Kauaigirl722
05-30-2010, 11:34 AM
Travel dates: May 22nd through May 26th - 2010
Travel method: Driving
Resort: DL, DCA, DTD
Accommodations: Disneyland Hotel
Ages Represented in Group: 32, 33 and 5
Disney Resort Experience Represented in Group: Lots and lots. We are AP holders, but live about 1 1/2 hours away so we go on average about 1x per month. I'm a Disney fanatic, my DS is a mini-fanatic and my DH just bears with us... lol
Cast of characters: Me, DH and DS
(Ok - please forgive me, but this review is really long!)
Overall Experience
Although we are Disneyland "regulars" this was a very unique experience for us to be able to stay at the Disneyland Hotel. We've never stayed on property as a family and have never gotten to enjoy this many days in a row submersed in everything Disney. The three of us had a really amazing time. I know this may sound cliche, but it was really magical. The experiences that we had with our son on this trip will be remembered for a very long time. Everything from our spectacular renovated room, to hours on end at the Neveraland Pool to hunting down characters all over the resort for autographs to my sons first time on Matterhorn hold special places in my heart. The Disneyland Hotel did not disappoint and may have to become the standard for us on all future trips to my favorite place on earth!
Day One - Saturday, 5/22
We arrived at the hotel on Saturday afternoon around 1:30pm and were giddy with excitement! (Well, at least DS and I were!) I had requested the Dreams tower and was hopeful for a renovated room. The woman that checked us in was very helpful and when I asked if there were any renovated rooms available she said she would be happy to check. She had to go in the "back" to speak to someone. I practically held my breath with anticipation. When she came back she told us that they were able to assign us to one but it would not be available until 3pm. That worked for me! They put us on the 6th floor with a pool view - exactly what I had requested. I set it up for them to text us with our room number and away we went with our room keys to get our Pool stuff to enjoy the pool for the afternoon. On the way out to the parking lot to get our pool gear, the front desk called to say they had to move us to a different, but comparable room (actually next door to the original one we were assigned) and that it was ready immediately. We did have to stop by the front desk to get new keys, but that was no big deal. We were starving so before we headed up to the room we had lunch at Crocs Bit 'N Bites. It was good, but typical counter service food for Disney. After lunch my son just had to do the jungle cruise boats.
He's five so he enjoyed it, but truely they aren't that exciting... We then headed up to change into our swimsuits and saved the hassle of getting our bags for later. We were in awe of the room. I absolutely loved it! The beds were beautiful and really, really comfortable. The headboards with etched castle and light up fireworks were so cool (I will mention one of my favorite moments of my trip related to this later in day one), the couch was comfy and the view of the pool perfect! I stayed at the DLH only two other times - once in 2001 while in college and once in 2004 on a business trip - the one thing I missed was the Mickey-shaped soap! (I know that's pretty nit picky!). Our overall experience at the hotel and in our room was fantastic. To try to be balanced I will mention a few things that I suppose could have been better - in an ideal world anyways. Here goes with regard to the room -you had to enter the Dreams tower from the far end (from Downtown Disney) due to the construction, this was a bit of an inconvenience as we were all the way at the end of the hall nearest Downtown Disney. The water pressure in the shower was really bad. Every night I could hear the child across the hall throwing a fit because she didn't want to go to bed (rooms not very soundproof). It seemed to take room service a long time to clear the rolling trays of dirty dishes/left over food from the halls. Absolutely none of these things impacted our trip, but thought I'd mention if you were curious. There was definitely construction going on during the day, even on the weekend days as we could hear hammering occassionally when we were in the room in the middle of the day.
We headed down to the pool around 3pm and the Neverland Pool was jam packed. Even the little grass area was lined with towels of those guests who weren't lucky enough to get a chair. We were going to be there several days so we decided to head over to the smaller Cover Pools & Beach. It was wonderful - not crowded at all tons and tons of available chairs and a nice family with lots of kids to play with our son. About 5 minutes after we grabbed a couple of chairs and were well on our way to a relaxing afternoon - Goofy walked by! I swear I thought I was in heaven. We enjoyed a little over 2 hours at the pool and then headed up to our room to freshen up for dinner.
We headed into Downtown Disney and decided on Tortilla Jo's. The wait was about 30 minutes but well worth it. It was our first time and we really enjoyed it. My husband got the steak fajitas (said they were the best he ever had) and I had the Carnitas - yummy! My son loved the Mariachi band especially when they did "It's a Small World After All..."! We finished dinner in just enough time to make the 8:30 pm showing of Shrek: The Final Chapter. Unfortunately I didn't have my AP's with me which was a bummer because we would have gotted a $2 discount per ticket. (Something to remember for next time!) If your curious - Shrek was just ok. My 5 year old got a little restless towards the end, altough it could have been because it was well past bedtime. After the movie we headed back to our room, set the alarm for 7am and enjoyed a good night sleep in those comfy beds!
Day Two - Sunday, 5/23
Left the hotel around 8:15am to head to Storytellers Cafe for our 8:30am Priority Seating reservation for Chip & Dale's breakfast. We were seated promptly and all decided on the buffet. our experience here was just so-so. Our service was horrible, but the food was good. We were seated in what felt like a character and wait staff dead zone. With our AP discount our total was around $53 for 2 adults and 1 child.
We headed into CA Adventure through the Grand Californian entrance at around 9:40am (park opened at 10am). Right near this entrance, there was a huge line up already for Toy Story and within the next 5 minutes they started to escort this line into the park. We got in line and got to walk through the park before it was open (really neat) to queue up for Toy Story. Once in line our wait was around 10 minutes. We wanted to ride it again, but by the time we were off the line was already 30-40 minutes. From there we rode the Carousel, took pictures with Jessie and the Toy Story 3 toy box, rode Jumpin' Jelly Fish, watched the rafts come down the river on Grizzly River Run and then got a FP for Soarin' for later in the afternoon. We have a Disney Rewards Visa, so we headed over to Hollywood Backlot to do our "private" card member character meet 'n greet. It was Pluto and we had a couple pictures taken with our son and got our voucher for a free 5x7 to pick up later. From there we headed to Monster's Inc. and then the Muppets show. After the Muppets show we meet Handy Manny and Mr. Incredible (my son is
really into characters now so this was really cool). By that point we were hungry for lunch. My husband and I decided on food from the Food and Wine Festival Showcase area and a kid's hot dog meal for my son from Award Weiners (side note - got in the WRONG line which is soooo like me - took forever to get a hot dog). We loved the food - we had the soup, beef sandwhich, quesadilla, artisan cheese plate & halibut. My husband called the fancy coke machines "the most complicated coke machines ever." (And all he got was the reqular coke, lol.) After we ate we decided to head back to DLH for pool time...despite the mild weather my son insisted on pool time. We stopped at the candy store as we excited CA Adventure which ended up taking forever because the clerk forgot to swipe my AP for the discount despite having it in her hand. We waited for them to try to fix it - 20 minutes at least for a whopping $1.87 refund. Obviously in retrospect it was not worth it! ;-) We then walked to the end of the store where you can print your PhotoPass pictures. Got our free picture of Pluto and our son. Cool! After a day of watching other kids get autographs from the characters, my son just HAD to have a book of his own. (This is where the intent of our trip changed quickly to "hunt down as many characters as possible so he could fill up the book!")
The Neverland Pool was not quite as crowded as on Saturday and we were able to get two chairs to lounge on. My husband and son enjoyed the pool and the slide and I read my book - a great one titled "Annie Freeman's Fabulous Traveling Funeral." We enjoyed a (very expensive) cocktail from the pool bar and after a couple of hours at the pool we headed to Disneyland via the Monorail.
We wanted to catch the parade that was at 7pm. We walked over to It's A Small World to get a seat. My husband saved our seats and my son and I went on IASW - walked right on. He loved it as usual. My son really enjoyed the parade. In fact he was kind of mesmerized by it. He really liked the interactive part of it and every time a character zoomed by he'd say, "There's Donald! There's Mickey! There's Minnie!" It was like play by play. As soon as the parade was over we headed into Toon Town. The wait for Roger Rabbit's Cartoon Spin was long so we headed back to Gadget Go Coaster. Waited about 10 minutes and my son loved it. He's not much of a risk taker so every little step we take towards getting him on Thunder Mountain and Space is a good one. We then headed into Mickey's house where we got the first of many autographs! After meeting Mickey we did Gadget again. We had picked up FP for Autotopia right when we got off the Monorail so we headed back to ride that. As it turned out we didn't need them, but we picked the wrong line (again!). I swear, I always pick the wrong line (even at the grocery store). Although the line was short, we took
the inside line (which is normally quicker) but was only running one track. We waited WAY long than we could have. Oh well, live and learn. After Autotopia we headed over for some pizza and pasta for dinner. We had to kind of eat quick because we really wanted to see the fireworks. Walked up to the hub near the castle about 15 minutes before the fireworks and got a great spot just to the right of the castle near the entrance to Tomorrowland. We all really enjoyed the show. After the fireworks we decided that we'd try to run over to DCA and use our Soarin' FP's. We entered the park about 8 minutes before closing time and walked right on Soarin'. once again our FP's were unnecessary. As usual, loved that ride. We exited the park through Grand Californian and walked back to DLH on what ended up being the long way around (not through Downtown Disney). We had a long and successful day at two parks and one pool. We practically collapsed in bed and this time set the alarm a little later...
To Be Continued...
Travel method: Driving
Resort: DL, DCA, DTD
Accommodations: Disneyland Hotel
Ages Represented in Group: 32, 33 and 5
Disney Resort Experience Represented in Group: Lots and lots. We are AP holders, but live about 1 1/2 hours away so we go on average about 1x per month. I'm a Disney fanatic, my DS is a mini-fanatic and my DH just bears with us... lol
Cast of characters: Me, DH and DS
(Ok - please forgive me, but this review is really long!)
Overall Experience
Although we are Disneyland "regulars" this was a very unique experience for us to be able to stay at the Disneyland Hotel. We've never stayed on property as a family and have never gotten to enjoy this many days in a row submersed in everything Disney. The three of us had a really amazing time. I know this may sound cliche, but it was really magical. The experiences that we had with our son on this trip will be remembered for a very long time. Everything from our spectacular renovated room, to hours on end at the Neveraland Pool to hunting down characters all over the resort for autographs to my sons first time on Matterhorn hold special places in my heart. The Disneyland Hotel did not disappoint and may have to become the standard for us on all future trips to my favorite place on earth!
Day One - Saturday, 5/22
We arrived at the hotel on Saturday afternoon around 1:30pm and were giddy with excitement! (Well, at least DS and I were!) I had requested the Dreams tower and was hopeful for a renovated room. The woman that checked us in was very helpful and when I asked if there were any renovated rooms available she said she would be happy to check. She had to go in the "back" to speak to someone. I practically held my breath with anticipation. When she came back she told us that they were able to assign us to one but it would not be available until 3pm. That worked for me! They put us on the 6th floor with a pool view - exactly what I had requested. I set it up for them to text us with our room number and away we went with our room keys to get our Pool stuff to enjoy the pool for the afternoon. On the way out to the parking lot to get our pool gear, the front desk called to say they had to move us to a different, but comparable room (actually next door to the original one we were assigned) and that it was ready immediately. We did have to stop by the front desk to get new keys, but that was no big deal. We were starving so before we headed up to the room we had lunch at Crocs Bit 'N Bites. It was good, but typical counter service food for Disney. After lunch my son just had to do the jungle cruise boats.
He's five so he enjoyed it, but truely they aren't that exciting... We then headed up to change into our swimsuits and saved the hassle of getting our bags for later. We were in awe of the room. I absolutely loved it! The beds were beautiful and really, really comfortable. The headboards with etched castle and light up fireworks were so cool (I will mention one of my favorite moments of my trip related to this later in day one), the couch was comfy and the view of the pool perfect! I stayed at the DLH only two other times - once in 2001 while in college and once in 2004 on a business trip - the one thing I missed was the Mickey-shaped soap! (I know that's pretty nit picky!). Our overall experience at the hotel and in our room was fantastic. To try to be balanced I will mention a few things that I suppose could have been better - in an ideal world anyways. Here goes with regard to the room -you had to enter the Dreams tower from the far end (from Downtown Disney) due to the construction, this was a bit of an inconvenience as we were all the way at the end of the hall nearest Downtown Disney. The water pressure in the shower was really bad. Every night I could hear the child across the hall throwing a fit because she didn't want to go to bed (rooms not very soundproof). It seemed to take room service a long time to clear the rolling trays of dirty dishes/left over food from the halls. Absolutely none of these things impacted our trip, but thought I'd mention if you were curious. There was definitely construction going on during the day, even on the weekend days as we could hear hammering occassionally when we were in the room in the middle of the day.
We headed down to the pool around 3pm and the Neverland Pool was jam packed. Even the little grass area was lined with towels of those guests who weren't lucky enough to get a chair. We were going to be there several days so we decided to head over to the smaller Cover Pools & Beach. It was wonderful - not crowded at all tons and tons of available chairs and a nice family with lots of kids to play with our son. About 5 minutes after we grabbed a couple of chairs and were well on our way to a relaxing afternoon - Goofy walked by! I swear I thought I was in heaven. We enjoyed a little over 2 hours at the pool and then headed up to our room to freshen up for dinner.
We headed into Downtown Disney and decided on Tortilla Jo's. The wait was about 30 minutes but well worth it. It was our first time and we really enjoyed it. My husband got the steak fajitas (said they were the best he ever had) and I had the Carnitas - yummy! My son loved the Mariachi band especially when they did "It's a Small World After All..."! We finished dinner in just enough time to make the 8:30 pm showing of Shrek: The Final Chapter. Unfortunately I didn't have my AP's with me which was a bummer because we would have gotted a $2 discount per ticket. (Something to remember for next time!) If your curious - Shrek was just ok. My 5 year old got a little restless towards the end, altough it could have been because it was well past bedtime. After the movie we headed back to our room, set the alarm for 7am and enjoyed a good night sleep in those comfy beds!
Day Two - Sunday, 5/23
Left the hotel around 8:15am to head to Storytellers Cafe for our 8:30am Priority Seating reservation for Chip & Dale's breakfast. We were seated promptly and all decided on the buffet. our experience here was just so-so. Our service was horrible, but the food was good. We were seated in what felt like a character and wait staff dead zone. With our AP discount our total was around $53 for 2 adults and 1 child.
We headed into CA Adventure through the Grand Californian entrance at around 9:40am (park opened at 10am). Right near this entrance, there was a huge line up already for Toy Story and within the next 5 minutes they started to escort this line into the park. We got in line and got to walk through the park before it was open (really neat) to queue up for Toy Story. Once in line our wait was around 10 minutes. We wanted to ride it again, but by the time we were off the line was already 30-40 minutes. From there we rode the Carousel, took pictures with Jessie and the Toy Story 3 toy box, rode Jumpin' Jelly Fish, watched the rafts come down the river on Grizzly River Run and then got a FP for Soarin' for later in the afternoon. We have a Disney Rewards Visa, so we headed over to Hollywood Backlot to do our "private" card member character meet 'n greet. It was Pluto and we had a couple pictures taken with our son and got our voucher for a free 5x7 to pick up later. From there we headed to Monster's Inc. and then the Muppets show. After the Muppets show we meet Handy Manny and Mr. Incredible (my son is
really into characters now so this was really cool). By that point we were hungry for lunch. My husband and I decided on food from the Food and Wine Festival Showcase area and a kid's hot dog meal for my son from Award Weiners (side note - got in the WRONG line which is soooo like me - took forever to get a hot dog). We loved the food - we had the soup, beef sandwhich, quesadilla, artisan cheese plate & halibut. My husband called the fancy coke machines "the most complicated coke machines ever." (And all he got was the reqular coke, lol.) After we ate we decided to head back to DLH for pool time...despite the mild weather my son insisted on pool time. We stopped at the candy store as we excited CA Adventure which ended up taking forever because the clerk forgot to swipe my AP for the discount despite having it in her hand. We waited for them to try to fix it - 20 minutes at least for a whopping $1.87 refund. Obviously in retrospect it was not worth it! ;-) We then walked to the end of the store where you can print your PhotoPass pictures. Got our free picture of Pluto and our son. Cool! After a day of watching other kids get autographs from the characters, my son just HAD to have a book of his own. (This is where the intent of our trip changed quickly to "hunt down as many characters as possible so he could fill up the book!")
The Neverland Pool was not quite as crowded as on Saturday and we were able to get two chairs to lounge on. My husband and son enjoyed the pool and the slide and I read my book - a great one titled "Annie Freeman's Fabulous Traveling Funeral." We enjoyed a (very expensive) cocktail from the pool bar and after a couple of hours at the pool we headed to Disneyland via the Monorail.
We wanted to catch the parade that was at 7pm. We walked over to It's A Small World to get a seat. My husband saved our seats and my son and I went on IASW - walked right on. He loved it as usual. My son really enjoyed the parade. In fact he was kind of mesmerized by it. He really liked the interactive part of it and every time a character zoomed by he'd say, "There's Donald! There's Mickey! There's Minnie!" It was like play by play. As soon as the parade was over we headed into Toon Town. The wait for Roger Rabbit's Cartoon Spin was long so we headed back to Gadget Go Coaster. Waited about 10 minutes and my son loved it. He's not much of a risk taker so every little step we take towards getting him on Thunder Mountain and Space is a good one. We then headed into Mickey's house where we got the first of many autographs! After meeting Mickey we did Gadget again. We had picked up FP for Autotopia right when we got off the Monorail so we headed back to ride that. As it turned out we didn't need them, but we picked the wrong line (again!). I swear, I always pick the wrong line (even at the grocery store). Although the line was short, we took
the inside line (which is normally quicker) but was only running one track. We waited WAY long than we could have. Oh well, live and learn. After Autotopia we headed over for some pizza and pasta for dinner. We had to kind of eat quick because we really wanted to see the fireworks. Walked up to the hub near the castle about 15 minutes before the fireworks and got a great spot just to the right of the castle near the entrance to Tomorrowland. We all really enjoyed the show. After the fireworks we decided that we'd try to run over to DCA and use our Soarin' FP's. We entered the park about 8 minutes before closing time and walked right on Soarin'. once again our FP's were unnecessary. As usual, loved that ride. We exited the park through Grand Californian and walked back to DLH on what ended up being the long way around (not through Downtown Disney). We had a long and successful day at two parks and one pool. We practically collapsed in bed and this time set the alarm a little later...
To Be Continued...