Trip Report Loco goes to Hollywood!

Hello once again my friends. It’s finally time for another TR from yours truly(it’s been over a year since the last one)! This one will be a bit different, since we travelled to Southern California rather than our usual destination of WDW. We packed a lot into one week, and I’m happy to share here with you fine people. Let’s get started shall we?

Day one

We had a fairly early flight out of Dallas. I had enough points for us to get a hotel room the night before so we didn’t have to feel rushed getting over there(it’s about a two hour drive).

We spent the evening before departure playing top golf. We were going to be joined by some friends of ours, but some issues arose and they were unable to join us. We still had fun!

Such grace. Such power.
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The wife who is a new golfer.
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Our plan of getting a good nights rest before our flight was not to be. It wasn’t that we were too excited to sleep. Far from it actually, as the hot night of hitting golf balls had really taken it out of us. No the reason we couldn’t sleep was because the hotel was having issues with the fire alarm, and it went off every two hours. The entire night. Without fail.

On the plus side we were quite close to love field airport. Our arrival and boarding process all went smoothly and we departed right on time.

A bit of a shock to the system going from 98 degrees and humid the day before to 65 and cloudy! I wasn’t complaining!
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After a bit of trouble getting my phone to work I was finally able to get an Uber ordered and we made it to Anaheim without any major traffic problems.

Because we had to make some pretty big changes to our original plans, we actually ended up staying at the Hyatt Place by the convention center for a few nights before going on property at DLR. I don’t have any photos, but the rooms here are very spacious and well appointed, and a nice breakfast is included. It’s a bit of a walk to Disneyland, but it is directly across from the Toy Story parking lot, so we just walked over to that shuttle and security checkpoint. It was actually faster to get to the parks from there than at our room at Disneyland Hotel! I’d recommend the Hyatt to anyone looking to save some money, but still wanting a nice place to stay.

Anyways, we got checked in and the hotel had a room available early for us. We got settled in our room and caught a little nap before heading over to downtown Disney to grab a bite to eat.
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We had lunch out on the balcony at Ballast Point. I ordered the fish tacos and A had a burger. We both enjoyed the meal and the people watching from up on the patio.
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Downtown Disney had a few displays for Pixar Fest.
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This is the large piece located on the promenade between the two parks.
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We spent the afternoon checking out the resorts on property and trying to stay awake. I swear I had pictures from that afternoon, but my phone says otherwise. Nonetheless, we were in our room pretty early and called it a night around 9 PM despite our best offorts to stay awake.

Up Next : A day of fun in Orange County.
 
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Loco_driver

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I felt IASM was so much better at DL than WDW also. Love Mr. Toad's Wild Ride and so wish they hadn't take that away from Fantasyland in WDW.
Mr. Toads is an odd attraction, but I do love it! I vaguely remember the WDW version. I know it had two tracks, but I have no idea if anything else was different. It’s been too long! I hate that it was replaced too. They certainly could’ve built the Pooh ride elsewhere without removing toad.

ducks duckling GIF by Super Simple


Loving the report !!!


Max
Hey buddy! Glad to have you along!
 

Loco_driver

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day three continued.


A tour of Mickey’s house was next.
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A photo of Mickey and Wlat hangs in the house.
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Apparently Mickey enjoys watching himself on TV. Or maybe Pluto does
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There are lots of fun puns on real life brand names.
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Making our way to the barn.
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We would eventually find the big cheese himself!
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See ya later toon town. We had a LL for BTMRR we had to catch!
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I failed to get a photo to document our ride on Big Thunder, but it happened I promise.

Lunch was at Carnation Cafe. The sun was beginning to work its way through the clouds.
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A had the turkey club(not pictured), while I had the patty melt.
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A was pretty disappointed in her sandwich. I had a bite, and agreed it was pretty low quality and way too salty! My patty melt was fine, but not outstanding. The meat was not of great quality either. We’ll likely pass on Carnation Cafe in the future.
 

Loco_driver

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day three continued.

After our somewhat disappointing lunch, it was time to head over to DCA for more fun. A quick photo stop at the Pixar fest display was in order.
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Next attraction up was Monsters Inc. It’s always a fun time!
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A stop by a statue of dear old cousin Al near Grizzly Peak.
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The real reason we stopped by DCA!
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Talking Dug is a great character meet! We were missing our actual dog named Dug(who does not talk). A hug from this Dug made A feel better.
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Telling me to wait my turn at the “human fire hydrant”(restroom)!
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After Dug it was time for dessert. @ajrwdwgirl could tell you what my first treat would be! Peanut butter square of deliciousness.
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Not pictured due to Disney not letting us, but we had yet another celebrity sighting over in Pixar Pier. Both Amy Poehler and Tony Hale were at the inside out emotional whirlwind ride to do some promo filming for Inside Out 2! Some of you may recall that we unknowingly saw actress Kristen Bell on our last trip. We were well aware of who we were seeing this time thanks to all of the cameras! Apparently a few other Inside Out cast members were in the park, but we didn’t see them.

I’d gotten our room ready text and we were ready for a break so we headed for the exit. We saw a real celebrity on the way out.
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And a true Disney Classic near the exit!
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Loco_driver

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Loving the report!
Thanks coach!

View attachment 793940

Such a beautiful sight! I hope you got some to take home later in your trip...hmmm maybe I should pull one of mine out of the freezer for a snack tonight.
Haha, I don’t have the self control
to save some for home! 😂

I'm really enjoying this TR!!! You've had some good character interaction so far. Sorry your lunch was disappointed from the Carnation Cafe. Can't wait to see some resort pictures.
We had great character interaction this entire trip! Maybe it was a one-off on carnation cafe, but I feel like we could eat QS for the a lower price and maybe even higher quality. Villas at Disneyland Hotel pics are coming up!
 

Loco_driver

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day three continued.

Making our way to our room. We would of course be staying in the new DVC rooms at Disneyland Hotel. A trail of pixie dust helped guide us to our destination
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There’s a really nice mural featuring both old and new Disney characters in the lobby area.
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We had a deluxe studio standard view. The studios here do not have balconies. Since our room overlooks a lot of back of house areas, we were not bothered by this. YMMV.

A few room pics for those who are interested. The small kitchenette area with the closet to the side. Does anyone ever use the robes?
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Sofa with pull down bed. They wisely used a table that actually has wheels to make it easier to get the pull down bed set up(why they don’t find tables that just fit under the bed is beyond me).
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This small seating area near the foot of the bed was a nice addition.
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The long shelf gave us plenty of room to put our junk things. @amjt660 I swear the golf was on the TV when we walked in. They know me so well!
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The room carries a princess and the frog theme. I believe all deluxe studios do.
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I didn’t get a great picture, but the bathroom was very nice and featured a large walk-in shower with a bench and rainfall shower head. I know families with small kids aren’t too fond of that, but it’s great for us!
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Loco_driver

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
After taking a nice break in our room we boarded the monorail to head to DL. We had plans to use a LL for MMRR. Instead we got trapped by the parade. We were fortunate to find a nice bench and enjoy the parade. The sun was not cooperating for pictures though!
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It was so bright!
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We enjoyed the parade, especially that catchy song! Like the current version of festival of fantasy, it’s a little thin in some spots but still worth seeing.

We both were feeling a bit hungry, so we grabbed some cheesy garlic pretzel bread from Edelweiss snacks.
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It doesn’t loook like much, but this was one of the best things we ate at DLR! So good!

A decided she’d rather kick my butt on Buzz Lightyear than take a second trip on mickeys railroad.
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She was successful in the butt kicking.

We made our way back towards Star Wars land to continue our space themed evening. This quiet section on the backside of BTMRR is one of my favorite places to just relax at Disneyland. We stopped and enjoyed watching a few trains go by.
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We were rudely greeted in Batuu.
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We had a LL for smugglers run. Pics with the Falcon are always a necessity.
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We were assigned engineers for our ride. We were fine with it. Our pilots were a mother and daughter team that were experiencing the attraction for the first time. Needless to say, it was a bumpy ride!
 

Loco_driver

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day three continued.

I stopped to admire this collection of Star Wars oddities. I think this was originally a little shop, but I can’t swear by it.
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One more attraction for our space themed evening.
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The ride currently features new scenes featuring the Mandolorian & Grogu as well as Ashoka from the Disney plus series. We also got an opening scene featuring Darth Vader, which didn’t make sense canonically, but it’s ok.
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It was time to find a spot for the fireworks. All space in front of the castle was already filled, so we settled for a spot on Main Street. It’s hard to beat the atmosphere of Main Street USA at night.
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We shared an ice cream sundae and enjoyed the sights and sounds of the lively evening. It was one of those core memory moments that I’ll always remember about this trip.
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Despite our relatively late arrival, we ended up with a decent spot for the fireworks.
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I did not to take any fireworks photos and just enjoyed the show. I appreciate that they change the show out for different seasons and festivals. The fireworks were of course great. Not happily ever after great, but still great.

I originally wanted to try and stay a little later into the night, but since we’d had such a productive day and were both feeling tired, we decided to call it a night.
 

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