Wait, We Can Go In?!
This is the first installment of our
January 2018 Disneyland Trip Report. In Part 1, I will explain our exciting and surprising first two days in the parks. We were back and so happy! Part 2 chronicles our first really heavy touring day at the
Disneyland Resort. We walked every available foot Disney’s California Adventure. In Part 3, we ate a lot of ice cream and I went to Disneyland by myself for the first time in my 26 years of life! In Part 4, we will cover three different days of touring. Read on and enjoy!
January 1st
WE ARE BACK! As of January 1, 2018, Sarah and I were Southern California residents again. The crazy journey back to our home was finally complete. The U-Haul was unpacked. Our temporary home in our friend’s guest house was organized. It was time to get serious about what is important in life, Disney Parks touring!
Fortunately, our friends and family know us insanely well. We received a handful of Disney gift cards over the space of transitioning out of our jobs and the Holiday Season. We drove down the 57 freeway towards Anaheim armed with plenty of gift cards to go towards our investment. Sarah dumped me out of the car in the guest drop off zone on Harbor Boulevard and I told her to take a slow lap around the property to give me time to renew our AP’s.
I entered through the Security lines and approached an unusually short Guest Services queue. After a very short wait, I approached the window and started speaking with the Cast Member. This process was only held up by attempting to change Sarah’s last name on her passport. I couldn’t believe that her maiden name was still in their system. The CM asked her supervisor and they both approved this process without Sarah being present.
Hot tip..?: if you are looking to do anything with Guest Services, have all the necessary people there. At the end of the process, she handed me a voucher and said, “enjoy your day in the parks!”
This slightly surprised me so much I could only respond, “Wait, we can go in?!” She laughed as she responded that we could. I was not planning on even going into the parks because it was a holiday and our Deluxe passes were not valid. I clearly should have done my research. If we would have known, we would have gone to Disneyland for New Year’s Eve.
Actual hot tip: if you want to get an extra day out of your AP, purchase it on a day that you are blocked out.
I called Sarah frantically as soon as I recovered from my state of shock. I told her to park in the Downtown Disney lot and then we would leave to park in the Mickey and Friends Parking Lot with our AP.
Sarah and I sprint-walked to the Happiest Place on Earth because we could not contain ourselves. We arrived at the front gates, Sarah got her picture taken, and we entered into Disneyland. No matter how many times I enter these gates, the feeling never changes. I get so excited seeing the train station and walking through the tunnel. The feeling cannot be beaten!
Sarah and I skirted the unexpectedly small holiday crowds and walked towards Sleeping Beauty Castle. Unfortunately, we encountered walls around a large portion of the central Hub (more on that to come!). We walked towards the Royal Theatre and were highly entertained by the retelling of Beauty and the Beast. It was silly, but fun.
We slipped past the assembled crowd and through the gateway to Frontierland. I got the chance to choose our next attraction and I chose Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. I like this ride at Disneyland because the wait is normally shorter and the ride adds some fun projection mapping special effects. The queue is not as exciting, but it is still a quality attraction.
After we exited the ride, Sarah allowed me to choose the attraction again! I decided that Haunted Mansion would be a good idea. Sarah and I both love the Nightmare Before Christmas overlay and this would be our last chance to see it during this season. Again, we waited an unusually short amount of time and took our ghostly tour of the mansion.
By the time we were done with Haunted Mansion, it was definitely time for Sarah to choose the attraction. Sarah chose to journey into the Hundred Acre Wood with Pooh Bear and all his friends. This ride is an interesting case study in attraction location. At Disney World, the wait is normally very long. At Disneyland, it is rarely longer than 10 minutes. I think the location (it is centrally located in Fantasyland at WDW and it is back in the corner in Critter Country at Disneyland) dictates how long the wait is. The queue is fun and interactive at WDW, but the attraction itself is very similar. I think that people may honestly choose to ride this attraction because it gives their young children something to do for a half an hour. The queue is free babysitting!
We were both exhausted from bouncing through the Hundred Acre Wood (we started to see the crowds moving in for the afternoon rush) so we decided to call it. Sarah and I jumped onto the Disneyland Railroad in New Orleans Square and took a partial trip around Walt Disney’s Magic Kingdom. We exited the train after saying hello to the primeval world (oh how we missed those dinosaurs!) and walked through Downtown Disney back to the parking structure. We were so happy to be back!
January 2nd
Sarah and I liked our time at the parks so much, we decided to go back the next day! Why not, you know?! We entered the Mickey and Friends Parking Structure in the afternoon Tuesday and decided to take a slow tour of Disney’s California Adventure. Whenever we have to decide between taking the tram and walking through Downtown Disney we choose to walk. I am sure that it is faster to take the tram, but it feels like we make more progress when we walk.
This process is slightly more complicated now that Disneyland is undergoing construction and because they have changed their Security approach. Before we left three years ago, the bag checks were in between Downtown Disney and the front gates. Now the checks are either at the M&F Parking Structure or before you enter DD. We used to walk past the tram stop, along Disneyland Drive, and then take a slight left to walk between the tram route and DD.
That route is currently not available. This makes the walk longer and Security at Downtown Disney is slightly less predictable. Sometimes there is one queue open and it takes 10 minutes, sometimes there are multiple queues open and it takes 10 seconds. It depends on the time of day and how efficient the process is.
Once we got through Security and entered the park, we took a lap of the park and I snapped pictures as we went. I really wanted to focus on Paradise Pier (RIP) since it would be closing for several months. We walked along the pier and I got several pictures of California Screamin’ as it took off. I really like these photos with the motion of the ride vehicle. The beautiful Southern California sunset didn’t hurt!
The first actual stop on our tour was at the Hyperion Theater for the new (to us) Frozen musical. Sarah and I had mixed feelings when we heard that Frozen would be replacing Aladdin in the Hyperion Theater. We both agreed that Aladdin needed to be retired. The show had been there for as long as we had been Annual Passholders. But, I think we were both suffering from Frozen overdose at the point that it was announced.
In the end, the show was good. The cast did a great job and the sets were immaculate. I thought the fact that they stuck to the original film was both a positive and a negative. I felt like they did a good job of honoring the cash cow (I mean film). But, I think they could have added a new song to freshen up the performance. Honestly, I was most disappointed by the people sitting next to us. The woman to my left was on her phone almost the entire time. The only time she took a break from her screen (which was at full brightness) was to bump into me as she danced to “Let it Go”.
After we were done with the show, we headed to our happy place. Sarah and I are both unashamedly in love with the Animation Academy building. This does not mean that we are closet Disney animators who love to draw Mickey and the gang, but we love the lobby. Almost every one of 300 previous visits to Disneyland and California Adventure included a lunch break in this space. It has everything: classic Disney animation, classic Disney music, and Crush loudly interrupting our nostalgia.
After we finished both the entire presentation and our dinner, Sarah and I sang our way to and through Little Mermaid - Ariel’s Undersea Adventure. This has been another staple of our Disneyland Resort visits. Sarah loves the attraction and we rarely go to DCA without going under the sea.
Our visit to Ariel’s undersea world concluded and we were presented with a conundrum. We really wanted to stay and see World of Color, but we had about 2 hours to kill. We weighed our options and decided to just see WoC another day. To be fair, this is usually the way it works for Sarah and I.
We went and sat in the lobby of Disney’s Grand Californian Resort & Spa for a while. We found a spot next to the massive fireplace and sat comfortably until I was bored. As regular readers of The Intentional Mouse may know, this does not take very long. Sarah and I exited the lobby and headed for Downtown Disney again. We went through another Security line as we moved from the resort to the shopping district.
Hot tip: if you want to cut through the GC, you may want to reconsider because of the Security. We walked away from the resort and headed home.
