Preface:
Welcome to our first Disneyland Report! For those of you who have been following our Saga in our other reports, thank you for joining us once again! For those first time readers, thanks for opening this thread--we hope it doesn’t disappoint!
Worth noting is that this report report is 32 single spaced pages of text. I don't point this out because I want to warn you before you make the time commitment to read it, but because at this length, and given my schedule, much of the report was written very hastily. I hope that it’s somewhat coherent and not rife with grammatical errors, stylistic faults, and misspelled words, but such may be the case.
Along the same lines, there are approximately 500 images among the first set of posts. The way I take pictures, my camera produces a “digital negative.” This is unlike most P&S cameras, which give you a usable .jpg file right out of the camera. This means I have to edit each shot. Normally, I spend 20 minutes or so editing an image that I post on Flickr. Given the time constraints and the volume of images to edit, I edited most of these in batches, grouping similar pictures together and performing quick edits. Consequently, some of the shots may be less-than-stellar.
If you're interested in the photography here and would like EXIF data for the pictures, it can be found on the Flickr page for each image that is on Flickr (denoted by little watermarks that read “Bricker”). To access said data, click the picture, which will take you to Flickr. EXIF data can then be found by clicking the "More Properties" link in the lower right hand corner.
Also, quick note: for those who followed our Disneymoon report, as of yesterday (10/21/10), we’ve added wedding photos!
Alright, enough with the disclaimers, warnings, and other miscellaneous opening remarks. On with the show!
August 2010 Disneyland Report:
This summer has been especially busy for us. As some of you may know, we got married, honeymooned at Walt Disney World, moved to Indianapolis, and I studied for and took the Bar Exam (suffice to say, even though we had concluded our honeymoon roughly two months earlier, we were ready for another vacation). The days leading up to this trip were no different. My parents had come to visit us that weekend, precluding us from doing any packing, so we were left to pack the Monday night before the trip. I had not used by camera once since our Disneymoon, so I figured I could just grab the bag containing it and take it. However, for good measure, I decided to open it up and take inventory, as you never know, maybe in an elaborate plot, our pets had schemed against me and opened it one day, taking everything out. Well, not so shockingly, that turned out not to be the case. However, a different saboteur had attempted to undermine my photography efforts for the upcoming trip: me. It turns out, so I thought, I had left my camera’s battery charger at Old Key West. Luckily, I had roughly 1.5 batteries worth of “charge,” and access to Sarah’s D40, but this would be an issue on the trip.
I couldn’t wallow in the pain of my missing battery charger for long, as I had a great deal of packing to complete before bed. This took far too long, and by the time we had completed packing, it looked like Hurricane Tom had touched down several times in our apartment. Two other things I had to do were book our hotel room at Disneyland and our SuperShuttle from the airport. As you may have guessed, I procrastinate a bit. Although in my defense, the Anaheim HoJo had been adding days to its discounted rate, and I had been hoping to book it. No luck on that.
To make matters worse, Sarah had a death in the family shortly before we left and this would prove to put a substantial damper on the first day of the trip. We considered postponing the trip for a few days as the primary purpose was a wedding that wasn’t until the weekend, but that ultimately wasn’t our best option, so we proceeded with the trip as planned.
Up after only around four hours of sleep, and all things considered, we could already tell the first day would be a long day. However, we’re troopers, so we were ready for the day ahead. We space our trips far enough apart that when we book, we always seem to forget about the misery of getting up at 3 a.m. just so we can arrive at the Resort on the earliest possible flight. Right now, we’re contemplating what flights to book for our Christmas trip, and sure enough, that early flight is once again the flight of choice. Perhaps this time we can at least pack our bags earlier than the night before? Easier said than done.
We arrived at the airport and immediately made a b-line for McDonald’s. Well, that is after going through the slow-moving security line. Even at 5:30 a.m., TSA still is inefficient like clockwork. At least they are consistent. Perhaps it’s just based on my experience going to WDW, but I think that if a line is going to move that slowly, it should at least be well-themed! McDonald’s was next on our plate, and I don’t think I need to reiterate to you all how delicious it was. I really don’t get all of the people who complain about McDonald’s. Like Sam the Eagle would say, disliking McDonald’s is distinctly unpatriotic.
After a while of waiting, we finally boarded the plane, where we had a really great flight crew. One of the guys made up various songs about Southwest to the tune of well known songs at the end of the flight, which were incredibly funny. It might have been annoying had he done this for the duration of the flight while I was attempting to sleep, but constrained only to the end, it was very enjoyable. These manners in which Southwest clearly doesn’t take itself too seriously make it our preferred airline; I know many people look down their noses at “Air Moo,” but we think it’s great fun.
On the ground in John Wayne Airport, we briskly headed towards baggage claim. I fancy myself a badass in the vain of John Wayne (although I am a bit more rugged and suave), so of course I had to stop and pose like my elder counterpart. After screwing around doing that for a bit, and an eternity of waiting on our bags (sadly, without the “magic” of DME to send the bags to your room, you actually have to wait on them; at the start of a vacation, this makes minutes melt into hours), we boarded the SuperShuttle for the Anaheim Plaza Hotel & Suites.
When the bus approached, we realized just what $50/night had bought us. It’s difficult to contend that $50/night is overpriced for a hotel, especially one with this kind of proximity to Disneyland (we could see Tower of Terror as soon as we opened the door to our room), but $50/night was overpriced for that hotel. To make matters worse, when we attempted to check-in, we were told that none of the Queen-bed rooms were available yet, but that “the next level up” were available, if we wanted to pay $20/night more. I wanted to call shenanigans on this one. I had called to book our room at around 10:30 EST the previous night. I highly doubted that they had booked up in the interim, but of course, I couldn’t prove this, plus we were there prior to check-in, so there was no point in arguing. The manager informed me that if we came back the next day she could try to get us in one of the cheaper rooms if it were available. I knew this was just B.S. to try to sell us on the “one time” $20 upcharge--since we would be leaving for the parks each day at around 9 a.m., I knew her answer would be the same each day. She also gave us the option of keeping our bags in an unlocked, completely open area and coming back at check-in. Yeah, given the cost of our luggage and everything therein, and especially after seeing the “quality” of the hotel, I think I’d rather pay the extortion fee.
As far as Disney trips go, at this point, this one was easily off to the worst start. However, we decided to try to put all of that behind us and head to the parks with positive attitudes. Admittedly, this was easier for me than it was for Sarah, as she was still visibly grief-stricken.
We have been WDW Annual Passholders for the last couple of years now, but we still had three days remaining on an old no-expiration 10 day ticket (which is how we used to buy them to save money when an AP wasn’t yet cost-effective for us), so we decided to convert them to DLR tickets since we will be WDW AP-holders for the foreseeable future. This was a pain, especially when you can hear the background music, see the train station, and are ready to go play!
When we finally got inside the turnstiles, and headed down Main Street. I had seen pictures of Sleeping Beauty Castle, so I knew of its diminutive stature, but I was still somewhat shell-shocked when I actually saw it. When looking down Main Street, I had no awe for what I saw at the end. It was not a grand Castle, wasn’t really much of anything. I’ll concede that it’s quaint (as I’ve heard others since call it), but I don’t think quaint is really a compliment when referring to a castle. I realize it’ll never be touched because the Disneyland purists would soil themselves if the idea were presented, but I think that’s just nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake. Objectively, I don’t think this castle stacks up to any of its world-wide counterparts. I’m not suggesting making it something identical to Florida’s, but something reminiscent in scale. I hate when people raise the question "Would Walt Do?" when confronted with something they don't like about the contemporary parks, but I have to wonder whether he would have had this castle razed for something more 'epic' upon the completion of WDW, were he alive.
I initially expressed these sentiments when posting a shot of Sleeping Beauty Castle on Flickr, and the Disneyland faithful ripped into me, some invoking Walt’s legacy as justification for keeping the Castle at its present height, others just generally expressing the sentiment that the Castle was ‘sacred’, and something that should never change. Multiple (contradictory) stories were offered as to why it was that height. I knew I had read otherwise, so I did some digging, and low and behold, I found a remark from one of great Imagineers, Eddie Sotto. Mr. Sotto said this, “Herb Ryman once told me that Walt wanted a big Castle [for Disneyland] but could not afford it. His first rendering that Walt directed showed something much grander. I wonder what the bankers thought when they showed up and saw the final." (Source: http://forums.wdwmagic.com/showthread.php?t=440383&page=79). I guess to each his own on the Castle topic; many Disneyland devotees claim to love its quaintness. I can understand that. However, after growing up frequenting the park with a grandiose Castle, seeing Sleeping Beauty Castle was an underwhelming let-down. Whenever I photographed it on the trip, I attempted to choose angles and lenses that made it appear larger than life to compensate.
Welcome to our first Disneyland Report! For those of you who have been following our Saga in our other reports, thank you for joining us once again! For those first time readers, thanks for opening this thread--we hope it doesn’t disappoint!
Worth noting is that this report report is 32 single spaced pages of text. I don't point this out because I want to warn you before you make the time commitment to read it, but because at this length, and given my schedule, much of the report was written very hastily. I hope that it’s somewhat coherent and not rife with grammatical errors, stylistic faults, and misspelled words, but such may be the case.
Along the same lines, there are approximately 500 images among the first set of posts. The way I take pictures, my camera produces a “digital negative.” This is unlike most P&S cameras, which give you a usable .jpg file right out of the camera. This means I have to edit each shot. Normally, I spend 20 minutes or so editing an image that I post on Flickr. Given the time constraints and the volume of images to edit, I edited most of these in batches, grouping similar pictures together and performing quick edits. Consequently, some of the shots may be less-than-stellar.
If you're interested in the photography here and would like EXIF data for the pictures, it can be found on the Flickr page for each image that is on Flickr (denoted by little watermarks that read “Bricker”). To access said data, click the picture, which will take you to Flickr. EXIF data can then be found by clicking the "More Properties" link in the lower right hand corner.
Also, quick note: for those who followed our Disneymoon report, as of yesterday (10/21/10), we’ve added wedding photos!
Alright, enough with the disclaimers, warnings, and other miscellaneous opening remarks. On with the show!
August 2010 Disneyland Report:
This summer has been especially busy for us. As some of you may know, we got married, honeymooned at Walt Disney World, moved to Indianapolis, and I studied for and took the Bar Exam (suffice to say, even though we had concluded our honeymoon roughly two months earlier, we were ready for another vacation). The days leading up to this trip were no different. My parents had come to visit us that weekend, precluding us from doing any packing, so we were left to pack the Monday night before the trip. I had not used by camera once since our Disneymoon, so I figured I could just grab the bag containing it and take it. However, for good measure, I decided to open it up and take inventory, as you never know, maybe in an elaborate plot, our pets had schemed against me and opened it one day, taking everything out. Well, not so shockingly, that turned out not to be the case. However, a different saboteur had attempted to undermine my photography efforts for the upcoming trip: me. It turns out, so I thought, I had left my camera’s battery charger at Old Key West. Luckily, I had roughly 1.5 batteries worth of “charge,” and access to Sarah’s D40, but this would be an issue on the trip.
I couldn’t wallow in the pain of my missing battery charger for long, as I had a great deal of packing to complete before bed. This took far too long, and by the time we had completed packing, it looked like Hurricane Tom had touched down several times in our apartment. Two other things I had to do were book our hotel room at Disneyland and our SuperShuttle from the airport. As you may have guessed, I procrastinate a bit. Although in my defense, the Anaheim HoJo had been adding days to its discounted rate, and I had been hoping to book it. No luck on that.
To make matters worse, Sarah had a death in the family shortly before we left and this would prove to put a substantial damper on the first day of the trip. We considered postponing the trip for a few days as the primary purpose was a wedding that wasn’t until the weekend, but that ultimately wasn’t our best option, so we proceeded with the trip as planned.
Up after only around four hours of sleep, and all things considered, we could already tell the first day would be a long day. However, we’re troopers, so we were ready for the day ahead. We space our trips far enough apart that when we book, we always seem to forget about the misery of getting up at 3 a.m. just so we can arrive at the Resort on the earliest possible flight. Right now, we’re contemplating what flights to book for our Christmas trip, and sure enough, that early flight is once again the flight of choice. Perhaps this time we can at least pack our bags earlier than the night before? Easier said than done.
We arrived at the airport and immediately made a b-line for McDonald’s. Well, that is after going through the slow-moving security line. Even at 5:30 a.m., TSA still is inefficient like clockwork. At least they are consistent. Perhaps it’s just based on my experience going to WDW, but I think that if a line is going to move that slowly, it should at least be well-themed! McDonald’s was next on our plate, and I don’t think I need to reiterate to you all how delicious it was. I really don’t get all of the people who complain about McDonald’s. Like Sam the Eagle would say, disliking McDonald’s is distinctly unpatriotic.
After a while of waiting, we finally boarded the plane, where we had a really great flight crew. One of the guys made up various songs about Southwest to the tune of well known songs at the end of the flight, which were incredibly funny. It might have been annoying had he done this for the duration of the flight while I was attempting to sleep, but constrained only to the end, it was very enjoyable. These manners in which Southwest clearly doesn’t take itself too seriously make it our preferred airline; I know many people look down their noses at “Air Moo,” but we think it’s great fun.
On the ground in John Wayne Airport, we briskly headed towards baggage claim. I fancy myself a badass in the vain of John Wayne (although I am a bit more rugged and suave), so of course I had to stop and pose like my elder counterpart. After screwing around doing that for a bit, and an eternity of waiting on our bags (sadly, without the “magic” of DME to send the bags to your room, you actually have to wait on them; at the start of a vacation, this makes minutes melt into hours), we boarded the SuperShuttle for the Anaheim Plaza Hotel & Suites.
When the bus approached, we realized just what $50/night had bought us. It’s difficult to contend that $50/night is overpriced for a hotel, especially one with this kind of proximity to Disneyland (we could see Tower of Terror as soon as we opened the door to our room), but $50/night was overpriced for that hotel. To make matters worse, when we attempted to check-in, we were told that none of the Queen-bed rooms were available yet, but that “the next level up” were available, if we wanted to pay $20/night more. I wanted to call shenanigans on this one. I had called to book our room at around 10:30 EST the previous night. I highly doubted that they had booked up in the interim, but of course, I couldn’t prove this, plus we were there prior to check-in, so there was no point in arguing. The manager informed me that if we came back the next day she could try to get us in one of the cheaper rooms if it were available. I knew this was just B.S. to try to sell us on the “one time” $20 upcharge--since we would be leaving for the parks each day at around 9 a.m., I knew her answer would be the same each day. She also gave us the option of keeping our bags in an unlocked, completely open area and coming back at check-in. Yeah, given the cost of our luggage and everything therein, and especially after seeing the “quality” of the hotel, I think I’d rather pay the extortion fee.
As far as Disney trips go, at this point, this one was easily off to the worst start. However, we decided to try to put all of that behind us and head to the parks with positive attitudes. Admittedly, this was easier for me than it was for Sarah, as she was still visibly grief-stricken.
We have been WDW Annual Passholders for the last couple of years now, but we still had three days remaining on an old no-expiration 10 day ticket (which is how we used to buy them to save money when an AP wasn’t yet cost-effective for us), so we decided to convert them to DLR tickets since we will be WDW AP-holders for the foreseeable future. This was a pain, especially when you can hear the background music, see the train station, and are ready to go play!
When we finally got inside the turnstiles, and headed down Main Street. I had seen pictures of Sleeping Beauty Castle, so I knew of its diminutive stature, but I was still somewhat shell-shocked when I actually saw it. When looking down Main Street, I had no awe for what I saw at the end. It was not a grand Castle, wasn’t really much of anything. I’ll concede that it’s quaint (as I’ve heard others since call it), but I don’t think quaint is really a compliment when referring to a castle. I realize it’ll never be touched because the Disneyland purists would soil themselves if the idea were presented, but I think that’s just nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake. Objectively, I don’t think this castle stacks up to any of its world-wide counterparts. I’m not suggesting making it something identical to Florida’s, but something reminiscent in scale. I hate when people raise the question "Would Walt Do?" when confronted with something they don't like about the contemporary parks, but I have to wonder whether he would have had this castle razed for something more 'epic' upon the completion of WDW, were he alive.
I initially expressed these sentiments when posting a shot of Sleeping Beauty Castle on Flickr, and the Disneyland faithful ripped into me, some invoking Walt’s legacy as justification for keeping the Castle at its present height, others just generally expressing the sentiment that the Castle was ‘sacred’, and something that should never change. Multiple (contradictory) stories were offered as to why it was that height. I knew I had read otherwise, so I did some digging, and low and behold, I found a remark from one of great Imagineers, Eddie Sotto. Mr. Sotto said this, “Herb Ryman once told me that Walt wanted a big Castle [for Disneyland] but could not afford it. His first rendering that Walt directed showed something much grander. I wonder what the bankers thought when they showed up and saw the final." (Source: http://forums.wdwmagic.com/showthread.php?t=440383&page=79). I guess to each his own on the Castle topic; many Disneyland devotees claim to love its quaintness. I can understand that. However, after growing up frequenting the park with a grandiose Castle, seeing Sleeping Beauty Castle was an underwhelming let-down. Whenever I photographed it on the trip, I attempted to choose angles and lenses that made it appear larger than life to compensate.
