Canadians visit LA and Disneyland in Aug 2017. Sounds great, eh?

Frozen2014

DIS Veteran
Joined
Jan 12, 2014
Pre-Trip
Too Early to Start a Report?

I’m superstitious so debated on starting a trip report now, or waiting until we return. But I’m a planner (duh, we are 7 months out and our trip is already planned) so figured why not write about it now? I love reading others reports including the pre-trip so why not? I already had a spreadsheet with 11 tabs plus other word documents.

The Players

There’s me (the planner), DH (makes fun of me but is easy going and goes with the flow), DS who will be 12 when we travel and DD who will be 8 when we travel.

Why Disneyland?

Ok…so not a crazy decision for all the Disney fans on here, but will explain how our trip came about. We’re from Ontario Canada and decided to take our first Disney trip back in Oct 2014. Florida is much closer than California so it was a no brainer. Our son was the perfect age at 9, still young enough to love the magic but old enough to go on all rides. Our daughter was into princesses so perfect! We had an amazing trip…not to sound corny, but it truly was magical. We stayed onsite at Art of Animation (cutest resort!) and our trip included extras such as meal plan, memory maker, daughter did Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique, went to Halloween party, etc. We all loved it and when we returned we promised our kids we’d do Disney again someday. I know some dislike FastPast+ but I loved it. Since I’m a planner I had no issue researching rides and figuring out what and when for FastPasses. Even waking up at 6am to be ready to book FastPasses and staying up until midnight for ADR bookings months in advance was exciting (or was the the other way around)?.

Now the reality is, these trips are quite expensive so we only do a big trip once every few years. This past April we did something different and went on a Royal Caribbean cruise on Allure of the Seas. Also amazing. The cruise we went on required some pre-planning too for the shows and dinner time, plus port research. With 1.5 years in between trips, I kept busy and loved the excitement for our “upcoming” trip. I'm so glad we live in a time of internet forums.

So when we returned from our cruise, I was again busy planning our next trip. I don’t mind the wait between trips, as long as there is “something” to get excited over. Where to go next? Well, as mentioned we promised our kids we’d return to Disney. Our son though is getting older and so DH and I decided that the cruise was the last time we’d pull him out of school. That meant, Disney would either be Christmas (no way!…too busy as everyone has the exact same vacation and too expensive), March break (slightly better as breaks are spread out, but still will be busy and pricier) or summer. Only thing is, I keep hearing how Florida in summer is stupid hot, humid and has daily downpours. So DH suggested why not Disneyland? At least it’s only one of those three. Heat without humidity makes a big difference. And DH’s only request is if we are doing Disney, we need to do other things too. Sure…I can handle that. Los Angeles touring (I love Hollywood stuff!) plus Disneyland. Sounds good to me!
 
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What do you have planned for your time in LA? We are planning a trip that way in June and I am looking at taking a tour from Anaheim over to LA but there are so many I can't decide.
 
What do you have planned for your time in LA? We are planning a trip that way in June and I am looking at taking a tour from Anaheim over to LA but there are so many I can't decide.

It may take me a bit but I'll get to our LA days. How may days do you have? There is actually quite a lot of options. Will you hit Universal?
 
Which week?

So we narrowed our trip down to the summer so the next step was to figure out which week. Our kids go to camp and so usually I taken the last week of the summer off with them so they have a break between camp and school (and DH will take a few days in there too). Thus, the last week makes sense for our trip (Aug 28th week), but there is just one big problem with coming then….Haunted Mansion will be closed for the Halloween layover. Why is this a such a big deal?

  1. Going back to our Disney World trip….when we returned, for about 3 months, my DD asked daily ‘when can we go to Monsters again?’ (Monsters is what she called Haunted Mansion). So how we tell her we are going to Disney park but HM will be closed?
  2. I went to Disney World once before our family trip at around age 6, and to be honest, Haunted Mansion is the only ride that I actually remember (specifically the part where you are sitting in the car and you look in the mirror and the ghost is sitting with you). I loved it too. Plus, I have eye issues which restricts me on many rides such as quick accelerating roller coasters. But HM is one that is totally fine.

Thus, I started looking at another option. I learned on here that a bad time to come is the first week that AP holders are unblocked. So instead of backing our trip up by 1 week, it would be better to back it up by 2 weeks (i.e. Aug 14th week). This option wasn’t as nice since it meant taking our kids out of camp and then putting them back in, but it was still doable.

I did all the analysis….compared the crowd calendars of the two weeks (its packed, touring plans, rhm travel). And since I started looking at this early enough, it meant that I could actually capture wait times during August, the year before we go. I made up a spreadsheet and every day I used to app to mark down the a actual wait times during my lunch at work (1pm my time = 10am Anaheim), before I went home (4pm my time = 1pm Anaheim) and after dinner (7pm time = 4pm Anaheim). This gave me an idea of what to expect during our two possible weeks. If I was out in the evening, I would capture the times on paper and transfer it to my spreadsheet later that night. Am I over obsessed? Lol?

As an aside, I noticed how often there were 1-3 rides down during those three times. Must be because of the heat?

What did we decide? DH thought it was silly to book a whole trip around one ride, so the last week it is. It just makes more sense. I’ve accepted that we will miss HM and I’m sure DD will be fine too. Will have to break it to her lightly and show her all the other great stuff.
 
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Here's a sample of the spreadsheet I was tracking for actual wait times. I also included the weather each day, touring plan's predicted crowd level, rain %, and then calculated for each the # rides >= 45 min wait (in red), and the average wait time.

DL_Wait_Times_W3.jpg
 
Where to Stay for Disney?

At Walt Disney World it’s a big advantage of staying onsite (early booking for FastPasses, ADRs and magic mornings). They also have 3 resort categories of either deluxe (ones on monorail), moderate or value. We stayed at a value onsite and loved it.

However, I’ve learned on here that it’s not as essential staying onsite for Disneyland. There are only 3 hotels onsite and all are ‘deluxe’ i.e. very pricey. The Disneyland Grand is $671 CAD a night for a ‘standard room’. Seriously? And even nuttier, I just checked and the Disneyland hotel room is $1177 CAD. What??? Looks like they only have ‘the suite’ left, but still. Who has that kind of money? Needless to say, we’ll be staying offsite.

One of the tabs on the spreadsheet is for Anaheim hotels. I basically wrote down each hotel that's a possibility and for each mark location (distance to DCA for similar comparison), rating, if breakfast, parking, and wifi are included, and if there is a pool. I also did lots of reading of comments on here as well as Trip Adviser/Expedia. I wanted to be in close walking distance, especially as we are coming with kids, and it will be hot in the summer. Thus, I think it's best to minimise any walking over our already used-up feet during the day.

At this point, I had narrowed it down to Best Western Plus (Inn or Mini Suites), Park Vue Inn, Desert Palms, Desert Inn, Del Sol and Grand Legacy at the Park. HoJo looked great with the swimming area but it was a bit above our price range since it didn't include breakfast. Having breakfast included is a big convenience. I know there are cheap ways to have breakfast in the room, but I am the one who is always doing meals, doing the laundry, doing school pick ups and running to this program or that. So I really didn’t want to have to worry about preparing meals when on vacation.

Now not to sound cheap, but cost is a factor since we need to pay for airfare (which will be between $2300 and $3000 for us), a hotel in LA too, tours and things to do in LA, and park tickets (Disney and Universal), food, etc…AND us Canadians have the bad dollar to worry about. So saving here and there helps in the long run. Thus, at this point it was narrowed down to Park Vue and Desert Inn; both right across the street. After going over it with DH, the pros and cons of each (Park Vue apparently has better breakfast, outdoor pool, Desert Inn is cheaper and with more room configurations), we decided on Desert Inn. We booked a parlor suite, which has 2 queens in the main room with tv and a long sofa bed in the second room with a tv. It’s nice having 2 rooms when travelling with kids. And we don't mind an indoor pool as I can see us wanting to escape the hot sun as we are all quite fair and burn easily. We usually book through Expedia but Desert Inn isn't available there, so we booked 5 nights directly in USD. Hopefully the dollar won't take a nose dive.
 
I totally agree about staying at a motel/hotel on Harbor Blvd. We stayed at the DLH once 4 years ago and it was really awesome, but it is so much more expensive...like it adds up to a couple thousand dollars to the total cost of the trip! Not worth it for us at the moment to pay all that extra money just to get EMH daily.

I've never stayed at Desert Inn, but a lot of folks here on the boards really enjoy staying there. It'll be fun to read your trip report later this year!
 


I don't know where in Ontario you are. We are in Oakville and are talking about going to Disneyland this August. There are cheap direct flights from Buffalo for a fraction of the cost from Pearson.
 
We've stayed at both DI&S and PVI a few times each. PVI definitely has a much better breakfast but DI&S is always less expensive and the room set ups can be better.

With 4 of you I would look at the math. Staying at pvi means you do not have to pay for 4 breakfasts every day so is DI&S still less expensive if you take that into consideration? There is a breakfast at DI&S but it is only oranges, apples, toast, small danishes, cold cereal, coffee, tea and juice. The one at PVI is much more substantial.

For us, if it is just the 3 of us and we are not saying onsite then we go with DI&S but if my sister in law joins us then we look at PVI. There is a Q plus bunk bed room that works for us.

If you do go with DI&S and you do not have a car, make sure you ask the motel to take the parking charge off your room. They have always done it when asked.
 
I don't know where in Ontario you are. We are in Oakville and are talking about going to Disneyland this August. There are cheap direct flights from Buffalo for a fraction of the cost from Pearson.

We're around GTA so driving to Buffalo is an option. Do you remember the airline? And is this to LAX or BUR? If it's direct, then we would consider the 2.5hr drive. Right now I'm only seeing one direct flight for our days but it doesn't leave Buffalo until 7pm at night. Enjoy your trip. I'm sure August will come soon enough.
 
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I totally agree about staying at a motel/hotel on Harbor Blvd. We stayed at the DLH once 4 years ago and it was really awesome, but it is so much more expensive...like it adds up to a couple thousand dollars to the total cost of the trip! Not worth it for us at the moment to pay all that extra money just to get EMH daily.

I've never stayed at Desert Inn, but a lot of folks here on the boards really enjoy staying there. It'll be fun to read your trip report later this year!

Yeah, and at least with 3+ days for park tickets, you still get a magic morning. Thanks for reading.
 
We've stayed at both DI&S and PVI a few times each. PVI definitely has a much better breakfast but DI&S is always less expensive and the room set ups can be better.

With 4 of you I would look at the math. Staying at pvi means you do not have to pay for 4 breakfasts every day so is DI&S still less expensive if you take that into consideration? There is a breakfast at DI&S but it is only oranges, apples, toast, small danishes, cold cereal, coffee, tea and juice. The one at PVI is much more substantial.

For us, if it is just the 3 of us and we are not saying onsite then we go with DI&S but if my sister in law joins us then we look at PVI. There is a Q plus bunk bed room that works for us.

If you do go with DI&S and you do not have a car, make sure you ask the motel to take the parking charge off your room. They have always done it when asked.

Thanks. Yeah, I've heard that Park Vue has a nice hot breakfast and we did consider it. But for us, as long as they both have something to keep us going for a few hours we're fine. Toast, cereal is our typical breakfast anyways so not a big deal, plus we like the advantage of 2 rooms. It's about a $200 CAD difference so one of those places that adds up. Thanks for the note about the parking. Our plan is to not have a car for our Disney days so we'll definitely mention it to have the parking fee taken off.
 
Thanks. Yeah, I've heard that Park Vue has a nice hot breakfast and we did consider it. But for us, as long as they both have something to keep us going for a few hours we're fine. Toast, cereal is our typical breakfast anyways so not a big deal, plus we like the advantage of 2 rooms. It's about a $200 CAD difference so one of those places that adds up. Thanks for the note about the parking. Our plan is to not have a car for our Disney days so we'll definitely mention it to have the parking fee taken off.

Yeah, that exchange is a killer! Do you have a no for-ex credit card?
 
What's that?

Almost all Canadian credit cards charge a foreign exchange fee on top of the exchange rate, typically an extra 2.5-3%. There are a few cards that are available to Canadians that do not charge the extra forex fee, I have the Amazon Visa card through Chase. It was really easy to apply for and I was approved immediately. I also got a $20 Amazon.ca gift card added to my account and you get 2% cash back on any Amazon.ca purchase and 1% of all other purchases. No annual fee as well.

Amazon.ca Visa

I use it for all purchases that are in US$.
 
It may take me a bit but I'll get to our LA days. How may days do you have? There is actually quite a lot of options. Will you hit Universal?

We are only going to do one day in LA for a tour, and hopefully take a tour that will pick us up from our hotel in Anaheim. I am looking at us staying at the Best Western across the street. We are not planning on doing Universal this time.
 
We are only going to do one day in LA for a tour, and hopefully take a tour that will pick us up from our hotel in Anaheim. I am looking at us staying at the Best Western across the street. We are not planning on doing Universal this time.

That's neat...so the tour picks you up at your Anaheim hotel. Very convenient and a nice way to break up the Disney days.
 
Almost all Canadian credit cards charge a foreign exchange fee on top of the exchange rate, typically an extra 2.5-3%. There are a few cards that are available to Canadians that do not charge the extra forex fee, I have the Amazon Visa card through Chase. It was really easy to apply for and I was approved immediately. I also got a $20 Amazon.ca gift card added to my account and you get 2% cash back on any Amazon.ca purchase and 1% of all other purchases. No annual fee as well.

Amazon.ca Visa

I use it for all purchases that are in US$.

Thanks for explaining. I thought perhaps you meant a credit card that your Ex pays for...lol
 
Thanks for explaining. I thought perhaps you meant a credit card that your Ex pays for...lol

Lol, no but the no forex fee credit card can save you a decent amount and with no annual fee it is a good idea for Canadians. The interest rate is the same as the major bank credit cards, no jacked up interest!
 
Lol, no but the no forex fee credit card can save you a decent amount and with no annual fee it is a good idea for Canadians. The interest rate is the same as the major bank credit cards, no jacked up interest!

Appreciate you mentioning. Will mention to DH.
 

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