Just Returned from Disneyland

[allgar]

Spent three days at DL resort. It was a great trip, weather was really nice, the crowds weren't too bad and we got VERY lucky and got to experience everything including:

1) The new parade: We enjoyed it, the drummers at the start were highlight for me. Overall it's not the kind of parade I really like the most, I'm more for the "emotional/magical" kinds of parades than this one, which is more upbeat party style parade, but it was pretty good. Better than the Block Party Bash and other parades of the ilk.

2) The new Little Mermaid ride: It was pretty good, but I'm hesitant on this one, not sure if it's going to have enough to really be a good draw. It tells the story of the movie pretty well and I guess on a grand scheme it's about as good as Peter Pan, Pooh, Mr. Toad, Pinnochio, etc. but it's not IMHO much more than that.

3) The new Star Tours: fan reaction while I was on the ride was VERY encouraging. Overall i think people are really going to like this new ride. For me, it wasn't incredible, still too bumpy and the story itself was just so so. The cut scenes seemed disjointed and it didn't make a lot of sense how I got from racing in a pod race to the shootout with Vader and friends. Still, like I say, others on the ride LOVED it and clapped and cheered. So if you're a fan, you'll likely really enjoy it.

4) The newly re-opened Splash Mountain was great. I couldn't get over how different it was from the one at the MK. All of the animatronics looked fresh, the sound was awesome and the splashes were plentiful. (we got pretty wet, even without a giant water cannon soaking us - which i hear is now gone from MK as well).

5) World of Colour was the best nightime show I've seen since the first time I caught Fantasmic. I still love Fantasmic, but World of Colour was incredible too.

Overall it was a great experience being back in California at the original park. Just loved experiencing the original rides, Pirates is great, simply great. Mr. Toad is a great dark ride too, interesting story and a lot of fun. Alice in Wonderland is equally cool and an innovative ride experience. We just had such a great time.

Thanks to those who gave us hints about World of Colour and when to avoid Disneyland (on the Friday night). We took your advice and had no problems at all with crowds or anything. Just super.

 

[Mukta]

I'm so glad that you enjoyed your trip. Thank you for the review!

Where did you end up eating on this trip? How was the food?

 

[allgar]

Food was pretty good... let's see if I can search my memory banks for you on the dining. Breakfasts were had at the hotel. A fruit, a pastry, coffee, we brought granola bars to the park for the early snack.

As a general rule we go to the parks for pretty long days so we have a very early breakfast, have a first lunch around 11:30 (which is almost always one dish split between the two of us), then we eat again around 3ish (again we split another meal), and we have a relatively late dinner. Of course snacks are a must and we had the following over our three days: Dill Pickle (morning snack), caramel corn (during WoC), popcorn (during Fantasmic), dole whip (Friday afternoon we split one), fudge (Thursday evening we split some fudge but really I ate most of it), a chocolate turtle type thing (during Fantasmic), soft serve ice cream (Saturday Afternoon - a little magic here, when we went to ask guest relations where this was at CA they gave us a voucher for two free cones), hand scooped ice cream cone (each had one Thursday afternnon), and a cupcake (during Fantasmic).

Here's what else we had:

Thursday: we split a turkey sandwich, with lentil salad, baked beans for first lunch - at the River Belle Terrace. This was an awesome sandwich, cranberry chutney on it was amazing. Second lunch was a corn dog that we split. Truly the corn dogs are inspiring at DL resort LOL. Dinner was at Coco's (on the walk home from the parks around 8ish - DL closed early that day and we weren't going to see WoC until Friday night), we both had burgers that were very good, some of the best burgers we've ever had really.

Friday: Split chicken soft tacos at the Wharf which were pretty good. Second lunch we split the roast beef at the French Market, and shared a side salad. This was also very good. Dinner was at ESPN, wife had ribs (which were very good) and I had the half chicken dinnner (also very good) both of us had salads with our meals.

Saturday: We had to go back for the sandwiches we liked them so much the first time, we each had one this time, mine was the Roast Beef, wife had Turkey again. Both were excellent. Honestly I found having my own sandwich with the beans and a side dish (cole slaw) was a lot of food. Second lunch/dinner we split a salad bowl over at the wharf, chicken salad with walnuts and cranberries in a bread bowl. This was also very good. We just couldn't eat another bite after that so JUST had Popcorn and some sweets during Fantasmic LOL

As you can see, we don't do a lot of sit down meals. The counter service meals at DL and CA were better IMHO than at DW. As many have related, splitting meals is a good way to keep from being overfull and we try to get as much "greens" into us whenever we can. All in all the meals were very pleasing.

 

[Nicole220]

Wow, you got really lucky with experiencing all the new fun here at the DLR! I'm glad you guys had an awesome trip! I usually don't hear a whole lot of positives about DLR food so that's great that you enjoyed it all!