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Twinsmom
12-27-2002, 07:09 PM
I can finally say I have been to Disneyland! We had a wonderful time in both parks and the hotel. Hubby and daughter loved California Adventure and Mom and the boys loved the original DL! Our daughter had her first Space Mountain ride and I think I had my last....its amazing what 5 years can do to your memory and the recollection of what your stomach feels like when the ride is over!

First, to Keith the Lead CM at Aladdin on Christmas Day- You are my Hero! I am currently composing a letter to commend Keith for his handling of our "situation" experienced using Disney Travel show vouchers. The bottom line, some of you may know, your voucher is supposed to get you "priority" admission into the show with special seating. Well, if you don't wait in line to get a regular ticket to the show, you cannot use your voucher. Unfortunately, we received about 3 different stories on how to utilize this voucher upon arriving at the show. Keith saved the day of a very persistent, but nice, mom. Thank you Keith! Aladdin was awesome IMHO. The boys say this was their favorite part of the trip.

The Grand Californian Hotel was just that...grand! Our room was on the second floor above the lobby. We had two queen beds and a day bed in our room. I found the room to be quite sufficient spacewise and the housekeeping ladies were wonderful with extra touches -- like a cute snowman made from wash cloths on Christmas day! Too cute. (It helps when you tip appropriately.) A big thumbs down to the CMs working the gate from the hotel into CA on Christmas morning. At 9:00 we were told they would not open those gates until 10:00 sharp and they sent us to walk to CA. Of course, CA opened at 9:30 and we walked right by the hotel gate at 9:40 on the way to Grizzly River and it was open! So, the private entrance was not much of a benefit to us.

Thumbs down also to CM Kelly who informed a "line" of us patient people waiting for pictures with Stitch that "there is no line, we have a semi-circle". Please, after 3 days of waiting in nice lines to have pictures made and autographs signed, I wanted to throw her in the lake. (I am usually a nice person, but this sent me over the edge.)

Park Hopper tickets were great and definitely worth the price. I would buy them again, even if we did have one day left unused.

We made good use of the monorail, but were not pleased with the wait on Tuesday morning - 24th. We were in line around 7:30 to get in when DL opened at 8:00, but for some reason, the monorail did not start running until around 8:15. There were many unhappy people in line. Also, Christmas Eve we were told we had to be in line by 7:45pm for the last run. Needless to say, we did not get to see the fireworks. I know, I know, it was Christmas Eve, but for people with small children, you can't walk to the hotels after a long day at the park! (Where is the reason of convenience to stay on-site???)

We had a great meal at the Blue Bayou. Pirates went down while we were there and so we were serenaded by people in the boats singing Christmas carols. Too funny! The restaurant is truly magical. The service was excellent and you were not rushed with your meal either.

The Jazz Kitchen was excellent as was Naples. We had great service at both restaurants. Jazz Kitchen's food was just delicious.

On another thread I have already mentioned I was not pleased with the Storytellers character breakfast. If you want "paid for" interaction with characters, this is not the place to do it! Our kids were very disappointed. I knew I blew it on this one. We should have gone to Goofy's!

Vacation Planning - I arranged to have a Christmas Tree in the room for our family. The cost was $150.00 (the bill said $185.00 so we had that changed!). The 3 ft. tall tree had 5 collectible ornaments, 5 small plush characters, a sugar plum multi-colored garland, 5 red colored pinecone ornaments that looked like glass but were plastic, and plaid bows to complete the tree. It was very nice. I think I expected lights on the tree though. The kids were very impressed and squealed when they saw it basically. (I personally thought, "note to self" skip the tree next time. We did actually carry it home on the plane in a large duffle type bag. The tree did not disassemble into pieces as I hoped it would.

We also did the "Holiday Tour" at DL. I think this was the best part of the whole entire trip!!!! At $39.00 a person for 5, it was money well spent and I would do it again in a heartbeat! We started out on Main Street with our Tour Guide CM "Debbie". (She was wonderful by the way...) We went to Coke Corner and sang Christmas carols, then walked on with no wait at all into our own private "room" at Haunted Mansion. Next we hopped the train and arrived at Minnie's Christmas Party to be seated in a private section where we enjoyed a huge Christmas rice krispy treat and a large souvineer mug of hot chocolate. Next we walked into Small World through the Fast Pass line and then over to our reserved, front row, seats (chairs) in front of Small World for the evening viewing of the Christmas Parade. Our daughter helped to lead the crowd in the surrounding area in Christmas carols! Talk about great pictures and memories! We also learned a great deal of information about Walt and his beloved Park! It was a fabulous way to spend Christmas Eve!

Other items of note -- We did a private shuttle with Super Shuttle from LAX. It was $73.00 each way and served us well. We arrived promptly at the hotel and the airport with no waiting for other passengers or stops, etc. We flew United and I wouldn't do that again! The plane equipment was changed on the outbound flight and our family's seating was separated. Both flights were also overbooked by 12 people....Unbelievable.

The weather was great, the crowds were okay except for Monday! We were told by a CM on the train at DL that the attendance was around 78,000! We saw Cuba Gooding waiting to get on Pirate's, so we had the added bonus of a celeb sighting!

We are already planning our next return, with some "lessons learned" tweaking! Thank you all again for the great input you gave! It was an incredible visit to your favorite place!


;)

ChipmunkStar
12-27-2002, 10:07 PM
I must jump in early and quasi-defend Kelly (the CM with Stitch). I just need to know, was this at the Ohana Luau area? Or at the ice skating rink?

Generally, when not in a location (aka atmoshere), characters do not have a line, rather a semicircle is supposed to be formed around the character. The characters usually take over from there, and pull/point at each person from the crowd (they're usually pretty good at noticing who got there first). This method, believe it or not, can go much faster than a line and let the character interact with more guests during their short time in the park. Also, there is not usually enough room to create a line within the areas of the parks (Town Square, Toontown, Adventureland, Paradise Pier, etc.) without creating a fire and/or safety hazard for the guests. (If there were to be a line for Mickey extending into Main Street where the Main Street vehicles are driving by... You can see where I'm going with this).

Usually, though, there is a line set up for Lilo and Stitch if they are at their photo location (you know, giant painting of Paradise Pier). If Stitch was not at the photo location though (walking around or near the floodgates), then he is technically in atmosphere, and thus he gets that lovely little semicircle Kelly was trying to form.

ChipmunkStar
12-27-2002, 10:13 PM
Oh, PS, I'm assuming that was Aladdin at the Hyperion, right?

I'm just asking because we always seem to have problems with those stinkin vouchers that AAA/Disney Travel/AMEX give out for Aladdin's Oasis. They drive me nuts because for some reason or another, no one reads the print at the bottom which says, in bold, "Valid Saturdays only at the _____ and ______ shows"

I've been interogated several times about why the company would give those out when the guests' vacation was not planned to extend into Saturday. . . (We have nothing to do with those things, we only do what we're told to do!)

mousey_girl
12-28-2002, 08:26 AM
Originally posted by ChipmunkStar
Oh, PS, I'm assuming that was Aladdin at the Hyperion, right?

I'm just asking because we always seem to have problems with those stinkin vouchers that AAA/Disney Travel/AMEX give out for Aladdin's Oasis. They drive me nuts because for some reason or another, no one reads the print at the bottom which says, in bold, "Valid Saturdays only at the _____ and ______ shows"

I've been interogated several times about why the company would give those out when the guests' vacation was not planned to extend into Saturday. . . (We have nothing to do with those things, we only do what we're told to do!)

I read the print at the bottom of the ones we were sent, and for that reason the vouchers stayed home. The "priority seating" seemed a bit limiting. It was only on Saturday, for wither the 1pm or 5pm show. Since I am already accused of overplanning things, I decided not to even bother.


Twinsmom, I am glad you had a good time!! I wanted to thank you for your posts about the vacation planning number. They were very helpful!!

We also had some problems with the entrance/exit from DCA to GCH. There is no clearly marked exit turnstile to the hotel. We ticked off a few CM's when we used the wrong one. We got such a nasty look I popped off with "If you had a specific exit you may want to try marking it."

Twinsmom
12-28-2002, 10:25 AM
In reply of the Stitch location, we were in the photo spot (giant painting) so the line was in order.

Our vouchers for the Hyperion did not say Saturday or Sunday. They were for use any time.

The Story time vouchers did say Saturday or Sunday so we did not get to use those.

Mad Hatter
12-28-2002, 10:37 AM
Christmas Eve we were told we had to be in line by 7:45pm for the last run. Needless to say, we did not get to see the fireworks. I know, I know, it was Christmas Eve, but for people with small children, you can't walk to the hotels after a long day at the park! (Where is the reason of convenience to stay on-site???)
Twinsmom,I guess you were not on my monorail that day. I always spiel to the guests that the fireworks,are at 7:45,Disneyland closes at 8PM. main street is open 1 hour after for shopping and if you need to get back to DTD the last monorail will be leaving TL Sta. at 8,so we do ask that you return to TL sta at 7:45 or just after the fireworks and snow so we can reserve you a seat on one of the last monorails of the night.It usualy takes about 35 mins to get all the hotel guests back to DTD. hope that explains it.:o

Twinsmom
12-28-2002, 03:41 PM
Thanks Mad Hatter for the response! I only wish the hours were extended a bit for the monorail. It would really help those of us with small kids to enjoy the parks more and not have to rush to get back to the monorail.

(I promised myself I would not compare to WDW, BUT, all 4 times we stayed on-site at WDW, we never had to rush because they kept the monorails running for one hour after the parks were scheduled to close.)

I absolutely loved our visit to DL, don't get me wrong, just only a few glitches to speak of!

Mad Hatter
12-28-2002, 10:41 PM
just a quick note about WDW monorails, they are transportation where we are an attraction/transportation, All attractions at DLR close at park closing,if we were to tell people to be back at closing they wouldn't show up until about 1/2 hour after the park closes.But I am glad you had a great time anyhow. Come back soon :D

ldsguy
12-29-2002, 11:35 AM
I read the print at the bottom of the ones we were sent, and for that reason the vouchers stayed home. The "priority seating" seemed a bit limiting. It was only on Saturday, for wither the 1pm or 5pm show. Since I am already accused of overplanning things, I decided not to even bother.
Well, this would be a bit hard to enforce, since there is no 1pm or 5 pm showtimes anymore and they don't enforce it only being on Saturadys either.....even when there were 1pm and 5pm showing the wasn't enforced and how it's supposed to work now is:
You wait in line with those that have tickets, you do not need tickets however, and the first 50 people in that line will have thier vouchers stamped and you will be placed in one of two rows in the Orchestra Section (limited to rows K and L) from what I understand they will take the rest of the vouchers in that line and just take the vouchers as tickets, but if you are persistent they will accomodate you in anyway they can.

As for the Monorails, it used to be that they would run for 1/2 an hour past park closing as one way trips to Downtown Disney Station if you had your hotel key. Don't they still do this? As for them starting late, there's no excuse for that.

From certain rooms in GCH you can see the fireworks as well.

ChipmunkStar
12-29-2002, 09:29 PM
Ids, that comment was re: the Aladdin's Oasis vouchers, not the Hyperion show. There are vouchers given out for Saturdays at 12:55 and the 5:35 shows.

Trust me, enforcing that is something to drive any sane person crazy. . .

ldsguy
12-29-2002, 10:01 PM
Oops, sorry, didn't know that they had vouchers for Aladdin's Oasis.....there are also vouchers for the Hyperion...LOL