First Disneyland Visit Trip Report! (7/21/13 - 7/27/13)

TuffyCatt

TuffyCatt

Active Member
Original Poster
I’m so excited to be sharing our experience about our first Disneyland trip with you guys! It was such a wonderful experience, and writing about it is a great way to relive the trip. This is my first trip report ever, so bear with me. I tend to be detail oriented and write too much, but I’ll never get this done if I do that too much, so I’m going to try to not go too crazy. I also probably took over 1000 pictures and videos, so the very few I’ve picked out are just skimming the surface. If you are interested in any other pictures or details about our trip, I’d be happy to share anything I’ve got! I know there are a lot of others on here who have done WDW before and are planning their first trips to the other coast just like we were, so I hope I can provide some helpful comparisons.

A little background info about us first. Those going on the trip were myself (Connie, 27) and my parents who are both in their late 50’s. We are huge Disney fans (with my family probably agreeing that I am the biggest Disney nut). We are from Virginia, so Disney World has been one of our favorite vacation destinations for years. My dad first went to WDW way back within the first year or so that it opened in the 70s with his family. My parents went on their first WDW vacation together in the early 80’s right after Epcot had opened. I believe my first WDW vacation was in ’89 when I was about 3. We’ve been hooked ever since, with regular trips to WDW every couple of years. We’ve also enjoyed two Disney cruises. A couple years ago, we realized it made good financial sense to join DVC since we were doing Disney vacations with some regularity, and we’ve really liked the added flexibility this has given us. I’ve also enjoyed trips to WDW as a senior class high school trip, and was lucky enough to go on a wonderful trip with some of my best friends from veterinary school over the summer a couple of years ago. Therefore, suffice it to say that we love WDW and feel pretty comfortable about how things work there.

Last year was my first year out of veterinary school and I spent it in a pretty intense internship to further my training. Long 18-20 hour days, working every holiday, overnight shifts as the only vet in the hospital – it was a tough year, but I definitely learned a lot. We decided back in October that maybe a trip to Disneyland would be a fun way to celebrate the completion of my internship. I was thrilled – I love Disney history and what park is more steeped in Disney history than Disneyland? The thought of finally visiting Walt Disney’s park, which I’d only been able to read about and watch videos of for years, was extremely exciting. We had some bumps in the road on the way there – unfortunately we lost both of our sweet golden retrievers to cancer in the past year. For our second golden, we caught the cancer early enough that we were able to give her some wonderful extra months with chemo, but the prognosis for the type of cancer she had put her at a critical time right when we had planned our trip. Of course, if she was still with us, we were going to skip the trip and spend time with her instead. Unfortunately, she declined about the time we expected and we lost her at the end of June. We have a one year old golden retriever now, and my younger brother decided that he was not comfortable leaving her behind after the recent loss of our older golden. After much family discussion, the decision was made that we’d move forward with the trip, although my brother opted out.

While there was still so much happiness and celebration to be had, we made the trip in the memory of Mina and Caitey, our two goldens that we lost last year. Those who have had a dog, cat, or other pet know what special family members they can be.

We finally decided for sure that we would make the trip and bought our plane tickets on July 4, four days after the end of my internship. Our trip was going to be July 21 to July 27. With my new found free time, I dove head first into planning and reading, and the excitement for the coming trip grew every day.

Coming up – our travels across the country and checking into the Disneyland resort!
 
Californian Elitist

Californian Elitist

Well-Known Member
Congratulations on completing your internship! What an accomplishment. I lost my cocker spaniel, Jax, a little over a year ago to cancer and other problems, such as a dislocated hip and a broken jaw (he had been hit by a car and when we took him to the vet, the x-rays revealed he had cancer). It hurts, but time heals wounds. I miss him very much, but I know he's in doggy heaven, along with your Mina and Caitey.:)

Looking forward to your trip report. Take your time.
 
TuffyCatt

TuffyCatt

Active Member
Original Poster
Day 1: 7/21/13

Disney day was here! We woke up around 4:30 am and headed out the door around 5:30 am to make our way to Dulles International Airport, near Washington DC. Our flight left about 8:50 am for LAX. Getting a non-stop flight was very important to my mom, and now that we’ve done it I have to agree that I would not have wanted to do it any other way. Only 4 ½ hours to get across the country is pretty amazing to me!

Our arrival at LAX was smooth and uneventful. You all got me pretty terrified about how bad LAX would be, but we didn't have any problems at all. The airport was busy, but everything seemed clean and in order. :) We had vouchers for the Disneyland Express bus to our hotel, and it took us about 30-45 minutes to finally catch one (the first one drove by because the bus pick-up lane was so packed!). We agreed that the Disney Magical Express service that Disney is able to provide to the resorts and cruise ships in Orlando is much smoother, but there are so many more resorts in WDW, I can totally understand why they don’t do something similar for Disneyland. The express bus otherwise was great and got us where we needed to be! We were amused that they were playing Despicable Me on the bus as we headed for Disneyland. Since it was my first time in CA, I enjoyed the sights from the freeway around Los Angeles (yes, not much to see, but still exciting for someone who’s never been to the west coast!). Before anyone else mentions it, I 100% agree that we need to see all the other huge number of things that CA has to offer besides just Disneyland. I cannot wait to go back and visit more of the state. However, with our trip being so up in the air until last minute there was just not any time for us to plan anything else. Plus, since it was our first trip to Disneyland, we were happy that we were going to be able to take our time there and not have to rush to squeeze in everything we wanted to do and see.

We finally got to the Disneyland resort area, and by this time I was bouncing off the walls with excitement. There was Disneyland Drive! Look at all the palm trees! The Disneyland Hotel! Yay! I was taking all the pictures I could out of the bus window.
We made stops at the Disneyland Hotel and Paradise Pier first, which I was happy to see as well. Then we made it to Grand Californian, which would be our lovely home for the next week. Stepping into the lobby was quite breath-taking. The overall feel and grandness (haha) of the lobby is very reminiscent of Animal Kingdom Lodge, which is our home resort at WDW. I’ve heard that it’s even more similar to WDW’s Wilderness Lodge, but I have yet to ever visit there, so I can’t compare too much.

At this point it was about 12:30 pm CA time, and the lobby of the Grand Californian was quite busy with people checking in (the cast members kept saying that Sunday is always a busy day). We got ourselves checked in, got some maps and information about the hotel. I asked the cast member if they had any “first visit” pins for us. He disappeared back stage for quite a while and came back with pretty much every other celebration pin they had that might remotely apply to us, but they were unfortunately all out of the first visit pins. But he also came out with a signed picture of the fab four because he felt bad about the pins, which was really nice of him.

Our room was not going to be ready for a while, so we signed up to have them text us when our room was ready and dropped off our luggage with the extremely nice cast members at the desk for them to hold for us. I have to say, it was so much fun to talk to all the cast members because they were all so excited to hear that we were from VA and that it was our first visit to Disneyland. They were all very excited to share their home park! :D

By this time it felt like 4 pm to us, even though it was only 1 pm CA time, and we hadn’t had lunch after an early start to the day, so we were pretty hungry. We headed into Downtown Disney, and had lunch at Tortilla Joe’s. Really good! Dad and I enjoyed peach frozen magaritas and the chips and salsa hit the spot. My mom cannot do spicy food at all (this became a recurring theme throughout the trip) and the waiter was great at recommending a dish that would work for her. It was nice to sit down, relax, and enjoy the fact that we had made it to Disneyland!

After lunch, we explored Downtown Disney. We enjoyed taking pictures of the displays outside the Lego store. We then wandered around World of Disney for a while. I decided to go all out and get a pair of Disneyland mouse ears for the trip, something I’ve never done for a Disney trip, but why not?! It was pretty overcast, but after coming from VA, which is pretty much dripping with humidity in the summer, the weather seemed pretty glorious and we were reveling in it. My mom wanted to see if we could use our WDW tickets (we always buy them in large quantities and then purchase the non-expiration option to save some money). She had heard that we could, but an email to Disney to ask told us to ask guest services when we got there. So we went to the esplanade so we could check with guest services. I was very excited by the fact that we were now right outside of Disneyland’s front gate! Not only that, but we had just walked over here from our hotel! There was the train station! There were the Mickey flowers! I had literally just watched the time-lapse video of them building this area in the 1950’s. All the people lining up right here in 1955 for opening day! Walt Disney was right here! I was in Disney history geek heaven! We weren’t going into the park today but I was just having fun snapping some pictures through the gates and enjoying being there.


Disneyland! by Tuffy Catt, on Flickr
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Unfortunately the nice folks at guest services said that we would probably be able to use our WDW park hopper tickets, but we wouldn’t know for sure until we checked in through the turnstiles. Not the most efficient way to start our extra magic hour tomorrow, but we would wait and see what happened.

After over an hour or so of walking around, we were pretty beat. Mom and I were still carrying our carry-on bookbags and they were starting to feel pretty heavy. Even though we hadn’t gotten the text yet, it was getting close to 4 pm so we headed back to the Grand Californian. Right near the entrance to the hotel is the Studio Disney 365 store and there was a huge crowd of people there for some CD signing. I had no idea who the “celebrities” were, but later found out there they were from the newest Disney Channel movie. The crowd was very excited, and I couldn’t help taking a picture even though I had no idea who these kids were, haha.

We squeezed our way through the crowd and made it back into our hotel. We found some cozy seats in the lobby and waited. I explored the gift shop for a bit. Our room was finally ready a little after 4 pm. We were happy to get settled and get cleaned up after a long day.

We were in a studio villa, the smallest DVC room available, and the type of room we typically stay in even when all four of us are travelling together. The layout was very similar to what we’re used to at Animal Kingdom Lodge but with a nice little “foyer” at the entrance of the room and without the double sinks outside the bathroom. The décor of the room was really lovely, with an earthy California theme. We were happy to find that even with all the recent hoopla about the fridges at the Disney resorts, that our room still had a functioning fridge in it. We had no idea what our balcony view would be like and found that we had a really nice view out to one of the smaller pools.

It’s hard to take pictures that capture a hotel room space, but figured you all would not be interested in the dozens that I took. ;)

After resting and cleaning up we went out to explore the hotel and grounds a bit. We were on the fifth floor out of 6 in the villa section. We found that there was a pretty staircase right by our elevators so we went up just to check out the sixth floor. The layout seemed pretty much the same as our floor, but we noticed that the signs, in addition to “Ice and Vending,” also said “Paradise View Terrace.” Hmm…sounded like a good thing to check out. This led us to a locked door. Figuring that we couldn’t get in, I tried my room key anyway, and the door opened. This led us out onto an open air terrace, and we turned the corner, and…whoa! This was the view:

You have to understand that this was our first view ever of DCA and we were pretty blown away. Paradise pier really is a gorgeous spot. After looking around for a minute, I realized that we were looking right into the lagoon for World of Color! I bet we could watch the show from right here without even going into the park! We decided that we would give it a try, even though we were tired and still adjusting to the time change. We headed down to White Water snacks to pick up pastries and such for our breakfast the next morning. Dad also got one of their grilled chicken sandwiches, but mom and I were still stuffed from lunch. We then went back to our room to relax a little bit and settle in some more with the plan to see if we could head back up to the terrace for the 9:00 World of Color show.

We headed up to the terrace around 8:30, really not sure if the terrace would be open or if it would be crowded. However, it was still open and there were only one or two other families up there the whole time we were there. It was now completely dark and we enjoyed snapping some more pictures and video while waiting for the show to start.


At 9 pm the show started, and not only were we able to see it, but they pumped the music in through speakers right on the terrace. So cool! The view gave a really neat perspective of the fountains. We weren’t able to see or appreciate the video screens at all, so this wasn’t going to change our plans to see the show in the park the next night, but it was such a unique way to be able to enjoy the show. This whole experience made us all the more excited that our trip was starting.


By this time we really were beat. It FELT like nearly 1 am to us, after an early start to the day. We were planning on doing DCA early entry at 7 am (thankfully, CA time!) tomorrow, so it was off to bed for us (only after some Mickey ice cream bars from White Water Snacks, of course!).

Wow – that was super long, and we aren’t even in the parks yet. Hope you guys like details! Day 2 (and first day in the parks!) coming soon!
 
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Pooh'sBuddy

Pooh'sBuddy

Well-Known Member
TuffyCatt said:
I believe my first WDW vacation was in ’89 when I was about 3.
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My first trip to WDW was in '89, too. I had just graduated from college. I feel very old right now. LOL!!


TuffyCatt said:
Those who have had a dog, cat, or other pet know what special family members they can be.
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Yes! We miss them, but they're not in any pain anymore.


Oh, that view from the terrace is spectacular!!!
 
TuffyCatt

TuffyCatt

Active Member
Original Poster
raven24 said:
Congratulations on completing your internship! What an accomplishment.
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Thanks! It feels so great to be done! Now just to find a more long term, less time intensive job...

raven24 said:
It hurts, but time heals wounds. I miss him very much, but I know he's in doggy heaven, along with your Mina and Caitey.:)
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Absolutely, and then you can focus more on the good times you had with them, which is a great place to be! :)

Pooh'sBuddy said:
Yes! We miss them, but they're not in any pain anymore.
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I agree 100%. One of the positives about making that tough decision.

Thanks for the kind words, everyone! Next post is on the way!
 
TuffyCatt

TuffyCatt

Active Member
Original Poster
Day 2 – 7/22/13

Despite trying to stay up to a reasonable CA time to go to bed the night before, I had no trouble getting up at 5:30 am when my alarm went off, since it pretty much felt like 8:30. My poor parents’ bodies had not adjusted to the time change yet and they were up even before 5:30. This would get better as the week went on. Since we were in the studio room, I was sleeping on the pull out bed from the couch, an arrangement I’m very used to from our studio stays at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. However, the couch pull out bed in the Animal Kingdom Lodge studios is horribly uncomfortable, which has led to my brother and me finding creative ways to stack couch cushions so we aren’t sleeping on the horrible “mattress.” Last time we gave in and just brought an air mattress. Expecting more of the same here, I was pleasantly surprised that the Grand Californian pull out bed was very comfortable and I had no trouble with it all week.

We ate the pastries and muffins we had gotten from White Water Snacks the night before (they don’t open until 7 am, so getting breakfast the night before was important if we wanted to take advantage of our extra morning hour), and made coffee in our in-room coffee pot. Sunscreened, and donning my Mickey ears, we were ready for our first day in the Disneyland parks!

Since we were staying at a Disneyland Resort, we had access to an extra morning hour every day. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday we would be able to go early into DCA and Tuesday and Thursday we would be able to go early to Disneyland. The DCA early hours are only available to resort guests, but offsite guests who have a 3 day park hopper or greater also get one early morning at Disneyland as well.

We made our way out of our hotel a little before 6:30 and into Downtown Disney. We did not use the Grand Californian entrance to get into DCA because we heard that it gets extremely crowded and entry is slow at the beginning of the day. It was just a short walk to the esplanade, where we were held at the bag check. We were surprised how long we were held before the bag check was opened – it was about 5 minutes until 7 am when they let us through, at which point we made our way over to the DCA gate. We were at the very front of the turnstiles, but it was our first day in and we were going to try out using our WDW park hopper tickets, so we figured there was going to be at least some delay while that got figured out. At 7 am, the chosen family counted down the opening, and we were off!

I did not have any WDW tickets left before this trip, so we had purchased my 5 day DLR park hopper tickets at way.com. My printed out voucher was changed to a ticket at the turnstile very smoothly and I was through! My parents each had 8 non-expiring WDW park hopper tickets that they wanted to use for this trip. This proved to be a little more complicated. They were unable to make the switch there at the turnstile, so the cast member at the turnstile had to page over another cast member, who took my parents’ tickets over to another computer. We were asked to wait just inside the turnstiles. The process probably took between 5-10 minutes but it felt like forever as we got to watch everyone else rush in and we felt our extra-morning hour ticking away. The cast member finally came back with a 1-day Disneyland park hopper for each of my parents. He said that unfortunately that we would have to go through this process each morning – they just did not have the ability to transfer the WDW tickets into a multiple day DLR ticket. They also did not have any way to do this at any other place besides the turnstile, so we couldn’t get it done until the gate opened. Since we were planning on utilizing our extra hour every day to do some of the more busy rides, my mom decided that going through the process of getting our WDW tickets changed over every single day just wasn’t worth it. She would plan on going to purchase DLR park hopper tickets for her and Dad for the rest of the trip later that afternoon.

With that one hiccup out of the way, we were finally in! Even though we had missed any opportunity to employ the wide-right strategy and get in the line early, we still headed for Cars Land, figuring it was still going to be the least crowded part of the day.

We made our way down Buena Vista Street and into Cars Land! We were finally here! It was hard to take in all the scenery while speed walking to Radiator Springs Racers, but we still enjoyed it and knew we would have plenty of opportunities to stop and smell the scenery roses during our trip. We got to RSR, which had a 20 minute stand by posted. Not bad at all. We wanted our first ride to be together (single rider wasn’t opened yet anyway) so we hopped into stand-by. I’m glad we had a little bit of a wait the first time, because we could enjoy the queue. May dad especially enjoyed the music in the area.

After a short wait, we were on! What an awesome ride! I can tell that it’s the same ride system as Test Track at Epcot, but in my opinion the story, scenery, animatronics, and the race at the end put it miles ahead of Test Track and such a more satisfying ride. Our car won our very first race on RSR (yay!) and we were all thoroughly impressed. We hopped right back on in the single rider line, which was essentially walk-on. My mom and I actually got put in the same car anyway, and dad was in a car not too far behind us. We didn’t realize there was another side to go through in the ride. The first time we had all gone through Ramone’s for a paint job, and the second time we all happened to go through Luigi’s side for brand new white wall tires. My mom and I were disappointed that our car the second time around didn’t have another one to race against, but we figured that meant that we won anyway! :D

After an exciting start to the day, we decided to then make our way over to Paradise Pier. We love Toy Story Midway Mania at Hollywood Studios, but the crazy lines prevent us from being able to ride it very often during our WDW trips. We wanted to remedy that here by riding as much as possible. There wasn’t much of a line (so crazy!) and we were happy to enjoy another iteration of one of our favorite rides. The layout of the screens is a little different and we also found that the game has to pause between games a lot more frequently than at Hollywood Studios (I guess because of the smaller loading area?). However, this just means that you get to have more fun by shooting at 0 point value targets while you wait for the game to resume and you get a longer ride! My shooting skills were a bit rusty, but we had a lot of fun!

Then we popped over to California Screamin’, which also pretty much had no line. We all got on, since one of my guidebooks had said it was a smooth coaster that most folks should be able to enjoy. Dad and I loved it – we both are coaster fanatics (good, thrilling coasters are unfortunately something most Disney parks lack), and California Screamin’ was just plain fast and fun. No gimmicks, just a good coaster. Unfortunately, mom got a little bumped on the shoulder restraint and felt kinda blah afterwards, so decided that wasn’t a ride for her. Dad and I took advantage of the short line and got on again.

Ever since raven made that post about the horrors of the sliding cars on Mickey’s Fun Wheel, I’ve been dying to try them. Yes, I’m crazy! :D Since we knew that the lines for this slow loading ride could get ridiculous, this was our next early morning stop. Dad was more than willing to try the sliding car with me, but mom opted to go separately in a stationary one. She ended up deciding not to ride since the stationary cars were loading more slowly. Dad and I got in a sliding car, and our journey began. The first time the car slid, I was genuinely terrified – you have to understand I thrive on roller coasters, but this thing really scared me. Poor dad started getting motion sick pretty quickly, and actually made a grab for the motion sickness bag about halfway through. Thankfully we had had a small breakfast and nothing actually happened. We found that if you stretch out sideways on the seat instead of facing forward that things are much better. Once I got over my initial terror, I really enjoyed the ride – I like things that scare me a little bit! Dad did better once he sat sideways, but I’m still glad we got off before anything happened. :cautious: He spent the rest of the trip feeling like the ride had conquered him and he kept wanting to go on again – we convinced him that that was not the best plan, so this was our first and only experience with good old Mickey and his wheel of fun. Truthfully, though, I’d love to try it again sometime not having to worry about a motion sick person!

By this time it was after eight and the park was open to everyone. We decided that we were happy with what we’d done at Paradise Pier so far and wanted to look into some of the other big name rides. We also wanted to check on the World of Color fast passes. On our way out of Paradise Pier we ran into some adorable locals:


Ducklings! by Tuffy Catt, on Flickr
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We headed over to the area by Grizzly River Run. We also found the entrance to the Grand Californian over here for us to use later. They were still giving out the 9 pm WOC fast passes, which we expected, but we thought it would be at least worth asking if we could get 10:15 ones instead. The nice cast member at the entrance to the fast pass area said we should get the 9 pm fast passes and then come back to see her. We did that and then she was nice enough to give us hand written passes for the 10:15 show instead – made it really nice that we didn’t have to worry about coming back over to get them later! We were going to be in the yellow section.

I had downloaded the TouringPlans App and this was my first chance to use it to figure out the best places for us to go next. Just a general review – overall I found the TouringPlans app to be really useful and often pretty accurate (though not perfect). It had a few glitches too, but these didn’t prevent it from being useful. You were also able to report actual waiting times and read other times people in the park had reported to get an idea of the most accurate times, but the people reporting times were pretty few, so this was only occasionally helpful. The most difficult rides were ones that only had an “expected” waiting time listed and not a “posted” waiting time. Sometimes these were helpful, sometimes they were completely wrong. Overall, though, it was a nice tool to have.

Anyway, based on current wait times, we decided to grab fast passes for Soarin’ and then head over to Tower of Terror, which still had a pretty short stand-by line. This plan worked out great!

I was a little skeptical about DCA’s Tower of Terror since I knew it was lacking the great horizontal movement of the car and the randomized drop sequence of WDW’s. While I think WDW’s is still better, the one at DCA is really just as fun. Plus, since I didn’t know when the car was going to drop, I was genuinely surprised when the car dropped and still left the ride giddy and giggling, just like I do at WDW – lots of fun!

After this we had time to hit Mike and Sulley to the Rescue! I was looking forward to this, since I love Monster’s Inc. and we don’t have anything like it at WDW. I especially liked the snack machine in the queue:

A really cute and fun ride! I would have liked to have given the big Sulley “animatronic” a hug, haha. Plus I thought the illusion of lots of doors in the final scenes was done really well. To add to the fun, Roz singled me out at the end of the ride and I got to have a fun conversation with her! She asked if those were my real ears (since I was still wearing my Mickey hat) and if I wanted to trade. When I said that I didn’t think so, she replied with a raspy “whateeeever.” Hehehe.

By this time we were set for our Soarin’ over California fast passes so we headed over there. One of our favorites at Epcot, the original is just the same, although I think the orange and pine smells were stronger in California, maybe since we’re closer to the source. ;) I didn’t notice any difference in the quality of the film compared to Epcot’s which I know some people have said. Maybe Soarin’ was having a good day on our last visit to Epcot, or maybe I’m just not discerning enough.

It was not quite 10 am, but we were a bit hungry now. We had reservations for Blue Bayou at 12 pm over at Disneyland, so we wanted something to tide us over, but didn’t want to kill our appetite for lunch. We wandered back towards Buena Vista Street. We caught a glimpse of Buena Vista Street Mickey on the way and enjoyed the Rock Candy Mountain in the window of Trolley Treats. We also happened to catch a few songs by Five and Dime.

We found Mortimer’s Market near the entrance of the park, which has healthy snacks and was exactly what we were looking for. We got a variety of fruits and veggies and then settled down on a shady bench to people watch, the people including the entertaining citizens of Buena Vista street.

While we were sitting, we were approached by Officer Blue who struck up a fun conversation with us. He mentioned that VA was a long train ride from here, and wanted to make sure that we were having the “appropriate level of fun.” He then decided that I deserved a citation, but noted that they only give out good citations here, so this was a good thing. :) He was great. One of those little reasons that make Disney parks wonderful places to be. I made sure to get a picture of my citation, and it will definitely be one of my favorite souvenirs.

After this we still had a little bit of time before we needed to get over to Disneyland. We made our way back to Paradise Pier to take in some of the smaller rides. We enjoyed hopping on Little Mermaid with essentially no wait. I’ve only gotten to ride the new one at WDW once, so it was nice to be able to enjoy the ride as often as we wanted without having to worry about a 2 hour wait. Exactly the same here (without WDW’s queue, of course), very fun, great music…but just not worth 2 hours. A 5-10 minute wait was perfect! Dad and I then rode on the Golden Zephyr – he kept mentioning what a classic ride it was and that he really wanted to ride it. It was a nice, relaxing spinner that went out over the water. Very pretty for a lovely CA day! As we walked around we enjoyed some shows by the green army men and Goofy’s Instant Concert – Just add water! So far the atmosphere at this park had captured my heart – the sunny California weather didn’t hurt either!


Green Army Men by Tuffy Catt, on Flickr


Paradise Pier by Tuffy Catt, on Flickr


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By this time it was about time for us to head over to Blue Bayou in Disneyland for our lunch reservations. We made our way out of the park and back to the esplanade.

Coming up: Our very first time in Disneyland, Blue Bayou, and World of Color!
 
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TuffyCatt

TuffyCatt

Active Member
Original Poster
My day 2 write up is turning out to be pretty long, I think I'll keep breaking it up to make it a little more manageable. Days later in the week should be shorter, since we repeated a lot of attractions! :)

Day 2, Part 2!

As we exited DCA, I was starting to get bouncy excited again. I had literally had dreams about my first entrance into Disneyland once we started planning this trip. As we made our way over to the gates, I warned my parents that there was a good chance that I might get a little teary once we got inside.

We had gotten our hands stamped upon exiting DCA so that we were able to hop over to Disneyland. We were surprised how long the lines were to the gates of Disneyland with it being late in the morning. I don’t think we’ve ever seen long lines at the gates to any of the WDW parks at any time other than opening, although we’re usually there during January, so I don’t know if that counts. However, the line moved quickly and before I knew it we were inside!

Through the tunnel (I looove the attraction posters, something we have at Magic Kingdom too, but here were new ones!) and out onto the sunny Main Street. I spun around, taking it all in. The train station, Walt’s apartment with the light in the window, the flagpole with the dedication plaque, and there was Sleeping Beauty Castle! I’ve heard a lot of WDW vets say that Disneyland’s castle is underwhelming when you are used to Cinderella’s castle, but I didn’t find that to be the case. Maybe because I knew to expect it to be so much smaller, but I think it’s more likely that it’s because it fits this more intimate kingdom and it just seemed right. I don’t know, but I really liked Sleeping Beauty Castle (even though I’m not a fan of pink!).

Overall, I could tell that Disneyland’s Main Street was smaller than Magic Kingdom’s, but it also seemed more authentic. There’s greater variety to the buildings, places to sit outside, and the vehicles! Either we’ve never paid attention to them at Magic Kingdom or they don’t have the number of vehicles going up and down Main Street that Disneyland does (which I think is more likely the case). As our trip went on, one other thing that I would come to love about Disneyland’s Main Street was how full of life it is. We could not walk around there during the day without seeing at least two performing groups and a bunch of characters. It was great!

We decided to make our first trip down Main Street special and take one of the horse drawn trolleys. One had just pulled up in front of the train station and we hopped on. We had to wait a little bit as they switched out the horses. I really like that they have the name tags of the horses in the trolleys!

We enjoyed our ride down Main Street and before we knew it, we were at the hub.


Bye, Eddie! by Tuffy Catt, on Flickr
​
While looking through my pictures, I’m surprised that I didn’t take any pictures of Sleeping Beauty Castle at this point, but there would be plenty to come. What I did take pictures of was Matterhorn! I loved that mountain, and I think it was my favorite unique aspect of Disneyland’s skyline. We were all especially thrilled with the climbers going up and down it, which we got to see immediately! What a cool “plus-ing” tradition for the park to keep around for all these years!

At this point we had to pull out our maps and figure out how to get to Blue Bayou. Using maps to figure out how to get around a Disney Park was a new concept for us! :confused: We knew we needed to get to the area around Pirates, so we cut through Frontierland and made our way to New Orleans Square. We were surprised how quick the walk was to get to this area of the park and we were at Pirates before we knew it! Once there, we weren’t exactly sure where Blue Bayou was in relation to the Pirates entrance, but using the map figured out that it was behind the entrance on Royal Street. With New Orleans Square being completely new to us, I can remember my dad saying “Now this area is amazing!”

We got checked in, and I asked if we could have a waterside table. They said we would have to wait about 20-30 minutes for this, which I was fine with. My mom really does not like to wait at table service restaurants, so the 20-30 minutes for a place that we already had a priority seating reservation was pushing it a little for her, but she agreed. The servers came out about a minute later and told us that we could be seated immediately if we were willing to take a table just one row in from the waterside ones. This seemed like a reasonable compromise, so we took it.

The inside of the Blue Bayou was lovely and I’m glad we had the chance to eat there! We agreed that the concept reminded us a bit of the Mexican restaurant right along the water of the boat ride in the Mexico pavilion at Epcot. Perhaps the idea of Blue Bayou inspired that one a little bit.

For lunch, Dad and I ordered the Slow-roasted Beef Strip Loin. My mom ordered the Tesoro Island Chicken. There was much discussion about what gumbo actually was (yes, not something we have regularly, haha), and my mom and dad decided to try the gumbo with their entrée, while I decided to try the house salad.

The house salad was delicious! It had candied walnuts, cheese crumbles, and a nice vinaigrette dressing. Unfortunately I did not get a picture of my parents’ gumbo. My dad said that the gumbo had more rice in it than gumbo he remembered having in the past, but he absolutely loved it. It was something he talked about for the rest of the trip. My mom loved the flavor of the gumbo, but unfortunately the little but of spiciness to it was too much for her. I shared my salad with her and tried some of her gumbo. I agree the gumbo tasted great, but after having a taste of the salad, I wanted more of that! Bread service was some rolls, and if I remember correctly some AMAZING sweet potato bread (no pictures, we ate it too fast!).

Our entrees came and everything was delicious. The beef was juicy and tender, and the peppercorn sauce complimented it really well. I LOVED the au gratin potatoes – so good! Mom really liked her chicken, complimented with spinach and cheese mashed potatoes. She let me have a taste, and I also really liked it.

As we ate our food, we enjoyed watching the boats from Pirates gliding quietly (except for the occasional rowdy group! :joyfull:) past and watching the “fireflies” blink from the opposite bank. We were stuffed afterwards but asked to hear about the deserts anyway since I had heard something about a “cookie boat” that was supposed to be good. However, they no longer had that on the menu and we decided that we would find something sweet in the parks a little later when we had more room. Overall, it was a great meal that we all really enjoyed.

Coming up: More Disneyland and World of Color!
 
ajrwdwgirl

ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
I love those Main Street vehicles! I never noticed the advertisements in the trolley before, thanks for pointing those out. At first I was underwhelmed by the castle at DL but now I love it, it is quaint and just perfect for the park, Walt did a great job there! And what a nice picture with your parents, love the ears!
 
TuffyCatt

TuffyCatt

Active Member
Original Poster
Day 2, Part 3!

After lunch, my mom knew that she was getting pretty close to wanting to take a break, which was going to be important since we were planning on doing early days AND late nights for the first couple of days. However, Dad and I, pumped up on Disney adrenaline (I tend to be a bit like an energizer bunny if you plop me in any Disney park!) were planning on staying and seeing some more through the afternoon. We all wandered over towards Critter Country and decided to pick up fast passes for Splash Mountain since it had something like an 80 minute line. The fast pass window didn’t start until 4:30 that afternoon, so mom thought there might be a good chance that she’d be back in the park after her rest and we could all go on together.

We then decided to hit the railroad for a round trip. I was really looking forward to seeing the Grand Canyon and Primeval World dioramas, something unique to Disneyland. We headed over to the New Orleans Square station. I enjoyed the attraction poster and the sound of the morse code playing over the speakers (which I think I read is of Disney’s opening day address?). We were surprised when the train came and they did not fill it completely before closing the gate and not letting anyone else on. I guess they had a schedule to keep? Also, a general note, I’ve never seen a train attraction at any amusement park more popular than the ones at Disneyland. I’m not sure if the trains are smaller or if more people ride than at places like WDW, Busch Gardens, etc., but the trains were frequently full and it was rare that we were able to get on the first train that came before it filled up. Anyway, my mom decided she didn’t want to wait for the next train, and headed on out of the park for her rest. Dad and I stuck it out and were able to get on the E.P. Ripley when it showed up next.


Railroad Poster by Tuffy Catt, on Flickr
​
We enjoyed a relaxing round trip around Disneyland. I especially liked the areas around it’s a small world and along the Rivers of America. And of course the Grand Canyon and Primeval World Dioramas were really great to see. What was especially fun was that I had just watched the Disney at the World’s Fair special a few days before and saw Walt with some of the exact same dinosaur animatronics. So very, very cool. One of my favorite moments from our train trip: after we had made stops and several stations, my Dad commented, “They must have a certain look for the train conductors they hire, because all these guys look really similar, like they could be brothers.” To which I pointed out, “Dad, the conductor is riding the train with us…that’s the same guy!” :hilarious:

Once we left the New Orleans Square train station, we saw that the Haunted Mansion didn’t have much of a line at all, and we were excited to see a new version of one of our favorite attractions. The outsides of Disneyland’s and WDW’s are so different, but the attractions inside are so similar – WDW’s just has a few extra updates. I think the stretching room effect at WDW works better, EXCEPT that Disneyland’s room stretches a little bit extra after the pictures are fully extended, and for some reason this extra stretching was very disorienting…it was cool. Overall, we felt very at home in Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion and it was fun to see the different ways certain parts were approached.

After that, we checked the show schedule and Dad and I decided to hit Mickey and the Magical Map. We made our way to Fantasyland from New Orleans Square, catching some of the sights along the way.

Mickey and the Magical Map is in the Fantasyland Theatre over by it’s a small world. It was pretty standard Disney show fare, but I love Disney animated musicals, so anything with Disney songs in it is a winner for me. The cast was high energy and I really liked the costumes and dancing – the Under the Sea number especially! Some of the special effects with the map were pretty neat too!

We headed out of the theater and saw that it wasn’t too long until the first Soundsational afternoon parade. A quick check with a cast member let us know that the parade would be starting right here by it’s a small world anyway, so we decided to stay put! We got some frozen lemonades and staked out a spot on the terraced area by the Merida meet and greet. By this time in the day, the temperature wasn’t too hot, but it was very sunny, making it feel warm. I was definitely going to have to be careful about reapplying sunscreen.

The parade started and it was a lot of fun! It sure was nice to see an afternoon parade with new floats (I’m looking at you, Magic Kingdom!). The Mary Poppins section of the parade at the end was definitely my favorite!

Once the parade was over, it was almost 4:30 and about time for our Splash Mountain fast passes. I had gotten a text from my mom saying that she was back in the park and watching the parade up near Mainstreet, but would meet us near Splash. Since we still didn’t know the park very well, we ended up taking a very roundabout way through Tomorrowland (which was crazy crowded!) and it took us a fair amount of time to get over to Critter Country.

Coming up: Our Encounter with Splash Mountain and World of Color (finally!)
 
TuffyCatt

TuffyCatt

Active Member
Original Poster
Day 2, Part 4!

When we got outside of Splash and met Mom, we were sad to find it temporarily closed. The cast member said they would honor our fast passes at any time, so we went to find something else fun to. Pooh was nearby and had a short line, so on we went! I think the storyline of the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh at Magic Kingdom is much more cohesive and works better, so I’m going to have to give it to WDW on this one. Plus I’m not sure why the cars at Disneyland feel like they are “floating” the whole time. It works for the flood scene, but I like how in WDW the cars switch between normal movement, floating, tigger bouncing, etc. Regardless, much fun was still had (my mom’s favorite character ever is Eeyore so we liked seeing his presents to Pooh at the end :)). I also showed my parents that you can say “hi” to Max, Buff, and Melvin from Country Bear Jamboree at the end of the Heffalump and Woozle scene.

When we got off of Winnie the Pooh, Splash Mountain had already re-opened! It must have just re-opened because the stand-by line was still relatively short, but we went ahead and used our fast passes anyway. Now, a reminder, we usually go to WDW in January. Therefore, our experience with the World’s Splash is that you barely get wet at all. Thankfully, I had gone on a trip to WDW with my friends in August a couple of years ago and had my first experience of riding Splash with the water turned up. I warned my parents that, unlike our usual experience with Splash, we may actually get pretty wet. With this in mind, we hopped on for our first Disneyland Splash Mountain experience.

Splash Mountain is another one that I’m going to have to give to WDW, but I think most people agree with this. WDW’s is just grander (when the animatronic scenes are working of course!), longer, and brighter. It was great to see the differences, though, and despite the ride being shorter, Disneyland’s Splash does have some scenes that WDW’s does not. We were especially interested by the new song bit sung by the mother rabbits (a Wikipedia search tells me the song is called “Burrow’s Lament”), a very somber song that we don’t have at all at WDW. It was also neat to think about how the majority of the animatronic had been pulled from America Sings. Disneyland’s Splash animatronics definitely have a different look to them than WDW’s, and I’m guessing this is why.

Anyway, I really wish we could’ve ridden Splash Mountain again during our trip so that we could take in the scenery some more, but we didn’t because our main focus during our ride was how SOAKED we got! I knew we were going to be in trouble when at the beginning of the ride our log glided by the big drop at the end and we got a direct hit from some of the spray cannons as another log went down. Welcome to Splash Mountain in the summer! The drop that got us the worst was the drop in the dark down into the Laughin’ Place. This drop itself was especially fun since it was in the dark and for a split second we thought we didn’t get too wet. But then – this huge secondary wave must have slopped into the log, getting us all completely drenched, especially our lower halves! The big drop at the end was similar, but we actually got much wetter from the drop in the dark, maybe because we couldn’t see to protect ourselves. Anyway, we had fun, and it was still warm enough out that we weren’t terribly uncomfortable.

As we got our sodden selves back together, we headed into Pooh Corner to look around. Although we didn’t get any, we took a look at some of the amazing looking treats they had in there.

We continued to walk around to try to dry off a little bit and found ourselves back around the Rivers of America, where the Mark Twain was loading. It was its last trip of the day, so we decided to enjoy our first cruise around Disneyland’s Rivers of America. Everyone seemed to rush up to the top deck or to stay on the bottom, so we went to the second deck where it was shady and uncrowded and we could have a good view at the railing.

Despite our huge lunch, we were getting a little hungry at this point. We browsed our map to figure out some counter service options, and decided to go ahead and try Redd Rockett’s Pizza Port over in Tomorrowland. Mom and I got salads (Mom got Starfield of Greens and I tried the Planetary Pizza Salad). Dad got the Chicken Fusilli and a side salad. We also shared an order of breadsticks. Overall, worked for a “lighter” meal that we were looking for and I liked the uniqueness of my salad. However, it was probably my least favorite of the counter service places we tried and not something I would go out of my way to try again.

After dinner we walked through Tomorrowland and saw that Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters had only a 10 or so minute line (so different from WDW!). We really enjoyed Disneyland’s version – the targeting system seems better, I like the light up targets for extra points, and it’s much easier to aim without the gun mounted to the car. I’ve never been a fan of Space Ranger Spin at WDW, but if it was like Astro Blasters I would enjoy it much more. None of us got particularly high scores (I don’t think we were ever able to surpass level 3), but we didn’t care!

It was getting a little bit late, and we knew we wanted to get over to DCA to catch World of Color. However, we were all still pretty wet from Splash Mountain and it was going to be getting chilly soon. We decided to drop by the hotel and change before going back from World of Color. It was sooo nice to be able to do this so quickly and easily.

I snapped a few pictures on the way out of Disneyland. We also enjoyed the Emporium’s window displays. Their displays right now kind of go over the history of them, and it was cool to see the progression.

A quick walk through Downtown Disney got us back to the Grand Californian. We picked up breakfast items from White Water Snacks for the next morning (this time I tried the cinnamon roll – yum!) and got to the room so we could get dried off. After a quick break it was about time to head back into DCA. This time we were able to use the Grand Californian entrance, which was pretty nifty. It drops you in right by the fast pass station for Grizzly River Run.

We were seeing the 10:15 show and it was about time for the first show to start, so we had a little time to kill. We took a moment to look at Cars Land at night before making our way to Paradise Pier.

We were kind of in the mood for some kind of desert at this point, but seeing nothing of interest at the Cozy Cone, we headed to Paradise Pier to start checking out the World of Color situation. We went over to Jumpin’ Jellyfish, which is where the yellow Fast Pass ticket tells you to meet. Since we were there pretty early they hadn’t started forming a line yet, so we just found a seat and relaxed. I went off in search of desert – kind of hard to do in that area with all the lights turned off for the first show. After a fair bit of wandering I found a cart selling ice cream bars and got us some Mickey ice cream sandwiches and premium bars to enjoy.

About 9:30-9:45 or so, a cast member showed up and started putting down tape for the yellow section line for the second show. I went over and asked him if we could get in line, and he was happy to let us do so. Yay, first in line! :D Since we were there for a while, we enjoyed chatting with him about the differences between coasts. He also said his teenage son was in DCA on a date, so he was a little on edge keeping an eye out for him. :hilarious: We also met a nice gentleman who had just flown in from Hong Kong that afternoon to visit Disneyland. He wanted to know our opinion for the best place to stand for the show, so I was able to show him a map I had downloaded onto my phone of the WOC viewing area and the area we were going to try to stand. Technology, for the most part, is nice!

Finally it was time for our line to move to the viewing area. We knew we didn’t want to get really wet, so we went two tiers up from the boardwalk and as far to the very center of the yellow viewing section as we could go. I’m sure the view might be a titch more unobstructed if you’re right up front, but for us this couldn’t have been more perfect.

And so at 10:15 the show got rolling. All I can say is, “wow!” Definitely one of the highlights of the trip – such a beautiful show. We loved our view – a great view of the screens, just a little bit of mist from the water, and right next to one of the little fountains set amongst the audience. Our view from the terrace the night before had been nice, but nothing beat being right there. I didn’t bother trying to take any pictures or videos – as you can see from previous pictures, I don’t really have the best camera and I really just wanted to take it all in. I did catch a picture at the very end, though.

And so, over 17 hours after it started, our first day in the parks ended! We made our way back to the Grand Californian through our entrance near Grizzly River Run (extra nice to have at this point!). Time to rest up, because we were planning on another early day tomorrow!

Whew! Thanks for hanging out with me for this far, guys! It’s really fun to type this up so far!

Coming up: A pretty epic early entry day at Disneyland!
 
C

catchmeifyoucan

New Member
I'm all caught up, and can't wait to hear more! Last time I went to Disneyland was back in the summer of 2006, and since then I can tell that DCA has changed A LOT. I'm enjoying hearing all of the new things about Disneyland, and how they compare to WDW! I want to comment on everything that you've posted, so I've been taking notes about things!

Haha I love how that boy “Disney celebrity” is just leaning back in his chair, sitting there so cocky.

I love those photos of your hotel room, you guys had a really nice view of the pool!

I like the pictures that you took of your balcony view of Paradise Pier! What an awesome view! And wow it’s really changed since I was there in 2006! It’s really filled in! It’s awesome that the balcony wasn’t even crowded for the World of Color, you guys totally found a hidden gem!

I’m glad that the pull out couch was comfortable during your stay!

Haha can’t believe that Midway Mania isn’t as busy at DCA!

I love that picture of your dad with his entrée at Blue Bayou, he looks so excited :)

Haven’t heard of Mickey and the Magical Map, but it looks like my type of show!

That Rapunzel tower in the afternoon parade looks so cool! Can I have that for my backyard? Please? Also, I love your photos of the parade. I agree, it is nice to see different floats from the ones that I frequently see on the WDW trip reports!

Those Tigger Tails are so cute, in the bakery!

Can't wait to hear more!! :)
 

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