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View Full Version : My trip report and random stuff Dec. 13-20



splash
12-23-2006, 03:19 PM
Hi all. Well we have come back to the real world and I thought I would write about some of our experiences. The cast of characters contains myself 41, husband 40 and 12 year old son.

We started the trip off with a phone call at 6:00 am from United Airlines telling us that our 10:40 am flight was cancelled, but good news, they have booked us onto a later flight (1:40, arrives at 4:10). My son was very disappointed, and so was I, but decided that it was only about a 3 hour difference and we would make the best of it. We hadn't planned to go to the park that day anyway. The flight and rental car stuff went smoothly when we arrived at LAX (this was our first time flying there instead of John Wayne). For future reference, would probably go to JW as it is closer. We arrived at the Disneyland Hotel (DH) at around 5:30 or so. We found out that we were given a room in Bonita tower (I had requested Sierra), but due to all the people there, they only had a view room in Bonita or a partial view in Sierra. We took the Bonita and enjoyed the waterfalls and the view.

Day 1 in the parks

We arrived at the gates a bit after 9:00 and got in fairly quickly. My son had the whole days plan of what rides and when. So we headed over to Pirates first thing. We enjoyed the changes and the Davey Jones in the mist is really a nice effect. Overall, I don't think that the flavor of the ride has really changed. The Jack Sparrow addition was good too. The one in the barrel looks so real! So, we are riding POTC (our favorite ride) and we are almost in the last room (the room where it looks like the timbers are breaking and falling on you) when the ride stops. They made the usual announcements about staying seated and keeping hands and feet in the boat (a few times), then after 15 minutes or so, they come on with a message saying that the ride is broken down and there will be a castmember by to evacuate us. There actually was already a castmember there talking to us. We were close enough to the wall to step off the boat (near a flaming window) where there was a door and we were led up 2 flights of stairs and through a castmember dining area and out the near the real exit to pirates. They gave us passes to use at another ride. We didn't end up using it, because we had the AAA enhanced fastpass (which is amazing). We never waited in a line longer than 10 minutes.

After this auspicious beginning to our trip we headed over to Haunted Mansion (really like the Nightmare before Christmas overlay - especially the man eating wreath), then Indiana Jones to get a fastpass and rode the Jungle Cruise. Then we went over to Splash Mountain to get a fastpass for later and rode Pooh. I might mention that every day we were there, the longest posted time for Splash Mountain was 20 minutes. We always had fastpasses and never waited more than 5 minutes. It was a bit cold there though - with highs in the high 50's to 62. I did wear my shorts in the daytime though.

I dragged the boys to Rudolph's reindeer roundup. Which was cute. We were also doing some quests for VMK as we wandered around.

Eventually we made it over to the other side of the park, stopping in Fantasy Land to do Peter Pan (another favorite) and Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. I talked the boys into IASW and we really enjoyed it. Then we hit Buzz, and the Matterhorn. In between times, we got Dole whip and visited Redd's Pizza Port (not sure of the exact name of the place)

Most of our days followed a similar pattern, we spend a lot of time in Critter Country for Splash Mountain and over to POTC and Haunted Mansion.

On day 3 we had to call the front desk to complain about the people in the room next to us. Every day they woke us up at 5:00 am. I should also mention that I came down with a monster cold and went through numerous kleenex (it didn't go away until our last day in the park). The front desk was kind enough to tell me that our neighbors were from a 3 hour different time zone (we were thinking east coast?) and that they wouldn't be checking out very soon. They talked to a manager and were able to move us to another room in the Bonita tower. We went from the 4th floor to the 5th (the neighbors here were very quiet).

The boys braved Space Mountain (my head felt to weird to attempt it). We did finally do California Screaming In DCA. That was pretty scary to me - but I felt good for doing it. Of course afterwards, I had to sit down for awhile as my legs were going out on me (shaky). But I did it!!

We also took a trip on Sun. to Universal - wasn't as thrilled about that one as Disneyland though.

We ate at Yamabuki in PPH and the food was amazing! We had called the day before for priority reservations and got in right at 5:30. It is spendy, but we found the quality to be well worth it.

We also ate at the Blue Bayou - their menu is getting more and more selective. I had a hard time finding something to order. I got a chicken dish, Hubby got the salmon (which he really enjoyed) and my son had to order the mac and cheese from the kids menu because he couldn't find anything he liked.

The other cool thing is when we went to Hook's Pointe on Tues. We sat down with the menus and then this man appears at our table. He said he was the sous chef and they were supposed to do something special for a table and he picked us. He said that he would prepare some appetizers for us to try. We had artichoke dip on croutons and pita, lobster rolls, a beef skewer and a rice noodle garnish. Very tasty (probably not something we would have ordered on our own though), but I am glad we got the chance to try it.

We never got to see the fireworks, as the nights we stayed, it was too windy. However they did do the snow, and that was pretty magical.

That brings this tome to the last day - and that's when it gets interesting. We decided before we came into the park, which rides we had to do before leaving there at 6:00 pm to catch our flight. The list included POTC, SM, HM, IASW, Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Buzz, Jungle Cruise, Indy...etc.

We kept seeing dream squad members and joked about stalking them (following them) until they gave out prizes, but husband, being the level headed one discouraged us from this. So, it is around 2:00 and we have just boarded Splash Mountain and have gone around the corner from where you start, when the ride stops. We got alll the announcements about staying seated, etc.. So about 10 minutes later they tell us that the ride is having mechanical difficulties and will be shut down and they will be around to evacuate us from the ride. (this has never happened to us and now it has happened 2 times on the same trip). The castmember arrived and we stepped off the log and went through a door that connected us to where the ride boards, then we went through the line and outside. They gave us fastpasses. When we got out there was a castmember by the door and another man who had pins (we stopped to check out pins for trading). My son wanted to ask how long the ride would be down. After he was told that it was doing something that they hadn't seen before and it could be awhile, the castmember standing by him said that the molasses had gotten to thick. Then we noticed that he was dream squad, so I casually mentioned that we had seen many dream squad people but had not had any give us anything. He said that he would see if he could give us a little magic. He had a receipt book with him and wrote down my name (I was wearing a birthday button to celebrate my birthday which is actually on the 30th of Dec.) He asked us if we had ridden HMH, and I said yes, we love it. So he walked us down there and wrote out a special pass to let us on. I had remarked on a Goofy pin that he had on, as my son is a goofy fan. He said that Zac (my son) could think if he wanted to trade for the pin and he would meet us after we got off HMH. When we got off, Brian, was there waiting and he handed the pin to my son and wouldn't take anything in trade. He thanked us for being so nice and that was the last time we saw him. I felt pretty special, even though it wasn't a big dream thing. We ended the day on Pirates, which broke down as we approached the front of the line. So we exited the park, without riding it one more time. We drove to the airport, caught our flight at 9:40, arrived in Portland, OR at 12:10 and got home around 2:15 am.

cynthia312
12-23-2006, 03:37 PM
fantastic trip report!!!!!!! =) i usually love reading trip reports cuz if im not at disneyland, reading about somebody's trip report KINDA made me feel like i went!!! lolz :D weird...but hey! still....hahaha

anyways hope you had fun. sorry about that little flight delay incident. hopefully it didn't bum you out too much. it was nice of the disneyland hotel castmembers to switch you to another room. it seems like they have great service there. [hopefully i could eventually stay there one day, maybe whenever they have their AP nights or something.]


hope you have a happy holidays!!!! stay warm!!!!

rentayenta
12-23-2006, 05:27 PM
Neat report. Thank you for taking the time to share this with us. :)

disneyhound
12-24-2006, 07:41 AM
Great Report! Bummer about your head cold...