Finally - we see Fantasmic!

[Kristina4109]

TRIP REPORT – A DAY AT DISNEYLAND, AKA WE FINALLY SEE FANTASMIC!

Cast of characters:

Kristina, 44, aka Momma
Marcel, 47, aka Daddy
Lorien, 8, aka Dole Whip

Saturday, September 20th, 2014

Some background – on June 10th, we had the Fantasmic! Dinner Package in Walt Disney World. Dinner was lovely, but a huge thunderstorm, complete with lots of lightning, caused Fantasmic! to be canceled. So we decided to splurge for the Disneyland Dessert Package to see the show.

First of all, thank GOODNESS, the oven cleaning cycle heat wave that hit Southern California miraculously went away. Today is not only the nicest day we’ve had in a month, it’s the best weather we can remember in all our Disneyland trips. High of 80 something and it never even felt that warm. We needed JACKETS in the evening!

We know we’re not going to make rope drop, so we leave at 8:09am – painfully late for me, but we’re going to be up late and I don’t want my family to collapse. Traffic is quite light and we pull into the Best Western Plus Park Place Inn and Mini Suites at 8:58am.

At 9:10am we check in. Ken, the front desk clerk, is efficient and friendly. He gives my daughter a cute Disney birthday pin – more like a trading pin, not the Disney birthday button.

We are assigned room #336, which we like because it’s very quiet. However, when we get to the room our key cards don’t work. I go back to the front desk where we are reissued new key cards. The front desk also sends maintenance to our room in case the problem is with the lock and not the key cards. However, the new key cards work fine.

The room has two queen beds and a pull out couch, which we don’t use this trip. There is a refrigerator and a microwave. The sink is located in a vanity outside of the bathroom.

After settling in and sunscreening up (even though it’s cloudy!) we walk to the park. It’s 9:35am. This hotel is directly across the street from the pedestrian entrance to Disneyland.

The line for security is fairly light, and soon we are at the front gates, where the huge character jack-o-lanterns greet us. After passing through the turnstiles, we’re delighted to see the park done up in the Fall decorations.

We go to City Hall at 9:50am to get Lorien’s birthday button and pick up our Fantasmic! Dessert package tickets, but the line is long. A CM in a tour guide uniform tells us the line is 30 minutes long and suggests we come back between noon and 1:00pm, when the line will slack off. She also tells us to go into a shop to get the birthday button, where there will be no line.

So we head to the Carriage House and sure enough, there is no line. My daughter gets her birthday button and proceeds to tell the CM (and pretty much everyone we meet all day) how her birthday isn’t until 10 days later but this was our best day to go to Disneyland.

We head for Mickey’s Toontown and get there just before 10:00am when it opens. Lorien heads for Goofy’s House first, and we spend about 10 minutes climbing, sliding, and playing Goofy’s piano.

At 10:10am we notice there is only a 10 minute posted wait to meet Minnie. They’ve changed the setup since the last time we were here; now you line up outside Minnie’s House and see the house before meeting her in the backyard. I like it better because there is more to do and see when you wait. I realize I forgot to bring Lorien's autograph book so I let her use the back page of this notebook I'm using for my trip report notes. Which, ironically, is Minnie themed.

Next we go to Mickey’s House, which has a 5 minute posted wait. Lorien always loves playing with Mickey’s stuff. We also like to watch the pre-show movie. However, this is NOT a 5 minute wait. When the pre-show movie cycles to the beginning again, Lorien decides she doesn’t want to wait and we leave.

At 10:55am we head to Donald’s Boat, the S.S. Miss Daisy. I love the view of Toontown from the top! Lorien and I explore the boat while Marcel sits downstairs. There’s not a lot of room up top so he figures it’s okay not to go up.

At 11:05am we head to Chip and Dale’s Treehouse. Lorien and I climb up and enjoy the view. Lorien is disappointed – there’s nothing to do in here. It’s really more for little kids.

At 11:10am we have lunch – Marcel and Lorien get pizza at Daisy’s Diner and I get a chef’s salad at Clarabelle’s. The weather is still overcast and cool and it’s so nice to eat outside.

At 11:35am I convince Lorien to take a drink from the Whacky Water Fountain. She cracks up when she hears Goofy. I take a drink, too, and find it funny that Goofy is stuck in the water fountain!

At 11:40am we head to the interactive section of Toontown. Lorien enjoys the jail, the gym, and especially the post office. At the gym she has fun trying to pick up the dumbells that are stuck to the concrete. She likes to hear what each character’s mail box has to say.

At 11:45am we head over to Mickey and the Magical Map. The show starts at 12:15pm and pretty soon they are letting people in to be seated. I absolutely love this show.

Many, MANY CM’s say Happy Birthday to Lorien, and also many park guests. I always liked that about DL – more park guests say Happy Birthday here than they do at WDW.

At 12:35pm we head to City Hall. We are helped almost immediately. I pick up the Fantasmic! tickets while Lorien gets her birthday phone call from Goofy. I ask the CM what time I should get in line to check in for the Fantasmic! seating and she says no later than 7:30pm.

At 1:00pm we head to Tomorrowland. We decide to go to Innoventions. I like DL’s Innoventions, but it’s not as good as WDW’s. We go to The House of Tomorrow, which I jokingly call The House of Next Tuesday. Basically, it’s a showcase for Microsoft products. Electronic picture frames, Windows phones, and big screen TV’s. Not much the future, more like, you know, next Tuesday.

A lot of the stuff here is presented by Siemens and is the same as the exit to Spaceship Earth. There’s also a big Marvel section – you can see Tony Stark’s lab, which is super cool.

There’s also a Thor – Treasurers of Asgard section and a Captain America section, but we don’t check it out. Lorien is not into super heroes and the lines are long enough that we don’t feel like seeing it.

At 1:30pm, we do the best part of Innoventions - seeing Asimo, the robot from Honda. Really amazing! Lorien actually says she liked it better than she thought she would. My favorite part is seeing him walk up stairs.

At 2:15pm we head for It’s A Small World. We always like this ride. It brings back such great memories of going on this ride when I was pregnant with Lorien, and when she was one year old.

At 2:55pm we decide that it’s Dole Whip o’clock! Lorien does not want one, so we get her a Premium Mickey Bar and she eats it as we stroll to Adventureland. As usual, the line outside of the Tiki Juice Bar is ridiculously long, but the one inside the Tiki Room waiting area is better. Marcel gets a Dole Whip Float and I get a classical Dole Whip.

At 3:30pm head into the Tiki Room. There is nothing like enjoying a Dole Whip and watching this show! We sing along, attempt to whistle along (I can’t whistle) and have a great time.

At 3:55pm we head to the Jungle Cruise. Skipper Chris is hysterical. Lorien comments that she loves this ride because it’s never the same twice. Remember, women and children don’t have to worry about the piranhas – because they’re MAN eating.

At 4:30pm we head for the Haunted Mansion Holiday. Unfortunately, it’s not running. A CM says the ride is down but to check back later. “Oh, the ghosts escaped,” I say to Lorien. The CM hears me and says, “That’s right! So if anyone finds them, please bring them back!”

We decide we might as well have dinner, so we head to the French Market. Marcel gets a lemonade and the Cajun meatloaf. I get a Na Awlins salad and a bottle of water. Lorien gets the kid’s mac and cheese meal with grapes, carrots and celery, and a bottle of water. I am so glad we’re eating here. This is a fast food place that doesn’t feel like one. The food is always good, and the outdoor seating, with the train pulling up to the New Orleans Square station and the Royal Street Bachelors playing Dixieland jazz up on stage, is first rate.

At 5:15pm we notice that the Mansion is back open, but the line is up to 50 minutes. We explain to Lorien that the next time we go to DL, it might not be between Halloween and Christmas, so we suggest we wait on the long line anyway. But she doesn’t want to. So we head to The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh instead.

By contrast, Pooh has no wait at all. We enjoy our trip through the Hundred Acre Wood and Lorien decides that the birthday party at the end is not only for Pooh, it’s for her!

We head back to the Mansion to check one last time, and we’re told the line is “between 40 and 50 minutes.” Lorien still doesn’t want to wait. We move on. We head to Alice in Wonderland.

This line is also 40 minutes long. Lorien doesn’t want to wait. We remind her that pretty much everything is going to have a 40 minute wait at this point and we’d rather ride something than just wander around. She decides she’s willing to wait for the Mad Tea Party.

This line is only 15 minutes long and we’re in a pretty pink cup with swirls at 5:45pm. Marcel does not do any sort of spinning ride so he snaps photos as we twirl around.

At 6:05pm we check to see what the line for Dumbo is, and it’s 40 minutes long. So we head for Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, which is only 20 minutes. Lorien drives Marcel and I get my own car. (They get MacBadger and I get Cyril.)

At 6:22pm Lorien and I wait in a short line for King Arthur’s Carrousel. I spot Jingles, Julie Andrew’s horse, but I’m not about to knock over small children to try to get it. Oh, Lorien wants me to make a joke here and say we both got the white horses. ☺

At 6:45pm we had for Pinocchio’s Daring Journey, which never has a long line. Lorien especially likes how the Blue Fairy disappears into a swirl of blue sparkles at the end.

The exit for Pinocchio leads us right to the exterioir of Elsa and Anna’s meet and greet . The audio-animatronic Olaf is staring right at me, his eyes blinking, and he starts telling me about true love. It’s a little weird. We get to glace in at Anna and Elsa greeting their subjects. This meet and greet is Standby + only so we didn’t bother to try to get in. At this point all the return passes are gone.

At 7:00pm we head for the bathrooms – we were warned that once you get seated for Fantasmic! it’s almost impossible to get to bathrooms, and we’re very glad we heard this advice.

Then we stop by a souvenir cart to buy Grandma a postcard. Lorien purposefully picks out a postcard that Grandma sent to HER when Grandma and Grandpa went to WDW!

At 7:15pm we get on line to check in for Fantasmic! The park is all lit up and I enjoy just looking at how gorgeous the Mansion looks with the glowing Jack O’ Lanterns and Jack Skellington’s creepy face smiling at us.

At about 7:50pm we are able to pick out our seats. The CM’s are very helpful and careful about finding us what they think are the best seats based on Lorien’s height. They don’t try to rush us – they really look at the seating chart and look for our best option. We are told to come back at 8:30pm.

We decide to browse in the New Orleans Square shops even though we’re not going to buy anything. While we browse, I glance up to the Dream Suite and find the door to Club 33.

At about 8:20pm we decide to head back to the Fantasmic! seating. Man, it is so disorienting. At this point people are jammed into almost every corner to try to see the show. There is only one walkway we can use, and it’s set up so people moving to the left have to use one walkway, and people moving to the right have to use another. I have NEVER seen this area so congested and I completely lose my bearings. We have to ask 4 different CM’s before we can find where we’re going.

At about 8:30 we find our seats. (Not kidding – it took us 10 minutes just to get through that area.) We are in seats 36, 37 and 38 and the view is great. We receive our dessert boxes first. There is a LOT of food here. Grapes, crackers, five different kinds of cheese, milk and white chocolate truffles, molten chocolate cake, key lime pie, cheesecake, and a delicious vanilla cookie with raspberry filling with white chocolate icing. Besides that cookie, everything is okay, but not spectacular. This is more about quantity than quality.

In a little while a CM comes over to take our drink order. I get a chamomile tea, and my husband and daughter both get hot chocolate. There is a wide variety of beverages. Note that it is not easy to sit with a dessert tray on your lap and hold a hot drink. There are no tables.

At 9:00pm Fantasmic! starts. As I said earlier, the view is great. Lorien has never seen this show and really likes it. I notice two odd things – in the princess section, Belle’s float does not show up, and the finale does not feature the Mark Twain – the characters all appear on Tom Sawyer Island instead. But when the Columbia shows up with Peter Pan and Wendy doing battle with the pirates, it is awesome. Ditto for the finale in which Mickey disappears and reappears – WOW!

We are all welcome to stay where we are for Remember – Dreams Come True. I notice that the CM’s are still taking drink orders, which is nice. An announcement comes on saying that the fireworks will be delayed but will still go on – I wonder what that’s about.

At 9:40pm the fireworks start. I love how they have lighting effects on the Rivers of America similar to what they have on the Castle. Still, it’s weird seeing this show from our location. I mean, the fireworks look fantastic, but when they’re not bursting over the Castle, it’s strange.

When “Remember When” starts playing we gradually get up, take our leftover dessert (they totally let you do that) and leave the area. We are still slowly moving out when “Wishes” starts playing.

We leave the park, with me stopping to blow a kiss at the lighted window in the Fireshouse and say, “Thanks, Walt.” To my surprise, Lorien does it, too. That’s the fist time she ever did.

We walk across the street to the hotel and are in the room by 10:47pm. We are all exhausted, and Lorien’s asleep the second her head hits the pillow. The room is nice and quiet and the drapes are great at blocking out light – we sleep until 8:00am the next day.

All in all, a great day. Next time we head to DL we’ll do California Adventure; we haven’t been there in over a year and I miss that place. But, mission accomplished: we saw Fantasmic!

Not sure we’d do the dessert party again – it was $170 for all 3 of us. But I’m glad we did it this once. The CM’s were all excellent and made a big deal out of Lorien’s birthday. I still prefer the way they handle it at WDW; there you can get a Fast Pass + or do the dinner package. $170 for DESSERT for 3 people is kind of outrageous. But I’m still glad we did it.