Tag: OrangeDoor

Aside from Fairyweather Travel, we used these books to plan for our trip.

In order of helpfulness:

Disneyland, The Unofficial Guide. While this super-planned approach won’t work for everyone, I was a huge fan. It aims to get you what you want out of Disneyland/DCA by planning and prioritizing. It’s also quite amusing in places. The book provides many different touring plans (Two-day with small children, one day without children, etc.) and offers an app to help you plan. The app, alas, is only for IOS right now, so we used the website version in the parks.

Things this book did well: Encouraged walking back and forth across the park to hit rides at the best time rather than a close-by geographical approach. Provided reviews and rankings of all rides so that we could rank the rides into categories of must, maybe, and probably when planning. Provided reviews of every restaurant and recommendations of favorites at those restaurants. Explained how policies like rider switch or single rider could improve your trip. Talked through strategies for best viewing of the light shows and whether one should buy a dining package that guaranteed seats.

Things that didn’t quite hit: Despite the book’s attempt, I didn’t understand how Lightning Lanes worked until my Fairyweather Travel agent walked me through it (and gave me a handout). Having now been there with Lightning Lane access, I also would take a slightly different approach than they recommended (at least at the time we visited).

I would prioritize must-visit (and then maybe-visit) attractions without Lightning Lane access from rope drop to about 11:00 and then start the Lightning Lane process after that time. We waited a very long time for the Peter Pan ride (a maybe-visit) and used our Lightning Lane for the Matterhorn (a must-visit) at 8:30 in the morning when there was basically no line. We should have reversed those. While some attractions did “sell out” their Lightning Lane availability before the day was done, most did not. And we were planning to be there All. Day. Long. so we could have better used the Lightning Lanes beginning in the late morning rather than first thing.

Overall, though, this is a great book and well worth both the money and buying a year’s subscription to the app to view their extended content. At less than $50 total, this book and the paid website will add value to your trip.

The Imagineering Field Guide to Disneyland. Somewhat out of date, this small book provides behind-the-scenes information and fun facts about how exhibits at Disneyland were created. I read it before we left and envisioned paging through it while waiting in line, but never actually did that.

The Imagineering Field Guide to Disney California Adventure. This is very out of date; things have changed a lot since this was published. Still, there was some good information including the relationship between Grizzly River Run and the water at Pixar Pier.

Mouse-Tales: A Behind-the-Ears Look at Disneyland. This book was published in 1994 and contains the experiences of former cast members. There are some fun stories like the one where so many people at the local naval base moonlighted at Disneyland that one Friday when there was a navel emergency, and they were called back to the base, and Disneyland had to close due to lack of workers. Given the era, there were some tales of “funny” mild sexual harassment. The author also discussed the difficulties Black people and all women had getting promoted, which is important perspective. That said, it wasn’t especially gripping, and I didn’t finish it.

I put all four of these books in a Little Free Library. The guidebooks were gone the next day, and the Mouse Tales book lingered for about a week.

My plan to get many pictures taken by Disneyland photographers on this day was thwarted by the rain. Turns out, the photographers disappear when the rain appears. But when it was still sunny, we got a few photos in front of the Millennium Falcon.

With BB-8

And with this little fellow.

We rode Space Mountain twice, once each day. It’s still just as great as it was when I rode it when I was six. The first time we weren’t ready for the photo, but the second time we were.

Still coming down off that mountain high.

Ready for our closeup. As were the people behind us.

And thus ends the chronical of our Disney vacation. We had a great time.

We were at the rope drop outside Adventureland for our second and final day at Disneyland.

The sun was shining, but rain was forecast.

No rain here yet, though.

We rode the Indiana Jones ride (much fun!) using the Lightning Lanes, and then had a Jungle Cruise. My joke in the lead-up to the trip was that we should watch the Jungle Cruise movie so that we would be caught up for the ride, but Matt declined. He seemed to catch all the Jungle Cruise stuff even having not seen the movie.

We hung out in Galaxy’s Edge and Matt took part in some missions.

There was a tiny Rey running around, and she and the grown-up Rey eventually connected. Here they are watching some Stormtroopers and formulating a plan.

The rain was forecast to begin at 1:19 p.m. and it pretty much did begin at that time. I had hoped the rain would chase some people away, but like us, people were willing to hang out in the rain for their Disney vacation. We prioritized things that had us under cover.

We also rode the train! Twice! The first time I looked out the left-side window (not much to see) and the second time I looked out the right-side window (much to see).

Some of our fellow travelers who weren’t on the train and were in the rain.

We also rode the omnibus that took us from Main Street to Sleeping Beauty’s castle.

As you can see, the rain was persistent. We were both glad we sprung for the good ponchos as they kept us dry the entire time.

Some merry-go-round action showing off the poncho.

And some time for a self-portrait.

The poncho ruins this effect, alas. Matt is attempting to pull the sword out of the stone.

We lasted until about 6 or 7 that night and then returned to our hotel. Though rainy, it was still a good day in Disneyland.

Let’s have a look at the photos Disney took of us.

Here we are in Cars Land, racing. The woman sitting next to me filmed the first part on her camera, which she put away just as the ride started.

Disney has a lot of ways to entertain yourself while standing in line with a phone. Here is me with a fun newspaper photo filter.

My favorite picture is this one from my favorite ride. We’re on the right, and I love that when the doors opened exposing us to a few seconds of the tallest view from the tower I pointed at the camera.

One thing that has changed since my visit in 1991: Photo Pass, which costs money but is worth it for the one-timer visitor. Rather than having a bunch of random tourist mobbing the good photo ops, Disneyland provides photographers in key locations who tell you where to stand so they can take good (and fun) pictures. These are then loaded onto your Disney app for later download. Here are some of the fun ones from DCA.

In front of Avengers Campus doing the Iron Man thing.

Also doing the Spider-Man thing. Matt was very clear about how the Spider-Man Fingers are arranged.

Doing some muscles in front of the campus entrance.

In front of Cars Land holding the Piston Cup. Things like this trophy are fun add-ins the photographer can do. I wasn’t aware I was holding the Piston Cup until I saw the photo. I’m also not sure what the Piston Cup is, having not watched any of the Cars movies.

Standard Cars Land photo.

Hanging out with Walt and Mickey

Being excited about a delicious treat. (Also an add-in)

The photographers also say flattering things while taking pictures. This photographer commented that we could be on a brochure while taking this picture (which is my favorite of the bunch).

More Pixar Pier fun.

I was a great fan of this service, and I will take advantage of it should we visit any other Disney properties.

After a good dinner at Wine Country Trattoria (where the pull-apart cheese bread was MUCH better than the Pizza Press’s cheese bread) we continued to experience DCA rides.

Here we are in the Pixar Pal-a-Round wheel (a Ferris Wheel with swinging gondolas.) We opted for the less swinging version because the line was shorter.

And here we are again with our gondola friends taking the picture for us.

A view of only part of the Incredicoaster, still closed and still running three empty cars and breaking my heart.

And here is a evening shot of Pixar Pier as we waited for the World of Color to start.

I enjoyed the World of Color, but it came at the end of a very long day and I was cold. Still, it was my first water and light show. Plus there was fire.

We started our day at the gate at 7:30 and left after the end of World of Color. By 10:10 p.m., I had earned a new badge: 25,000 steps in one day. The Stepping Up 20K was from the day before our wedding when we had two separate walking-through-parks activities, plus wandering around downtown Tacoma. Our day at DCA had that beat. But also it was a longer day.

I consider our first Disney day in the parks a success!

After several rides that had a lot of digitally created content, I wondered if DCA didn’t have any animatronic rides. But the Little Mermaid ride was full of animatronics. I also loved looking at the details in the park, like this great under-the-sea chandelier and the shell decorations.

I also had a great time people watching. So many things to observe.

Our lunch was at the Carthay Circle Lounge, providing ample people watching like that picture I took above. Our food was delicious and there wasn’t too much of it, which is good when one needs to hold onto the contents of ones stomach for rides. We had heard tell of the Carthay Circle biscuits, but our waiter told us they didn’t make it through the Snap (a.k.a. the pandemic.) Funny joke. So those went untasted.

After lunch, we wandered into Avengers Campus just in time for the Spider-Man show.

These cast members (with Avengers-branded uniforms) helped everyone stand in the right spot so that traffic could still pass through while the show was happening.

Spider-Man appeared and did some cool parkour moves.

Then he did some web slinging and flew from building to building. Matt told me later that that was an animatronic. After that, he lowered down to street level…

…as I have expertly captured in this photo. At that time, the cast members herded us into a line and said firmly and repeatedly, “Hands up for a high-five from Spider-Man!” I put my hands up and got a high-five from Spider-Man. But he was high fiving quickly, so it was more like a high-three.

Here we are on the Toy Story Mania ride.

My scores were not great (21,00 vs. Matt’s 63,700). I note that our accuracy was the same, 22%, so Matt clearly did a better job than me picking his targets.

Here we are standing in line for Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree.

And riding that same ride.

It was a fun jamboree.

More great details from Cars Land.

Including some Burma-Shave–type signs.

The great disappointment was that the Incredicoaster was closed on the day we visited. As a huge fan of rollercoasters, I was looking forward to that ride. It also was closed in the worst way: they had three cars running all day, so every time I would come within hearing distance, I would perk up, hoping it was open, but it never was.

The best ride in the park (due to the Incredicoaster not being an option) was the Guardians of the Galaxy Mission Breakout. It had a very fun opening bit with Rocket setting the stage, and the ride itself, a tower drop in complete darkness) was So. Much. Fun.

It kept breaking down, so I was glad we got to ride it when it was running.

We were at the gate before it opened and it was fun to people watch while we waited for the gate to open.

I love the Art Deco stylings of the gate.

From there, we went to the rope and watched all the people staying at Disney properties enter 30 minutes before we did. Those are two cast members on the other side of the rope.

Once the rope dropped we headed over to the Spider-Man ride. Here, we had a fun intro before climbing into our ride and trying to blast the spiders that were taking over the lab. I did not do well, a theme that would continue throughout all the shoot-em-up–type games.

From there, we got a bit wet on the Grizzly River Run. We had the raft to ourselves because it was early and a little chilly. It was good we did this early on, though. The ride shut down at some point during the day.

We enjoyed seeing the various characters. Here, Matt does Black Panther with Black Panther in the background, not to mention an Avengers vehicle.

From that point, we stood in lines. We had Lightning Lanes, so we signed up for those. And we payed extra for Radiator Springs Racers to avoid the line there.

It was a good morning.

After some advice and help from Fairyweather Travel, we planned a trip to Disneyland. Our first day involved traveling to Anaheim. The flight from Portland to LAX is only two hours; it seems like it should be longer.

Once we checked in to our hotel, the Anaheim Hotel, we walked over to explore Downtown Disney.

There, we found a taste of the crowds to navigate over the next few days, and also this display at the Lego Store.

We also took a picture of Matt in front of the Downtown Disney Salt and Straw, though we did not partake. Thinking about it now, we should have checked to see if they had any Disney-specific flavors.

The lines for food at Downtown Disney were long, so we returned to our hotel and bought breadsticks and salad at the on-site Pizza Press restaurant.

After that, we completed another Exit game, the Haunted Roller Coaster.

Matt holds up the pumpkin task.

I enjoyed how clever this task was.

Here is our certificate.

At the time we were visiting, fireworks at Disneyland happen only on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. I had plans for us to walk back to Downtown Disney for the fireworks, but travel is exhausting, and I was in bed by the time the fireworks started at 9:30. So there were no fireworks for me. Matt did go out and watch a few of them from the hotel.