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View Full Version : YARR! Trip report, July 28 - 31



Jon Vincible
08-02-2006, 11:48 AM
My friends and I recently took our third annual Disneyland road trip, and I thought I'd write up a quick summary. First, some overall thoughts about the park this past weekend. The weather, while not too hot, was very sticky and humid. As soon as we stepped out of our hotel we felt like we needed a shower. Attendance, while by no means low, wasn't nearly as terrible as it was last summer. Thanks to all the tips I got for maximizing Fast Pass, my friends and I got to ride quite a few rides that we might not have had time for. Ok, on to the day-by-day.

We left San Jose, CA around 2 pm on Friday, the 28th. We made quite a few pit stops so it took us around 7 hours to get down to Anaheim. Ofcourse, 2 of those hours were spent trying to driving the 20 mile section of I-5 in L.A. The directions we printed out to our hotel, the Ayres Anaheim Hotel, didn't specify which way to head on 91, so we missed our exit and had to turn around. L.A. freeways are confusing! We arrived at our hotel, which was very nice, and ate dinner at the restaurant/brewery across the street, which was delicious, expensive, and fancy. It should be noted that while we waited for our second car to arrive to the hotel (they missed the exit too), we could see the fireworks at Disneyland from the hotel parking lot.

We started Saturday early by eating at the breakfast room downstairs, which was actually very good for an included breakfast. They had all sorts of melons, juice, cereals, and ofcourse all the major hot breakfast foods such as pancakes, french toast, sausage, eggs, bacon, and hash browns. We headed out to Disneyland at around 8:30 am. It was still early so they parked us in the Daisy section of the Mickey & Friends parking structure. The lines to have security check your bags were long, as usual. The ticket lines at this time, however, were very short and soon enough we had our tickets in-hand and were ready to explore. We ran to Space Mountain, got a Fast Pass, and then waited in line for it because the wait was only 25 minutes. Only one of my friends had been on the new Space Mountain, so it was quite the experience for the rest of them, two of which had never even been on the old Space Mountain. After that we headed over to the Mad Hatter in Fantasyland and purchased our Pirate Mickey Ears. With all 8 of us wearing the ears, we turned quite a few heads, and I think even encouraged people to go get themselves a pair. After that we headed over to the Haunted Mansion, which had a wait of only 5 minutes. The new attic scene was great. The various portraits with the bride and groom where the groom's head disappears were very cool. The bride herself was a spectacularly creepy effect.

At this time, our window for the Space Mountain Fast Pass had opened, so we headed over to Splash Mountain to try and get a Fast Pass. I actually got really nervous here, because the lady assisting people with Fast Passes actually told us, "Make sure you don't have any other Fast Passes out before you try to get this one." Now, in retrospect, I think she was just saying this so that the machine wouldn't reject our attempt if we had another Fast Pass whose window had not yet opened. But, at the time, I almost thought she knew we had no intention of using any of our Fast Passes any time soon.

After that we headed over to Pirates and waited in line for that. Now, looking at the length of the left and right queues, I'm thinking it's smarter to go on the right. The queue on the left wraps around the left side of the building, whereas the right side appeared to just go up the ramp and into the ride. Someone correct me if I'm wrong about that. I've been reading about the changes for awhile now and I must say, I was still very impressed with the attraction. The changes were subtle enough that I think hardcore Disneyland purists and fans of the movie alike will enjoy it. The Davey Jones effect was stellar. All three of the Jack Sparrows are great additions in my opinion. After Pirates we headed back to Space Mountain to attempt to use our "expired" Fast Passes. Again, I got nervous. I looked at the closing window of the Fast Pass, 11:45. I looked at my watch, 2:30. As we slowly ascended the ramp to the queue, my friends looked at me and signaled for me to try first. So, I showed her my Fast Pass, she glanced at the starting time and the date, and voila! We were in! My friends were so stoked to find out everything I had been telling them was true. After Space Mountain we grabbed Buzz Fast Passes, then headed up to ToonTown and got Fast Passes for Roger Rabbit, which we never wound up using. After Splash we used our Buzz Fast Passes.

At this time it was about half-way through the day, and we all wanted to ride Tower of Terror. Before that, however, we got Fast Passes for Soarin' and GRR, which confirmed for us that GRR was disconnected from the network. We got in line for Tower of Terror and welcomed the air-conditioned paradise that was the basement of the old hotel. I made it a priority to sit next to my friend who had last been to Disneyland when she was 2 years old. As fun as the attractions still are for me, there's nothing more exciting then sitting next to someone who is experiencing them for the first time. She loved it, ofcourse. After ToT we walked over to Monsters Inc., which only had a 10 minute wait. I thought the ride was OK. There wasn't anything particulary impressive about it, but it didn't let me down either. After Monsters Inc. our GRR Fast Passes were ready, so we put all of our cameras and camcorders in the free lockers and hopped on the ride. Our group was so large that we had to take two rafts. Three nice people sat down in our raft and we had a short conversation with them. They were from Sacramento, which is only 2 1/2 hours north of San Jose. After GRR we used our Soarin' Fast Passes and then headed back to Disneyland.

We checked out Indy, which was out of Fast Passes and had a 40 minute wait, and decided to ride the Jungle Cruise. At this point it was almost 7:30 so we decided to sit down in front of the castle and wait for the fireworks. We waited an hour and a half before they started playing the "Due to winds at higher elevations... might be cancelled." They played that recording for half an hour before finally, to much dismay, cancelled the fireworks. So, having taken advice from a previous post on these boards, we put our hands on eachother's shoulders, forming a train, and gently pushed and shoved through Frontierland. We got really good seats for Fantasmic!, just a little to the right of the center. Again, I sat next to my friend for who this was all a brand-new experience. Fantasmic! completely blew her away! Seeing her face light up when Mickey appeared at the top of the Tom Sawyer building was absolutely priceless! We were all really tired after that so we headed back to the hotel to rest up for the next day.

Sunday was spent at Universal Studios Hollywood. This is the Disneyland forum so I won't go into much detail about that park. USH was extremely busy, however. I've only ever gone in the off season, so the lines at that park were a complete shock to me. They've added The Fast and the Furious Xtreme Close-Up to the Tram Studio Tour. This is a very very cool little attraction and I recommend everyone get out there to see it. Also, since Desperate Housewives is on hiatus from filming, they took us down Leave it to Beaver street, which is where they film Desperate Housewives. I don't watch the show, but it was neat to see the exterior sets. Also, they took us by the Flash Flood part of the tour, which was absent in my trip last December.

Monday was our final day at Disneyland. We woke up a little later and got to the park at around 10:00. We started at DCA, where we bought those green Pirates of the Caribbean pistols and fake rubber pirate knives. Those little green guns are really cool because when you pull the trigger, a bulb at the end of the barrel shines a skull and crossbones on whatever you're pointing at. It took us awhile to figure out that it did this, so be sure to check those out the next time you're there. We then headed over to Paradise Pier, rode Screamin', and then headed back to Disneyland.

We tried to Fast Pass Space Mountain, but it was closed due to technical problems, so we Fast Passed Buzz again and headed back to the Mad Hatter. We all purchased to Pirate Goofy Ears and, again, all of us wearing those turned quite a few heads. We headed over to Indy and waited in the 40 minute stand-by line. We stopped by the Adventureland bathrooms and noticed people would "yarr!" at us as they walked by. So, in turn, we would "YARR!" back in unison. One lady even asked if her son, who also had a pair of Pirate Goofy Ears, could take a picture with us. We felt special. After that we headed up to ToonTown and Fast Passed Roger Rabbit again. Then we took the path behind Big Thunder and Fast Passed that. Then we used our Buzz Fast Passes, and then our Big Thunder Fast Passes. As we were waiting to get on the train for Big Thunder, one of the CMs working asked us if we would "raid" the back of the train to surprise the lady who was assigning everyone to different rows. We did, which was hilarious, and then rode Big Thunder. As we got off, the CM who asked us to raid the train handed us some passes. These passes were each good for 5 people, and would get us to the front of any ride, with no wait. We had 4 passes, so we had our choice of riding any 2 rides without waiting. This was amazing. By now we were really settling into our pirate roles and whenever someone would comment, "Look, pirates!", "yarr!", or even just wave at us, we would in turn yell out, "YARR!"

We ate at the Mexican restaurant by Big Thunder, which was very very good. We'd never eaten there before, which is a shame. They have really good food and the prices aren't outrageous. I highly recommend it. After we ate we used our Roger Rabbit Fast Passes. My friend's sunglasses flew off because we were spinning so fast, but she later got them back at the lost and found. By this time we were all pretty sick of standing in line, so we hopped on the Mark Twain before it departed. The Captain, Isaac, commented as we boarded, "Are we being raided?" We laughed, and started YARR-ing as we ran up to the second deck. We got places on the rail facing the main walkways and would YARR at everyone who waved at us. We saw Jack Sparrow, who we YARR-ed at, and he gave us a friendly little wave. I think people really got a kick out of us because they would always laugh when we would YARR at them. One CM from the Hungry Bear Restauraunt later saw us in Adventureland and commented, "You guys looked really good on the Mark Twain earlier.", and we YARR-ed for him. Isaac, the captain, kept coming back to us and telling us pirate jokes such as, "What's a pirate's favorite vegetable? ARRtichokes." and "Why do pirates have so many tattoos? Because they're such good ARRtists!" Isaac was great. At this point we used 2 of the 4 "Choice" passes we received from the CM on Big Thunder, and rode Indy.

After Indy we chose to sit down in front of the castle again and save seats for the fireworks. Well, two hours later, the fireworks were cancelled again. Bummer. This was the last chance we had to see them too. After that we decided to use our last 2 "Choice" passes and ride Space Mountain. The chaos that was everyone leaving the hub had us pointing our little green pistols in the air above our heads, and repeatedly pulling the trigger to light up the barrels. One woman commented, "Look, the pirate posse is still here!" So ofcourse, we YARR-ed and they laughed. We got on Space Mountain, using our "Choice" passes just like a Fast Pass. As we pulled out of the station we pulled next to the handicap train and the people sitting there cheered for us, so we YARR-ed for them. My friend lost his glasses on the ride so we were waiting outside of the exit when we saw them again. We didn't recognize them at first, but one of the ladies commented and pointed at us. I didn't hear what she said so she explained, "We saw you on the ride." So we YARR-ed for them again and they all laughed. We even saw them again later in Adventureland, they spotted us from far away and YARR-ed for us! So we YARR-ed in return and one of them commented, "You guys are like my favorites!" After Space Mountain we decided to take advantage of the fact that everyone was watching Fantasmic! and rode Pirates for the last time. There was no wait. We walked right onto the ride. Some kids in a boat pulling up to the loading dock saw us and put their fists in the air, so we YARR-ed and they all laughed. They waited until we got into our boat and we heard a YARR coming from behind us. So, we turned around and YARR-ed yet again. They all laughed. Fun people. We got out in time to see the ending of Fantasmic! and then we headed to City Hall to write up some compliments. We complimented Joe from Big Thunder, and Isaac from the Mark Twain. The City Hall CM knew both of them personally. Great CMs like that must stand out.

Overall, this was the greatest of the three trips I've taken with my friends. We are very much looking forward to next summer's. I highly recommend the Ayres Hotel Anaheim, though the rates on the door were much higher than the rates we got from hotels.com. Also, remember, it pays to be a pirate. We were having so much fun YARR-ing all around the park. Yeah, we probably annoyed some people, but for the most part people were laughing and YARR-ing back at us.

SactoGuy
08-02-2006, 03:00 PM
hey you were there the same time i was. yeah saturday was sticky, we went to santa monica that day =).

But it was a good time =)

I was the one with mickey shirt on hahaha =)

disneyhound
08-02-2006, 05:32 PM
Sounds like you had a great DL vacation. Thanks for sharing, and oh yea, YARR...