JadaB
10-23-2007, 07:04 PM
Hi Everyone, my first trip report!
My boyfriend and I stayed at the Paradise Pier, we had gotten the AP rate like many others for concierge service.
We drove from Pleasant Hill, CA which is only about 20 minutes from San Francisco, in the East Bay. It took us about 6- 6 1/2 hours because we stopped in Hollywood to get a picture of the giant Bumblebee Transformer for my boyfriend, it actually was pretty cool.
We arrived at the Paradise Pier a little after 3pm, it being our first time in a DLR hotel. They had our room ready on the 15th floor, and had given us an upgrade to a suite. When we got up to our room, we were a little confused as to the suite layout, and later was told in the concierge lounge that our suite consisted of 2 rooms, room 1509(which was the only room they said anything about) with a tv, full bathroom, couch and little dining table, and room 1507 with a king sized bed, tv, full sized bath, sofa bed and desk. (we were kind of embarrassed not knowing we had 2 rooms, but hey it was our first time in concierge, much less a suite! :D) Both rooms were very nice, a little odd having separate doors requiring the hotel key to both but, nice. Our view was of the parking lot, but we were just happy to be there.
We enjoyed the Beachcombers Club room, the concierge room, it was small but nice. Always a Disney/Pixar movie playing. They changed the food out often to keep it fresh, we would definitely do it again and it saved us from snacking in the parks later on in the day. Sorry I realized this is becoming a review.
This was really a go with the flow trip for us. We have just become Annual Passholders and have decided to do this every couple of months or so. Saturday night was pretty crowded at DL, we had a very nice couple leaving the park give us FP to HMH so we went straight to that and enjoyed it. The line was quite long if we hadn't had those passes. We then walked around and took pictures of the Halloween/Fall decorations. It was nice to see the Mariachi Divas out and playing, we like to listen to them at the Pacific Wharf in DCA.
So we said hi to a friend also visiting and headed over to DCA, picked up a Karl Strauss and just enjoyed people watching..it had been a long day of driving.
Sunday, as most know, it had become really windy, and later on in the day, smokey. The parks had a substantial amount of people, but not as much as I would have expected for the CHOC walk that had gone on that day. We decided to take it easy, headed over to DCA, rode Tower of Terror and then DL to hop on Indy. Then we went to House of Blues, back to PP for a jacket and then some more walking around in DL.
Monday morning, I looked out the window down at the PPH pool and saw chairs strewn about and dirt covering the bottom of the pool. It was still very windy and smokey. We headed to DL, which was still light in crowds and walked onto a 10 minute wait on Space Mountain, 15m/ wait for the Matterhorn, and 10m/ wait for Indy. Over to DCA for a sandwich at the Pacific Wharf cafe, and about 15 minutes of the wind blowing stuff around, we realized it was our cue to head home.
We took the I-5 home, only hit a little bit of traffic at 2.30, considered ourselves lucky. We stopped in Valencia, to the site of a street shut down and people in apartments being evacuated. It was surreal to see the planes dropping fire retardant over the apartment building as residents looked on, not sure if their homes would be ok. A few minutes down the road we saw fire trucks putting out flames near a Chevron, very scary. I couldn't imagine going through what those residents were experiencing, I hope everyone was ok...
The ride home was very smooth, lots of fires trucks from many different California counties heading opposite of us, south on I-5.
All in all we had a good time despite the winds and bad air quality. We would definitely stay at the PPH again with concierge services. The walk from PPH to DLR wasn't that bad, just across the street, through GCH and on through DTD. But I can see how with families that have tired little ones it can be a bit of a detour.
That was my first trip report, I am a little nervous it came off kind of boring and more like trip review, but I have always wanted to share and all of our other trips are so far back they wouldn't be worth reporting on hehe!
My boyfriend and I stayed at the Paradise Pier, we had gotten the AP rate like many others for concierge service.
We drove from Pleasant Hill, CA which is only about 20 minutes from San Francisco, in the East Bay. It took us about 6- 6 1/2 hours because we stopped in Hollywood to get a picture of the giant Bumblebee Transformer for my boyfriend, it actually was pretty cool.
We arrived at the Paradise Pier a little after 3pm, it being our first time in a DLR hotel. They had our room ready on the 15th floor, and had given us an upgrade to a suite. When we got up to our room, we were a little confused as to the suite layout, and later was told in the concierge lounge that our suite consisted of 2 rooms, room 1509(which was the only room they said anything about) with a tv, full bathroom, couch and little dining table, and room 1507 with a king sized bed, tv, full sized bath, sofa bed and desk. (we were kind of embarrassed not knowing we had 2 rooms, but hey it was our first time in concierge, much less a suite! :D) Both rooms were very nice, a little odd having separate doors requiring the hotel key to both but, nice. Our view was of the parking lot, but we were just happy to be there.
We enjoyed the Beachcombers Club room, the concierge room, it was small but nice. Always a Disney/Pixar movie playing. They changed the food out often to keep it fresh, we would definitely do it again and it saved us from snacking in the parks later on in the day. Sorry I realized this is becoming a review.
This was really a go with the flow trip for us. We have just become Annual Passholders and have decided to do this every couple of months or so. Saturday night was pretty crowded at DL, we had a very nice couple leaving the park give us FP to HMH so we went straight to that and enjoyed it. The line was quite long if we hadn't had those passes. We then walked around and took pictures of the Halloween/Fall decorations. It was nice to see the Mariachi Divas out and playing, we like to listen to them at the Pacific Wharf in DCA.
So we said hi to a friend also visiting and headed over to DCA, picked up a Karl Strauss and just enjoyed people watching..it had been a long day of driving.
Sunday, as most know, it had become really windy, and later on in the day, smokey. The parks had a substantial amount of people, but not as much as I would have expected for the CHOC walk that had gone on that day. We decided to take it easy, headed over to DCA, rode Tower of Terror and then DL to hop on Indy. Then we went to House of Blues, back to PP for a jacket and then some more walking around in DL.
Monday morning, I looked out the window down at the PPH pool and saw chairs strewn about and dirt covering the bottom of the pool. It was still very windy and smokey. We headed to DL, which was still light in crowds and walked onto a 10 minute wait on Space Mountain, 15m/ wait for the Matterhorn, and 10m/ wait for Indy. Over to DCA for a sandwich at the Pacific Wharf cafe, and about 15 minutes of the wind blowing stuff around, we realized it was our cue to head home.
We took the I-5 home, only hit a little bit of traffic at 2.30, considered ourselves lucky. We stopped in Valencia, to the site of a street shut down and people in apartments being evacuated. It was surreal to see the planes dropping fire retardant over the apartment building as residents looked on, not sure if their homes would be ok. A few minutes down the road we saw fire trucks putting out flames near a Chevron, very scary. I couldn't imagine going through what those residents were experiencing, I hope everyone was ok...
The ride home was very smooth, lots of fires trucks from many different California counties heading opposite of us, south on I-5.
All in all we had a good time despite the winds and bad air quality. We would definitely stay at the PPH again with concierge services. The walk from PPH to DLR wasn't that bad, just across the street, through GCH and on through DTD. But I can see how with families that have tired little ones it can be a bit of a detour.
That was my first trip report, I am a little nervous it came off kind of boring and more like trip review, but I have always wanted to share and all of our other trips are so far back they wouldn't be worth reporting on hehe!