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EdD
06-07-2004, 01:37 PM
Trip Report
Part 1
1. Travel Day
2. Grand California Hotel
3. Goofy’s Kitchen
4. Plaza Inn
5. Whitewater Snacks
Part 2
6. Vineyard Room
7. Park Stuff
8. Vacation Planning

Day 1 -Travel Day
Opened eyes, got out of bed, scratched...wait a minute! I know some folks like to include every detail of their travel to and from DL, and I am sure there are lots of folks who love to read about it, but I am not one of those. Lets just leave it at...left home, four hours later we are there. Nuff said. I will also not give a blow by blow account, but just present major impressions and highlights. So here we go...

Staying and Sleeping - Grand Californian Hotel
Very pretty hotel, and as most of you know it is a little pricey. Luckily my wife gets a cast member discount of 35% for merchandise and 20% for food by virtue of her employment with ABC, so room was $215/night+tax+resort fee for a “park view” room. Still not cheap, but certainly not the most expensive hotel we have stayed at. I would not spring for “park view” again, mostly trees and the top of Grizzly Mountain, not much of a view from the 3rd floor. Hotel still has that “new” look and feel. Beautiful lobby and a nice pool area with a large and small water slide, plenty of towels and life jackets for the kids, and even a small children’s pool. Service at the hotel was good, but not Ritz-Carlton quality. Rooms are small, but nicely appointed and very family friendly, with the queen plus bunk beds with a trundle underneath, crib in the closet ready to go, iron and board, small safe, nice size TV, good toiletries and nice bathrobes. No fridge in room but a quick call got one delivered at no cost. The hotel is non-smoking, and they make you initial that there will be a $200 change if you smoke in the room OR on your balcony. The hotel is set up so that inside the lobby is huge and open, but the room areas are winding, so it can be a little confusing at first to find your way around. Private entrance to DCA, also onto DTD, short 5 minute walk to front gates. We did experience one unpleasant event, returning to our room at about 11pm, our door would not unlock. The front desk sent up new keys, they also did not work. We waited in the hallway for about 20 minutes for the engineers to arrive and they started to work on the door, then security showed up and had a “special” key even the engineers did not know about. Apparently the door deadbolt (normally you push door handle up in your room to set the deadbolt and keep the maid from coming in while you are in the shower, and this is only supposed to be able to be set from the inside) stuck, but the key security had bypassed the deadbolt feature. So for those of you who want to be SURE, use the latch while you are in the rooms. Because of this, we had not had turndown service that night, as I am sure the maid assumed we were in the room asleep. Not a whole lot of “Disney” touches to this hotel, outside of Bambi shower curtain. As is typical of the resort, they do charge you for EVERYTING. $12/day to valet park, $2.50 for a soda from the hotel machines, $9/day resort fee for use of the telephone and a newspaper during the week. Perks include the ability to charge everything in the parks to your room so you don’t have to carry a lot of cash, proximity to the gates, and the stores will deliver purchases to your hotel (not candy purchases). Overall we liked it very much, but will probably stay at the DLH next time, with a little more Disneyness about it (and a little cheaper too). If you are on a budget, stay elsewhere. If you have small kids and want to Disney, stay at the DLH, if you want a little more romance or higher end, stay here.

Eatin, Munchin and Crunchin
I had arranged priority seating already for most of our meals so the waits were never long. I would definitely recommend this if you want to go by any kind of a schedule for your dining, or want to get into the character dining or busier restaurants. We never waited more than 15 mins to be seated, while people doing walkups were being told 45 min on up.

Goofy’s Kitchen - We took our daughter (4) here for dinner the first night, before entering the park the next day so she could get used to the characters and get ready to do Disney. It is not cheap, but it worked well. Buffet style, tip is included in price. Food was fine, decent variety. Character interaction with Pluto, Goofy, Chip & Dale, Mad Hatter, Alice. At first she was VERY apprehensive about the characters, but got over it and was then asking dad to call them over. Server was very attentive, our drink glasses never got more than half empty. Some people had left their birthday balloons on one of the tables, and the server overheard my daughter asking me to get her one, next thing she gave my daughter all the balloons. Very nice. Do this at least once if you have kids.

Plaza Inn Breakfast – Park opened at 9am, so went in at 8:30 for breakfast. At first I had no idea how to get there, and there is a huge crowd crunched in like sardines waiting at the rope drop. Finally discovered that you go through the shops on the right to get there (after fighting my way through the sardines). Ok for breakfast, food was good, all self serve including drinks. Character interaction with Pooh, Tigger, Eore. Nice if you want to be in the park right at opening, otherwise Goofy’s was better.

Blue Bayou – Wanted daughter to get used to the place before we went to Pirates, so had lunch here at noon. VERY busy, I was glad we had PS already, waited 15mins to get in. Service was very good, food was good (split a Monte Cristo with the wife, had stuffed mushroom appetizer and got daughter nuggets), and was cheaper than dinner at Goofy’s because the portions were so large we could split the sandwich. Eating here is cool.

Bengal BBQ – I heard about this place on the boards, never would have tried it otherwise. I LOVED it! We ate here twice. The beef and chicken skewers were great, the bacon wrapped asparagus skewers were wonderful, veggie skewers much better than expected! Accompanied by a nice bowl of fresh fruit, everybody liked this. Downsides are: there is almost no seating here! If you see an open table, snag it FAST! Also not cheap, thank goodness for 20% discount. Thanks to the board for this find!

Whitewater Snacks – Had breakfast here. Right at the pool, very close to our elevator and the DCA entrance. Breakfast burrito and French Toast sticks were good, food was cheap for Disney, very convenient. Had to wait 20 min for a manager who knew how to ring up our discount (they rang it up wrong the first time) but we were eating while this happened so no big deal. For a quick bite, if you are close this is a good spot.

EdD
06-07-2004, 01:37 PM
Vineyard Room – Wanted to have at least one “grown up” dinner while we were here, and while my daughter is very well behaved in restaurants, Napa Rose was a little too formal for us to take her there. This place was wonderful. It is upstairs on a covered but open air patio at the winery in DCA, and resort wear was fine in here. Bowls of fresh cherries in the waiting area while they set your table. They had overhead heaters going as it was a little chill at 8pm, but was very nice. I also saw them bring out some jackets for a couple who were a little too cold, not near the heaters. Dinner (only open for dinner, and only Fri and Sat) is prix fix with a 3 or 4 course selection, and optional wine pairings. Bottled water served at the table, choice of brand. The food was wonderful and very well presented. When they brought out the menus (huge wine list, by the way), there was a small one for my daughter, with the children’s menu, a 15-20 page activity book, and a package of real (crayola) crayons for her. Also her drinks were served in a child sized cup with straw and a lid, nice touch. We each had the 3 course dinner with the wine pairings, I added a cheese course. Wife had fresh salmon, I had a beef medallion and got the little one a small cheese pizza. Beautiful presentations and as I said it was very good. We let our waiter pick the wines for us (he has been there since it opened under Mondovi, before Disney took it over) and he did a very good job. Potions were extremely large for California cuisine, I do not ever remember getting so much procutto (freshly shaved, and not the yucky over salted stuff you normally are served). At 8:45pm the Electric Parade started, and everyone in the restaurant stopped to watch. It was lovely, and we all enjoyed it very much. After the parade, when my daughter was obviously done, they brought out a breadboard with a large lump of pasta dough and a ramekin of flour for her to play with. She loved it! The waiter got her started by showing her how to do some fancy restaurant napkin folds, then how to use the dough like play dough. Perfect, mom and dad got to finish eating. Desserts were beautiful and very tasty, and besides the dessert wines we also had espresso and cappuccino. After dinner we were given a Tower of Terror patch and some Disney collector pins. This was an excellent experience, and because of the extra touches the little one was perfect through a 2 ½ hour dinner! Cost was $168 less the 20%, which we just gave back to the waiter plus a little extra, as he deserved it. On leaving, a security guard escorted us back to the California Grand as the park was closed and empty, strange feeling walking around there with no one else around. If you like fine dining in a casual atmosphere, this place is great!


Park Stuff – While I did briefly tour around DCA, nothing there (besides the restaurant) impressed me at all. I did pick up fastpasses for Tower of Terror at 4:30pm on a Saturday night (passes were for 6:30pm), but we never used them due to time constraints. I wanted to do this one, but will wait until next trip, as this was for our daughter and there really is not very much she could do in that park (she is only 37” tall), so we spent all our time in Disneyland. If you are going to Fantasyland, GET THERE EARLY as lines form there very quickly! Luckily we were in the park at opening so did not have to wait too long for Dumbo, Peter Pan, etc... but by early afternoon the lines were very long. My daughter loved all the rides we went on except Pirates and Matterhorn (too many scary guys). She loved Winnie the Pooh (I know, it is kind of cheaply done, but she like it, and there was no line at any time so we rode it twice without waiting). Fantasmic was awesome! We were on the VIP balcony, which is right next to the dessert buffet balcony, but only seats 9. No desserts, but not $53/pp either! Fantastic view, and the fireworks afterward were great! We only spent 2 days in the park because this was a special trip, but if you are planning on going, especially if you want to see DCA too, 3 days minimum is a must!

Vacation Planning – First of all I spent a lot of time in this and other boards checking things out beforehand. This really helped and I learned a lot of tips and tricks to use. Because we were at a Disney hotel I also made some arrangements with the Disney Resorts Vacation Planning staff. They arranged some special magic for me that the wife and daughter did not know about, and also got me (by accident, but still) the VIP Fantasmic seating. You call them, and I just told them about how much I wanted to spend on “surprises”. He then helped me select things to have magically appear in the room. When we got there, my daughter had Disney Jammies (she loved these), here personalized ears, photo album, and a princess name tag with her name on it. We got many comments on the name tag, as it looks like a Cast Member badge, and I don’t think they sell them in the park (at least none of the folks who asked had seen them, and we did not see any other kids with them). One night on returning to the park, there was a plate of chocolate tuxedoed strawberries in the room and a Minnie plush. The night of our Vineyard Room dinner, a Mickey and Minnie wedding dressed set with a box of chocolate truffles and Happy Anniversary photo appeared (daughter’s birthday was the 4th, our anniversary on the 10th). These are nice things to have happen on vacation. As far as dining, if you are going to hit the busy restaurants, make priority seating! We never had to wait! Lastly, thanks to all on this board for helping to make a very special trip to “the Mouse.”

cmpeter
06-07-2004, 01:45 PM
Sounds like a wonderful trip! I am going to have to remember the tip about having the vacation planning staff help out with some magical surprises...great idea.

Dlandmom
06-07-2004, 01:49 PM
Sounds like a great trip! Thanks for sharing.

That extra service at the Vineyard Room sounds wonderful. I'm now wondering if we should try it with my 4 1/2 year old daughter. If they'll help amuse her, I'm game to have dinner there!

Drince88
06-07-2004, 02:29 PM
Sounds like you got everything you wanted out of this trip!

It was interesting to read your account of the vineyard room. My sister and I went to Disneyland in mid September 2001 (we flew on Sept 15 from Portland, OR - we were just relieved the planes were flying to her small airport so she didn't have to drive to Portland). The vineyard room was still run by Mondavi (sp?) at that point, but given the "off season" as well as the recent national events, I think we were the only people in the restaurant when we arrived for our reservations (which we'd set as late as possible, which is when the park closed). It was, at that point, also a fixed price and 3 or 4 courses with wine pairings (I'm sure you could get it without wine), but it was served "family style" so you had to agree on each course between the parties. I'm glad they've changed that part, since I could see that being a problem for some groups.

We were also escorted out by security - and it was very surreal. We were the absolute last guests in the park (since nobody else was eating at the restaurant), and they'd turned off the background music once they had everyone else out -- the restaurant couldn't keep music on separate from the park, which made it VERY quiet. We even saw the security person "waiting" for us, so we knew to wait for them when we got to the bottom of the stairs!

We, too, stayed at the Grand Californian. We paid for a standard view, but got a courtyard view (not sure if that was an upgrade) but it was very relaxing to have the only noise be the occasional "whish" of the monorail. I agree about it not being "over the top" with Disney, but for two single (at that time) adults, it was a nice and relaxing vacation setting.

Photographer
06-07-2004, 02:33 PM
Sounds like you had a great time. I'd love to try the Vineyard Room one of these days. Just need to find friends willing to join me. All the extra magical touches sound awesome.

cstephens
06-07-2004, 03:17 PM
EdD - Thanks for the trip report. Sounds like you and your family had a good time.

It was interesting to read about your experience at the Vineyard Room. We like it there a lot as well, and it was interesting to note that they had bowls of cherries out. They had grapes when we were last there.

And I loved the prosciutto as well.

Thanks again.

CarlieB
06-07-2004, 03:20 PM
Great trip report - I really enjoyed reading it. It was especially relevant to our upcoming trip, as we will be spending a couple of our nights at the GCH too, so I was interested to read your comments about that. I'm beginning to think the Vineyard Room is a must-do for us this time...:)

tinksmom
06-07-2004, 05:47 PM
Wow, what a fantastic trip! Thanks for sharing it with us.

What is the deal with Disney Resorts Vacation Planning? Is this a free service?

Rae
06-07-2004, 06:47 PM
Fantasmic was awesome! We were on the VIP balcony, which is right next to the dessert buffet balcony, but only seats 9. No desserts, but not $53/pp either! Fantastic view, and the fireworks afterward were great! .”


How do you get seating on the VIP balcony? is it PS same as the desert balcony??

kkmickey
06-07-2004, 07:03 PM
Bengal BBQ – I heard about this place on the boards, never would have tried it otherwise. . . . not cheap, thank goodness for 20% discount. Thanks to the board for this find!

Where did you find a 20% discount? Thanks

adriennek
06-07-2004, 08:08 PM
Where did you find a 20% discount? Thanks


Luckily my wife gets a cast member discount of 35% for merchandise and 20% for food by virtue of her employment with ABC,

here's my comment:


Bengal BBQ – I heard about this place on the boards, never would have tried it otherwise. I LOVED it! ... the bacon wrapped asparagus skewers were wonderful,

Yeah, Bay-by! I love those bacon wrapped asparagus! Hmmmmmmm.
Drool moment over.

Adrienne

disNeytEen
06-07-2004, 11:02 PM
thanks for the trip report sounds like one heck of a good time. That would be the down fall of DCA the height requirments. But im glad you had a good time

EdD
06-08-2004, 08:37 AM
What is the deal with Disney Resorts Vacation Planning? Is this a free service?
You have access to them if you stay at a Disney property. The contact number is on the back of the reservation confirmation you get, and you call or e-mail them in advance of your trip. The service is "free", but there is a one time $20 charge if they do any shopping for you (like the jammies).


How do you get seating on the VIP balcony? is it PS same as the desert balcony??
No, this is special, and is usually reserved for VIPs or guests who they are trying to appease for one reason or another. Our Vacation Planner "forgot" to get our Fantasmic! dessert balcony tickets, so he arranged this for us instead. Frankly, I was glad it worked out that way!