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

Well-Known Member
By castle walkthrough they meant the sleeping beauty attraction that is a walk through set of diaramas. It’s a dl classic that went away after 9/11 but was restored and brought back a few years ago. You have to kinda know about it because the entrance is pretty low key on the back of the castle.

On the monorails... you don’t really notice it from outside... but the dl ones are significantly smaller on the inside. That in part is why there is no standing... there simply isn’t the headroom in the curved roof compared to the wdw design :). The open floor design of the wdw monorails is a modern reversion of the design which made them more stroller and ecv friendly (it took out a bench)
Yeah...what @flynnibus said. Silly weekend got in the way...
 

lostpro9het

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Great report @lostpro9het, I hadn't even considered DL but now I'd love to give it a try in the future. Thanks for sharing.

Let me know if you decide to rent out your points :D
Enjoyable TR as always!
I feel just a little more prepared for our first trip coming up in June, so thanks for that 👍
We're doing a mini Griswold road trip from Grand Canyon to Disneyland aka "Wally World"
Just no Aunt Edna
Awesome TR! Makes me want to go back to DLR and The GC. I did the Storybook Canal ride for the sole purpose of looking for the Disney Cats 🐈! Not sure my DH will go as we moved to Florida in June from Mass to be closer to WDW and the cruise port. Maybe we will catch up with you in May for DVC MM.Happy New Year @lostpro9het and @imahistorygeek
Thank you very much for the great trip report, loved following along. Enjoy WDW for New Years Eve!
Great report. Have a great time in WDW!
Great TR! Thanks so much!
Ha! I laughed so loud at this.
Having grown up with DL, it was really fun to read your take from a first timer perspective. Thanks for the great trip report. I really enjoyed reading it!

Thank you all, I appreciate it!


Were here now, just finishing up lunch before we go see if our room is ready. Its busy for sure but the weather is amazing!

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MinnieM123

Premium Member
What a fun TR @lostpro9het and @imahistorygeek . :)

I've never been to DL, so I enjoyed reading your insights and particularly appreciated all the various photos. It was kinda like a travelogue, and it held my interest. :happy:

So glad your family had a wonderful experience out there in CA, and thank you for sharing it here with your fellow WDWMagic members. :cool: Oh, Happy New Year to you, by the way! :joyfull:
 

lostpro9het

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
What a fun TR @lostpro9het and @imahistorygeek . :)

I've never been to DL, so I enjoyed reading your insights and particularly appreciated all the various photos. It was kinda like a travelogue, and it held my interest. :happy:

So glad your family had a wonderful experience out there in CA, and thank you for sharing it here with your fellow WDWMagic members. :cool: Oh, Happy New Year to you, by the way! :joyfull:

Thank you, ma’am, Happy New Year to you too!


So I was getting our gear ready for our move from OKW to BCV and it hit me, Disney mulch might be one of the most underrated Disney smells! Its almost a constant across all resorts and when I got a whiff of it this morning I immediately remembered our first stays at POP. A nice calm came over me and a feeling of “you’re here” hit me like a sugar rush. So, yeah, Disney mulch is letting me know it’s going to be great day.
 

Captain Barbossa

Well-Known Member
Just wanted to say that I greatly enjoyed your TR! I’m sure it was such an awesome experience to visit the original and know that Walt used to walk all around the park. Also enjoyed your DL vs. WDW comparisons and opinions on which place did better at certain things and attractions. Hopefully someday I’ll get to “the Land”.

Btw, Happy New Year to you and the family! Hope y’all are surviving those hellacious crowds.
 

lostpro9het

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Just wanted to say that I greatly enjoyed your TR! I’m sure it was such an awesome experience to visit the original and know that Walt used to walk all around the park. Also enjoyed your DL vs. WDW comparisons and opinions on which place did better at certain things and attractions. Hopefully someday I’ll get to “the Land”.

Btw, Happy New Year to you and the family! Hope y’all are surviving those hellacious crowds.
Thank you, sir! DL will happen for ya. You’re too big a fan not to.

Crowds are manageable today but nuts yesterday. Hopefully they continue to dwindle.
 

DisSplash

Well-Known Member
I finally made it through your report! It was definitely a fun read, and I was happy to see that Voltron made it home eventually. :) I was taking some mental notes for when we get to the Land in 2022 (my son's chosen graduation trip). I was thinking of a 5-day ticket, with 2 days dedicated to each park, and the 5th a hopper for everyone to get the final rides of their favorites in, or to just savor all of the Disney feels and theming one last time. But is does seem as if you can do all that in 4 days? We plan to be out there for at least 8 days total to maybe hit up Knotts Berry Farm or Magic Mountain (this kid is coaster nut) and to get to the beach, so rest days are not too much of an issue.
Enjoy your New Year's trip - here is to low crowds and maximum FP and ride success! I am expecting to see the churro ice cream sandwich at some point ... :hungry:
 

lostpro9het

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I finally made it through your report! It was definitely a fun read, and I was happy to see that Voltron made it home eventually. :) I was taking some mental notes for when we get to the Land in 2022 (my son's chosen graduation trip). I was thinking of a 5-day ticket, with 2 days dedicated to each park, and the 5th a hopper for everyone to get the final rides of their favorites in, or to just savor all of the Disney feels and theming one last time. But is does seem as if you can do all that in 4 days? We plan to be out there for at least 8 days total to maybe hit up Knotts Berry Farm or Magic Mountain (this kid is coaster nut) and to get to the beach, so rest days are not too much of an issue.
Enjoy your New Year's trip - here is to low crowds and maximum FP and ride success! I am expecting to see the churro ice cream sandwich at some point ... :hungry:
I think your DL recipe looks good. IMO, if its your first time then 5 park days should get you everything in. We really got all of CA done in one day but, dang, GotG and Incredicoaster were worth visiting that park a second day. There was so much to do in DL that we still didn't get it all done in two days. PLUS by the time you go GE will be open so that 5th day will probably come in handy.
I'm pretty sure the churro sammy will go down tonight!

Great report! Loved reading along - can’t wait to get to DL!

Enjoy WDW this week - we are trying to switch our Bay Lake week in August to Beach Club!! Fingers crossed!
Thank you, ma'am! I hope your wait list comes through. BTW, I'm enjoying the progress your master builder is making on his castle, that's a ton of pieces to deal with!

The only thing better than the DL report is a New Years report, I can't wait to hear all about it.
I hem hawed over it, AGAIN, but now find myself with about 200 pictures and a couple videos already so, yeah, another TR will probably follow.

Great TR!!
Really enjoyed the play by play and comparison to WDW

Max
Ooh, coming from a DL vet too! I'll take it, thanks! I can imagine there were a few times where you thought "what is that goober doing, that's not how you Disneyland!".

You did exactly that 😬
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Working on getting our honeymoon cruise planned for this year and then next year we will hopefully head to the west coast!
DCL?


Believe it or not, We're not going to any park this morning! Stormalong Bay is calling my name and DTD is calling the ladies. We will rally at Homecomin for lunch before we head to MK for the remainder of the day.
 

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