Travel dates: July 10-14, 2010
Travel method: family car
Resort: Disneyland
Accommodations: Grand Californian - view room
Ages Represented in Group: Two adults (40 & 38) and three kids (17, 12, 10)
Disney Resort Experience Represented in Group: first time for two youngest
Comments: A-plus-plus!
I wanted to post a quick report about our trip to Disneyland last week (July 10th through the 14th). After years of being defeated by unexpected costs (car repairs, etc) we finally, FINALLY bit the bullet and made reservations for the Grand Californian; we had originally planned to take the train and stay nearby, then planned to fly and stay nearby, but eventually decided to drive (from Canby, Oregon) and put the $ we saved driving into staying on resort... and we are sure glad we did!
It is a two-day drive straight down I-5 (970 miles) from Canby to Disneyland - our kids are now older (17, 12 and 10) so they travel much better than they did a few years ago. That, plus a DVD player in the car, made for a pleasant trip.
We checked in to a view room on the 4th floor of the Grand Californian, and were very impressed. Very nice room, and above excellent service. This may be due to our not being used to the level of hotel of the Grand Californian, but whatever the reason we were consistently impressed with how helpful, attentive and quick to respond the staff were! Our room overlooked Paradise Pier in general, and Mulholland Madness in particular, and afforded us a decent view (from the side) of World of Color. It was great that the hotel is RIGHT between the two parks - leave one entrance to the hotel and you're at Grizzly River Run in DCA, leave another entrance to the hotel and you're at Downtown Disney a short walk to the monorail. That plus three swimming pools and a consistently chilly lobby made us happy campers!
As for the parks - I should say first that my wife hadn't been to Disneyland since 1987, I had not been since 1990, and my younger two kids (12 and 10) had never been... only my oldest daughter, soon to be a senior, has been recently for a band trip. That being said, with the exception of California Adventure, most of Disneyland is pretty much the same as it was when I was there in 1990, or at least seemed to be.
We arrived our first evening at 5PM, having gotten out of the car, checked in and high-tailed it to Disneyland. We gravitated to Tomorrowland and were surprised to see only a 10-minute wait for Star Tours (which was great!), and similarly short waits for Astro Blasters, Matterhorn, and Big Thunder Mountain. We saw a few long lines for rides we wanted to try that night (most notably Space Mountain) but figured we had time. Ate at Rancho Del Zocalo, which was also terrific... we asked for my daughter's dish dairy-free and they made a special batch of enchilada sauce, just in case it had dairy in it... how's that for attentive service? We watched Fantasmic during the second show, fighting some mighty crowds, but it was amazing... I wasn't prepared for how good it'd be.
For our second day (first full day) we did the Magic Morning thing and hit Tomorrowland for short waits for Space Mountain, Astro Orbitor and Finding Nemo and Autopia, Matterhorn & Star Tours again, then managed to pretty much do most of Fantasyland before lunch of hot dogs in Toon Town. Again, not a single long wait for a ride (15 minutes max). After lunch it was on to the other side of the park, where we finally rode Indiana Jones (our consensus pick for best ride in the park), the RiverBoat, Pirates, Haunted Mansion, then on to dinner at Hungry Bear Restaurant, followed by the fireworks from Main Street. Took a break to go back to the hotel to swim.
Monday was our day for our character meal, so it was off to California Adventure... again with the short wait times! We were one of the first couple groups to make it onto Soarin', which was waaaay better than I thought it would be (despite the rave reviews I'd read), and we pretty much mowed through all of the park but Paradise Pier, Grizzly Peak and Bugs Land before lunch (very short waits for rides like Twilight Zone). Too long before our 2:10 lunch, we toured the tortilla and bread factories to hold us over. Ariel's Grotto was very nice - great service and characters, as was the case throughout our five days, and the food was great. We were on our second loaf of the great sourdough bread and asked for a box for the leftovers, and the box came with (yep) another whole loaf of bread! Yeehaw! By the end of the night we'd done Grizzly River Run and every ride on the pier except for Toy Story Mania and Jumpin Jellyfish, in time for World of Color, which was even better than Fantasmic!
Two days left and we had very little left in either park that we hadn't done yet. Luckily, it was MLB All Star day, so we went to see the parade while we waited for some family from S. California to meet us at the park. It got waaay too hot, and the parade took waaaay too long (not Disney's fault, since it was a parade of MLB all-stars) but we eventually met up with family, rode a couple rides, then went to Rainforest Cafe for "lunch" at 4:00. The wait wasn't too long, but it seemed like it was because we had waited so long. I was sooooo hungry, but decided to order an appetizer for an entree and barely finished it - BIG portions at the Rainforest Cafe in Downtown Disney, and it has lots of interesting scenery. Tuesday was the only day we didn't see a show, but since we were with family who were there for one day and wanted to ride Indiana Jones, we did face one of only three long waits in line - 45 minutes after dark... but it was OK, since it gave us a chance to catch up with folks we hadn't seen in a year or so.
For our last day we wanted to cross off everything else we hadn't done/wanted to do again, see the Aladdin show at DCA, and let the kids pick their favorite show to watch again... and I wanted to try some of the foods I had read about. Our bucket list included Splash Mountain (third longest wait of the trip in line at 35 minutes w/o fastpass), Screamin', Twilight Zone, Toy Story Mania (longest wait at 50 minutes but sooooo awesome!), Thunder Mountain, Indy for the third time (with fastpass), and the Tiki Room, before our last ride of Astro Orbitor, my youngest's favorite. It also afforded me a chance to have Pizza Oom Mow Mow (which was a'ight) a turkey leg from a Frontierland cart (which was great) and gumbo in a bread bowl from Royal Street Veranda (which was good and enough to share w/my wife). The kids picked Fantasmic for a repeat viewing, this time from a better spot.
The next morning we checked out and headed back north, satisfied that we had squeezed most the juice out of our five days at Disney!
Some final thoughts:
***Character encounters were plentiful, but we didn't really try to get pics with them (except at Ariel's Grotto) until the last day. Sometimes the lines were long, but not for some of the more odd characters, like Gepetto and Cruella deVille. Overall I wish we'd have thought to try harder for pics with them days before. The staff at the Main Street info booth was extremely helpful in finding out when/where characters would be.
***Lots of opportunities for collectors - in addition to collecting pics with characters, we could have collected pins (for lanyards) but didn't - they were everywhere, but I did sort of fall into collecting pressed coins, buying them everwhere I found them - it wasn't until I learned that I could spend $100+ on them that I decided I needed to level off, and came home with 15 or so.
***After everyone telling me how hard it'd be to do Disneyland in the heart of July, it was remarkably easy... helped especially by the fact that the park is open for 16 hours a day.
Feel free to let me know if you have any questions about my "short" note.
-Patrick Brennan
Canby, Oregon
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