My California Adventure (Disney Day 3 and various side trips!)

kapeppy

Mouseketeer
Joined
Sep 24, 2000
I had read on the boards that EE is usually every day except Wednesday and Sunday so I had planned to visit the park EE on Monday, Tuesday and Friday. DH was afraid he would be bored doing the Walk In Walt's Footsteps Tour so we had decided to do the Magic Morning Breakfast on Friday. Of course nothing goes as planned...........

Day 5 (Wednesday)
Since we had done the parks two days in a row, we decided that this will be a "see the beach" day. We drove to Newport Beach, had a great day playing in the waves and taking a harbor cruise. We were there just a few days after Dennis Rodman landed his helicopter on the beach so that was the talk of the town while we were there. We then found the Pacific Coast Highway and drove through Huntington Beach, Seal Beach and Long Beach. It was the perfect way to rest after two busy days.

Day 6 (Thursday)
Again, I had decided that since we were leaving on Saturday the perfect way to end the trip was to do EE on Friday so that meant a day by the pool on Thursday. We went to IHOP for breakfast and then came back and camped out by the pool. It was the warmest and sunniest day so far so we couldn't have planned it better if we tried. We finally dragged ourselves away from the pool around 3:00 and headed to the Disney Outlet Store. I bought 3 t-shirts, 3 sweatshirts, a couple of Christmas ornaments and some small souvenirs and only spent $60! The stuff there is from last year or has been discontinued but the quality is excellent and I am sure I will get my money's worth! Then we went to Claim Jumper for dinner. The food is awesome there! We actually went there for dinner a total of three times during our trip. After dinner we went to Edison Field for a baseball game. The Anaheim Angels beat the Toronto Blue Jays 4 to 2!

Disney Day 3 (Day 7 - Friday)
As I mentioned before, we had planned to do the Magical Morning Breakfast during early entry today. Well, we got up at 6:00 to catch the 7:00 shuttle only there was no 7:00 shuttle. We called the front desk and they told us that there was no EE today since it was Grad Night! AARRGGHH!!! :eek: Seeing how we were already up, we decided to do most of our packing since we were leaving the next day. When we got to the park at 8:30, the place was crawling with kids. We explored Main Street until the rope dropped at 9:00 and then we headed over to POC and HM. We rode each a couple of times with little or no wait. Then, since we hadn't used our Magical Morning Breakfast we decided to do the Walk In Walt's Footsteps Tour after all. We met in front of City Hall around 10:30 and "stepped off" at 10:45. I found the tour very interesting and I think it managed to hold DH's attention. At least he didn't doze off or wander off! By the time the tour ended (1:15), you could barely move in the park. The wait posted for the standby line for POC was 30 min, HM 30 min, and Indy 59 min (guess they thought if they said it was less than an hour, the guests wouldn't mind the wait!). We didn't dare go to Fantasyland and Tomorrowland. We did go to Toontown to take a peek at Mickey and Minnie and then we were out of there! We went to Claim Jumper for the last time (had a delicious dinner yet again!) and then went back to the hotel to finish packing. I had also purposely picked Friday as our last day in the Land since they were not showing Believe or Fantasmic during the week. We headed back to the park around 7:00 and did a few more rides on POC and HM and then headed to Main Street to get a good spot for the fireworks. I cried through the whole thing! The music was beautiful, the fireworks were spectacular and Tink made my heart soar! DH taped the whole thing so I can watch it over and over. Next we made a mad dash to the second showing of Fantasmic. Well, we didn't actually dash since it was so congested but we made it with time to spare and got a decent spot. I think I liked this Fantasmic better than WDW, although I like the stadium seating idea at WDW better. After Fantasmic the crowd really thinned out so we did our last 2 or 3 rides on HM and POC. We went back to the hub to take a couple more pictures and just as DH was videotaping the castle, the announcement was made that DL had come to a close but that Main Street would be open for an additional hour. Boo Hoo! We slowly made our way down Main Street and then went back to the hotel. How I wanted to hide in a bush somewhere and never leave! I thought DH was going to have to pry my fingers off the railing where the big Mickey Mouse flower face is! Anyway, that's the end of the story but I am going to follow-up with some random thoughts a little later. Hope you enjoyed reading my story.
 
Thanks for your reports, I really enjoyed them.

I was especially interested in the your comments about grad night. When I first called WDW Travel and was going to book in early June, the CM asked me if I could be flexible on the dates and go later because several "grad nights" were scheduled for the time I was asking about. The CM was a little vague about why not to go on a grad night, just said there would be shorter hours and lots of teenagers, but I took the advice and booked later.

Now, thanks to your report, I have a much better understanding of what a nice thing the CM did steering me away from the grad nights.
 
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<font face="Comic Sans MS"><font color=#006400><font color=navy>Loved your report, and glad you had such a good time. I think I'll go back to that outlet store - you got some great deals! :)
 
Great reports! So glad you liked Claim Jumper. Every time we go to California, we have to go there at least once. We keep trying to get them to build one here - they are getting closer. And hopefully if we get to Las Vegas this fall, we'll go to the Claim Jumper there.
Sounds like a wonderful trip!! Isn't it fun to see the differences between WDW and DLand?:bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce:
 


Kapeppy
Great trip report. Where is the disney outlet store you went to? We arrive on 7/19 and if we have any money left by that point would love some bargains.
Wendy
 
Wendy,
The Disney Outlet Store is not to far from DL. You take Harbor Blvd North to Orangethorpe. Take a right and it's not very far from there on the right side of the street. It's in a little outlet mall but I can't remember the name of it. They had some good deals on last year's stuff (3 t-shirts for $11.99 and 3 sweatshirts for $19.99). Have a great trip!
Kristen
 


Kristen
Thank you so much for the directions- just added it to my list of things to do!
Wendy
 

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