Trip Report Land & Sea - Baja Style! - Complete

And it's been a while

Well here we are again after a pretty long Disney hiatus, minus a holiday resort-only visit.

In just a few weeks, we're off to the grand state of California! On this journey, we'll visit the Disneyland Resort and sail the Disney Wonder.

Here we are!

As you can see (or sea - get it?) we're on a cruise. We have been cruising during the hiatus.

We've sailed Celebrity:

If you haven't sailed Celebrity and you're looking for a bit more refined and adult (mostly-kid free) experience, this is the line for you. Plus, drinks are included. Lots of drinks. The food tastes better (for the most part) and you have a much better variety. The Edge class of ships are beautiful.

Then we hit this up:

This was a true kids-free experience. The food is amazing! By far the best food I've ever had on a cruise ship. There's some really great outdoor spaces as well. They're working out new cruise line issues so there were some hiccups. Entertainment isn't great and the pool is miniscule. We also had the pleasure of running into a former DCL server we had on the Dream or Fantasy (I can't remember). It was an awesome experience.

We just finished up sailing on this lady:

We liked Celebrity so much we sailed again on the Millennium. This is Celebrity's oldest ship (22 years I think) and there were some spots showing age, but I'll tell you, this in no way detracted from the experience. It's just been Revolutionized (refurbished in fancy terms) and most of the ship is looking great. Again, the food choices....

Embarkation Day Desserts

This is what the dessert presentation looked like every single day.

If you're on the fence about Celebrity, do it.

Next up - our plans!

 

[lostpro9het]

Decent view from the train platform.

 

[lostpro9het]

This s going down! CLEAR TO SAIL!

 

[cgersic]

Wahooo!!! Let's sail!

 

[amjt660]

Hope the cruise is going well!!


Max

 

[lostpro9het]

Couple days in and smoooooth sailings. Tendering at Cabo now. Here are some randoms:

 

[littleroo]

That charcuterie board, looks amazing along with the other pics! Happy, smooth sailing!!

 

[imahistorygeek]

Whale watching was a success!

 

[lostpro9het]

Wine time!

 

[lostpro9het]

…and beer.

 

[MinnieM123]

Wine time!
View attachment 631470View attachment 631471

Wineries are such pleasant places to visit. The actual wine tasting is nice, of course. But aside of that, what I've always loved to see are the scenic vineyards.

 

[amjt660]

Question:

Answer:
Why not?


Great pics

Max

 

[imahistorygeek]

Wineries are such pleasant places to visit. The actual wine tasting is nice, of course. But aside of that, what I've always loved to see are the scenic vineyards.

The area was beautiful and so different than other Mexican ports.

 

[imahistorygeek]

And...we're back! We're still adjusting to the time change a bit and glad to have a few days to recover before heading back to work. I'll post pictures and they'll be loosely in order, but definitely Disneyland first and the Wonder second.

Overall, we had a great time at both Disneyland and on the Disney Wonder. The cruise was so much better than our Dream double-dip this past September. Just because you have an empty ship doesn't make it more fun. For this cruise, restrictions on board were mostly lifted.

Day 1 - Disneyland

Flight out of Atlanta was good and we arrived at John Wayne airport about 10 pm. Our Lyft driver had no idea where to get us and made excuses as to why it took her a good 20 minutes to find us. The airport website is crystal clear for uber/lyft drivers and there's also signage where they should go. We made it to the Best Western Park Place Inn & Suites right across the road. It's basically a motel, but really nice. You can walk right to the parks in a couple of minutes. I highly recommend. The next morning we made our way to the Grand Californian to begin our day. We wanted to be at the park by 8 am.

There's really no special Disney touches at the Grand. It's a nice place and you can't beat direct entrances to Downtown Disney and direct park access to California Adventure.

Next stop is Disneyland. We waited outside the gates with the masses. As a side note, you can only book your first Genie+ reservation at the park, not at 7 am like at WDW. This wasn't an issue because return times were always right around the actual time.

Queuing up for rope drop:

We did learn that people flat out run to rides. The CMs just go with it. Also, I should change the title to something with "attack of the bubble wands" because HOLY SMOKES every kid had one.

Our first ride is always Space Mountain. I've said it before and I'll say it again. DL Space Mountain > WDW Space Mountain.

The music, the two-seater, and the track experience just make it awesome. You don't need a shoe horn to get in the seat. Plus, the CMs were very efficient in loading this ride. If you've never heard the song (Space Mountain Music), take a listen. Around the 1:10 mark you'll heard dissonance in the music, which sets you up for launch. It's perfect for the countdown.

We ran into these guys along the way!

 

[imahistorygeek]

This will be just random photos and observations. At some point, we made our way over to Star Wars land. I'm not sure it fits in the park, but it's where they put it. It's pretty empty at this point and we had reservations for Smuggler's Run. It's the same experience as at WDW, but with less people.

We were the button pushers in the back. If Star Tours and Mission Space had a baby, Smuggler's Run would be it. This is just an ok ride. We didn't ride it again.

We hit up Big Thunder next (I think). Again, this ride is better, especially with the scenes and effects. I'd say the only real issue is the queue, especially when you start getting past the turnstiles. It's pretty narrow. You are thisclose to everyone.

One of my favorite things about Disneyland Park is these guys:

The characters spinning the popcorn reflect the land you're in. They're super cute!

I think the ride that you need to watch the Genie+ times for is Indiana Jones. It was always a couple hours later on the return time. Let me preface this by saying I grew up watching Indiana Jones. I wanted to be Indiana Jones. This ride though...the theming is great, but the actual ride is disappointing when things aren't really working. We rode it twice and I felt the same way each time. This ride has a really long queue (not RotR long), but enough that it's a little tiresome. The single rider line is also gone for this ride.

These two ducks (ducks were everywhere) saw the boat coming and jumped in the water and started swimming towards the boat.

Small World is beautiful on the outside. The actual ride is nice, but I felt like the WDW version had more things to look at if that makes sense. Where this ride stands out is the incorporation of characters from the movies (e.g. Little Mermaid, Mulan)

 

[MinnieM123]

The music, the two-seater, and the track experience just make it awesome. You don't need a shoe horn to get in the seat. Plus, the CMs were very efficient in loading this ride.

I've heard great reviews of SM at Disneyland. I laughed out loud over your comment that, "You don't need a shoe horn to get in the seat."
(SM at WDW is definitely a different adventure from it's sister ride, over in Disneyland!)

 

[donaldtoo]

I've heard great reviews of SM at Disneyland. I laughed out loud over your comment that, "You don't need a shoe horn to get in the seat."
(SM at WDW is definitely a different adventure from it's sister ride, over in Disneyland!)

I’ve been on both, and the DLR version is definitely better.
The WDW version was the first to be built, but, they made some serious improvements to the DLR version…!!!

 

[imahistorygeek]

I've heard great reviews of SM at Disneyland. I laughed out loud over your comment that, "You don't need a shoe horn to get in the seat."
(SM at WDW is definitely a different adventure from it's sister ride, over in Disneyland!)

The older you get the harder it is to get in and out of the SM WDW seats!

 

[imahistorygeek]

We caught a cavalcade coming out of Small World.

The music was a lot of fun!

Next up was lunch. We were just winging it and decided the same morning to look for lunch reservations. The only place available was River Belle Terrace. I booked it with a bit of trepidation. Why did it still have reservations?

We ordered the country cuban and grilled cheese. They were both very good (and messy) and we'd definitely eat here again. Plus, the views from the terrace can't be beat.

Good food is something that we experienced all over the resort. It wins hands-down at DL.

 

[MinnieM123]

The older you get the harder it is to get in and out of the SM WDW seats!

It's funny that was your experience as well. Note: I haven't been to WDW's SM in about 4 years, but the last time I went on SM I noticed it was a little bit harder to get out of the seat. (I hadn't gained any weight or whatever, since riding SM a year prior to that; but for whatever reason, it took me longer to get up out of the seat!) Must be old age?!

 

[imahistorygeek]

We left about midday to return to the hotel and swim. The pool is nice and crowded. We managed to find some loungers and stayed there for a while. I have no idea what we had for dinner. ETA: Sean says we had so much for lunch we didn't eat dinner.

We made our way back to the park to ride some more rides and probably eat dinner. The main goal this evening was to catch the fireworks show at 9pm. The park closed at midnight, but we were still adjusting to traveling and were pretty beat.

Based on photo evidence, it appears we made our way to Tomorrowland. I wish the Peoplemover was still functioning. That would have been a great sightseeing ride. There was some sort of and Incredibles dance party and it was quite popular. Looks like people were working out.

We made our way to Autopia. Lots of Honda signage and less gas smell, which is nice. I drove.

Sean's face is my face when he drives.

You'll notice we are wearing long sleeves and a coat. This trip turned out to be way more colder than expected. It was ok during the day for the most part, but the evenings were quite chilly.

We rode more rides and then decided to make our way to the castle for fireworks. DL ropes the sections off, so the walkways are almost completely clear of people. CMs have no problem telling you to get behind the rope or get out of the way (in the nicest way possible).

The current show is Mickey's Magic Mix. Castle shows usually are a tug at your heartstrings kind of thing, but this show was just fun music, some castle projections (which they also project on Main Street), and fireworks. This is my favorite castle show to date. I'm usually a one-and-done with these types of shows, but I wanted (and did) see it again from the Main Street angle.

After the show ended, we were back at our resort about 15 minutes later. It's that close.

What we learned on our first day at DL. Don't schedule all your Genie+ reservations for the morning. Rides are pretty much a walk on. Wait till the afternoon/evening when the lines are the longest. We used this strategy for the rest of the trip and it worked well. Overall, it was a great day. Crowd prediction levels was about an 8 or 9, but being used to WDW and comparing to a WDW crowd, I'd say a 5 or 6 by midday and a little heavier in the evening. There was still plenty of room to walk around and not be side to side with other guests.