Disneyland at Christmas/Holiday Season Superthread #3!- HOLIDAYS BEGIN 11/12/13!!

[lucysmom]

Yesterday was another fun filled day. Our EMH began with the wide right to get on RSR, but the cars weren't moving. It was so sad to see Mater just stare at us with his goofy grin. But surprise! At the exit we got a pass to ride again at any time. We rode at night with the gorgeous lighting. The tractors still weren't tipping though.

Thank you to Sherry and her trip pictures because we also walked through Bug Land at night to see the decorations. The theming and lighting were spectacular, true Disney magic.

Our day was spent riding repeats. Can you ever play TSM enough?! But, we also squeezed in a few new adventures. We rode the trolley and the conductor was from our home town! And... I finally got a corn dog from the red cart at the end of Main Street. It was great, just like all the reviews have said. But, that line! I waited in that line longer than I waited for any ride. We also caught the Aladdin show and a bit of the Tea Party. That place was happening!

The night cap for our day was the Fantasmic Dessert Package. Wow, the eyes of the dragon! I do wish they had better seating, though. I called for tickets the minute they opened on the first day available, but I didn't want to stand in line, so we got stuck behind tall people. Disney really should give us our seats when we call.

Today is an early EMH. DL opens at seven. So I must awaken my sleeping beauties. There is fun to be had!

 

[tksbaskets]

Yesterday was another fun filled day. Our EMH began with the wide right to get on RSR, but the cars weren't moving. It was so sad to see Mater just stare at us with his goofy grin. But surprise! At the exit we got a pass to ride again at any time. We rode at night with the gorgeous lighting. The tractors still weren't tipping though.

Thank you to Sherry and her trip pictures because we also walked through Bug Land at night to see the decorations. The theming and lighting were spectacular, true Disney magic.

Our day was spent riding repeats. Can you ever play TSM enough?! But, we also squeezed in a few new adventures. We rode the trolley and the conductor was from our home town! And... I finally got a corn dog from the red cart at the end of Main Street. It was great, just like all the reviews have said. But, that line! I waited in that line longer than I waited for any ride. We also caught the Aladdin show and a bit of the Tea Party. That place was happening!

The night cap for our day was the Fantasmic Dessert Package. Wow, the eyes of the dragon! I do wish they had better seating, though. I called for tickets the minute they opened on the first day available, but I didn't want to stand in line, so we got stuck behind tall people. Disney really should give us our seats when we call.

Today is an early EMH. DL opens at seven. So I must awaken my sleeping beauties. There is fun to be had!

We continue to have parallel trips! Had a blast yesterday at DCA with the same glitches you did. Went directly to Toy Story (to answer your question, no one can't ride it enough). TS was not working in the morning. Rode California Screaming x 3 then hustled over to Carsland where we found that RSR wasn't working...Over to Tower of Terror.

The crowds weren't awful in DCA. Before lunch the wait for TSMM was less than 30 minutes. California Screaming was less than 15 minutes all day. TOT less than 20 minutes almost every time we looked (althought we rode with FPs most often.

The gang decided to sleep in a bit and not go to EMH at DL this morning so we are heading to DCA for opening at 8. This is our last full day. Why does a vacation week go like the speed of Lightning McQueen while a work week drags on and on?

 

[KCmike]

Flo's Tree / Willy's Butte by KC MikeD, on Flickr

 

[aidensmom31]

Just a couple days and we will be at Disneyland (aka home). Bags are packed now I just have to get through the next couple work shifts and all the Christmas gift exchanges with various family members and then its Disney time!

 

[mom2rtk]

IMG_0154_2 by mom2rtk, on Flickr

 

[egritz]

^^^So Pretty Janet!

 

[mom2rtk]

^^^So Pretty Janet!

Thank you! That was our final day, the day we met you at rope drop. Wasn't it just glorious?

 

[egritz]

Thank you! That was our final day, the day we met you at rope drop. Wasn't it just glorious?

It was. I haven't even gone through our pictures yet. I took 1800, my mom took 800, and we have 300 on our PP+ (before adding the borders). Waiting to get the PP+ in the mail before I go through them all. I have a feeling it will be a while before I'm caught up on pictures again with Christmas around the corner!

 

[tksbaskets]

Flo's Tree / Willy's Butte by KC MikeD, on Flickr

Love this picture and we are now pretty fond of eating at Flo's V8 Cafe!

It was. I haven't even gone through our pictures yet. I took 1800, my mom took 800, and we have 300 on our PP+ (before adding the borders). Waiting to get the PP+ in the mail before I go through them all. I have a feeling it will be a while before I'm caught up on pictures again with Christmas around the corner!

Good work on the PP+ picture count. I'll be curious to see what we have after tomorrow morning.

Today we spent the morning at DCA. Not magic morning so we got Radiator Springs FPs (for 10:50-11:50) when the park opened and then rode Toy Story until the line was over 20 minutes. More crowded than yesterday but manageable.

Went over to DL to get a couple of Christmas gifts and at 2 pm got FPs for Star Tours for 7:50-8:50 pm. Will do that after our dinner at Goofy's Kitchen this evening. DL was as crowded as we've seen it during Christmas weeks of old. 60+ minute waits for all of the big attractions.

Going to enjoy one more Magic Morning at DCA before we head to the airport mid-morning. Tomorrow's MM is 7 am. We can sleep on our 5 1/2 plane ride home.

TK

 

[blue888]

Leaving tomorrow! So excited!

Now to just get through the flight with the kiddos

Had a bit of a flight scare this morning. Called to confirm everything and apparently they had lost our reservation. Luckily the very very helpful agent was able to fix everything for us. So scary!

We will be around the park and staying at PPH. I'll have my baby in a wrap carrier and my husband will be carrying our 2 year old, so if you see me feel free to say hi!

 

[lucysmom]

Wow!, what a difference a day makes! The parks are sooo crowded. Get to EMH to ride rides. make sure you have dinner ressies and still be prepared to wait. Minis was a mess yesterday morning. We were there at ten, same time and day as last year. Only two guys making omlets! The wait for food was crazy. Too many people and not enough servers. One CM said, "I keep telling them they are overbooking the place. Then people take it out on us. " I spoke with Jim, the manager, and all he could say was sorry, sorry.

Did the tour yesterday. Much better than last year Donnie was our tour guide and he was very good. The script this year is better and the pin s so cute. Definitely worth it this year.

Jingle cruise is a hoot. The tree made out of candles in coconut shells is so clever. Love the names on the ships!

Off to wait in line to get in to DL at regular opening. I have to catch Peter Pan before we head home tomorrow.







We squeezed in a lot of activity this morning at DL. We rode our favorite rides again. Even went on the canoes and saw a Disney cat! Loved Jingle Jangle Jamboree. Everywhere you turn there were beautiful decorations. And the sugar cookies were delicious.

This evening we had the buffet at Storytellers in the GCH. It was delicious, my favorite meal of the trip. Also got our pictures taken with Santa by the tree in the lobby. Now we must pack to head back home tomorrow. But first, we will have breakfast with Stitch and see Frozen. How quickly the trip passes. It has been magical and so festive. If 2014 is good to us, I want to do this trip all over again next year. Happy Holidays every one!

 

[Jamian]

Enjoying The View by -Jamian-, on Flickr

 

[Sherry E]

It's hard to believe that after all of the fun discussions, DLR trip planning and photo-sharing that has taken place in this thread in the past year (especially since the summer), we are now on Day 3 of winter and there are just 2 days before Christmas!

We have covered a lot of other ground in this thread this year too -- Theme Weeks, in depth analysis of the peppermint ice cream shortage, Christmas song discussion and holiday movie reviews (speaking of which...I saw another really good one yesterday on Lifetime -- A Snow Globe Christmas).

I have been busy in the last few days so I have not had time to pop in and properly give the comments I wanted to give on certain posts, but I have been keeping up with the thread by reading silently and admiring the lovely photos. I still have to get caught up on my PMs too!

Again, thank you to everyone who has followed along with us this year, and especially to those who have taken the time to come back and post detailed reviews and recaps of their trips in this thread, and/or post photos, i.e., KCmike, Jamie, Bret, egritz, Trish, crystal1313, czmom, Astylla, etc., etc. (I know there are more but I don't have the time to list everyone right now!). I plan on copying the links to those specific posts and adding them to the Trip Reports & Reviews section of page 1.

I finally, finally got all of my photos from my recent DLR trip downloaded and uploaded everywhere they need to be! First, I used the card reader to access them (which reminded me of why I hate using readers and prefer to use the software that came with my camera for transferring images). Then I sorted them into folders by date. Then I backed them all up on a flash drive. Then I uploaded everything to Photobucket, into 8 separate albums. This whole process took a few days!

I thought I took close to 2200 photos, but it turns out it was closer to 2100 photos. Looking at how many photos I took each day, apparently I took more photos on Day 3 of my trip than I did on Days 1 & 2 combined!! (My Club 33 day was the day I took the fewest pictures of the entire trip, believe it or not!) Then, on Day 4 of my trip, I took more photos than I did on Day 3. Oddly, I took the most photos of the entire trip on my final day, Day 5 (December 12) -- which is weird, because I would have assumed that I'd be too tired and 'over' the photo-taking thing at that point to really delve into it, but I think that because I checked out of the hotel on 12/12 and didn't have a room to go back to for a midday break, I must have focused more on capturing images and got more accomplished.

However.... of the just-over-2100 photos that I took a couple of weeks ago, now that I have glanced at a good portion of them in larger windows I can see that maybe 2000 of them are crap! Either certain perfect shots were ruined by people suddenly walking into the frame right as I snapped, or I encountered much sunlight and intrusive glare, or the camera wouldn't focus as it normally does, OR I simply couldn't take the time to stand there and get the best shot I wanted to get because there were too many people around me and it got to be too distracting and hard to manage.

I am not thrilled with too many of the pictures that I got this time around. I think I was happier with my photos from my December 2012 trip, even though I possibly covered more territory on this year's trip. But I posted one of the few non-craptastic photos in the Picture of the Day thread a couple of days ago. I don't know how many more diamonds in the rough I will find in this motley batch o' photos, though.

By the way -- I forgot to ask/mention this last week. For those who have stayed onsite at DLR this holiday season... You know those calls you get to alert you of the following day's activities and park hours (not just during the holidays but year-round)? At the PPH the calls come in every day in the late afternoon, but before 5 p.m. I'm not sure when they come in at the other 2 hotels.

Anyway, on my last couple of days I noticed that there was something mentioned in the 'this is what's happening tomorrow' room calls that hadn't been there in the first 2 calls -- "The Merriest Hotel on Earth." It was a limited thing, but I don't know how limited. I'm not sure if it was limited to that week at DLR only, or just for a few days, or for the whole season. I think it may have be mini-tour of some sort -- maybe to the Disneyland Hotel to look at the holiday decorations (which would explain the sudden appearance of the gingerbread Castle, the themed trees in the towers and the colored lights at the entrance of the DLH this year)???

Did anyone hear of this Merriest Hotel on Earth thing while staying onsite and, if so, was it a tour? Not that I missed out on seeing the decorations at the DLH -- I saw all of them -- but I think it's a cool idea if there is a little mini-tour that takes you there.

All right. Enough babble from me at the moment. I am headed back to The Grove and Farmers Market today, to try to get some photos before the carolers leave, the snow stops falling and the trees come down. The last couple of times I walked through there I didn't have my camera with me. Then again, these photos may turn out to be craptastic too!

I will try to post a few of the non-horrible DLR photos in this thread a bit later or tomorrow -- if I can scrounge enough of them together for one post, that is.


Ho Ho Ho!

 

[crystal1313]

Sherry! I need to post my photos from the trip. I didn't take as many as I usually do. I'm hoping to find time in the next couple of days =) I did get a couple of really cute family photos (where we are all looking AND smiling at the camera, LOL!), so that is always nice! I never heard anything about the Merriest Hotel on Earth, but to be honest, I really wasn't paying attention and we weren't at the hotels much. Sounds neat though!

My DH and I were just talking about how much going to the parks gets us in the holiday spirit. It's just SO magical at the parks during Christmas time. If I don't get back here before Christmas, I want to wish you a Merry Christmas Sherry! And everyone else here too. This thread is SO much fun! I can't wait for next year!

 

[planningjollyholiday]

Don't know how valid this info is, but on my mousewait app someone posted that Gibson girl has peppermint icecream.

 

[lucysmom]

We are sitting in the airport waiting for our late flight. So sad to know our trip is over, but what a wonderful time we had!

Today we had breakfast at Surf's Up in the PPH. The set up was very attractive and the food plentiful. Such a difference from Minnie's two days ago. We loved it, and we got to see the PPH tree in person. It is very colorful and seems to fit the theme, but I never saw it in the original form.

After breakfast we walked to DTD to watch Frozen (loved, loved, loved it) and do our last bit of shopping. I was looking for some notepad cubes but couldn't find any. Also most of the Christmas ornaments were way too heavy for a real tree. So, we did not get either item, but we managed to spend over one hundred dollars anyway. I shared a few twenty percent coupons with other customers and told myself to quit shopping.

Lunch was at Storytellers. I really like that place. Great food, good service, and not astronomical prices. It was much better than even Blue Bayou, and we had a waterside table!

Then it was time to go. We took the taxi to the airport for the flat thirty-five dollar fee. And here we wait. Homeward bound. Back to dishes, laundry, cooking, and taking the dog out. I am so grateful to Sherry and everyone on this thread for helping us plan and execute the most wonderful vacation. I hope we can make it a yearly tradition the way many of you have. DLR really is the merriest place to celebrate Christmas!

 

[KCmike]

SHERRY E Can't wait to see those photos! Funny about taking the fewest photos while on your Club 33 day! I was the same way. I guess we were experiencing too much fun, huh?







Holiday Popcorn by KC MikeD, on Flickr

 

[jtestuser]

Anyone know if the character goodnight is happening on Christmas Eve at DLR this year?

Searched through the forum and this thread and wasn't able to find anything about it...

 

[rentayenta]

Sherry, I'll do a more thorough report but wanted to show you that I finally was lucky enough to score 2 fresh candy canes on our Disneyland day.

This one got gobbled up on the car ride home. My second one will go on the tree and back in the bubble wrap right after Christmas. It's the perfect decoration for my Disney tree.

 

[kmedina]

Sherry, I'll do a more thorough report but wanted to show you that I finally was lucky enough to score 2 fresh candy canes on our Disneyland day. This one got gobbled up on the car ride home. My second one will go on the tree and back in the bubble wrap right after Christmas. It's the perfect decoration for my Disney tree.

Awesome. I hope to score one someday. We will definitely need to return for Christmas in 2015.