lenshanem
06-22-2006, 08:50 PM
Disneyland Hotel
Monday, 6/12/06 – Friday, 6/16/06
VacationEars – me, DH, DD8 and DD5
OK…so I have a flying phobia, but DH really, REALLY wanted to go to DL during the 50th anniversary celebration so I reluctantly gave the go ahead and for the first time ever let him do almost all the trip planning. Wow, hard to believe, uh?!? We haven’t been to DL since 1999 (pre DCA) and we were amazed at the expansion. Wow, they really must have bought out alot of hotels! I’ve gotten where I hate sitting down and doing these trip reports, but I feel like an incomplete person if I don’t do one (Weird, I know.) so here goes…
DISNEYLAND
I’ll start with the most important – Disneyland. We went two days here – Tuesday and Thursday. DH planned our park days using ridemax and it worked fairly well at this park. We decided to split up the park - left side on Tuesday and right side on Thursday. Since I consider WDW my second home I’ll basically compare the two…
Small, but cute. It really does feel like Walt will come walking around the corner here. What a nice feeling! One not so nice feeling is not knowing where every bathroom is located at and DD5 insisting we find out. I’ll just go thru the park and point out things that stuck out to me –
Main Street – Hey, look the Emporium doesn’t take up the entire street and there are still some cool things here!
Disneyland : The First 50 Magical Years – Sure, it left a tear in my eye much to DH’s amusement, but I think the film over at MGM is much better and alot more touching. (As always, these are just my personal opinions!)
Haunted Mansion – KILLER! (No pun intended.) Loved the cool new bride.
POTC – Closed much to our displeasure. (Note: I’m crying here…)
The Disney Gallery – Cool artwork, but they were totally put out we brought a 5 year old up there. A cast member made a rude comment about she better not touch anything or she’ll be having to save up her piggy bank for years. UH?!? Everything is behind glass lady.
Splash Mountain – Heads up! The boats sit single, not double like at WDW. DD5 almost had a heart attack when we tried to sit her by herself so we walked on out. We later discovered if you request the back seat you can sit a small child with you. So, she finally got to ride it much to her pleasure! (Meanwhile, DD8 still waits outside with one of us. One day we’ll get her to try it!)
Pooh – Interesting part of the ride is outside (You gotta love southern California weather!) and there was NO wait! We walked right on, imagine that in WDW! We also got a glimpse of the old animal heads from up on the wall from the old Country Bears it replaced. You have to turn around, but pretty neat!
Tiki Room – Love it, love it! I kept picturing Walt standing right there pointing up to his birds. Man, I miss the old Tiki Room at WDW.
Indiana Jones – FANTASTIC! FANTASTIC! Please, please add that at WDW.
Toontown – You gotta be kidding me. What a waste. Roger Rabbit is OK, but the rest they can just go ahead and tear down and pave over. Pathetic. Sorry, but true!
Fantasyland – I love the way it looks here. Totally different feel than at WDW. It really does look storybook here. So cute! Loved all the dark rides, they all seemed so long, too. And you gotta love they have an Alice ride! BONUS! And good ole’ Mr. Toad is still here. Matterhorn – cool because it is what it is. They also had a really cute and impressive Snow White stage show here.
Tomorrowland – What a jumbled mess. It just looks like a disaster and feels totally chaotic. Buzz here is better – you can actually lift the blasters and Space Mountain makes WDW’s version seem totally lame. Wow. We also tried to sneak a peek here and there for the new Nemo ride they’re building over at the old 20,000 Leagues. It basically just looked like dirt and a bunch of trucks.
3:00 parade was actually not at 3:00 – we saw it at 7:00. (OK, that was a sad attempt at a joke. Did you get it?) Cute and not the same parade we’ve seen at WDW year after year. We watched it from near the entrance – same as we do at WDW. I don’t know why that area never seems crowded to us! Remember…Dreams Come True fireworks was FABULOUS! We watched it 3 nights – 2 from the hub and once from over at IASW. It starts and ends with the Wishes music, but in the middle goes through all the rides. It was so incredibly cool! That little Tink was flying all over the place – up, down, hovering… DD5 is STILL talking about it! I have to admit I have a fondness for Wishes – it just seems so perfect, but this fireworks show just rocked! And over at IASW?!? I sure hadn’t read anything about it, but they did like a whole other show on the huge facade of that ride! It went right along with the fireworks and music and was pretty neat! (We just happened to stumble across that!)
Fantasmic – Imagine a million people all crammed into one VERY small area to watch this show – no seats, few good viewing spots… It is pretty easy to say MGM got the better deal. Basically the same show, with a few changes here and there.
AND…
The most fantastic thing that happened to us on the trip was we meet Disneyland’s longest working cast member! We went and had lunch at Carnation Cafe on Main Street. (BTW, counter service is hard to come by at Disneyland. They seemed few and far between and all with very long lines!) Here we are, enjoying a table with a Main Street view, soaking it all in under a glorious California sky and that is when he came over! He asked if everything was OK and then when he walked away DH asked if I noticed his name badge had CLASS OF 1956 on it. WOW! So I asked our waiter who he was. When he told us who he was we finished our meal quickly so we could go talk with him. His name is Oscar Martinez. I’m sure Disneyland regulars know who he is, but we didn’t! He was so nice! He posed for several pictures with us, signed the girls’ autograph books and chatted with us a good bit. He will be retiring in December – 50 years working at Disneyland! I came home and goggled him – he is quite the celebrity! Which leads me to… we saw Courteney Cox, David Arquette and Celine Dion several times on our trip! And it appears if you are a star you get to bypass the lines. Maybe I need to act in a couple of movies… Ya know, for Disney perks.
We also got to be the park opening family one morning! Course, it came with a catch – we were the symbol of a small angry mob and I embarrassed myself to death. UH, you ask? Well, turns out they changed the early entry perk to another morning due to the night before being a grad night. We had a message on our Disneyland Hotel room phone earlier that week that the next morning would be early entry. UH? We were totally confused! We thought it was on Thursday… So we asked guest services at Disneyland. No, no they told us – must have been an old message. Early entry was still on for Thursday. So we get up bright and early and walk the LONG walk from Disneyland Hotel through Downtown Disney to the gates only to be told there was no early entry. We were upset to say the least! Hey, it was gonna throw off our ridemax plans and this was our last morning! AND a small angry mob was starting to form… So after a meeting they decide they are gonna give us something similar to fastpasses, but we have to go to City Hall first to get them. So we and another family beside us start forming a plan – the moms would RUN to City Hall to beat the crowd and the dads would take the kids to go get strollers. So while we’re waiting for the gates to open a cast member comes and gives us and that one other family stickers that say Honorary Citizens. Nice guy trying to do some damage control I think to myself. Well, we didn’t realize we were gonna be the two families to open the park. So then he lets us in and IMMEDIATELY I and the other mom take off for City Hall like it is our life. Then we hear our DHs calling us… We both turned around to see the hundreds of people still waiting BEHIND the gates staring at us. Talk about EMBARRASSING. Are you getting and visualizing what I did?!? So the cast members then tell us we were picked to open the park, not to run first to City Hall. OMG!!! So what would have been an absolute magical experience for us turned out to be like one of the most embarrassing moments of my life! Still, it is pretty darn funny. I don’t think I’ve ever run so hard, too! And as a bonus to the memory we got a free 5x7 of the event.
PART 2 -
http://www.mouseowners.com/forums/showthread.php?p=44074#post44074
Monday, 6/12/06 – Friday, 6/16/06
VacationEars – me, DH, DD8 and DD5
OK…so I have a flying phobia, but DH really, REALLY wanted to go to DL during the 50th anniversary celebration so I reluctantly gave the go ahead and for the first time ever let him do almost all the trip planning. Wow, hard to believe, uh?!? We haven’t been to DL since 1999 (pre DCA) and we were amazed at the expansion. Wow, they really must have bought out alot of hotels! I’ve gotten where I hate sitting down and doing these trip reports, but I feel like an incomplete person if I don’t do one (Weird, I know.) so here goes…
DISNEYLAND
I’ll start with the most important – Disneyland. We went two days here – Tuesday and Thursday. DH planned our park days using ridemax and it worked fairly well at this park. We decided to split up the park - left side on Tuesday and right side on Thursday. Since I consider WDW my second home I’ll basically compare the two…
Small, but cute. It really does feel like Walt will come walking around the corner here. What a nice feeling! One not so nice feeling is not knowing where every bathroom is located at and DD5 insisting we find out. I’ll just go thru the park and point out things that stuck out to me –
Main Street – Hey, look the Emporium doesn’t take up the entire street and there are still some cool things here!
Disneyland : The First 50 Magical Years – Sure, it left a tear in my eye much to DH’s amusement, but I think the film over at MGM is much better and alot more touching. (As always, these are just my personal opinions!)
Haunted Mansion – KILLER! (No pun intended.) Loved the cool new bride.
POTC – Closed much to our displeasure. (Note: I’m crying here…)
The Disney Gallery – Cool artwork, but they were totally put out we brought a 5 year old up there. A cast member made a rude comment about she better not touch anything or she’ll be having to save up her piggy bank for years. UH?!? Everything is behind glass lady.
Splash Mountain – Heads up! The boats sit single, not double like at WDW. DD5 almost had a heart attack when we tried to sit her by herself so we walked on out. We later discovered if you request the back seat you can sit a small child with you. So, she finally got to ride it much to her pleasure! (Meanwhile, DD8 still waits outside with one of us. One day we’ll get her to try it!)
Pooh – Interesting part of the ride is outside (You gotta love southern California weather!) and there was NO wait! We walked right on, imagine that in WDW! We also got a glimpse of the old animal heads from up on the wall from the old Country Bears it replaced. You have to turn around, but pretty neat!
Tiki Room – Love it, love it! I kept picturing Walt standing right there pointing up to his birds. Man, I miss the old Tiki Room at WDW.
Indiana Jones – FANTASTIC! FANTASTIC! Please, please add that at WDW.
Toontown – You gotta be kidding me. What a waste. Roger Rabbit is OK, but the rest they can just go ahead and tear down and pave over. Pathetic. Sorry, but true!
Fantasyland – I love the way it looks here. Totally different feel than at WDW. It really does look storybook here. So cute! Loved all the dark rides, they all seemed so long, too. And you gotta love they have an Alice ride! BONUS! And good ole’ Mr. Toad is still here. Matterhorn – cool because it is what it is. They also had a really cute and impressive Snow White stage show here.
Tomorrowland – What a jumbled mess. It just looks like a disaster and feels totally chaotic. Buzz here is better – you can actually lift the blasters and Space Mountain makes WDW’s version seem totally lame. Wow. We also tried to sneak a peek here and there for the new Nemo ride they’re building over at the old 20,000 Leagues. It basically just looked like dirt and a bunch of trucks.
3:00 parade was actually not at 3:00 – we saw it at 7:00. (OK, that was a sad attempt at a joke. Did you get it?) Cute and not the same parade we’ve seen at WDW year after year. We watched it from near the entrance – same as we do at WDW. I don’t know why that area never seems crowded to us! Remember…Dreams Come True fireworks was FABULOUS! We watched it 3 nights – 2 from the hub and once from over at IASW. It starts and ends with the Wishes music, but in the middle goes through all the rides. It was so incredibly cool! That little Tink was flying all over the place – up, down, hovering… DD5 is STILL talking about it! I have to admit I have a fondness for Wishes – it just seems so perfect, but this fireworks show just rocked! And over at IASW?!? I sure hadn’t read anything about it, but they did like a whole other show on the huge facade of that ride! It went right along with the fireworks and music and was pretty neat! (We just happened to stumble across that!)
Fantasmic – Imagine a million people all crammed into one VERY small area to watch this show – no seats, few good viewing spots… It is pretty easy to say MGM got the better deal. Basically the same show, with a few changes here and there.
AND…
The most fantastic thing that happened to us on the trip was we meet Disneyland’s longest working cast member! We went and had lunch at Carnation Cafe on Main Street. (BTW, counter service is hard to come by at Disneyland. They seemed few and far between and all with very long lines!) Here we are, enjoying a table with a Main Street view, soaking it all in under a glorious California sky and that is when he came over! He asked if everything was OK and then when he walked away DH asked if I noticed his name badge had CLASS OF 1956 on it. WOW! So I asked our waiter who he was. When he told us who he was we finished our meal quickly so we could go talk with him. His name is Oscar Martinez. I’m sure Disneyland regulars know who he is, but we didn’t! He was so nice! He posed for several pictures with us, signed the girls’ autograph books and chatted with us a good bit. He will be retiring in December – 50 years working at Disneyland! I came home and goggled him – he is quite the celebrity! Which leads me to… we saw Courteney Cox, David Arquette and Celine Dion several times on our trip! And it appears if you are a star you get to bypass the lines. Maybe I need to act in a couple of movies… Ya know, for Disney perks.
We also got to be the park opening family one morning! Course, it came with a catch – we were the symbol of a small angry mob and I embarrassed myself to death. UH, you ask? Well, turns out they changed the early entry perk to another morning due to the night before being a grad night. We had a message on our Disneyland Hotel room phone earlier that week that the next morning would be early entry. UH? We were totally confused! We thought it was on Thursday… So we asked guest services at Disneyland. No, no they told us – must have been an old message. Early entry was still on for Thursday. So we get up bright and early and walk the LONG walk from Disneyland Hotel through Downtown Disney to the gates only to be told there was no early entry. We were upset to say the least! Hey, it was gonna throw off our ridemax plans and this was our last morning! AND a small angry mob was starting to form… So after a meeting they decide they are gonna give us something similar to fastpasses, but we have to go to City Hall first to get them. So we and another family beside us start forming a plan – the moms would RUN to City Hall to beat the crowd and the dads would take the kids to go get strollers. So while we’re waiting for the gates to open a cast member comes and gives us and that one other family stickers that say Honorary Citizens. Nice guy trying to do some damage control I think to myself. Well, we didn’t realize we were gonna be the two families to open the park. So then he lets us in and IMMEDIATELY I and the other mom take off for City Hall like it is our life. Then we hear our DHs calling us… We both turned around to see the hundreds of people still waiting BEHIND the gates staring at us. Talk about EMBARRASSING. Are you getting and visualizing what I did?!? So the cast members then tell us we were picked to open the park, not to run first to City Hall. OMG!!! So what would have been an absolute magical experience for us turned out to be like one of the most embarrassing moments of my life! Still, it is pretty darn funny. I don’t think I’ve ever run so hard, too! And as a bonus to the memory we got a free 5x7 of the event.
PART 2 -
http://www.mouseowners.com/forums/showthread.php?p=44074#post44074