***November 2023 Check-in Thread***

[kristing]

We just booked our trip for the week after Thanksgiving! I'm so excited and want to share in the fun and planning with all my other November folks. So who's with me? I'll do my best to keep this updated and post important dates, etc.

Let the planning and anticipation begin!

Will be there 11/25-28 ready to DO ALL THE THINGS! Haven't been since 2017 and haven't been during the holidays in far longer than that.

 

[LKing]

For those who aren't aware, there was a large fire under the 10 freeway near downtown Los Angeles. As a result, the freeway is closed, and will remain closed for 3-5 weeks. This is impacting traffic on surrounding freeways.

Travel from LAX, LGB or SNA airports to Disneyland will be okay. However, travel from Disneyland to Universal, Los Angeles or Hollywood will be impacted.

https://ktla.com/10-freeway-fire/fr...provide-new-details-on-10-freeway-arson-fire/

They just announced that the freeway will be open on Tuesday! The damage must not have been nearly as bad as they first estimated.

 

[kristensideaoffun]

Well, we woke up later than we wanted to this morning and missed rope drop. We ended up getting in a couple hours later than we would have liked to last night because we decided to wait for the rain to let up. When our toddler slept through our alarms this morning, we thought it best to let him continue to sleep. We got up around 7:30am and got to Panera around 8. We finished breakfast by 8:30ish and were in DCA by 9.

And in spite of missing rope drop, this morning was GLORIOUS. Mater was a walkon. It took a long time to load the first time we got on because the ride CM had to walk around and buckle all the belts on the empty cars. We ended up riding it three times in a row before our toddler was sick of it. We lucked out and walked up to the Cozy Cone right has Mater was pulling up for pictures. Our toddler was ecstatic to see him but once he got up close, he was terrified. It was kind of comical. We then used our Webslingers LL, watched the Wakonda show, saw Mickey’s Philharmagic, rode Monsters, and then did Turtle Talk while our teen and grandpa rode Guardians. My husband and I did Guardians with our rider switch while the rest of our group went to check-in for our 11:15 Lamplight lunch. We got there and our table wasn’t ready so we rode Jessie’s roundup and, right as we got off, we got a message that our table was ready.

All-in-all, a surprisingly productive morning. Since I left to go back to the hotel at one, my husband, teen, and dad have already ridden IC, RSR, GFS, and Soarin all in an hours time. Pretty impressive!

 

[redleader74]

Wow, I can't believe our trip is ONE week away now. You know how it is, when you're booking a trip, it feels like it's ages away and then all of the sudden it's here! Right now, my first packing task is trying to find all my old "flashy light necklaces" I've bought at DL over the years. I don't know if you all are familiar with them, it's a kind of fabric necklace with embedded LED's that blink different colors (even a strobe light type setting). And then there's something that hangs from it (also with color LED's/settings), for example, one year for Halloween, it was a ghost figurine (see my profile pic) and on another occassion, it was a Mickey head. I love DL's light up chotchkies and plan to get more this time too.

 

[beachdreamr1229]

We're heading in early tomorrow. So excited! Just curious, has anyone who is there now or was there within the past few days noticed when LL has been filled up for the day for the more popular rides like Indy and HM? We are normally rope drop people, so we don't worry so much, but my oldest son and my parents are coming in a bit later in the day than the rest of us and I want to try to decide which rides we need to focus on for LL first given that they won't be there during prime walk on hour. We don't do well waiting in line longer than about 45 minutes, so LL is pretty important for us. Thanks.

 

[BobaFettFan]

Finally the 10 day extended forecast has covered all of November. It's always nice knowing you'll get at least one perfect day!

Anyone who has finished their trip want to say something that they experienced but didn't expect from their time in park? Are the crowds just happier? Santa suspiciously knew your full name and what your perfect Christmas gift you got as a 5 year old was and thanked you for always believing?

 

[Kiwigirls]

Just got back from our trip, and had a great time, although it was definitely busier than I expected and lines were longer than I had been monitoring in the app. Doing DCA rope drop and using LL we had a good day there, and got nearly everything done (just a couple of smaller rides we didn't do, but could have, they only had 5 minute waits).
DL however was a different story, we didn't make it to rope drop either day and felt that in wait times, they were long. Having said that for those above asking when Indiana Jones and Haunted ran out, they did seem to last into the afternoon, but they were a way out from current time. E.g. at 11am you were booking for 3.50pm . So it was a toss up between, book now so that you get it, and don't miss the LL, but be blocked from other more immediate ones for next 2 hours, or do the immediate ones and hope it doesn't get too late/sold out before you book.

 

[Kiwigirls]

Having said all of the above, Disney was magical, the lights were amazing, using LL and mobile order did mean we had very little time waiting in lines, and we got to do everything we wanted to. First night we arrived in the evening, and it had been/was raining, and that was probably the best time, walked on a lot of rides, saw the castle lighting, etc, just wonderful!
We never saw fireworks as first 2 nights they were cancelled, 3rd night we were at DCA getting ready to watch World of Colour (Desert package definitely worth it for us), and then final night, I don't know if they happened or not as we were in Haunted Mansion at the time! Seeing Mickey, Minnie and Pluto up at the train station just before midnight on our final night (as we were doing final shopping hunt) was awesome, they were so cute together!

 

[Amw1064]

It's not cold, but not Florida hot either. Much like a Florida winter, it's best to dress in layers. It will be around 50 degrees in the morning, may go up to 80 at the peak of the day, then drop down to 50 again at night. I personally wear leggings or jeans this time of year since the hot part of the day isn't too bad, but I have also brought shorts to change into in a backpack (or run back to your hotel). I think morning warms up fairly quickly, but you will definitely be cold at night in shorts unless we have an unusually hot day (in which case the pavement may still be warm even at night). It will likely rain on Saturday unless the storm moves faster than they think, so keep that in mind, too. Our rain is not hot weather rain, though this storm isn't supposed to be super cold either.

Edited because, oops, I just realized this was posted last week before the long weekend. Oh well. Maybe it'll help someone else with planning.

It was perfect for us. We wore sweatpants and as you said it wasn't to hot but only a few hours and quickly drops by 3:30-4 every day. We had a great visit. No complaints with anything.

 

[kristensideaoffun]

We just got back from our 5 day trip and it was a glorious one. We had been annual passholders/MKs up until this February when we let them expire. This is the first trip where we’ve done more the 2 1/2 days in the park. It was exhausting but so fun. We were lucky enough to get top tier MEPs early in the day for all days except Monday and were able to accelerate all of our LLs so we got on everything with very little wait.

Things we found to be different since our February trip:
-Overall, CMs seem to be MUCH happier. One of the reasons we let our MKs expire is it was getting difficult to see how many people working at DLR were visibly miserable, it was sad. But I’m not exaggerating when I say that every CM we encountered on this trip seemed happy. We had so many great encounters, including one where a Pirates CM took our toddler by the hand and “ran” (well, toddled) with him halfway through the line. He was so excited about it, it was so sweet. We have out many CM compliments using the buttons in the app.

-CMs seemed overall much better trained. It was frustrating when we were there in Feb to ask CM questions and get an I don’t know answer with no effort to help beyond that (even from guest services CMs). This time around, every CM went out of their way to help us. We noticed most of them called us “Friends”, so I feel like Disney has put some effort into doing guest interaction training for CMs.

-Characters: They are everywhere from park open until park close. I was surprised by how many we saw.

-Ride breakdowns: These were unsurprisingly pretty frequent, but the downtime for each ride was much shorter than our last visit in February.

This trip was so magical for us. I was super worried about going during such a crowded time because, as passholders, we avoided them, but we didn’t mind the crowds and enjoyed our time.

 

[LeiaOfAlderaan]

We are back and almost recovered. Our trip was 11/19-11/23. We had a great time but it was very very busy (to be expected thanksgiving week). Lines weren’t bad with Genie+ but the walkways were just so crowded. I think I saw more large groups than ever just standing in the middle of a walkway blocking 50% or more available space and creating huge bottlenecks. But that is a particular pet peeve of mine so maybe it doesn’t bother others as much!

I want to call out some amazing meals I had. The holiday duck confit special at Lamplight Lounge was fabulous! I ate everything on the plate and usually I leave something because I can be picky. Never had rutabaga before and it was delicious.

The short rib with mac & cheese at carnation cafe was also sooo good. Bonus was catching the parade (well, the top of it lol) from the patio since we didn’t have any other time to see it.

The BBQ bacon cheeseburger at Hungry Bear was insanely messy and delicious. I don’t usually get burgers at DL but this was really good.

We were originally going to stay at BWPPI but since I was in a scooter due to knee problems we changed to Courtyard Theme Park and I’m so glad we did. The rooms were so nice and spacious with plenty of room for the scooter, and even though they were at full occupancy we never waited long for an elevator.

 

[AmishGuy91]

I think I saw more large groups than ever just standing in the middle of a walkway blocking 50% or more available space and creating huge bottlenecks. But that is a particular pet peeve of mine so maybe it doesn’t bother others as much!

Do not get me started on this....

 

[StarlitNight05]

We are back and almost recovered. Our trip was 11/19-11/23. We had a great time but it was very very busy (to be expected thanksgiving week). Lines weren’t bad with Genie+ but the walkways were just so crowded. I think I saw more large groups than ever just standing in the middle of a walkway blocking 50% or more available space and creating huge bottlenecks. But that is a particular pet peeve of mine so maybe it doesn’t bother others as much!

I want to call out some amazing meals I had. The holiday duck confit special at Lamplight Lounge was fabulous! I ate everything on the plate and usually I leave something because I can be picky. Never had rutabaga before and it was delicious.

The short rib with mac & cheese at carnation cafe was also sooo good. Bonus was catching the parade (well, the top of it lol) from the patio since we didn’t have any other time to see it.

The BBQ bacon cheeseburger at Hungry Bear was insanely messy and delicious. I don’t usually get burgers at DL but this was really good.

We were originally going to stay at BWPPI but since I was in a scooter due to knee problems we changed to Courtyard Theme Park and I’m so glad we did. The rooms were so nice and spacious with plenty of room for the scooter, and even though they were at full occupancy we never waited long for an elevator.

Thanks for the report! Glad you had a nice trip.

 

[KPeterso]

I think I saw more large groups than ever just standing in the middle of a walkway blocking 50% or more available space and creating huge bottlenecks. But that is a particular pet peeve of mine so maybe it doesn’t bother others as much!

Huge pet peeve of mine too. It drives me nuts. No need for an entire group of 8-10 to walk across the entire space and then stop to block an entire walkway. I hate it.

 

[redleader74]

Yay we just checked into Camelot Inn. They let us check in early without a charge. So our first day or what remains of it, will be DTD eating shopping and getting the magic bands.

 

[DizMe]

Yay we just checked into Camelot Inn. They let us check in early without a charge. So our first day or what remains of it, will be DTD eating shopping and getting the magic bands.

Have fun!!

 

[redleader74]

So……tomorrow is our last day. We did Disneyland on Tues and California Adventure on Wed and tomorrow will be Disneyland again and we fly home Saturday morning. So far, everything‘s been great, including, realizing that the $18.99 T-bone steak dinner I had for dinner tonight at Denny’s across the street was cheaper that probably any entree in Downtown Disney, ha ha. I could go on and on about how amazing Disney does Christmas how Disney never ceases to amaze me at just how well run things are, how clean and gleaming everything is, how everything looks like it had been freshly painted that morning. But what I really want to talk about is….the horror that were the swinging gondolas on the Pal Around Ferris Wheel!!!. Only after riding it did a casual Google search online would reveal many a review on this. From the ground it sure looks fun, even innocent, but oh man. I have a terrible fear of heights and I thought that would be my undoing, but what killed me was the motion sickness, OMG, and it wasn‘t utnil probably evening before I ultimately recovered from my motion sickness. My poor 5 year old daughter was screaming bloody murder. Over the course of two full revolutions, there would be four back and forth swingings and I was dying to get off that thing.

But yeah, we’re havng a great time here and I‘m so lamenting the return home!

 

[vakamalua]

But what I really want to talk about is….the horror that were the swinging gondolas on the Pal Around Ferris Wheel!!!. Only after riding it did a casual Google search online would reveal many a review on this. From the ground it sure looks fun, even innocent, but oh man. I have a terrible fear of heights and I thought that would be my undoing, but what killed me was the motion sickness, OMG, and it wasn‘t utnil probably evening before I ultimately recovered from my motion sickness. My poor 5 year old daughter was screaming bloody murder. Over the course of two full revolutions, there would be four back and forth swingings and I was dying to get off that thing.

But yeah, we’re havng a great time here and I‘m so lamenting the return home!

Those swinging gondolas are a NIGHTMARE!

 

[LeiaOfAlderaan]

But what I really want to talk about is….the horror that were the swinging gondolas on the Pal Around Ferris Wheel!!!. Only after riding it did a casual Google search online would reveal many a review on this. From the ground it sure looks fun, even innocent, but oh man. I have a terrible fear of heights and I thought that would be my undoing, but what killed me was the motion sickness, OMG, and it wasn‘t utnil probably evening before I ultimately recovered from my motion sickness. My poor 5 year old daughter was screaming bloody murder. Over the course of two full revolutions, there would be four back and forth swingings and I was dying to get off that thing.

We rode this for the first time (non-swinging!) on our recent trip since there was no line and a bunch of other rides were down. It was one of the high wind days before thanksgiving and even the tiny bit of swinging we did at the top was almost too much for DD. I don’t get motion sickness but after years of hearing it called Mickey’s Fun Wheel of Death there’s no way I would ever try the swinging ones!

 

[redleader74]

We rode this for the first time (non-swinging!) on our recent trip since there was no line and a bunch of other rides were down. It was one of the high wind days before thanksgiving and even the tiny bit of swinging we did at the top was almost too much for DD. I don’t get motion sickness but after years of hearing it called Mickey’s Fun Wheel of Death there’s no way I would ever try the swinging ones!

I usually do all my homework in advance, but this time…..lesson learned