Bring Back HYPERSPACE Mountain! Sept 2016 TR - NEW 3/17 COMPLETED! THE END!

[bcwife76]

No Dale? Boo!

I've definitely considered getting a part time job at the Disney Store, just not sure if the Canadian stores offer the same benefits. I'll probably look into it soon though as my kids are getting older and I need to keep busy!

Love the theming of Storytellers, I think it's a very underrated breakfast since it's off in the hotel and not actually in the parks. Too bad, looks good

PS. I finally completed my Disneyland miniTR!

 

[ArielSRL]

OMG about Dale! You've probably read about @ariane37 's experiences of missing one of those pesky chipmunks at GG! So crazy!

The meal looks good though and sounds like you guys got a bit done after breakfast! I guess the Luigi ride is what replaces the tire ride that was there? I watched a 2014 blog that had the tire ride but it was closing and I remember a new ride opening so I'm hassuming it's the Luigi one?

Looking forward to more!

 

[disnygirl55]

Spent an enjoyable morning catching up - excellent report, as always. Added that WOC dessert party to my "must dos" - just fantastic!

 

[Dugette]

Caught up here now!

OMG this ride is phenomenal.

This ride is worth a trip to California just on it's own.

If you had any doubts about visiting DLR or DCA, just GO, if only for this ride.
The vehicle itself is modeled after test track, but the track and the theme are amped up to a whole other level. It really immerses you in the world of Cars. Even if you're not a huge Cars fan (I have seen it and don't love it as much as other Disney movies), you will still love it. It does not even compare to Test Track. This is one of Disney's finest rides, IMO!

Totally agree. I have a burning desire to go back to Disneyland, in large part because Izzy is now tall enough for RSR and would LOVE it. We sure did. Great ride. But, alas, I don't think Disneyland is in the cards for 2017.

After breakfast we went back out to Carlsand and did Tomater's Junkyard Jamboree. I have no idea why but it quickly became my sister's favorite go-to ride. This ride kinda tosses you back and forth by throwing you in a figure 8 type loop. It's not too crazy but it definitely takes you for a spin. I think my sister just enjoyed the feeling the ride gave her, she was laughing so much. She always rode it solo except the one time I went in her ride car and we kept being tossed into each other. I just liked seeing her laughing on this ride. It was quite funny.

It's a surprisingly fun ride. It's kind-of like a "scrambler" type ride, but it's just so cute and has the fun music, etc. Izzy got a kick out of it, so we rode quite a few times. Glad your sis found something she enjoyed so much!

The cars were cute. They talk too! Just pre-coined phrases though.

I loved that the cars drove around and interacted!

It was really nice to be sitting outside in such good weather. It was also a little less crazy than inside and was more peaceful to sit by the water.

We sat on the patio too - really peaceful!

When I saw this bear I thought he was Koda, so I asked, are you Koda? and he responded by nodding his head happily! I figured it would be either Kenai or Koda since I have never seen Brother Bear.

Ha, funny, we got Kenai. We had to look up who he was on our phones.

There was literally no one here at this time. While we were second on line, we were chatting with the lovely family in front of us. The mom worked part time at the Disney Store and she said even part-timers get incredible benefits at Disney Parks. She said she gets something like 16 free day passes to the parks each year for friends n family! Sounds pretty cool to me and I kept nudging my sister to go get a job there!

Wow, I had no idea! That's pretty impressive!

 

[Saphire5742]

I was happy to read about your positive experience at Storyteller's. I def need to make a point to watch Brother Bear before I go though.

Haha on trying to convice your sis to get a job at Disney Store for the benefits. I'd be too.

 

[Raeven]

Breakfast is a character meal called Chip n Dale's Critter Breakfast. It sounded like a lot of fun and we were looking forward to this!

That looks like fun!

I really liked this border around the walls of the restaurant.

The restaurant looks cool too.

When I saw this bear I thought he was Koda, so I asked, are you Koda? and he responded by nodding his head happily! I figured it would be either Kenai or Koda since I have never seen Brother Bear.

It's so interesting that they have characters there you don't get to see at WDW.

 

[Bebella]

I am loving this trip report! (Honestly, I love all your trip reports! ) Makes me miss DL ...we went in May and I really want to go back! Can I ask, what camera do you use? Your shots are great!!

 

[chunkymonkey]

No Dale? Boo!

Yeah very strange, but he seemed to be stuck in the other side of the restaurant and we didnt' feel like waiting.

I've definitely considered getting a part time job at the Disney Store, just not sure if the Canadian stores offer the same benefits. I'll probably look into it soon though as my kids are getting older and I need to keep busy!

Ha, even I have looked into doing this, but my job keeps me pretty busy as it is. I just want to do it for the insane discounts I'd get, lol.

Love the theming of Storytellers, I think it's a very underrated breakfast since it's off in the hotel and not actually in the parks. Too bad, looks good

PS. I finally completed my Disneyland miniTR!

It was a cute breakfast, definitely nice to do once.
Cool! I have to catch up on your TR! Also, have an amazing cruise! It's coming up so soon! I want to see lots of pictures!!

OMG about Dale! You've probably read about @ariane37 's experiences of missing one of those pesky chipmunks at GG! So crazy!

LOL that's too funny, I have to catch up on Ariane's TR now!

The meal looks good though and sounds like you guys got a bit done after breakfast! I guess the Luigi ride is what replaces the tire ride that was there? I watched a 2014 blog that had the tire ride but it was closing and I remember a new ride opening so I'm hassuming it's the Luigi one?

Looking forward to more!

I have no idea if it was the old tire ride as it was our first time to Carsland! It may well be!

Spent an enjoyable morning catching up - excellent report, as always. Added that WOC dessert party to my "must dos" - just fantastic!

Thank you so much for reading! The WoC dessert party was fantastic, you will LOVE it!

Caught up here now!

Totally agree. I have a burning desire to go back to Disneyland, in large part because Izzy is now tall enough for RSR and would LOVE it. We sure did. Great ride. But, alas, I don't think Disneyland is in the cards for 2017.

Yeah neither for us too, but RSR is a great ride, every Disney fan should ride at least once!

It's a surprisingly fun ride. It's kind-of like a "scrambler" type ride, but it's just so cute and has the fun music, etc. Izzy got a kick out of it, so we rode quite a few times. Glad your sis found something she enjoyed so much!

She had so much fun, it's like her escape, she loved how she felt like she would fly around and she'd crack up. And I'd crack up watching her. LOL

I loved that the cars drove around and interacted!

Me too! So cool!

We sat on the patio too - really peaceful!

It was!

Ha, funny, we got Kenai. We had to look up who he was on our phones.

Haha, Me too, I had to research on our phones before breakfast!

I was happy to read about your positive experience at Storyteller's. I def need to make a point to watch Brother Bear before I go though.

I didn't watch it, I googled it on our phones and we figured it out, LOL

Haha on trying to convice your sis to get a job at Disney Store for the benefits. I'd be too.

Yeah totally, right?

That looks like fun!

The restaurant looks cool too.

It's so interesting that they have characters there you don't get to see at WDW.

It's a fun breakfast with one or two rare characters. We didn't meet that many, the restaurant wasn't crowded so I guess they didn't feel the need to bring out the big guns, lol.

I am loving this trip report! (Honestly, I love all your trip reports! ) Makes me miss DL ...we went in May and I really want to go back! Can I ask, what camera do you use? Your shots are great!!

Thank you soooo much for reading!! I really miss DL too. We had such a great time there really immersing ourselves in everything.
Thank you! I use a Canon G7X. It's a high-end point and shoot and it's worth every penny to me. Great zoom, and the screen flips up to take selfies too!

 

[AussieMumma]

I'm all caught up on this trip report, I read it all in one go! We were in Disneyland just a couple of weeks after you

 

[chunkymonkey]

I'm all caught up on this trip report, I read it all in one go! We were in Disneyland just a couple of weeks after you

Thank you for reading! I hope you had a great time in DLR! Were you able to ride hyperspace mountain or just ghost galaxy?

 

[AussieMumma]

Just ghost galaxy unfortunately....I have never been a fan of that layover
We were lucky enough to ride hyperspace at the end of 2015, so amazing! It's great that you got to ride it on it's last day, you just made it!!!

 

[franandaj]

Nice to see the Storytellers breakfast, we rarely get to breakfast as we never get up early enough to get out there! Bummer that you didn't get to see Dale!

 

[chunkymonkey]

Day 7 Part 2: A Break From "Reality"

Here's some PP Magic shots I forgot to post earlier:

I thought those were cute.

It's hard to imagine leaving the Disney bubble when you're in Orlando, since the "world" takes up so many acres or land and it surrounds you, but for Disneyland it's very easy to leave Disney property and be in the rest of "California." We took advantage of an afternoon away from the parks to meet DH's parents who were in town for a doctor's appt. I was toying whether to leave the parks or not, but since we didn't' spend that much time with DH's parents I thought it was the right thing to do. My sister excused herself from lunch and went to look for more pressed pennies and characters. I was also pretty excited because we could eat at my favorite dim sum place, Din Tai Fong. There is no Din Tai Fong on the east coast (well, unless you count Toronto, but it's a good 9 hour drive), so I try to eat there whenever I'm in California. There is one not too far from Anaheim at the South Coast Plaza mall, which is where we met my in-laws for lunch.

This dumpling mascot is found at all Din Tai Fung locations around the world. I've been to the original in Taiwan as well as one in Singapore, and multiple locations in California, and I must say the quality is consistent among all of the restaurants which is pretty impressive! There is also always a wait at every one of them, so be prepared to hang around for a while. We waited about 20 minutes for a table and that's considered short!

At each restaurant you get to watch the dumpling makers do what they do best:

The dumpling skins are made fresh, rolled and stuffed by hand.

I started with a bubble tea type beverage, but without the tapioca. I really loved this as the tea tasted freshly brewed, slightly sweet, and it had a creamy topping which you stir up and make into a milk tea. It definitely had a true tea leaf flavor, as opposed to a lot of bubble teas which have sweetened flavored powders in them and kinda mask the actual tea.

We had a salad of wood ear mushrooms in a vinegar dressing. Wood ear mushrooms are very common in Chinese cuisine and they are healthy as well! They are actually a bit different from a regular mushroom and have a crunchier texture and not as mushroom-y of a flavor. I really like the texture of these.

We got several orders of their soup dumplings which is what made them famous, we had both the pork and pork and crab versions. I could probably eat 2 trays by myself.

We also got some other dumplings...which were all great but I really think the soup dumplings are the star of the show. We got some other type of steamed dumpling, but with no soup in them, as well as wontons in a spicy sauce.

Their shrimp fried rice is also one of the best I've ever had. It is simple and extremely tasty.

For dessert we got some sweet taro dumplings, which are steamed with a sweet taro filling. I love these.

It was a delicious lunch and I was really glad I stepped away from the Disney bubble a bit to get in some of my favorite eats while in town. We said goodbye to the in-laws but that is not the last time we'll be seeing them. On the day we leave, we will all be having brunch at Goofy's Kitchen! Very excited about that.

We headed back to DLR and back to the GC. I had some leftovers to drop off in the room.
I was surprised but we were actually going to make it to our 3pm FP+ for RSR! I texted my sister but she was having too much fun at Disneyland so she was going to skip on the FP+ so we went by ourselves.

Whee!

My sister had fun meeting some characters in DCA and DL:

She even changed outfits before going to DLR to meet the princesses. She wanted to wear her Ariel dress again. Now that is dedication.

It paid off though because Ariel was really into her dress!

She also got these really cool magic shots:

Meanwhile we were still in DCA and decided to take some PP pics and head on Grizzly Bear.

This is us before:

and this is us after:

Yes we got wet. SOAKED in fact. On the way out we saw Chip and Dale so I finally got a picture with Dale, hehe.

See how wet we got? (BTW, we are all color-coordinated in this shot!)

But no worries, the entrance back to our hotel was right there in front of Grizzly Peak! So we headed back up to change. It was then I got a text from my sister saying, where are you?

Oops, I forgot we had FP for the Frozen show at the Hyperion!! So we very quickly changed and ran over to the Hyperion with barely any time to spare...oh why is the Hyperion theater so far away?!?

...do we make it? Stay tuned!
​

 

[chunkymonkey]

Just ghost galaxy unfortunately....I have never been a fan of that layover
We were lucky enough to ride hyperspace at the end of 2015, so amazing! It's great that you got to ride it on it's last day, you just made it!!!

Yeah that Ghastly Galaxy, I mean Ghost Galaxy is just horrendous.
I can't believe that Disney would think up such monstrosity. I mean I know it's Halloween and they want to have scary attractions, but please, it's just scary thinking how bad the overlay was
That's great you got to ride Hyperspace! I'm so sad we only got to ride it that one day but at least we got to do it twice.

Nice to see the Storytellers breakfast, we rarely get to breakfast as we never get up early enough to get out there! Bummer that you didn't get to see Dale!

We were luckily on East Cost time (although that was slowly fading away) so we were able to get up at a decent time, and it was in the hotel too so that made it easier. I definitely don't do too many early breakfasts unless it's in the parks. We didn't get to see Dale at breakfast but we saw him later (as you see in my post above)

 

[pepperandchips]

Loving your report! I am getting so excited about Disneyland. Our DVC waitlist matched for 2 of the 3 nights so far so we will be staying at the Grand Californian Villas! I am so thrilled. You and sis are adorable in all your themed outfits. I'm going to have to start thinking ahead to plan out matching outfits for the parks..

 

[franandaj]

Loved the update of the off campus meet up! Is that a place where they do the traditional Dim Sum with the carts and stuff? I have never tried Dim Sum and really want to as I love Chinese food, I've tried Yelp and found a few places in Garden Grove, but this place sounds a lot better.

 

[chunkymonkey]

Loving your report! I am getting so excited about Disneyland. Our DVC waitlist matched for 2 of the 3 nights so far so we will be staying at the Grand Californian Villas! I am so thrilled. You and sis are adorable in all your themed outfits. I'm going to have to start thinking ahead to plan out matching outfits for the parks..

Thank you so much! You're going to have a great time at the GC! Nothing will beat the convenience!
Thank you! My sister takes her dressing up very seriously at the parks. She has to coordinate with the characters of the theme. I just wear whatever is cute and comfortable!

Loved the update of the off campus meet up! Is that a place where they do the traditional Dim Sum with the carts and stuff? I have never tried Dim Sum and really want to as I love Chinese food, I've tried Yelp and found a few places in Garden Grove, but this place sounds a lot better.

Din Tai Fung is Taiwanese style dim sum so it's not the ones with the carts (that's usually Cantonese). Basically you have a menu and a piece of paper with the items listed and you pick out which ones you want on the paper, put down a quantity next to each item and give it to your server. Din Tai fung specializes in soup dumplings but everything there is good so you can't go wrong. If you've never had a soup dumpling here's a bit of a tutorial: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/01/how-to-eat-a-soup-dumpling-guide_n_7183530.html
There is liquid soup inside so it's best not to shove the whole thing in your month otherwise you'll get burned. I pretty much follow the steps in the article. Bite a smallhole in the dumpling, pour the soup out on your spoon, sip the soup, and then savor the dumpling (dip it into the ginger and vinegar dipping sauce they give you). It's unlike any other dumpling out there and it's delicious. The have different kinds and we usually stick to pork or pork and crab.

I hope you do get to try it one day, although you might be spoiled after eating here There are different locations throughout California.http://dintaifungusa.com/locations_us/

 

[Neverland_Girl]

I had dim sum for the first time last summer in Hawaii, and now I'm obsessed. I think we are going to Seattle this summer for vacation and I saw this place on TripAdvisor. Now I have to go it looks so good! Any other recommendations besides the soup dumplings?

 

[chunkymonkey]

I had dim sum for the first time last summer in Hawaii, and now I'm obsessed. I think we are going to Seattle this summer for vacation and I saw this place on TripAdvisor. Now I have to go it looks so good! Any other recommendations besides the soup dumplings?

Mmm lucky! You have to go there! The Seattle one is supposed to be great (but they are all great)!
I have not had a bad dish there, seriously. I'm assuming Seattle might be a little rainy so you may want to try some of their noodle soups. A popular Taiwanese dish is the braised beef noodle soup. So comforting on a cold or rainy day.
All their dumplings are great, not just the soup dumplings, so I'd probably sample a few kinds. Also the fried noodles are good as are the fried rice cakes which are very unique to Taiwan/Shanghai cuisine. And I love their fried rice. It's simple but delicious. I am particular to the shrimp but the one with the fried pork chop is popular.
Have a great time in Seattle!

 

[franandaj]

Interesting about the soup dumplings. I have never had them or heard of them. The location you went to is also the closest to my house. We have been known to go to South Coast Plaza for shopping. I'm going to definitely put this place on my "list", but now I want Chinese food for dinner. We don't have any really good Chinese places in Long Beach.