A Fistful of Fastpasses: Disneyland with the DIS and ABD! (Final Day post #205-10/4)

[skier_pete]

Hello, and welcome to our trip report. For those that haven’t already been following along in my PTR, I am skier_pete and I’ve been on these boards for seven years now. I am married to a wonderful Disney addict and we have a wonderful Disney addict 10 year old daughter. We’ve done 7 trips to WDW in the last 6 years and last year took our first trip to DL.

DW and I have been wanting to join in on the DIS-exclusive Backstage Magic tours for quite a few years – since they started doing them – and we finally got the opportunity and the funds to do so this year. It was also a chance for DW and I to do a Disney trip just the two of us for the first time in 13 years. DD was left behind with Grandma, and was not told that Disneyland would be involved. So, it was an “adults only “ trip!



The trip lasted from Saturday, June 8th through Saturday, June 15th, and the ABD portion only ran from the evening of June 9th to the morning of June 14th, so I will also cover the “on-our-own” time.

So, let me start off by saying that this trip report is going to tell a lot of details from this trip, but it will NOT cover any of the special backstage stuff that you might not know from reading something as basic as the trip description. One thing that Pete Werner and the DIS crew stress is that we do not want to provide spoilers for those that might go on this trip in the future. So, details about what we saw behind the scenes at Disneyland, at the Studios, and at Imagineering are going to be glossed over pretty heavily.
However, there will still be lots of stuff about this trip here, so I want to warn anyone that is planning on doing this trip in the next few years – you should STAY AWAY. I personally think it is more fun to be surprised on the trip. There are things that I will talk about here because they are fairly common knowledge that I think would’ve been even more fun had we not known about them in advance. In addition, the things we got to do are NOT the things that you might get to do. So, my recommendation would be to treat this entire TR as a big pile of SPOILERS and simply GO SOMEWHERE ELSE!!!!














OK – what are you still doing here – I said GO AWAY!!!!!














Good, they’re finally gone. For the rest of you, please enjoy “A Fistful of Fastpasses”

 

[skier_pete]

Day 1
Arrival / Griffith Observatory / Hard Rock Universal

Day 2
Warner Brothers Tour Part 1 - 6/25
Warner Brothers Tour Part 2 & LA Farmer's Market - 6/25
Day 2 - Welcome Dinner - 7/1
Day 2 - Celebrity Spotting Part 1 - 7/1
Day 2 - Celebrity Spotting Part 2 - 7/1
Bonus Day 2 Pix - 7/2

Day 3
Day 3 - El Capitan Theater tour - 7/9
Day 3 - Henson Studios & Tam O'Shanter - 7/9
Day 3 - The LA Steamers- 7/12
DAy 3 - Back to the El Cap -7/15

Day 4
Day 4 - Imagineering - No Spoilers! - 7/17
Day 4 - Disney Studios Tour- 7/17
Day 4 - Legends Plaza - 7/17
Day 4 - Arrival at Disneyland - 7/24
Day 4 - Fantasmic! - 7/24

Day 5
Day 5 - Entering the park early - 7/26
Day 5 - In front of the castle - 7/26
Day 5 - More empty park pics - 7/26
Day 5 - Walking through an empty park to - 8/2
Day 5 - Club 33 - 8/2
Day 5 - Club 33 continued - 8/2
Day 5 - Backstage, Lunch & Walt's Apartment - 8/7
Day 5 - Disney Dream Suite Part 1 - 8/9
Day 5 - Disney Dream Suite Part 2 - 8/9
Day 5 - Mickey's Soundsational Parade - 8/15
Day 5 - Magical Fireworks and an evening wrap-up - 8/15

Day 6
Day 6 - DCA in the AM - 8/22
Day 6 - Welcome to Radiator Springs! - 8/22
Day 6 - Evening at Carthay Circle - 9/16

Day 7
Day 7 - Early Entry to DCA -9/19
Day 7 - Disneyland and Grand Californain Review - 9/27
Day 7 - Final hours in the parks - 9/27

Day 8
Day 8 - Breakfast Steakhouse 55 and final summary - 10/4

 

[skier_pete]

Left our house around 8:45 AM, we dropped our car off at a friend’s house near the airport. Our flights were uneventful, in both cases we got two aisle seats across from each other. I mostly did puzzles, listened to music and took a short nap. Sat next to an older couple heading to Ontario, CA for the first flights. The 2nd flight I sat near a lady from Pittsburgh going to visit her brother and a job interview.

Arrived in LAX about 3:20 PM, no problems with the luggage. Got to the rental car which had been picked out, but they gave us a hatchback, so I had to change cars to one with a trunk. This took about 20 minutes, so by the time we got to our hotel and parked it was probably close to 5 PM. Surprisingly we were not really hungry so “relaxed” a bit before getting dressed. A quick exciting shot from our hotel room at the LAX Hilton.



I'll give a quick review of the hotel. We stayed at the LAX Marriot last year for about $110 a night. This time we save $10 at the Hilton. The Hilton was NOT very good. I would choose the Marriot next time.

It was about 6:30 PM when we left and decided to go with our primary plan, which was to drive up to Griffith Park Observatory. The freeways were crowded so we asked the concierge for the best route, and he sent us up Cienega Boulevard to Sunset Boulevard. We passed Randy’s Donuts and I snapped a picture. You may remember a certain Marvel Superhero hanging out here a few years back.



The drive was interesting enough, though it made me comment what I almost always think when in Los Angeles. “The image of Los Angeles is so much nicer than the reality of Los Angeles”, which I guess makes perfect sense for a town all about images.

We made our way to Griffith Park and found that there were TONS of people going to the observatory. People were parking a good mile + down the winding road. We pulled over to take a quick snap shot:





It was already like 7:30 PM by this time, and we weren’t about to walk that far so we kept driving. I got lucky and got a spot about ¼ mile down the hill. The observatory itself was really amazing and well worth the trip.

The views were pretty good even though it was pretty hazy out. I used my gorilla-pod tripod to grab a shot of the Hollywood Sign. Remember, this sign was about a 1/2 mile away and it was nearly dark out...so I thought my little Nikon Coolpix did a pretty good job of pulling that one off!









For those that don't remember, Griffith Observatory (named after Griffith J. Griffith, who donated the land) has featured prominently in several Hollywood movies, perhaps most famously in Rebel without a Cause, but also The Terminator, Earth Girls are Easy, The Rocketeer (DISNEY CONNECTION!), and Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. For the Mystery Science Theater fan - also featured in War of the Collosal Beast! Some more shots of the observatory:













Some inside shots:

 

[skier_pete]

From there we made our way up to the Hard Rock Café in Universal Citywalk. DW has a collection of shooter glasses from Hard Rocks around the world, and we had never made the LA locations. Since we would be staying right next to the Hard Rock in Hollywood, we decided to try this other one.









Disney (Rock and Roller Coaster) connection: Aerosmith tickets from the seventies:



We had an appetizer dinner because it was now 9 PM at night. DW got her shooter glass



and we had the Jumbo platter and an order of nachos.





Unfortunately, for how good it looked, the food was somewhere between luke-warm and cold, surprising considering how fast it came out. However, it was plenty and we were too tired to return the food. By the time dinner was up it was 10 PM and we were exhausted, so we just headed by down to our hotel. Now that the traffic was lessened (still a lot of cars but at speed anyways) we took the Ventura Freeway to the 405 and were back to our hotel in 30 minutes and asleep by 11 PM. A super long day (about 21 hours since we awoke), but a good start to the trip.

Because of the name of my trip report, I thought I would end each day with a summary of The GOOD, the BAD, and the UGLY

GOOD: Griffith Park Observatory and a good parking spot
A successful flight is a good flight

BAD: Food at Hard Rock
Our "Express" check-in with Hertz

UGLY: A "clean" drinking glass with Lipstick on it in our hotel room!
The door to the bathroom that would slide shut and pinch your finger if not done exactly right.

 

[Disneygrl36]

I'm here & ready for the Adventure.
I like your good, bad & ugly concept.
I really wish we had been able to make it into the Observatory this time, but I think I told you that we had the same experience you did the next day with the traffic & no lucky close spot to park, so we just kept driving.

 

[ymxbfalcon]

Great start, Pete! I'm looking forward to reliving this trip through your report.

 

[disneykiwi]

i'm in Pete

it's exciting as it all seems a bit of a blur so will be good to get it back in order. thx

 

[PrincessInOz]

Great start, Pete!

I'm definitely in for the good, the bad and the ugly!

 

[Tinker326]

Great start to a trip report!!!!

Griffith Observatory was on my list of things to take the girls to when we went in 2011- only we never made it because I was flying solo and chickened out driving there by myself with the girls- so it's HIGH on my list to get to next time I'm in LA. Your Hollywood sign shots turned out awesome!

LOVE DW purse!

Can't wait for the next installment!!!

Oh. and ewwwwwwwwwww about the lipstick stain on the glass!

 

[skier_pete]

OK - you first three were all on the trip ....so NO giving anything away ahead of time! Of course, if I MISS something, feel free of chime in.

I'm here & ready for the Adventure.
I like your good, bad & ugly concept.
I really wish we had been able to make it into the Observatory this time, but I think I told you that we had the same experience you did the next day with the traffic & no lucky close spot to park, so we just kept driving.

Yeah, I never pictured it being SOOOO crowded. There were people walking a LOOOONNNGG way up that hill in the dark, I also forgot to mention the Back to the Future 2 tunnel that they made us drive through on our way out!

Great start, Pete! I'm looking forward to reliving this trip through your report.

I only hope I can do it justice. Geez, with all these fellow ABDers reading my TR, I'm not going to be able to say anything bad about anyone! But seriously, it was a great group of people and it seemed like we got a bit of a chance to get to know almost everyone.

i'm in Pete

it's exciting as it all seems a bit of a blur so will be good to get it back in order. thx

It was definitely a go-go-go trip. I didn't have too hard a time with it, but we also took advantage of a mid-day break most days, which let us keep going until late.

Great start, Pete!

I'm definitely in for the good, the bad and the ugly!

This was definitely a warts and all trip. I would say that not everything was all sunshine and lollipops. I am sad to say while the good outweighs the bad and ugly, it won't be that hard to find either of those each day!

Great start to a trip report!!!!

Griffith Observatory was on my list of things to take the girls to when we went in 2011- only we never made it because I was flying solo and chickened out driving there by myself with the girls- so it's HIGH on my list to get to next time I'm in LA. Your Hollywood sign shots turned out awesome!

LOVE DW purse!

Can't wait for the next installment!!!

Oh. and ewwwwwwwwwww about the lipstick stain on the glass!

I would recommend doing the drive early in the day. Just in general, LA was pretty insane traffic/driving wise. Not surprised at all by it, but I just kept thinking "You would either need to leave 90 minutes early to get anywhere or you would simply need to not care when you got there!"

I'll tell DW you liked her purse.

 

[khertz]

Joining in! Great start so far, and I look forward to everything you CAN share with us about the trip!

 

[burly]

I'm joining in too!

 

[franandaj]

I would recommend doing the drive early in the day. Just in general, LA was pretty insane traffic/driving wise. Not surprised at all by it, but I just kept thinking "You would either need to leave 90 minutes early to get anywhere or you would simply need to not care when you got there!"

Yup! I live in So Cal and we always plan at least an hour to an hour and a half to get most anywhere!

Looking forward to hearing about this trip. So how does one get on one of these DIS exclusive ABD Backstage Magic trips? I've been considering doing it to see all the backstage stuff, I've followed a couple TRs from folks who did these tours.

 

[skier_pete]

Joining in! Great start so far, and I look forward to everything you CAN share with us about the trip!

YEAH!!! Though I know you were following along on facebook there will be WAY more pix there.

I'm joining in too!

and thanks for joining in.

Yup! I live in So Cal and we always plan at least an hour to an hour and a half to get most anywhere!

Looking forward to hearing about this trip. So how does one get on one of these DIS exclusive ABD Backstage Magic trips? I've been considering doing it to see all the backstage stuff, I've followed a couple TRs from folks who did these tours.

Hi there franandaj! I think we are already 2nd-degree of separation DIS friends as I know you are good friends of PrincessInOz, so welcome along!

The DIS exclusive tours are usually posted on the podcast page. It seems they booked them around June each year for the following year. You can check, but I know the 2014 trips are almost full. While you don't necessarily get much extra on the trip, you KNOW you'll be travelling with a group of like-minded individuals - I think that was really the best part of doing the DIS thing.

For everyone else, expect an update tomorrow. I am working on it whenever I can!

 

[ymxbfalcon]

The DIS exclusive tours are usually posted on the podcast page. It seems they booked them around June each year for the following year. You can check, but I know the 2014 trips are almost full. While you don't necessarily get much extra on the trip, you KNOW you'll be travelling with a group of like-minded individuals - I think that was really the best part of doing the DIS thing.

I'm pretty sure that the December 2014 trip was completely full and the one for July was almost full (and could be completely sold out by now), but I think there was a third trip in the winter (February, maybe?) that still had spots open. I agree with Pete, though; this is an amazing trip, but the main benefit of doing a DIS exclusive one is the other people you meet. There would be plenty of other dates available through Adventures By Disney if the DIS exclusive dates didn't work for you, and while there are a few "extras" that Dreams Unlimited Travel very generously provided for us, most of our itinerary was the same as an "ordinary" ABD trip.

 

[skier_pete]

While we slept well, we both woke up about 4:30 AM, so we just started getting up and getting organized. We packed up and were in the car by 7:30 AM. We stopped at Carl’s Jr for breakfast (a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit) and made our way up to Warner Brothers. We were able to take the highway, and it only took about 30 minutes to drive up to the Burbank area. (WB is very near Universal as well as the Disney Studios.)

We had booked the 8:30 AM tour, and got there a little early with some time to take some shot outside the main entrance. The famous WB water tower – rumor has it that if Jack Warner asked you to meet him by the water tower, it meant he would say to you “Whose name is it on that water tower?” to which you would reply “Yours Mr. Warner.” At which point he’d say “That’s right, it’s my name, and your fired!”:



The entrance:



Duck season! Rabbit season!





We went in through the gate and they took us to part of their back-lot sets.



The tour itself was really interesting. They took us to part of their backlot and showed us several different types of building structures and where they shot a bunch of movies/TV. Including a lot of Pretty Little Liars (DISNEY connection!), Hearts of Dixie, The Mask, Minority Report, Friends, Spiderman (the upsidedown kiss scene), The Waltons, My Fair Lady, The Music Man, Cool Hand Luke (the busting the streetlight scene), Growing Pains, ER, Gremlins, Goonies. I’ll try and point out what I can remember of the various sets in particular. Of course very little of it looks like it actually does in movies. This first picture was used as the entrance to the Casino in Ocean’s 13.



This fire escape façade was used for the part of Minority Report when Tom Cruise was jumping onto guys with Jet Packs going up the side of the building. (Of course this was digitally made to look much taller – much like Mr. Cruise.)



This street had also been used on “The Mask” and several other movies and TV shows. Interesting was to see the outside:



Versus then going inside, where there is clearly no movie shooting going on:



He then took us to the more suburban area where there was a town square. He mentioned this square maybe most famous in “The Music Man” and also “Gilmore Girls” but is currently being used by both “Hearts of Dixie” and “Pretty Little Liars”.



Most interesting that the trees around were real trees, but they had fake leaves glued to them, and the real leaves if they died were spray painted green. Only the squirrels are real, and as our driver pointed out, even that isn’t always the case! (You’ll see this later.)



The buildings are multi-purpose, with one side maybe being a court-house entrance with another being the church. This face in used as a church in many shows, including the Waltons.



This part of the building is being used for the high school in “Pretty Little Liars” currently.



Those of us that had an eighties childhood might remember this house from two things – it was used as the old lady’s house in Gremlins (the one who’s electric stair lift was shorted out and she was shot out the window), but more famously as the Seaver household from Growing Pains:



A fake courthouse, used in a bunch of movies including some of the Batman movies:



I took the one below to show how absolutely fake a backlot is. The streetlights are obviously all completely removable, but they also aren’t even hardwired…they have to run power to each one individually if they want it to light up. Also, that green area in the middle is also a fake subway entrance. The street is being used for something else right now, so they are disguising the hole.



(These streets were also used VERY recently if anyone saw the Superman/Karl’s Junior ad that’s been airing.)



We then went over to the studio area. He drove us through the construction shop, but being a Sunday there was very little activity going on.



There were about 25 different (massive) soundstages – indoor sets - around the lot. Each one had a plaque listing some of the more famous movies/TV shows that were shot on the soundstage. One example:




It was interesting to note that the various studios rent space from eachother, depending on their needs. For instance, parts of the Pirates of the Carribean movies were shot on the WB soundstages.
Next they took us to a museum with several vehicles including the Mystery Machine and several of the batmobiles. Here some of the things we saw in there…

Steve Carell’s car from the recent “Get Smart” movie:



Mike Myer’s Austin Powers Shaguar:



Obviously the General Lee from Dukes of Hazzard, but this is actually one of the few remaining General Lee’s from the original TV series – not from the remakes. (Willy Wonka's motorbike is sitting in front there as well):



Trinity’s Ducati Bike and the Agents vehicle from The Matrix:



Continued in Next Post

 

[skier_pete]

An odd one  this is obviously a space-capsule set...


...recently used on the Big Bang Theory:



The various Batmobiles all the way back from the Tim Burton / Micheal Keaton days&



&to Joel Schumacher / George Clooney&



&to finally the modern Chris Nolan take.



One disappointment I had was that until recently you couldve gone on the sets of Chuck, one of my favorite shows of recent years. The show is no more, so of course the sets are gone. But, we got to see the Nerd Herd car and some props.





Exciting for DD, we got to see the Mystery Machine. She was sort of amazed showing her the picture that it was a real thing.



Last but not least, probably the most famous Ford Anglia ever:



After that, they then took us through the prop department, which included seeing the preserved Central Perk set of Friends:











(Interesting trivia learned here: WB is very big on recycling: Pennys apartment on Big Bang Theory is re-used Joey/Chandler apartment from Friends.) As we walked through the prop department, they were really open about taking pictures. I guess anyone from WB or from outside can come in a rent the props. Most have tags indicating their weekly rental rate. I got a kick out of the fact some of the items were tagged with this:



For those that dont know about Veronica Mars, I was never into the show or anything, but they recently ran a kickstarter campaign a crowd-sourced $2 million+ to make a movie from the 10-year canceled TV series. Apparently they must be gearing up for production, because they had a bunch of stuff reserved.

Some things that didnt have value attached  how about the body of One-Eyed Willie  from the Goonies:



The piano from Casablanca (actually this is the stunt piano  we also saw the real one in the museum):



A painting from the Francis Ford Copolla / Gary Oldman Dracula movie:



The lighting Fixture room:



I forgot what movie they said this was used in, but a pair of them rent for about $1,300 a week.



Remember my mention of robot squirrels. Well, apparently this squirrel played ALL the squirrels in the Charlie and The Choclate Factory remake:



After that, they more or less locked up our cameras (unfortunately) as we got to go on the soundstages of three different shows: the Ellen Show, The Big Bang Theory, and finally the Mentalist. Because it was Sunday not much was going on, but that made it good to allow access to everything. It was interesting because we got to see THREE different types of sets (the talk show, the ½ hours sitcom, and the 1 hr drama) and how different they are. In particular, the Mentalist it was cool to see how it was very different in that you could walk through the sets, just like you would with a real office environment.

The last stop was at a museum with lots of costumes from various movies, including a whole bunch of Harry Potter stuff, but also from all the way back to Elizabeth Taylor as well as recent Batman, the Great Gatsby, and even the new Superman costume was here . They didnt allow pictures in the museum either. That pretty much wrapped up the tour, it was really a fascinating tour and well worth the $55.

From there we drove to the Farmers Market. We were getting pretty sick of LA traffic by now.



We had headed over here because Kevin on the DIS had crowed so much about the corned beef sandwiches at Magees.







Let me just say, you were right Kevin. DW said I should post my comment which was This stuff is like meat-flavored butter! Really, that sounds rather gross, but the intention is that the meat was so tender and flavorful and just melted in your mouth.

The rest of the Farmers Market  well I was not so impressed. The area where Magees was located was sort of an outdoor food court, with lots of little stands selling food and pastries. There were maybe three meat/seafood vendors and one produce vendor that made up the farmers market. Then on top of that, there was an expansive area of shops that werent much different from an outlet mall. The exception that there was an American Girl store that had a line of kids about 1,000 deep outside, though why we never found out. (Congratulations America on continuing to successfully encourage both materialism and narcissism in our children!)

It was now nearly 1 oclock and we had to turn in our rental car by 2 oclock. Even though it was only 3 miles from the Farmers Market to the Loews Hollywood Hotel, it took us approximately 40 minutes to drive there. (Thank God I was done with LA driving at this point!) I went inside and the guy at the desk who seemed to be overwhelmed with customers told me Id have to either wait a while for a receipt or they could just send it to me later. I said thats fine. Big mistake  9 days later I got a bill for $600 for the car rental. I was fortunately able to straighten it out pretty easily, but I was rather not enamored of the Hertz experience.

That's it for today. The start of the Adventure is still to come!

 

[Tinker326]

Oh man...that WB studio tour looks AWESOME!!! That's so up my alley. I went to the NBC tour in NYC in April and even though it was small potatoes next to this- I enjoyed it. I would just love this tour!

Love seeing the Growing Pains house (loved that show) & the car from HP & the inside set pieces.... and getting to sit on the Friends's Couch at Central Perk... how cool!

Looks like a GREAT tour.... thanks for sharing pictures! It is most def. on my to-do-list next trip out West.

 

[franandaj]

Hi there franandaj! I think we are already 2nd-degree of separation DIS friends as I know you are good friends of PrincessInOz, so welcome along!

The DIS exclusive tours are usually posted on the podcast page. It seems they booked them around June each year for the following year. You can check, but I know the 2014 trips are almost full. While you don't necessarily get much extra on the trip, you KNOW you'll be travelling with a group of like-minded individuals - I think that was really the best part of doing the DIS thing.

For everyone else, expect an update tomorrow. I am working on it whenever I can!

One of the reasons I joined in on your TR is because I know you're a friend of PIO, so you must tell a good story and so far I'm pleased!

I'll have to see if any of the DIS spoilers leak out here!

I'm pretty sure that the December 2014 trip was completely full and the one for July was almost full (and could be completely sold out by now), but I think there was a third trip in the winter (February, maybe?) that still had spots open. I agree with Pete, though; this is an amazing trip, but the main benefit of doing a DIS exclusive one is the other people you meet. There would be plenty of other dates available through Adventures By Disney if the DIS exclusive dates didn't work for you, and while there are a few "extras" that Dreams Unlimited Travel very generously provided for us, most of our itinerary was the same as an "ordinary" ABD trip.

I wouldn't be looking in 2014, but thanks for the heads up. We have all our 2014 large trips booked. Between those and any D23 events that might pop up requiring us to travel, we're pretty full for the next 18 months!

The WB tour looks fun! Maybe when our day to day lives calm down we could play tourist for a bit and do that for a day trip. I'm impressed with your knowledge of movies and TV shows. I haven't seen or heard of half of the things you talked about. However, fellow Chuck fan here! I'm sad the series went off the air, it was a good one!

It was now nearly 1 o’clock and we had to turn in our rental car by 2 o’clock. Even though it was only 3 miles from the Farmer’s Market to the Loews Hollywood Hotel, it took us approximately 40 minutes to drive there. (Thank God I was done with LA driving at this point!)

Yup! That about sums up LA driving and especially in Hollywood. It's even worse when something bad like an accident happens! I hope you enjoy chauffers for the rest of the trip!

 

[Disneygrl36]

Loved seeing what you were up to before we all met up. You can see what we were up to on my facebook page under photo albums.
We rented from the Hertz at the hotel. I felt bad for that guy in there by himself. At 9am there were like 5 people waiting to get cars. & just him. He was slammed. Sounds like it was the same when you returned yours. We didn't gave to do anything but put the key back in the door since ours was just a day rental & they were closed at 4ish when we got back.