Tales from Disneyland; 6 rides in 70 minutes and other stories from our trip

Teamubr

From somewhere outside StL
Joined
Nov 7, 2010
As promised, here is a mini report on our impressions of DL.

First, for those that weren’t reading in the other topics, I have been fortunate to spend 9 days at WDW and 2 weeks later, have our first ever visit to Disneyland. A Disney Double, so to speak. We only had time for 1 day in Anaheim, so we decided on the 1 day/1park ticket and it had to be DL. I don’t have anything against DCA, but I had to do the original. It made for a nice comparison to MK, which I know and love well.

Impressions? We loved DL. Amazingly intimate is the best way to describe it. There is so much packed into the park. Nothing is far from anywhere, but the theming and crowd flow is incredible. It all just works. As a single park, comparing it to MK only, I like DL better. We didn’t have time to do anything at DCA, but including everything there, WDW is a better overall experience. But DL is probably my favorite individual park.

DL opened at 8am this morning. We arrived at the security check point right at 8. It took 10 minutes to get through, so we didn’t technically make rope drop, but close. I’m not sure if today being a Monday made a difference, but there weren’t many people in the park until about 10. As a result, none of the rides had more than a 10 minute wait. We immediately rode Matterhorn (5 min). Being a DL only ride, it was fun and different. The Yeti animatronics were great. I had to doublecheck to see if it wasn’t a CM in a suit. AK should be embarrassed with what they have done in EE.
Next up was SpaceMountain. It is a minute walk “around the corner” from Matterhorn. It was nearly a walk on. I was surprised at the ride cars. You sit 2 to a row. The theming for the ride queue was fantastic. Much better than MK’s SM. This would be a theme that played out all day. While theming is really good at MK, it is incredible at DL. Just a step up. The SM at DL is much smoother, but also a lot more tame. I like the MK ride better, but the ride vehicles and theming at DL.

We started heading towards Adventureland to ride Indiana Jones. We saw Buzz Lightyear had a 10 minute wait, so we jumped in line to blast a few targets. Very similar to Buzz at MK. I think I liked the MK version better. I didn’t know what to expect with Indy. Once we saw the ride, we realized it was Dinosaur from AK. Indy was nearly a walk on. Again, the que is incredible with the theming. I liked the ride better than Dinosaur. Not as jerky and a better story.

Jungle Cruise is right next to Indy. In fact you can look into the boats from the Indy queue and the boat skippers make fun of the people in the queue for Indy. Overall, the Jungle Cruise is almost identical. We had a good skipper, but I’d call it a draw.

After Jungle Cruise we walked through New Orleans Square (really neat, but small area) and jumped on PoTC. It said a 10 minute wait, but it wasn’t that long. PoTC isn’t one of my personal favorites. Overall, the ride is themed a little better than MK and it is a bit longer. I almost missed the wench scene. I’m not sure what it used to be.

By now, we had rode 6 rides and it was just 9:20. Crowds were starting to increase and we hadn’t had breakfast yet, so we slowed down a bit. After getting a Churro and cinnamon rolls, we checked out some shops and decided to check out FP old school style. It was about 9:45 and the line for Big Thunder Mountain was getting long. FP tickets were saying 1040-1140. This is the only ride we FP’d all day.

I wanted to ride the Finding Nemo Submarines. Mostly because MK doesn’t have anything like it anymore. It was cute. We also rode the monorail. We received some pixie dust and got to ride in the tail car. The Mk VIIs are really nice. I took some neat pics from the tail that I’ll post tomorrow. It’s kind of sad to compare the monorails at DL to the aging ones at WDW. I know one is a ride and the other a transportation workhorse, but still.

We made a loop+ on the train, just because. This is one area where MK’s version is much better.

By noon, crowds were really picking up. Everything we rode early had at least 40 minute waits, some much longer. We tried out both CS and TS restaurants. Didn’t spend time to see any shows, but checked out most of the shops. I’ll post more on that tomorrow along with some pics. We left DL about 7:30. We were planning on staying for fireworks at 9:30, but we were getting tired and we still had to drive back to San Diego. It’s 10pm now and we are checked back into our San Diego hotel. We are going on a whale watching cruise in the morning, so I’m going to get to sleep.

j
 
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I know this is what everyone was really wanting.

Pictures!

We drove up to Anaheim on Sunday afternoon. Our hotel was right across from the DL entrance. Since it was dinner time when we arrived, we walked over to DTD for something to eat. Naples Ristorante look good and it was very good. Sorry, no pics.

Here is the entrance on Monday morning. It looks very similar.

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Main St. also looks very familiar, just 3/4 scale and there is something missing at the end.
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Here is the castle. Kind of anticlimactic.

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I've read the Matterhorn is the actual icon. This is the ride queue at 8:10. It was wrapped around the mountain by noon.

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I mentioned the Space Mt. queue was much nicer. Here is the loading area.

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And the wait at 8:20.

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We also did Haunted Mansion. The stretching room is fun since it is an actual elevator. Better effect than MK. The ride was also longer, but otherwise similar. The house is much different though.

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IASW looked a lot different, but was unfortunately the same. Even Donna was sick of the song by the end.

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Continued.

j
 
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Here was one of the fun surprises. We missed the first monorail and were 2nd in line for the next one. When it pulled into the station, the front doors popped open and it emptied out. The CM said it would hold 5. The 2 girls infront of us got in and we followed. I had rode in the front of the WDW monorail once when Ian was little, but that was before the accident.

Great view from the tail.

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I had also read that characters were out in the park more than MK. We saw many just walking around without any apparent handlers. Here is Pluto and Minnie on Main St. at what is the Town Square Theater at MK.

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I also was fascinated with the Finding Nemo submarines. The ride was ok. Fun concept.

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I didn't get any pics on the train. I was hoping for some backstage peeks, but they did a good job shielding everything. Even Galaxy's Edge was obscured really well from inside the park despite the cranes being a few feet beyond the wall. This is the best shot I could get. I took this exiting Big Thunder Mt.

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We liked the menus at the French restaurants in New Orleans Square. Dinner at Cafe Orleans was very good. Sorry no pics. I never remember to get a pic before I dive in.

Donna and Ian took quite a few pics too. I'll go through theirs when I get home tomorrow and post some more.

Like I said yesterday, I really liked DL. I'd like to plan a longer trip sometime. 3 or 4 days and take in the shows, night time fireworks and see DCA. Not sure when that will happen. Maybe the next time DW or I have another conference out here.

j
 
Great pics and trip report. You guys got lots done in one day. From the pics it looks like the weather was good for the day:sunny:
 


Joe,

We did get quite a bit in. Everything we had planned on. There are still lots of smaller things and shows and parades, but we hit the big ticket items and made it to all the areas in the park.

Weather was cold in the morning. Like 40s cold. You can see the CMs with heavy coats on in the Matterhorn queue pics. Once the sun came out, it made it into the low 70s. I started with a long sleeved shirt and heavy jacket. They have a huge locker room off Main St. where we dropped the winter clothes. Once the sun went down, it dropped into the low 60s.

j
 
Teamubr thanks for letting us tag along. But you missed one of the biggies Mr Toad's Wild Ride. I miss that one Pooh's 100 Acre Woods is nice but I like Mr Toad and those Weasels and boy has the Nautilus undergone a major upgrade in California Must be the emission standards
 
Thanks for all of th sharing. Please continue to share if you have other insights. We will be doing the opposite this summer. Will be at DL for 3 days in June, then at the Fort for 5 days a month later. Can't wait!
 


Been a crazy week in the clinic this week after being off a week I was super behind and haven't been able to follow on the boards. Thanks as always man for taking us along. I agree with you based on your pics and I've heard several people comment about how the attention to detail in Disneyland surpasses MK.
 
We will be doing the opposite this summer. Will be at DL for 3 days in June, then at the Fort for 5 days a month later. Can't wait!
I think 3 days at DL/DCA would be about right. I wish we could have stayed for the nighttime shows. DS went out in the hotel parking lot to see the DL fireworks the night before we went. He said they weren't as impressive as MK's HEA, but it still would have been fun. The videos I've seen of World of Color at DCA looked pretty good and the CM in a DL gift shop said "their Fantasmic was much better than WDW".

Not sure how often you get to WDW, but 5 days isn't near enough. :-)

Of course, unless I moved in for a few months (like some do), I don't think I could ever stay "enough".

Have a great time with your trips. We really enjoyed ours.

j
 
Not sure how often you get to WDW, but 5 days isn't near enough. :-)

Of course, unless I moved in for a few months (like some do), I don't think I could ever stay "enough".

j

No - 5 days is definitely not enough. As a 'bonus' trip the kids don't even know about, however, it will be fun. In total we will have we will have had 17 days in 12 months - so that's pretty good.

2019, however, is looking pretty barren!! :sad:
 
In total we will have had 17 days in 12 months - so that's pretty good.

2019, however, is looking pretty barren!! :sad:
17 days is a good start. We are going back in September this year, but just for 4 days, but that combined with September 2017 and February this year will give us 20 days in 12 months, not including the day we just had at DL.

DW says she is "Disney'd out". I said that is sacrilegious, but I understand, so 2019 will probably include something new/different. I was looking at the Virgin Islands for this year, but the hurricanes made a mess of those plans. Not sure what 2019 will bring.

j
 
For my 2 cents worth any stay less than 10 days is a waste of time. We like to take our time touring the parks and have plenty of FORT time.
 
17 days is a good start. We are going back in September this year, but just for 4 days, but that combined with September 2017 and February this year will give us 20 days in 12 months, not including the day we just had at DL.

DW says she is "Disney'd out". I said that is sacrilegious, but I understand, so 2019 will probably include something new/different. I was looking at the Virgin Islands for this year, but the hurricanes made a mess of those plans. Not sure what 2019 will bring.

j

Yeah - we're still trying to figure it out. We are planning a few trips to the Fort during the 2020-2021 cycle (summer, New Years, spring) all on one AP, and we are doing a trip to New England next Summer. So, we have been anticipating a year off from WDW. We haven't missed a calendar year since 2007, however, so breaking that trend is really eating at us!
 

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