for theme.) We rode on pretty much everything (expect for Grizzly Rapids [because I didn’t want to walk around like a drowned cat for the rest of the day] and Screamin’ because it was shut down.) Sourin’ was great, though it seems a bit short of a ride. But it was a wonderful ride to experience. We did pretty much every single ride throughout the park and we were bored. So Jeff and I decided to go back to DL around 3pm to go on some rides, see more characters, go on rides, etc. Again, there was no firework show or parade.
September 8th (Disneyland): We arrive at the parks around 9am and we were able to get into the parks early. A CM told us to go into early entry line because traffic flow (?). We checked out the Steve Martin short flick about the 50 years of DL. That was a cute movie, especially since Donald Duck is in it. We took pictures of characters, went on many rides, and just enjoyed the park. They didn’t have a firework show, but they did have the parade, which Jeff and I didn’t check out. For some reason, we weren’t in the mood to wait for an hour to see a twenty minute parade. The longest wait I saw throughout the park was a 35 minute wait and that was Splash Mountain.
September 5th (Labor Day): Jeff and I drove from Sacramento to Anaheim at 4:30am. There wasn’t much traffic during our trip (though we ran into some disgusting gas station/diners.) We arrived at The Carousel Inns and Suites around noon. Check in wasn’t ready yet, but we did let them know that we were here and ready to check in to relax. So we decided to park our car at the hotel and walk to Downtown Disney. The hotel was right in front of the park. You cross the street and you walk to the parks. We decided to shop around Downtown Disney to get some souvenirs. There wasn’t as much of a shopping district as the one at WDW, but it was nice. We ate at the ESPN Zone and I got the cookie sundae and it was absolutely yummy. The prices are a bit high but they give him huge portions for your meal. Jeff and I decided to walk around The Disney Hotel to get the feel of the hotel. I noticed at one section of the hotel a window is broken (I believe it’s a banquet hall). Around 2:30pm Jeff and I walked back to the hotel and checked in. Our room was pretty nice. I was very surprised about how nice our room was. We took a shower and headed over to visit Jeff’s parents who live about 45 minutes away.
September 6th (Disneyland): Jeff and I arrived at the park around 8:20am and there were lines waiting to let you in early into the parks. We arrived and it was magical. Just to see the park again brought tears into my eyes. Everything was clean and one of my favorite “lands” at Disneyland is Main Street USA. Something about it makes you feel like home. Walking through the park and seeing the castle was great, though the castle is tiny compared to the one at MK at WDW. We headed over to Space Mountain. The wait was ten minutes. We were able to ride in the front and being on that ride was absolutely amazing!!! I prefer the previous music but I think the music they have for it now fits perfectly. It seems the ride goes so much faster, plus the tracks are smooth, and it’s very dark. The music on the ride does need to be a lot louder. It was great…after the ride was over everyone in our “rocket ship” applauded. Jeff and I went on that ride at least twenty times throughout our trip. Afterwards we were all over the park. From riding POTC (the ride is back in PC mode), HM, (which both of those rides only had a five minute wait time throughout our time at on our trip), Splash Mountain (wait times during later part of the day were less than an hour), BTMRR (was only a 15 minute wait throughout our time during our trip), and pretty much every single other ride you can think of we were able to get every ride with little or no wait. The only time where there was a wait that went up to 45-55 waits on some of the “bigger attraction” rides were today later on during the day. We had a reservation at the Blue Bayou at 1:30pm and we arrived at 1:15pm and asked to be seated by the water. The CM told us it would be about 15-20 minute wait. We told him that was fine. We waited to 45 minutes and we still were not seated! Other people who had reservations after us were seated ahead of us. Finally, I approached a CM and told her about not being seated when we had reservations, and we were seated immediately and had a great view of the water. I was pretty annoyed throughout that time, because even though they should have apologized they never made any effort to correct their mistake. I don’t expect us to get a free meal or whatnot. I at least expected for the manager to come to our table and conspenstate us for their mistake. But, at this point, I was hungry and wanted to eat and enjoy the rest of my day at the park. Our food was served quickly and our meal was excellent.
The following below is a rant. If you want to bypass this, feel free to skip past my rant and read the rest of the review:
I just expected more from Disney, because part of the reason you pay a bit more to going to the Disney parks is because of the excellent staff/CM. Jeff and I were able to enjoy the rest of our day but throughout our three day vacation at DL/DCA, I noticed that CM weren’t as friendly then at WDW. I just noticed a lot of the CM who worked there seemed to be just working because they have to; not because they love their job. (Example: when riding Space Mountain, and when you see the CM in the control tower, out of all the times I’ve been on that ride when I waived to the CM in the control tower I was waived back five times. One guy saw me waived and rolled his eyes at me. Another time I caught a different guy just chewing on his fingernails…gross!) I don’t expect the CM to be “high on life” 24/7, but I guess I expected a bit more. The Disney Co. cannot be perfect, but I guess we all know that. (I guess I’m a bit annoyed because when Jeff and I arrived at WDW everyone was all smiles and polite to anyone we encountered.)
The one thing I really liked about DL is how the characters would interact with each other and played games, improved, etc. That was great to see. There was no parade and firework show this day.
September 7th (DCA): Jeff and I arrived with my in-laws at 10am. There was quit a line to enter the park but by the time you got in, you realized how dead the park was. Everything was a 5-13 minute wait…nothing more than that. The park was so dead that even though their FP machine was seat up, they didn’t accept them at the front of the ride because the park was so slow. Jeff and I rode ToT and it was wonderful. In fact, I like the ride better here than at MGM. Though, I believe the interior needs more work (as for interior MGM has it set up much better (as for theme.) We rode on pretty much everything (expect for Grizzly Rapids [because I didn’t want to walk around like a drowned cat for the rest of the day] and Screamin’ because it was shut down.) Sourin’ was great, though it seems a bit short of a ride. But it was a wonderful ride to experience. We did pretty much every single ride throughout the park and we were bored. So Jeff and I decided to go back to DL around 3pm to go on some rides, see more characters, go on rides, etc. Again, there was no firework show or parade.
September 8th (Disneyland): We arrive at the parks around 9am and we were able to get into the parks early. A CM told us to go into early entry line because traffic flow (?). We checked out the Steve Martin short flick about the 50 years of DL. That was a cute movie, especially since Donald Duck is in it. We took pictures of characters, went on many rides, and just enjoyed the park. They didn’t have a firework show, but they did have the parade, which Jeff and I didn’t check out. For some reason, we weren’t in the mood to wait for an hour to see a twenty minute parade. The longest wait I saw throughout the park was a 35 minute wait and that was Splash Mountain.
