JayDubs
Here for Castles, Fireworks, and Magic
- Joined
- Sep 21, 2012
Hey, everyone!! Just returned from a visit to Disneyland with a friend--I'm a WDW vet and have also visited the Paris parks twice, but this was the first time to the Anaheim parks for both of us! This is my first attempt at a full trip report, so we'll see how this goes! It will certainly vary in detail as I'm writing this without any notes. Some things I remember quite vividly...others I'll have to summarize.
HOTEL -- Grand Legacy at the Park
We stayed at the Grand Legacy Hotel on Harbor Blvd and were VERY pleased with our accommodations. Got a decent rate on Orbitz and switched to the GL after having originally booked the new Holiday Inn Express. Very pleased that I switched because it was sooooo convenient to walk back and forth to the parks from there. We had a deluxe double queen room and found it to be spacious and clean. The staff at the hotel were very professional and accommodating. We timed the walk from DCA gate to our room was exactly 10 minutes...DCA gate to hotel property was 6.5 minutes. So convenient!! I'd definitely stay here again. Only downside was the breakfast, which was paltry and unexciting. Plus, the place was packed! We ate there the first day and decided to skip it for the rest of the trip.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 1 -- Napa Rose
We arrived in Anaheim late Saturday afternoon and managed to secure a last minute reservation for Napa Rose. I had heard SO many amazing things about this place that the bar was set VERY high. My only other experience of Disney Signature Dining was at Jiko and I found that my meal at Jiko certainly lived up to the hype, so I was hopeful for Napa Rose as well. I was NOT disappointed!
We each started with a cocktail--I had a Rennie Rose and my buddy had the Napa Rose. Both were delicious. After some debate, we decided to really splurge and do the Vintner's Table with the flight of wine pairings. The first course was Fried Mediterranean Octopus, the second course was Wild Boar Meatballs, the third course was Grilled "Prime" New York Steak, and the dessert course was a Harvest Cream Persimmon Date Bar. Every course was outstanding and the wine pairings were absolutely PERFECT. I enjoy wine but do not claim to be any kind of expert on the matter. I had never had intentionally "paired" wines with a meal before and was just blown away by how the flavors complimented each other.
The stand-out course of the night was most certainly the Octopus. I don't usually get excited about seafood, so it's really something for me to list this as my favorite course. We both agreed though that this won hands down. The octopus was delicious and married well with the other flavors on the plate. The date bar was also a surprise winner. This was the course I was least excited about...I usually like my desserts to involve chocolate, so I would never have ordered this a la carte. It was delicious though!
Every bite of each course and every sip of each wine was ridiculously amazing. I can't oversell this experience enough. It may very well be the best meal I've ever had. Spending a couple hundred dollars on dinner is CERTAINLY a splurge...but it was a WORTHWHILE splurge! I would definitely do it again. We so enjoyed the entire experience...I would love to try the Chef's Table next time actually. I didn't even try to book it this time because I'm usually a little on the frugal side and was not convinced that I would want to spend the money on the Chef's Table/Vintner's Table. The Rennie Rose loosened me up enough to make the decision last minute. Absolutely no regrets though. Go to Napa Rose. Get the Vintner's Table with the wine. You won't have any regrets either. The hype is real.
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 2 -- Disneyland!
Today was our first day in the parks! We had 3 day park hoppers and today was our day to spend in the original Disneyland park! We woke up early get get through security and were at the gates about 30 minutes before opening time. The walk from the hotel was a breeze and security wasn't terrible, but we found it very inconvenient that there is no separate line for guests with no bags...you still have to wait through the bag search line, which seems like a huge waste of time. Not the end of the world, but also not a great first impression.
At rope drop we headed straight for Space Mountain Ghost Galaxy and walked right onto the ride. The ride itself is fun...more fun than the WDW version, but not as exciting as the Paris iteration. Ghost Galaxy, however, was entirely unimpressive. Both of us couldn't help but imagine how cool it would be as Hyperspace Mountain with the Star Wars overlay. Ghost Galaxy certainly didn't take away from the ride, but we didn't feel like it added anything to it either.
We then made a mad dash for Haunted Mansion. It actually had a 45 minute line or so, so we got a FastPass for an hour or so later and went to ride Jungle Cruise and Pirates of the Caribbean in the meantime. Let me take just a moment here to say how WONDERFUL it was to use the legacy FastPass system again! I used the FP+ system at WDW with my family in January...honestly I didn't think it was horrible, but now that I've tasted the legacy system again I realize just how much more enjoyable it is! It's great to be able to make decisions on the fly (instead of weeks ahead of time) and we used the system a LOT.
Before heading to the rides, we made a stop at the Mint Julep Bar for some coffee and Mickey Beignets! Faithful watching of DIS Unplugged vlogs had prepared me for some AWESOME snacks at Disneyland--I actually had a list--and these were definitely on it! We tried the seasonal butterscotch version (kinda glad they weren't pumpkin like everything else in the world...) and these also live up to the hype! Very delicious! We split an order of 3, which was a nice treat, but could TOTALLY have devoured more. There was a lot more sugar intake planned for the trip, so we didn't want to overdo it right off the bat. We were glad we got here early as we only had two people in front of us in line... for the rest of the day, the line was very long!
Back to the rides... Jungle Cruise was a lot of fun and I was charmed by the knowledge that this was the original. So much depends on your skipper of course. Our skipper on this first ride was so-so, but subsequent skippers made for a much more enjoyable journey. Rode this three times during our trip. It's a classic! Now, on to Pirates of the Caribbean. Folks are right when they say this version of Pirates is definitely better than the WDW version. I was more inclined to compare it to the Paris version which is very similar. If we're just comparing the ride itself, I'd say the Anaheim version wins for best of those three...but the Paris version comes with a themed queue, which is entirely lacking in Anaheim. So for overall experience, I'd call them tied. I really do like the first part of the California ride in the "dead men tell no tales" cave though. We rode this one SEVERAL times during the trip... but I can never get enough Pirates no matter which park I'm in.
After Pirates we grabbed a FastPass for Indiana Jones and then headed over to use our FastPass for the Haunted Mansion (did I mention that I love legacy FastPass?!?). The line for HM was HUGE by this point... this was our first experience with just how much space Disneyland DOES have...they don't have room for queues! The line for HM snaked outside of the queue and really all around New Orleans Square. What a cluster of people! Glad we had a FP. The holiday decorations on the outside of the mansion were really neat and well done. In no time at all, we were on the ride! Our expectations were low for the holiday overlay because of our experience with Ghost Galaxy...but we were very happily proved wrong on this one! The Nightmare Before Christmas overlay was AWESOME! Now, since this is our first trip to DL, we can't compare it to the "normal" haunted mansion there, but we thought this was way more fun than the normal versions at WDW and Paris. And here's the kicker: neither my friend nor I have ever seen Nightmare Before Christmas! That's just how entertaining the overlay is---we enjoyed it even without the context of the movie! We understood why this had a LONG line all three days we were in the parks.
Next we headed over to Indiana Jones to use our FP. Man! This queue is LONG! Considering some ride at DL don't even HAVE queues, they certainly used a LOT of space on this one! The queue was very well themed though and the ride was fun. Not my favorite, though. Wouldn't wait in the line that so many people were waiting in to ride it. I don't understand why more people don't use FP for this one!
The rest of the day is a bit of a blur... lunch was eaten at the French Market. I got the French Dip, which was delicious. The chips they serve with it were very flavorful and packed more of a spicy punch than I was expecting! Real reason for coming to lunch here though was that I wanted to try the Mint Julep...which I liked a lot! I can see why Ryno got so excited about unlimited refills of the Julep at Cafe Orleans in their podcasts this summer. Very refreshing!
We saw Peter Pan wandering around, giving his handler a run for her money. Didn't manage to stop him for a picture, but I'm a huge Peter fan and it was really cool just to see him running around fantasy land causing trouble. I never saw anything like that from characters in WDW. As many other report, we actually saw that a lot during our visit. We saw Mary Poppins walking around holding hands with a little girl in front of the castle and saw Mickey doing the same a few times, actually. The character interactions here seem more natural and less formal/programmed. I liked that a lot! Feels like that's the way it should be!
We rode Mr. Toad's Wild Ride sometime during the day... I did not know what to expect going into it, because I never rode the WDW version when it was there. I just know that a LOT of people were upset when the Orlando version was closed. I can kind of see why! It definitely is a "wild ride"! It was a fascinating story line and at the end my buddy actually exclaimed out loud: "Wait, are we in ______?!?!" Don't want to spoil it if you haven't ridden it. We actually very much wanted to ride that one again, just to let it soak in, but the line had grown considerably and never went back down today or on Tuesday when we were back in DL. We also stopped to smell the roses...errrr...stopped to watch the Storm Troopers interact with people outside of Launch Bay. They're very entertaining! We then caught part of the Jedi Academy show which was entertaining. What a time to be alive and a 9 year old! They didn't have cool stuff like this when I was a kid!
We had a very nice break back at the hotel during the middle of the day. A quick nap and a swim and we were back at it! I've NEVER taken a midday break like that at WDW--it just takes to long to get the bus and get back to the hotel, even if you're staying on property, as we always do. This was SO convenient to be able to walk back and forth so quickly! We took an afternoon break every day. Made touring the parks much more enjoyable!
After our nap, we caught the last showing of Mickey and the Magical Map. This is a GREAT show! It's everything that you want from a live show at a Disney park! Absolutely excellent! It wasn't playing on Tuesday (which was our other day in DL) so this was the only time we got to see it, but it's definitely repeatable. So much fun!
After the show, we found a nice spot near the food carts back there to watch the parade. It was the second parade of the day and by the time it started, it was dark! So it was a "night parade" without being an electrical parade, which was very interesting. It was a fun parade...who knew that Mickey was such a good drummer?!?! Is there anything that Mouse CAN'T do!? It was a bit strange though that the timing was WAY off at the end of the parade... the Chimney Sweeps were "stepping in time" to You Can Fly from Peter Pan... really weird. Step In Time didn't come on until long after Mary and Bert were passed. As a result, well after the parade and actually finished, the music for the parade was continuing. Strange. We were at the very end of the parade route, but still thought it was very unusual. This is a very ACTIVE parade though...some of those characters had to be DEAD TIRED by the time they got to us at the end. Peter Pan in particularly was sweating something FIERCE! Always with a smile on his face and pep in his step, but you could literally see the sweat running off his face!
Got a ride on Buzz and Small World and Matterhorn somewhere in all of that. We were searching for a decent place to have dinner and still be able to catch the Fantasy in the Sky fireworks at 9:30. We stopped by Carnation Cafe and were told that they would not seat us if we didn't have an ADR. So I jumped on the Disneyland APP and secured an ADR for 8:40 pm (it was 8pm at this time). Hoping that they would seat us early (they didn't) we hung around and browsed the Candy Shop until it was time to check in. We were seated immediately once they allowed us to check in at 8:35. We told our server that we were hoping to catch the 9:30 fireworks and she made sure that our food came out quickly so that we would be finished in time. We were able to do so no problem. We split an order of fried pickles here, which were delicious, and each of us got some kind of burger. I don't remember what it was called but mine involved bacon on sourdough bread. It was good. Pretty standard, all in all. But the pickles were great.
The Fantasy in the Sky fireworks were nice. I knew they were going to be VERY short, so I was prepared for it to only last 4 minutes. There were PLENTY of people around us who did NOT expect them to be so short though, and you could see their reactions of surprise and (usually) horror when they finished! Haha! I thought it was very nice and a good way to spend 5 minutes. We didn't waste a TON of time waiting for a good spot, like we would have to do for Wishes in Florida or for Dreams in Paris. That actually made the experience more enjoyable I think. If I'm going to camp out for 45 minutes or an hour, I'd better get a 20 minute show. But if I can just stroll on to main street and watch 5 minutes of fireworks and then move on with my day, I'm happy with that! I had watched youtube videos of it and the castle was dark in those videos. Much to might delight, the castle was lit during Fantasy in the Sky when we were there! I thought that was a VERY good choice and provide a nice setting for the fireworks.
I don't remember what we did after fireworks, but we closed the place down at 11pm. A long but VERY FUN first day at Disneyland!
Okay, I guess I'm going to do this in multiple parts...I remember more details than I thought I would! I hope you're finding them interesting! To be continued...
MONDAY -- Disney's California Adventure (including WOC Dessert Party)
TUESDAY -- Park Hopping...lots of Hopping!
WEDNESDAY -- Solo Trip to Knott's Berry Farm (and dinner at Downtown Disney)
HOTEL -- Grand Legacy at the Park
We stayed at the Grand Legacy Hotel on Harbor Blvd and were VERY pleased with our accommodations. Got a decent rate on Orbitz and switched to the GL after having originally booked the new Holiday Inn Express. Very pleased that I switched because it was sooooo convenient to walk back and forth to the parks from there. We had a deluxe double queen room and found it to be spacious and clean. The staff at the hotel were very professional and accommodating. We timed the walk from DCA gate to our room was exactly 10 minutes...DCA gate to hotel property was 6.5 minutes. So convenient!! I'd definitely stay here again. Only downside was the breakfast, which was paltry and unexciting. Plus, the place was packed! We ate there the first day and decided to skip it for the rest of the trip.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 1 -- Napa Rose
We arrived in Anaheim late Saturday afternoon and managed to secure a last minute reservation for Napa Rose. I had heard SO many amazing things about this place that the bar was set VERY high. My only other experience of Disney Signature Dining was at Jiko and I found that my meal at Jiko certainly lived up to the hype, so I was hopeful for Napa Rose as well. I was NOT disappointed!
We each started with a cocktail--I had a Rennie Rose and my buddy had the Napa Rose. Both were delicious. After some debate, we decided to really splurge and do the Vintner's Table with the flight of wine pairings. The first course was Fried Mediterranean Octopus, the second course was Wild Boar Meatballs, the third course was Grilled "Prime" New York Steak, and the dessert course was a Harvest Cream Persimmon Date Bar. Every course was outstanding and the wine pairings were absolutely PERFECT. I enjoy wine but do not claim to be any kind of expert on the matter. I had never had intentionally "paired" wines with a meal before and was just blown away by how the flavors complimented each other.
The stand-out course of the night was most certainly the Octopus. I don't usually get excited about seafood, so it's really something for me to list this as my favorite course. We both agreed though that this won hands down. The octopus was delicious and married well with the other flavors on the plate. The date bar was also a surprise winner. This was the course I was least excited about...I usually like my desserts to involve chocolate, so I would never have ordered this a la carte. It was delicious though!
Every bite of each course and every sip of each wine was ridiculously amazing. I can't oversell this experience enough. It may very well be the best meal I've ever had. Spending a couple hundred dollars on dinner is CERTAINLY a splurge...but it was a WORTHWHILE splurge! I would definitely do it again. We so enjoyed the entire experience...I would love to try the Chef's Table next time actually. I didn't even try to book it this time because I'm usually a little on the frugal side and was not convinced that I would want to spend the money on the Chef's Table/Vintner's Table. The Rennie Rose loosened me up enough to make the decision last minute. Absolutely no regrets though. Go to Napa Rose. Get the Vintner's Table with the wine. You won't have any regrets either. The hype is real.
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 2 -- Disneyland!
Today was our first day in the parks! We had 3 day park hoppers and today was our day to spend in the original Disneyland park! We woke up early get get through security and were at the gates about 30 minutes before opening time. The walk from the hotel was a breeze and security wasn't terrible, but we found it very inconvenient that there is no separate line for guests with no bags...you still have to wait through the bag search line, which seems like a huge waste of time. Not the end of the world, but also not a great first impression.
At rope drop we headed straight for Space Mountain Ghost Galaxy and walked right onto the ride. The ride itself is fun...more fun than the WDW version, but not as exciting as the Paris iteration. Ghost Galaxy, however, was entirely unimpressive. Both of us couldn't help but imagine how cool it would be as Hyperspace Mountain with the Star Wars overlay. Ghost Galaxy certainly didn't take away from the ride, but we didn't feel like it added anything to it either.
We then made a mad dash for Haunted Mansion. It actually had a 45 minute line or so, so we got a FastPass for an hour or so later and went to ride Jungle Cruise and Pirates of the Caribbean in the meantime. Let me take just a moment here to say how WONDERFUL it was to use the legacy FastPass system again! I used the FP+ system at WDW with my family in January...honestly I didn't think it was horrible, but now that I've tasted the legacy system again I realize just how much more enjoyable it is! It's great to be able to make decisions on the fly (instead of weeks ahead of time) and we used the system a LOT.
Before heading to the rides, we made a stop at the Mint Julep Bar for some coffee and Mickey Beignets! Faithful watching of DIS Unplugged vlogs had prepared me for some AWESOME snacks at Disneyland--I actually had a list--and these were definitely on it! We tried the seasonal butterscotch version (kinda glad they weren't pumpkin like everything else in the world...) and these also live up to the hype! Very delicious! We split an order of 3, which was a nice treat, but could TOTALLY have devoured more. There was a lot more sugar intake planned for the trip, so we didn't want to overdo it right off the bat. We were glad we got here early as we only had two people in front of us in line... for the rest of the day, the line was very long!
Back to the rides... Jungle Cruise was a lot of fun and I was charmed by the knowledge that this was the original. So much depends on your skipper of course. Our skipper on this first ride was so-so, but subsequent skippers made for a much more enjoyable journey. Rode this three times during our trip. It's a classic! Now, on to Pirates of the Caribbean. Folks are right when they say this version of Pirates is definitely better than the WDW version. I was more inclined to compare it to the Paris version which is very similar. If we're just comparing the ride itself, I'd say the Anaheim version wins for best of those three...but the Paris version comes with a themed queue, which is entirely lacking in Anaheim. So for overall experience, I'd call them tied. I really do like the first part of the California ride in the "dead men tell no tales" cave though. We rode this one SEVERAL times during the trip... but I can never get enough Pirates no matter which park I'm in.
After Pirates we grabbed a FastPass for Indiana Jones and then headed over to use our FastPass for the Haunted Mansion (did I mention that I love legacy FastPass?!?). The line for HM was HUGE by this point... this was our first experience with just how much space Disneyland DOES have...they don't have room for queues! The line for HM snaked outside of the queue and really all around New Orleans Square. What a cluster of people! Glad we had a FP. The holiday decorations on the outside of the mansion were really neat and well done. In no time at all, we were on the ride! Our expectations were low for the holiday overlay because of our experience with Ghost Galaxy...but we were very happily proved wrong on this one! The Nightmare Before Christmas overlay was AWESOME! Now, since this is our first trip to DL, we can't compare it to the "normal" haunted mansion there, but we thought this was way more fun than the normal versions at WDW and Paris. And here's the kicker: neither my friend nor I have ever seen Nightmare Before Christmas! That's just how entertaining the overlay is---we enjoyed it even without the context of the movie! We understood why this had a LONG line all three days we were in the parks.
Next we headed over to Indiana Jones to use our FP. Man! This queue is LONG! Considering some ride at DL don't even HAVE queues, they certainly used a LOT of space on this one! The queue was very well themed though and the ride was fun. Not my favorite, though. Wouldn't wait in the line that so many people were waiting in to ride it. I don't understand why more people don't use FP for this one!
The rest of the day is a bit of a blur... lunch was eaten at the French Market. I got the French Dip, which was delicious. The chips they serve with it were very flavorful and packed more of a spicy punch than I was expecting! Real reason for coming to lunch here though was that I wanted to try the Mint Julep...which I liked a lot! I can see why Ryno got so excited about unlimited refills of the Julep at Cafe Orleans in their podcasts this summer. Very refreshing!
We saw Peter Pan wandering around, giving his handler a run for her money. Didn't manage to stop him for a picture, but I'm a huge Peter fan and it was really cool just to see him running around fantasy land causing trouble. I never saw anything like that from characters in WDW. As many other report, we actually saw that a lot during our visit. We saw Mary Poppins walking around holding hands with a little girl in front of the castle and saw Mickey doing the same a few times, actually. The character interactions here seem more natural and less formal/programmed. I liked that a lot! Feels like that's the way it should be!
We rode Mr. Toad's Wild Ride sometime during the day... I did not know what to expect going into it, because I never rode the WDW version when it was there. I just know that a LOT of people were upset when the Orlando version was closed. I can kind of see why! It definitely is a "wild ride"! It was a fascinating story line and at the end my buddy actually exclaimed out loud: "Wait, are we in ______?!?!" Don't want to spoil it if you haven't ridden it. We actually very much wanted to ride that one again, just to let it soak in, but the line had grown considerably and never went back down today or on Tuesday when we were back in DL. We also stopped to smell the roses...errrr...stopped to watch the Storm Troopers interact with people outside of Launch Bay. They're very entertaining! We then caught part of the Jedi Academy show which was entertaining. What a time to be alive and a 9 year old! They didn't have cool stuff like this when I was a kid!
We had a very nice break back at the hotel during the middle of the day. A quick nap and a swim and we were back at it! I've NEVER taken a midday break like that at WDW--it just takes to long to get the bus and get back to the hotel, even if you're staying on property, as we always do. This was SO convenient to be able to walk back and forth so quickly! We took an afternoon break every day. Made touring the parks much more enjoyable!
After our nap, we caught the last showing of Mickey and the Magical Map. This is a GREAT show! It's everything that you want from a live show at a Disney park! Absolutely excellent! It wasn't playing on Tuesday (which was our other day in DL) so this was the only time we got to see it, but it's definitely repeatable. So much fun!
After the show, we found a nice spot near the food carts back there to watch the parade. It was the second parade of the day and by the time it started, it was dark! So it was a "night parade" without being an electrical parade, which was very interesting. It was a fun parade...who knew that Mickey was such a good drummer?!?! Is there anything that Mouse CAN'T do!? It was a bit strange though that the timing was WAY off at the end of the parade... the Chimney Sweeps were "stepping in time" to You Can Fly from Peter Pan... really weird. Step In Time didn't come on until long after Mary and Bert were passed. As a result, well after the parade and actually finished, the music for the parade was continuing. Strange. We were at the very end of the parade route, but still thought it was very unusual. This is a very ACTIVE parade though...some of those characters had to be DEAD TIRED by the time they got to us at the end. Peter Pan in particularly was sweating something FIERCE! Always with a smile on his face and pep in his step, but you could literally see the sweat running off his face!
Got a ride on Buzz and Small World and Matterhorn somewhere in all of that. We were searching for a decent place to have dinner and still be able to catch the Fantasy in the Sky fireworks at 9:30. We stopped by Carnation Cafe and were told that they would not seat us if we didn't have an ADR. So I jumped on the Disneyland APP and secured an ADR for 8:40 pm (it was 8pm at this time). Hoping that they would seat us early (they didn't) we hung around and browsed the Candy Shop until it was time to check in. We were seated immediately once they allowed us to check in at 8:35. We told our server that we were hoping to catch the 9:30 fireworks and she made sure that our food came out quickly so that we would be finished in time. We were able to do so no problem. We split an order of fried pickles here, which were delicious, and each of us got some kind of burger. I don't remember what it was called but mine involved bacon on sourdough bread. It was good. Pretty standard, all in all. But the pickles were great.
The Fantasy in the Sky fireworks were nice. I knew they were going to be VERY short, so I was prepared for it to only last 4 minutes. There were PLENTY of people around us who did NOT expect them to be so short though, and you could see their reactions of surprise and (usually) horror when they finished! Haha! I thought it was very nice and a good way to spend 5 minutes. We didn't waste a TON of time waiting for a good spot, like we would have to do for Wishes in Florida or for Dreams in Paris. That actually made the experience more enjoyable I think. If I'm going to camp out for 45 minutes or an hour, I'd better get a 20 minute show. But if I can just stroll on to main street and watch 5 minutes of fireworks and then move on with my day, I'm happy with that! I had watched youtube videos of it and the castle was dark in those videos. Much to might delight, the castle was lit during Fantasy in the Sky when we were there! I thought that was a VERY good choice and provide a nice setting for the fireworks.
I don't remember what we did after fireworks, but we closed the place down at 11pm. A long but VERY FUN first day at Disneyland!
Okay, I guess I'm going to do this in multiple parts...I remember more details than I thought I would! I hope you're finding them interesting! To be continued...
MONDAY -- Disney's California Adventure (including WOC Dessert Party)
TUESDAY -- Park Hopping...lots of Hopping!
WEDNESDAY -- Solo Trip to Knott's Berry Farm (and dinner at Downtown Disney)
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