March 17-22 2012 DLR trip report!

[Bret92]

Well I have not yet quite finished writing the trip report yet, so I'm going to post it as I put it up. I have a couple days written now, but in order the keep it to some sort of schedule to start, I'm going to try to do a day a week. That will hopefully change after this week though since I'm getting ready to get my finals done and then I won't have anymore excuses! Hopefully, since there was some time between me starting and (eventually) finishing, I won't repeat myself too much. Anyway, I hope you enjoy so I can make this the first of many trip reports to come!

-Bret

[Bret92]

Day 1



My girlfriend, Morgan, and I have been wanting to write a trip report for quite some time now, so this is going to be my second-first attempt at this. Originally, I wrote about 4 pages of our Walt Disney World trip last July, but never got the time to follow through with completing it. Hopefully, if this one is a success, I will have to turn back the clock and get around to finishing that one - it is never too late, but I’ll leave that up to those of you that actually end up reading this! In the meantime, here goes:



As any vacation to Disney goes, the journey “starts” at the airport, and with waking up somewhere around 3:30am, this journey itself feels like a long one. This was our first time flying out of O’Hare, but no worries, it has a McDonald’s just like just about every airport I’ve ever been in. Because after all, what is a trip anywhere without starting the day off right with a sausage McMuffin and hash brown? The wait to get on the plane after that was not very long, but still very boring nonetheless. This was also our first time flying Virgin America. Besides not getting free snacks along the fairly long (4.5 hour flight), the flight was overall a good one. It was nice to be able to watch TV or follow along with the flight on the gps they have with their RED system. But in the realm of Disney trip reports, that is the boring stuff so we’ll skip ahead to the good stuff.

Okay, I lied - not off to a good start - but I still think the layover in SFO was interesting stuff. After all, we were able to get our favorite California airport snack - Pinkberry! It is a must whenever we see it since we fell in love with it the first time we went to California.

NOW let’s skip ahead, we landed, and shuttled to our “hotel,” which was terrible, but more on that boring stuff later. It was a quick walk to the ticket office - only about 15 minutes or so. Morgan still had to pick up her tickets that she bought online, and I was ready to get my first ever annual pass. I went with the premier annual pass since we are planning an August trip to Walt Disney World, so it should pay for itself over the course of the two trips.



As it turns out, the weather back home in Chicago was much nicer than Anaheim on this particular St. Patrick’s Day. It rained just about the entire day and night. We got to the park right around 4pm and the rain picked up a bit as we walked the short walk from the ticket booths to the Disneyland (park) entrance so we decided to bite the bullet and get a poncho. We knew from our last trip to the World that rain does not make for a great photo taking day (and I love taking photos) but we were just glad to be on vacation. We weren’t going to let a little rain and cold get the better of us!

We didn’t get many attractions done this day. We started by getting fastpasses for our favorite Disneyland specific ride - Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Forbidden Eye. We then decided we were too hungry to be able to brave the cold so soon, and made our way over to Redd Rocket’s Pizza Port since we had not yet eaten there on a previous trip, thinking that they only had pizza, and we had since heard good things about the Chicken fusilli. Fortunately for us, the good things we heard happened to be true and I would gladly make my way over there again - maybe to split the dish and something else. Have to diversify the eating!





Since we were already right there and it was time again for us to be able to get a fastpass, we grabbed one for Space Mountain and then headed over to see what the wait was at our overall favorite ride - Pirates of the Caribbean. Since the weather was not good at all, there was absolutely no line there and we were able to walk on. I have always loved the version at Magic Kingdom, but this one blows the MK version out of the water. The start in the bayou with Blue Bayou overlooking and then extended skeleton scenes all make this version - in my opinion - so much better.








No need to expose your superstructure. by BretJMiller, on Flickr

After that, we headed over to another favorite (I guess just about every ride is a favorite in some way or another) Haunted Mansion. After that, we used our Indy fastpasses, took some pictures, used the Space Fastpass, grabbed another for Indy and then headed over to Winnie the Pooh since it always seems to be a walk on at Disneyland. (I know I ran through quite a bit of rides there, but I’m sure most of you have experience them all and know exactly what they are like, and don’t worry, we rode them a lot so I’ll have plenty more opportunities to bore you all with my opinions of them.)













It was right about this time when we decided we needed to start heading out of the park because we were supposed to meet our friends Missy and Joey for dinner. This happened to be a perfect day for it since it kept us busy a couple hours and the fireworks had been canceled because of the rain. Now for the life of me, I don’t know why I didn’t take any pictures of them, with them or of the food we all ate, but we did have a good time chatting. We went to Ralph Brennan’s Jazz Kitchen, but we didn’t really get meals, it was more of a couple appetizers. The group appetizer was pretty good, with some shrimp, ribs, calamari and something else. If it didn’t stick out, it must not have been fantastic. It was at this time, where we met our suave server whose name escapes me right now. I’ll try to ask Morgan later and see if she remembers. Then as our meal, we had a trio of their soups - none of which were impressive. The cornbread, however, was my favorite thing there. It was a cajun cornbread that had some flavor to it that I still cannot pinpoint what it was, but overall, it was good.

We had a good time, and then they had to leave, so we decided we would head back into the park for a little while. We headed over to grab another fastpass for Space and then decided we would go ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. It is always a way better experience at night even though we knew it would be a very cold ride. The whole thing went well, as expected then all of a sudden we were wondering why we were, yet again, getting wet. Of course I had my camera out at the time and had to rush that back into my bag and we threw our ponchos on ran into some gift shops. Luckily, most of the rain held off until we got the ponchos on. It would have been nice if it would have at least waited until we got off Big Thunder. At that point, I was too fed up with the rain to do anything else and all I wanted to do was eat.

We saw the cupcakes earlier and decided we would have to head back to try them. There was a special one for St. Patrick’s Day that I had my eye one even though I don’t usually like chocolate cake. Turns out, it was a thick buttercream - MINT - frosting. It made the entire thing amazing. If only I could have one right now. The lemon strawberry cupcake was much more disappointing at the frosting was thin and the cupcake itself was nothing special. The best part of that one was the delicious strawberry ...jam? center. The chocolate mint cupcake was easily the winner of this battle, and it turns out … of the trip.

[Bret92]

I was still starving so I went over to the refreshment corner and bought myself a jalapeno cheese filled pretzel and ate it across the street as we wandered through the gift shops to stay dry. Morgan was uncomfortably cold at this point so she rather enjoyed being sheltered from the cold. I noticed that the rain had let up so I let her stay warm and decided to get a few shots of the park for a little while. For as few photos as I was able and willing to take this day, I did end up with one of my favorite that I have taken to date in this castle photo. I think it is more of an achievement in post processing than a great photo, but I love it.


Rainy Day at Disneyland by BretJMiller, on Flickr





Morgan came and got me from taking pictures around the hub and we decided to ride Indy one last time before we called it a night and made our way back to our hotel. After a nice short walk back, I uploaded my pictures and passed out for the night, eagerly awaiting my breakfast the next morning at La Brea, and a full day at Disney California Adventure.

[BrerGnat]

MORE MORE MORE!!!

Great report! I love the pictures, especially your castle picture at the end...SO beautiful!

Disneyland is my "home" and I miss it so much. Your report really lifted my spirits this dreary, cold, Virginia morning. Sounds like you had a great day, despite the rain. You really missed out by not ordering entrees at the Jazz Kitchen, as that is where they really shine. The apps and soups have always been "eh", except for the Roman Garlic Bread which is soooo good.

Where did you stay? Curious minds want to know...

[faline]

Nice start despite the weather!

[Bret92]

I have the next day written, but it will probably take me a few days to get the pictures together, I have a lot more for the following days of the trip so hopefully you all like pictures! keep checking back as I hope to be done with the whole thing within the next couple of weeks!


Thanks for looking and for the nice comments! We may have to go back to the Jazz Kitchen some time in the future so it can redeem itself.

[Bret92]

Day 2

The next morning came pretty quickly, which was a good thing. The only time during this trip that I wanted to move quickly was the time we spent in our room. I didn’t even want to shower or brush my teeth in that thing - it felt that bad. (I exaggerate, but staying at Disney World resorts often has led me to expect something nice at a “value”). We were out the door by 9am and on our way to breakfast. Our walk to the parks led us straight through the resort we want to stay at most (at Disneyland, at least) the Grand Californian. The walk through was much too quick. One time, we will just have to book a night there and just have a casual day spent at the resort.

We made our way to La Brea and were seated immediately. We decided to each get something different and split them. I went with the croque madame since I always wanted to try one after I found out what it was in a french class a couple years back. Morgan ordered the croissant sandwich. Both of them turned out very good, and I look forward to the next trip so we can go there for breakfast again.





We got to the park right at about 10am when it opened and headed around the detour that felt like a mile in a crowd of people and walked to Soarin’ to grab a fastpass. We grabbed on and then looked at the line, which was non-existent. So we rode it. I had been smelling the smells of Soarin’ for about a month prior to this trip at work so it was a long overdue ride. Easily one of my favorite rides. I like that it doesn’t have to be a 3-D film and they can still make it a 3-D experience with the scents and the motion. It all works just so well as I’m sure all of you who are reading this already know.





We then went on to get our fastpasses for World of Color, and ended up in the Blue section, as usual. One time, I want to end up in a different section in hopes of getting a better vantage, but we’ll have to figure out a way to do that before next time. Then we were off to the pier to see what the wait was looking like for Toy Story Midway Mania. On our way there, we were distracted by Mickey, who had only about 3 or so people in line. Of course we could not pass that up!



We made our way to and past Toy Story, as the line was already in excess of 30 minutes and we knew we would get our chance again when we were at the park bright and early on Tuesday. I must say, we do love riding Toy Story for the awesome game and technology used, but we don’t find it necessary to wait more than 20 minutes for just about any ride with correct planning. We continued down the pier and decided it would be a good time to ride Silly Symphony Swings. It is a great ride, with a great view of the surrounding areas and a very fun place to take some pictures.





It was a very windy day so of course the Golden Zephyr was closed the entire time and we made our way past it to one of our DCA favorites: Ariel’s Undersea Adventure. Maybe it is because I grew up and this movie was very popular so I love the attraction, but I don’t understand why this ride never has a wait longer than 5 minutes. It is so colorful, fun and includes great music. It is an overall fun experience and a great ride to try to get some good pictures. It is much more well lit than other “dark” rides, which makes it “easier” to get some pictures.







At this point, we were well overdue for a fastpass, so we made our way through a bug’s land and over to Tower of Terror to grab a fastpass and then figured the other modern dark ride would not have much of a wait. We happened to run in to Mr. Incredible on our way there and he only had a couple people waiting to see him. He threw me off as he started flexing down and then worked his way up and I was stuck in limbo as the picture was taken. Unfortunate, really.