*August 2019 check in*

[flav]

First, thanks to all who answered my planning questions on this thread.


We have been back home for a few days except for one of our luggage who did not make it

We arrived at the Best Western Park Place Inn on the evening of July 14th and returned the car. We then visited Downtown Disney which we liked better than Disney Spring. Nice ambience and it did not feel like an outdoor shopping mall.

We used our Magic Morning privilege for DL on the first day, tackling Fantasyland first. We got used to MaxPass eventually and by the end of the day, had four Anytime FP... We were able to ride almost everything we wanted including Millennium Falcon (45 min wait posted, took less) which made DH dizzy. SWGE was walk-on all day. We did not like the Matterhorn but Hyperspace Mountain, wow! We saw Fantasmic but were a bit at an angle.

Second day was mostly DCA which we really enjoyed because the attractions and characters are different from WDW. Frozen show was great and the World of Colors show is amazing. We saw the latter again the last night but prefer getting the get wet but more immersive feeling of the waterfront.

Last day was repeat the favourite and do what we had missed. There, MaxPass combined with PH was game changing. Plus, it was a Saturday and some AP were allowed.

Favorite rides: RSR and GGE
Favorite snack: Dole Whip Float always... with Mickey Bar and Jack-Jack Cookie Num-Num close behind
Favorite restaurant: Lucky Fortune Cookery (GF chinese food!)
Favorite show: World of Colors

Only regret: Waiting (a long time) to see Mickey in Toontown because we missed him in DCA where he was dressed differently.

 

[lauritagoddess]

Minnie’s Breakfast was the best. We had been to Goofys 3 times before. 10:30 ressie was a good time because as the restaurant cleared out we had the characters to ourselves. I asked Captain Hook where Peter Pan was and that resulting in the best interactions. He would always come back to our table and do the “I’m watching you” with his fingers. We were all laughing. He saw us leaving and “escorted” us all out shaking his finger at us.

So glad to hear this because we also have a 10:30 reservation. I love the Hook interaction you had!

 

[B-rad]

Super excited to help close out August with the stragglers. Tomorrow night's also my first night of my last semester of graduate school, then we leave for MD (we drive from SE Virginia, so it's not too bad to save on direct flights) to fly out to LAX on Tuesday morning. Our daughters are psyched, but we are more psyched. It'll be the first plane trip for either daughter, though I'm sure they'll do fine. We're leaving behind a week of rain to enjoy the California weather, so we have that going for us!

It's a bittersweet end of the summer for us, as the 5 y/o gets to do BBB for the first time ever and our oldest is aging out. The only time we'll every get to see them both "princess'ed" up. Praying that the crowds are calm, but we have MP and I expect we'll get to do everything in the 3 1/2 days we have at the parks. They're used to the rigid scheduling of WDW, so I'm sure their heads will be spinning.

 

[Aladora]

Well, I am back home and back at work so I can finally update here with a bit of a trip report!

As you can see in my signature, this was our 13th DL trip and I have to say it was definitely one of our best!

We set ourselves a bit of a challenge to go on every single ride in both DL and DCA in the 4 1/2 days we were in the parks. At one point it seemed as though we were not going to be successful but in the end we made it with time to spare! We used a combination of EMH, Maxpass and a few times we ended up using our son's DAS, although we used it far less than previous trips.

A quick rundown on our days...and I know I am missing some since I didn't write down everything we did! (Alphabetically, not chronologically)

Aug 19, EMH @ DCA
GotG: MB
Haunted Mansion
Hyperspace Mountain
Incredicoaster
Jessie's Critter Carousel
Matterhorn
MF:SR
Monster's Inc.
PotC
RSR
Silly Symphony Swings
Soarin' over CA
Star Tours
TSMM

Aug 20, EMH @ DL
Astro Orbitor
Autopia
BTMRR
Buzz Lightyear
Dumbo
Indiana Jones Adventure
iasw
King Arthur Carrousel
Mark Twain Riverboat
Mr. Toad's Wild Ride
Peter Pan
DL Railroad
Snow White's Scary Adventure

Aug 21, EMH @ DCA
Golden Zephyr
Goofy's Sky School
Grizzly River Run
Inside Out Emotional Whirlwind
Jumpin' Jellyfish
Jungle Cruise
Little Mermaid
Mater's Junkyard Jamboree
Pixar Pal-A-Round
Splash Mountain

Aug 22, EMH @ DL
Alice in Wonderland
Casey Jr. Circus Train
Finding Nemo Subs
Gadget's Go Coaster
Luigi's Rollickin' Roadsters
Mad Tea Party
Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
Pinocchio's Daring Journey
Redwood Creek Challenge Trail
Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin
Sleeping Beauty Castle Walkthrough
Storybook Land Canal Boats

Aug 23, EMH @ DCA (We skipped this and went directly to our SH55 breakfast)
Monorail - our very last thing done!

We also repeated many of the rides, I know that we all rode GotG 4x (5 for me, DH and DS skipped the last one!), Splash 2x, MF:SR 4x, HSM 4x, HM 2x, Grizzly 2x, DH and DS did Incredicoaster 2x (their second time was my 5th on GotG), RSR 3x, BTMRR 3x, IJ 2x.

We went for dinner at Napa Rose and ate at the chef's counter which was amazing, I will probably make a new thread about that meal because there are a ton of pics!

We did have a few things planned that did not work out exactly as we thought.

While we were in line for our F! on the go dining at Hungry Bear a couple with a young daughter walked up and asked the CM about any availability for that night. There was no availability at all so I asked the CM whether or not we could give the other family our reservation and spot in the viewing area. At first the CM said she could not so I asked to speak with the team lead. She came over and after I explained the situation (no $ was changing hands between the families, we were willing to give them our reservation and also the fact that it was the young girl's birthday and she had been disappointed by missing out seeing a few characters that day) the team lead let us give up our spot. The team lead explained that she originally told the CM no because there were other groups who had been asking about walk-up availability but since we were willing to give up our reservation she was able to make the switch. We left a very happy family and had dinner at the French Market and went to bed early!

The other change in plans was our MSEP viewing. This was at the end of our last full day and we ended up giving our viewing tickets plus lanyards away to a woman and her 2 grandkids, again we had an early night because we were exhausted!

Whew, that ended up being longer than I anticipated!

 

[momtohms]

I’m getting my Trip Report started over on the TR board if anyone wants to follow along Go HERE

 

[lauritagoddess]

Super excited to help close out August with the stragglers. Tomorrow night's also my first night of my last semester of graduate school, then we leave for MD (we drive from SE Virginia, so it's not too bad to save on direct flights) to fly out to LAX on Tuesday morning. Our daughters are psyched, but we are more psyched. It'll be the first plane trip for either daughter, though I'm sure they'll do fine. We're leaving behind a week of rain to enjoy the California weather, so we have that going for us!

You're not the only straggler, we fly out very early on Wednesday morning. I only just pulled out our bags and need to get my son start picking out clothes to pack. I'm so excited!

We set ourselves a bit of a challenge to go on every single ride in both DL and DCA in the 4 1/2 days we were in the parks. At one point it seemed as though we were not going to be successful but in the end we made it with time to spare! We used a combination of EMH, Maxpass and a few times we ended up using our son's DAS, although we used it far less than previous trips.

Wow! You've got so much done in your time there.

 

[lauritagoddess]

One more sleep until we leave for Disneyland! We have to be up super early for our flight, so I’ll be excited now and tired tomorrow.

 

[lauritagoddess]

We’re on our way way to our hotel, woohoo!

 

[kyrkea333]

We are here now and just LOVING the low crowds. So amazing and so many pixie dust moments I will share later! Have fun, all you other stragglers!

 

[B-rad]

We are here now and just LOVING the low crowds. So amazing and so many pixie dust moments I will share later! Have fun, all you other stragglers!

We were a bit worried about crowds, and kind of expect them to pick up by the weekend because of labor day? It didn't seem to be crowded at all yesterday or the day before.

Not that we've done much but terrify our daughters on Guardians the night we got here and bicker from travel exhaustion since hahaha.

 

[Chickinvic]

We have stayed at the Del sol for the past few trips and it has always been fine. Nothing fancy but clean and comfy and so close!!

Us too. We've stayed there a couple times and have no problem at all with it. It was fine for our purposes.

 

[lauritagoddess]

We had Magic Morning at Disneyland and stayed until early afternoon. We went back in the later afternoon and went to Galaxy’s Edge. I thought the crowds the whole day were very manageable. Even for MFSR, when we got on it about 4:30, the wait time was listed as 45 minutes, but it was more like 30-35 minutes. We also have MaxPass and it was a huge help. The only issue is that it was really hot. I think I normally wouldn’t have thought much about it, but we had come from NYC where the temps had dropped in the last few days before we came to the 70s. Had it been 90 and humid when we left, the heat probably wouldn’t have been that noticeable. But we still had a great time. And tomorrow we go to DCA!

My son in Galaxy’s Edge.

 

[caribbeandream]

While we were in line for our F! on the go dining at Hungry Bear a couple with a young daughter walked up and asked the CM about any availability for that night. There was no availability at all so I asked the CM whether or not we could give the other family our reservation and spot in the viewing area. At first the CM said she could not so I asked to speak with the team lead. She came over and after I explained the situation (no $ was changing hands between the families, we were willing to give them our reservation and also the fact that it was the young girl's birthday and she had been disappointed by missing out seeing a few characters that day) the team lead let us give up our spot. The team lead explained that she originally told the CM no because there were other groups who had been asking about walk-up availability but since we were willing to give up our reservation she was able to make the switch. We left a very happy family and had dinner at the French Market and went to bed early!

These Pixie Dust moments are what make Disney different from other vacation destinations. Thank you for making a little girl's day.

 

[caribbeandream]

Just wanted to say how much fun I have had with this group! Thank you for sharing your planning tips and your post-trip reports. It makes those post-Disney vacation blues easier to deal with. As our friend Mickey likes to say . . . See you real soon!

 

[lauritagoddess]

It’s our last day here. We did two full days in DL and one in DCA, so we’re back in DCA today but may head over to DL later. We have a 9:15pm flight so we don’t even have to get our ride to the airport until 6:15. It’s going to be a long but fun day.

For the 80th anniversary of Marvel they’ve had the characters dressed as Marvel characters. We met
Chip as Thor and Dale as Loki and I swear this may be my favorite picture we’ve ever taken at Disney.

 

[lauritagoddess]

We got home yesterday. It was a great trip. Thursday and Friday morning the crowds were very manageable. It did start to get more noticeably crowded later on Friday and as the weekend went along. But even then it wasn't horribly crowded, and MaxPass was very helpful. Some highlights of our trip - Seeing Soarin' Over California, getting to be pilots on MFSR, Hyperspace Mountain and Mission Breakout which were just regular Space Mountain and ToT the last time we were there, seeing Pixar Pier completed, meeting the characters dressed as Avengers for the 80th anniversary of Marvel. I really loved the theming in Galaxy's Edge, but tbh, it didn't wow me or my son as much as we thought it would. I will say the heat probably contributed a lot to this. I mentioned above how it was really hot in general, but it just seemed extra hot in Galaxy's Edge. I know that my son and I were both a little cranky and annoyed when we finally got into Oga's after waiting outside in the bright sun. I think that the next time we go back to DL or see Galaxy's Edge in WDW, it will be in cooler weather when we can really enjoy it. I will say that if you want to beat the heat for awhile and still get a Star Wars fix, the Launch Bay is nice break out of your day. In terms of food, we mostly winged it and I didn't even keep the Plaza Inn reservation I had made. We just ate wherever we wound up being, which was mostly quick service. Surprisingly, our favorite quick service was Hungry Bear. My son really liked the spicy chicken sandwich and I liked the fish sandwich. Mobile ordering was great though, I loved being to bypass lines and just walk up. My favorite snack of the trip was the lemon soft serve with the blue raspberry swirl at Adorable Snowman.

Overall, it was a really nice trip, a lot packed in, but so much fun!

 

[B-rad]

Stopping back in to thank everyone for their help in planning our recent trip. We got lucky with the BBB. As we were walking to their photo shoot, Elena taught my 5 y/o how to "princess" just as Gaston came over and proposed. Our little Belle immediately said yes, but her big sister and Elena explained why that was a bad idea. Ha!

The little one was also SUPER excited to meet Moana, and the feeling seemed to be mutual.

We all had a blast, but there were a few snags...hours got shifted on Friday, and we ended up with a BBB reservation an hour before the park opened--we had to join the crowd at 9 and hope for the best. It worked, but we were a little nervous. Also, the girls were rushed around from place to place and our cinches became some other family's souvenirs City Hall, BBB, etc. didn't seemed that concerned--I'll email, but I doubt they're going to get replaced. The little one inherited the Ariel accessories and the Belle ones she was wearing, so we got some of the things--just no makeup, etc. Our prints were cropped poorly too and the larger one has the id# on the top. Even with all that though, DLR's BBB felt far superior to the one in WDW.

We also had an entire day where we weren't able to book FPs through the app. We could book DLR fastpasses in DLR, and DCA fastpasses in DCA. However, we couldn't book for opposite parks or while we were at the hotel, so the day kind of ended up a wash. It wouldn't let us order our sundae from Clarabelle's while exiting DLR either. I don't recall proximity ever being an issue before, but that seemed to be the root of the issues.