We've now completed our "first trip since Covid-19" last weekend. Originally, we had the weekend booked via DVC at the Grand Cal with a Worldmark location booked as 'back-up.' The DVC reservation was cancelled by Disney ... so we kept and enjoyed Worldmark!
Friday: Arrived Anaheim around 2p. Checked into WM hoping to simply park our truck and walk the area. We were delighted to have "room ready!" immediately. We enjoyed a 4p dinner reservation at nearby
Morton's The Steakhouse. We split a wedge salad, split a steak and split a pair of sides. In all, it was too much food and we boxed the leftovers for later. Next time: either one side or make both green vegetables w/out a starch option. (Note: This was our 1st-ever visit to Morton's. We booked it as
Landry's Select Club members as it was the only guaranteed sit-down dining we could find in a hurry. We both decided: "We'll be back! Add Morton's to the "rotation" of dining options.")
Saturday: We doubled down on "firsts." We bought a pair of one-day tickets for the
Anaheim Resort Transportation (ART) bus ($6/adult for all day use) and visited the
Anaheim Packing District for lunch. This is an up-and-coming deluxe food court, of sorts. Lots of counter-service dining choices with outdoor seating. We loved what we tried and can't wait to go back for anti-gravity noodles at
206 BCE.
We rejoined the ART Bus with drop-off at DLR. We moseyed for a bit, struggled for a bit and eventually left to return to Worldmark by foot. Disney was the "weak link" in our weekend. We returned to our WM unit and cooked dinner in the room. (Loved it! Enjoyed the full kitchen and what we made. Yippie!)
Sunday: Joined our local church via Zoom before leaving for our return home.
Lessons Learned:
- The Anaheim Packing District has great food options and "real" prices. Good value, nice environment ... we will return!
- The ART Bus is pleasant but too slow for our enjoyment. We really loved going farther north than our normal Anaheim pattern ... but did not enjoy the long period waiting for the ART bus. We noodled a variety of ideas for next time: bicycle? scooter? walk? (The walking distance isn't bad, just 3 miles from our timeshare ... but the area isn't particularly lovely ... maybe even sketchy at points?) We are still pondering this issue for our future visits.
- The Disneyland App and Website were, for this past weekend, suffering serious disconnect with respect to Dining Reservations. One said we had a reservation, the other said None and cancelling a reservation was impossible from any means: app, website, phone. Mobile ordering was also spotty for us ... so we quit.
- The use of Virtual Queues vs Physical Queues is totally random. We were advised, by a CM stationed in the entry gauntlet to assist first-time visitors, to use the App's VQ for everything but, best we could tell, no VQs were actually active. Rather, we found long, long, physical lines wrapped all over the place for every shop and most dining options.
- Not one CM inside BVS or Downtown Disney could help us with the App's VQ. They gave us a blank stare and either pointed to a physical line or said, "Check back later" (Carthay). Just before leaving we found one sign in Downtown Disney referring to the App for VQ ... but didn't bother to read it ... we were already fried and intent on leaving.
- The bathrooms were completely empty! Never seen that before!
- Worldmark, our original timeshare, was awesome as always. The room was super clean, the staff friendly ... and the check-in package included an updated list of dining/attractions that were open during Covid-19. The visit was great!
So ... provided DVC does not cancel our mid-December reservation for the Grand Cal ... we will be back but not particularly looking forward to Disney. We didn't enjoy either Downtown Disney or BVS. That said, I do have a reservation at Carthay's for that return visit ... so that might just change everything. Good food, good dining could completely win us over!
