Trip Report The “lets count the ways Land is greater than World” as seen through the eyes of the #noobsfromgeorgia.

Whelp, this may be a record start of a TR for me. I’m sitting in LAX right now waiting to board and doing my best to put off grading the 30 term papers I need to have done by Monday so why not start this report! There is no true PTR to reference for this trip other than the breadcrumbs I dropped over in the Deja Vu TR. The lowdown is as follows:
The crew: DW, DD, and Myself

Lodging: 1 night at Paradise Pier and 4 nights at The Grand Californian.
The plan: 2 days at Disneyland and 2 days at California Adventure in the following order CS/DL/CA/DL

Despite the title, I promise this wont be a dump on WDW TR but it was hard to ignore the things that DL does so dang well. That said, lets do this.

This journey starts with a night at the Holiday Inn & Suites Atlanta Airport-North. We’ve stayed here once before for a Disney trip and had a great experience. What is nice about this place is you get to park your car for the length of the trip just for staying the night at the hotel and they shuttle you to and from the airport. This is especially nice when you have an early flight, which we did. The accommodations are nice enough and serve the purpose.

We let yelp help us find dinner and found a fantastic taco stand located in a hole-in-the-wall in the bad side of town. Worth it!

As I said before we had to fly out at 06:13 which meant we had to get up early. Andrew W.K woke us up at 04:10 so we could get down to the lobby for the 4:40 shuttle. This was still better than the 3:00 wakeup call we would have had to do if we drove straight from home!

My naive mind had me thinking we would be the only folks at Atlanta’s Hartsfield–Action-Jackson- Atlanta International Airport and Spaceport. Yeah, it was hopping!

We had a mild wait to get through security and were soon enjoying some bagels at our gate with 30ish minutes to spare.

This was our first time flying American and I would absolutely fly them again! The complementary in-flight movies/TV on demand for laptops and iDevices was appreciated and every row had charges to plug your devise in! We got seated and I immediately had to embarrass the kid before watching The Avengers: Half Ya’ll Gonna Die.

 

[CaliKris]

Great video of Incredicoaster! I couldn't ride on Black Friday because of my lower back, so thanks for that!

Only difference is DCA's Little Mermaid rarely has more than a 5 minute wait. Oh, and the queue in MK is far superior!

Golden Zephyr! I rode that once when the kids were little and DCA had first opened. Your video captures that one perfectly as well. LOL!

 

[coachwnh]

There was one other distraction along the way that turned into the most frightening ride of the whole trip. A ride that nearly brought 2 out of 3 of us to tears from fear. The ride that I couldn't get my head around as being the one thing that would scare my two ladies. Any guesses?

Spoiler: Did you guess it?

Yup, Mickey's Fun Wheel terrified my two ladies! Things were all cool until we got about a third of the way up when our gondola had a big shift and there was this screeching sound...from the girls! It was quite comical and I got to enjoy two experiences at once. The ride did afford some interesting pictures of the parks.
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Love it!!!!!! Mickey's "Death Wheel" is how @raven24 described it to me after our first trip!

 

[MrMcDuck]

Nice trip report!

 

[LeighM]

I was a young girl in the 80s and my male cousins would never let me play with their Transformer toys because they said it was "just for boys" and I was so jealous. None of my toys changed shapes like that.

 

[lostpro9het]

We left Little Mermaid and made for Guardians. We passed through Hollywood to reach our destination.

As we met the end of Hollywood we turned to see GotG!

Great video of Incredicoaster! I couldn't ride on Black Friday because of my lower back, so thanks for that!

Only difference is DCA's Little Mermaid rarely has more than a 5 minute wait. Oh, and the queue in MK is far superior!

Golden Zephyr! I rode that once when the kids were little and DCA had first opened. Your video captures that one perfectly as well. LOL!

Thanks so much!

Love it!!!!!! Mickey's "Death Wheel" is how @raven24 described it to me after our first trip!

I love it but the ladies...not so much.

Nice trip report!

Thank you, sir!

 

[lostpro9het]

So the premise of the ride is you are guests of The Collector visiting his domain. The queue, which includes The Collector's office, is lined with artifacts he has collected.

When you enter his office and start to hear from him Rocket cuts in and informs you of the real plan of breaking the Guardians out. A cool detail at he end of Rocket's speech is an item he steals back for Quill, pick coming on a future ride.

 

[lostpro9het]

While in the queue I grabbed a few more Incredicoaster FPs for a little later.
A few more artifacts that got collected.

One detail that I think they missed when the new overlay came in was this:

I may be wrong, maybe The Collector outfits his compound with vintage General Electric gauges. He could be a hipster like that.

In case you were wondering who the preferred employee is.

They almost look like they enjoy it!

Our opinions were split here. I LOVED GotG and felt it was better than ToT. I liked the soundtrack of the ride and the intense nature of all the drops, and there were more drops. While I think the ladies enjoyed it they had a common point that ToT builds some anticipation/fear with the big drop whereas GotG is just go-go-go. Another cool thing is the music changes with each ride and during the night rides the scenes changed too.

 

[lostpro9het]

After our visit with The Collector we decided to go do standby for Monsters Inc. This was a super cute dark ride with a lot of nice details. There is a cute hidden Mickey in a crowd of monsters and the smell of ginger as you enter Harryhausen's are great touches.

 

[Rodj]

One detail that I think they missed when the new overlay came in was this:
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Fun Fact: The service doors/ "B 3" doors still have the ToT theming to it. The only time you can see it is if the service lights are on.

 

[lostpro9het]

After our stroll through Monstropolis a case of the hangries was starting to come over the ladies so we were on a mission for some food. This was a possibility but with Festival of Holidays the DW had other plans.

We continued on towards the booths and passed a few cute interactions along the way.

We grabbed the DW a menu to make out her plan of attack.

While she did that I grabbed some liquid lunch.

This was Legends Brewery, Cookies Galore, Chocolate Cookie Milk Stout 3.75/5 It was sweet and chocolaty.
Being a stout/porter guy I really enjoyed this and think I was the best brew of the trip, it would make an encore later.

Knowing we would be trying a lot of HoF food we went ahead and purchased a S&S Pass. This ended up benefiting us in more ways than just food savings. More on that later

We knew even before boarding the plane that we wanted the Turkey & Stuffing Tamale but the DW decide to ease into things with the Chorizo Queso Fundido and the Cornbread Cakes with Braised Collard Greens and Smoked Bacon Gravy

DANG, these things were GOOD! These were both repeatable items but with so many good looking options we didn't have time to repeat them. While the DW and I shared thee the DD went with a Carne Asada Burrito from Paradise Garden Grill, which I failed to grab a picture of.

Fun Fact: The service doors/ "B 3" doors still have the ToT theming to it. The only time you can see it is if the service lights are on.

I'm not surprised, I'm sure it was quite the job to roll out the new overlay. Do you think it was on purpose or accidental?

 

[Miceberg]

I appreciate Disney's ability to screw up the name of their own theme park - check out the tabs. Disney California Advneture.

 

[lostpro9het]

The food was excellent and the hangry feelings had subsided. We decided to head back towards Cars Land to check out the other two rides there. Along the way we caught the tail end of the toys playing drums. What we saw was great so we decided to come back and catch their full show.

First ride up for us would be Tow Mater. The ride was cute but Tow Mater singing Christmas and Chanukah was where it was at! he really set the festive mood for his ride.

After Mater we made our way deeper into CL.

I appreciate Disney's ability to screw up the name of their own theme park - check out the tabs. Disney California Advneture.

Nice catch! Never even noticed that. Of course my grasp of the English language is suspect at best.

 

[Zipadeelady]

Um....is it finals week? Where have you been?

 

[amjt660]

@lostpro9het :
Loving this report so far
I am glad you are enjoying DCA and soon to be enjoying Walt’s park

My girls have been to DL one more time than WDW - and we live in the east side of NA

It is my favourite resort in the world

Following along

Max

 

[lostpro9het]

Um....is it finals week? Where have you been?

You're pretty close! Finals start Monday. I've been crazy busy at work and was at a conference most of this week. Coincidentally, one of my coworkers who also attended the conference with me is a member here and was on me about getting updates on the Christmas overlays so I better get cracking! Thankfully, we are off in two weeks for two weeks for Christmas and I hope to have this wrapped up before our NewYearsEve trip. Speaking of which, we just allowed vacation creep to enter in and now we will be at Coronado Springs, for the first time, for NYE before moving to BVC for the week.

@lostpro9het :
Loving this report so far
I am glad you are enjoying DCA and soon to be enjoying Walt’s park

My girls have been to DL one more time than WDW - and we live in the east side of NA

It is my favourite resort in the world

Following along

Max

Thank you, sir! Yes, Walt's park is ridiculously wonderful and a metric for what Disney CAN do despite what they choose to do in Orlando. I'm leaning with you in the "favorite park" category. I struggle giving it the better resort node, though. While the quality of content smashes Orlando, the diversity of content, as well as restaurants, goes to WDW IMO.

SO, we left off with a little Mater Christmas spin and decide to complete the Cars Land ride trifecta with a visit to Luigi Casa Della Tires.

Once again the theming was exceptional.

Even the flowers guiding the queue were beautiful.

Now, I had no idea going in what this ride was all about. Honestly, I did almost no recon for this trip as I didn't want to ruin anything and wanted some genuine reactions to the parks and rides. Luigis is a straight up cute kids experience and not really a ride even though you do technically "ride". Essentially you board your vehicle and enjoy a scripted dance to music. Watching it was almost more fun than being in a car experiencing it.

Again, cute kids experience. After Luigis we just happened upon Mater making his rounds for photos.

 

[lostpro9het]

After our Cars Land visit we were coming up on time for The Toys to be drumming out their beats. We made for the hub and grabbed some good spots. A few minutes later we could hear them make their way. They were just a trio this go-around. It seems the female drummer was taking a break. I was a bit put out because our DD is in percussion and I really wanted her to see the female drummer hammer it out. Thankfully, I was the only one slightly put out by this as these three put on a fabulous show!


After some beats our next FP with the Incredicoaster was up! I just love this ride! I think it has a little bit of everything. I grabbed the takeoff as a spectator this go around too.

It was a little after noon and we decided to go and check in at the GC to at least get our number in for texting. Along the way the ladies needed some sugar to fuel their short walk and went with this holiday treat. I don't recall what i was but they sure were not complaining.

If I hadn't mentioned it yet, the VGC having a private entrance into CA was AWESOME! We had a very short walk from PP to our resort. As we entered the lobby we once again got strong flavors of Wilderness Lodge with a twist of Grand Californian. The piano player was exceptional and added some festive flair to our visit.

Once again, the lobby was hopping and I queued up to wait for check in. After about eight minutes, which included chatting up a local who was checking in about the Red Sox and Dropkick Murphys, it was my turn. I had a great experience with a CM whose name I forgot. she was very pleasant and made sure we had some buttons for the remainder of our trip.

She informed us that our room was ready! She may have been more surprised than we were. She said rooms were usually never ready this early. I certainly had no complaints! She wished us well with a map and some room keys and we were off!

 

[lostpro9het]

I grossly overestimated the size of the resort. I had envisioned a large sprawling layout similar to what WDW offers. We were in our room in about 2 minutes! Less than 5 minutes later bell services arrived with our luggage! Room 5510 was perfect.

 

[lostpro9het]

The only thing that rivaled our room might have been our room's view! There was no picking room preferences prior to arrival like in WDW so this was pure chance. This was pretty much a close up view of what we had at Paradise Pier Hotel

It took all of 3 minutes before the DD realized there were robes in the closet and decided this was her new hotel wardrobe.

Still feeling the effect of our travels and having already knocked out 10+rides by lunch, the ladies were ready for a nap. I let them rest for a while and took care of classwork and caught up on some work emails. After a while we decided to grab an early dinner before heading back to the park. Food options are slim compared to WDW but what they have is still pretty good. The ladies decided pizza would be good for dinner so we opted to try out Naples. Despite its similarities to Via Napoli; the food, service, and ambiance was far superior, i.e. excellent pizza not lazily thrown together, no pretentious servers too good to do their job, and no kids running around playing soccer while you're trying to eat(true story). Dinner was good as were the views. We enjoyed what we had and would repeat here on future visits.

 

[amjt660]

I understand your thinking on wdw having more dining options but I guess if I had to sum up the two resorts in one word each...

WDW is quantity and DLR is quality

Both are great places to visit

Max

 

[imahistorygeek]

Yes, Walt's park is ridiculously wonderful and a metric for what Disney CAN do despite what they choose to do in Orlando. I'm leaning with you in the "favorite park" category. I struggle giving it the better resort node, though. While the quality of content smashes Orlando, the diversity of content, as well as restaurants, goes to WDW IMO.

Once again the theming was exceptional.

Luigi's is a straight up cute kids experience and not really a ride even though you do technically "ride". Essentially you board your vehicle and enjoy a scripted dance to music. Watching it was almost more fun than being in a car experiencing it.

Again, cute kids experience. After Luigi's we just happened upon Mater making his rounds for photos.

That's the feeling I think we both left with - Disneyland is what can be done and Walt Disney World is what they have chosen to to do. It was an eye-opening experience to see what it could be in Orlando.

The theming is top-notch and there are so many details to see. I know we didn't see half of the details in these parks.

I loved Luigi's! This was such a cute ride and I loved the whole choreographed "dance" routine.

Mater and Lightning McQueen actually driving on the streets was great! It really adds to the experience when you see them moving along the streets instead of just being parked for photos.

The only thing that rivaled our room might have been our room's view! There was no picking room preferences prior to arrival like in WDW so this was pure chance. This was pretty much a close up view of what we had at Paradise Pier Hotel.

The ladies decided pizza would be good for dinner so we opted to try out Naples. Despite its similarities to Via Napoli; the food, service, and ambiance was far superior, i.e. excellent pizza not lazily thrown together, no pretentious servers too good to do their job, and no kids running around playing soccer while you're trying to eat(true story). Dinner was good as were the views. We enjoyed what we had and would repeat here on future visits.

Via Napoli has nothing on this place. The pizza was great along with the atmosphere. Plus, we just walked right out of the hotel's Downtown Disney entrance and it was right across the way. Everything was very conveniently located. This convenience of having everything in arm's reach is one of the highlights of this trip.

I understand your thinking on wdw having more dining options but I guess if I had to sum up the two resorts in one word each...

WDW is quantity and DLR is quality

Both are great places to visit

Max

Max, you summed it up nicely. We had some really great food on this trip. There was nothing we had that wasn't good. The food booths for the holiday festival were amazing. If I had to compare the food in the food booths at WDW and DLR, WDW is just fine, but we really don't do out of our way to get anything. I wouldn't make a special trip to WDW for any of their food booths, but I would definitely make a special trip to DLR for the food booths.

We had some really great food at Lucky Fortune Cookery. I'm particular about Chinese food, and they actually had curry on the menu. It was excellent.

Maybe I'm wrong, but DLR doesn't have a dining plan and that has got to play into the quality of the food at DLR.

Sure, WDW has tons of different places to eat and some restaurants with very unique theming, but the quality in most of those places just isn't there.