TikiTikiFan
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- May 1, 2018
We just got back from a week long trip at Disneyland from 11/19-11/26 and wanted to share my thoughts with everyone. This was my first visit back to Disneyland since COVID (with so many cancelled trips again and again) so it was extremely emotional to be back. I didn't even make it past the esplanade before I started tearing up on our first night at Downtown Disney.
Crowds/Ride Lines: Crowds were nuts but I knew that would be the case going in visiting during Thanksgiving week. I was really disappointed Genie+ did not launch before our trip, I won't be back until something is in place because the lines were just rough to deal with. I have DAS so I was able to manage but not being able to blend in with the FP line was really uncomfortable this trip. We got many glares, rude comments muttered and one lady stepped right in front of me as demanded to know why I got to go in that line... Luckily a cast member quickly came to my rescue and took her aside to have a conversation but yikes. I'm sure this may have been worse than normal because of Thanksgiving week but it did cause some stress. I have invisible disabilities so I'm used to this in day to day life (I have a handicap tag and every few months I got some random person in a parking lot yelling at me for having it...) but not fun to deal with at Disneyland. I didn't experience this as much at WDW for whatever reason, maybe Disneyland was just extra packed and frustrations were especially high for people.
We found the best time of the day was 8AM-10AM and 9PM-closing. Those two hours before park close were perfect, we were able to get so much done by staying that late. Each day we left to take an afternoon nap and that helped so much. I highly recommend this approach. The security opened roughly about 7:15-7:25 each day. We just showed up around 7:30 and that worked well since we weren't planning on rope dropping Rise we could afford to be towards the back of the line to the entrance gates. We still rope dropped Peter Pan just fine- it helps being a small group though we can weave through crowds easier.
Rise of the Resistance: We did the virtual queue our first two days and then it switched to a standby on Monday which was absolutely insaaaaane. But it does take the pressure off the other rides in the park. Honestly the longest line of the day is the first two hours after park opening- from watching the app and seeing the line in person as we walked past the best time to ride this is either during the second parade or right before the ride closes at 8PM.
Dining: I was so worried about dining and didn't have any issues getting mobile orders, pretzels, quick service food, etc. Usually if we did have to wait for a mobile order return time it was only about 15 minutes away, not a big deal at all. So if anyone is worried about that, we were there during the busiest week the park has probably seen in awhile and had no issues. I actually ended up canceling a few of our dining reservations just because we didn't need them. Lines for food booths in DCA were always better during the day and got longer at night. The booths further back by Goofys always had shorter lines which is good because my son was absolutely obsessed with the mac and cheese back there.
Table service restaurant experiences were all normal compared to our pre-covid experiences with the exception of Blue Bayou. I posted this on the dining thread but I'll copy it here too:
Just a heads up for anyone with allergy/vegetarian/any dietary restrictions: Blue Bayou is not accommodating anything right now. We ate there for our Thanksgiving meal in the parks and it was probably the worst Disney dining experience we've ever had. No vegetarian options at all and they wouldn't allow us to order sides of veggies/potatoes/etc. Our server refused to ask the kitchen to do any modifications for us and I did it have it listed on our reservation. That was why I asked for the lead and he also refused to ask the kitchen. Server and the lead were really hateful about it... first time I've ever experienced that at Disneyland and due to my years of suffering in food service in college I am always super nice in restaurants... there was just no reason for it. Lead told me they don't have staff or enough food so they're not allowed to modify anything even for allergies or vegetarians.
We ended up just ordering a few kids meals to try and get some food without meat. They wouldn't even agree to leave the meat off any of the dinners either so it wouldn't be touching the other food which makes me think everything may have been pre-plated for Thanksgiving. Such a disappointing experience. Still no bread either and no refills on mint juleps. We were fine with anything meat free- not just what was on the Thanksgiving menu and were told no modifications allowed or side dishes ordered separately. So we bought four kids meals of mac and cheese and made do but wow- they were super rude about it. I got a survey about our dining experience on Thanksgiving and voiced my concerns. Blue Bayou always used to be so wonderful for vegetarians but not anymore. This seems to be primarily a Blue Bayou issue, we didn't have issues elsewhere- everywhere else was positive!
Tropicana Inn & Suites: We stayed at the Tropicana which is right across the street by the intersection to Disneyland. Hotel was clean, housekeeping was actually pretty frequent despite not doing full room cleanings each day anymore. We had two full room cleanings on our seven night stay and each day they emptied the trash and refilled towels- which is much more than other places are doing these days. In WDW they didn't even do that for us every day! The location for this hotel was awesome, we've never stayed this close before and I don't think I'll ever go back to staying far and having use ART. Pool was okay, we only used it once but it's just fine for a trip where you're spending most of your time in the park anyways.
The Bad: Until Genie+ launches I don't see how folks with smaller kids could handle the parks right now- every ride we walked by looked miserable. In our experience ride wait times were totally all over the place. Sometimes they were inflated and sometimes they were way understated. You would randomly see Space or Guardians go down to 20 minutes on the app but if you walked by the wait was easily an hour. You really couldn't trust the app to be accurate, eyeballing it seemed to be the best bet. Guest services was so understaffed trying to deal with DAS folks, we had to wait more than 30 minutes a few times to get a return time- it will be great once this is done on the app because this will free those people up. I really missed the entertainment like the Frozen show, Mickeys Magical Map, Fantasmic!, etc. You could notice the gap in your day those experiences provided. And of course, not being able to ride its a small world was a bummer.
The Good: We had a wonderful trip and managed to get great spots for both the parade and fireworks. We watched the parade on Main Street instead of our usual its a small world spot and were lucky enough to be on a bench. Boy, what a difference that makes- people can't crowd you as much and easier on the back. It's well worth that long wait to be on a bench! I found so much xmas decor in the parks that I haven't seen hit ShopDisney at all which made me so happy. My wallet wasn't so happy but hey, it's Christmas time. Most of the CMs we encountered were super sweet, we had many positive interactions with all of them and some memorable conversations. Plenty of magic still around- like others on here have commented, you get what you give. If some CMs looked stress usually being extra kind received a kind response in return. Only exception was Blue Bayou which just seems like a hot mess.... and probably not even the CMs fault but Disney's upper management- they need to give them more staff or limit the reservations until it's under control.
It was so good to be back at Disneyland, since we usually take our next trip in the summer I'm hoping by then all the 'bads' I mentioned will be worked out. And honestly, the biggest negative was the lack of Genie+ which hopefully will come any day now. Hope this helps!
Crowds/Ride Lines: Crowds were nuts but I knew that would be the case going in visiting during Thanksgiving week. I was really disappointed Genie+ did not launch before our trip, I won't be back until something is in place because the lines were just rough to deal with. I have DAS so I was able to manage but not being able to blend in with the FP line was really uncomfortable this trip. We got many glares, rude comments muttered and one lady stepped right in front of me as demanded to know why I got to go in that line... Luckily a cast member quickly came to my rescue and took her aside to have a conversation but yikes. I'm sure this may have been worse than normal because of Thanksgiving week but it did cause some stress. I have invisible disabilities so I'm used to this in day to day life (I have a handicap tag and every few months I got some random person in a parking lot yelling at me for having it...) but not fun to deal with at Disneyland. I didn't experience this as much at WDW for whatever reason, maybe Disneyland was just extra packed and frustrations were especially high for people.
We found the best time of the day was 8AM-10AM and 9PM-closing. Those two hours before park close were perfect, we were able to get so much done by staying that late. Each day we left to take an afternoon nap and that helped so much. I highly recommend this approach. The security opened roughly about 7:15-7:25 each day. We just showed up around 7:30 and that worked well since we weren't planning on rope dropping Rise we could afford to be towards the back of the line to the entrance gates. We still rope dropped Peter Pan just fine- it helps being a small group though we can weave through crowds easier.
Rise of the Resistance: We did the virtual queue our first two days and then it switched to a standby on Monday which was absolutely insaaaaane. But it does take the pressure off the other rides in the park. Honestly the longest line of the day is the first two hours after park opening- from watching the app and seeing the line in person as we walked past the best time to ride this is either during the second parade or right before the ride closes at 8PM.
Dining: I was so worried about dining and didn't have any issues getting mobile orders, pretzels, quick service food, etc. Usually if we did have to wait for a mobile order return time it was only about 15 minutes away, not a big deal at all. So if anyone is worried about that, we were there during the busiest week the park has probably seen in awhile and had no issues. I actually ended up canceling a few of our dining reservations just because we didn't need them. Lines for food booths in DCA were always better during the day and got longer at night. The booths further back by Goofys always had shorter lines which is good because my son was absolutely obsessed with the mac and cheese back there.
Table service restaurant experiences were all normal compared to our pre-covid experiences with the exception of Blue Bayou. I posted this on the dining thread but I'll copy it here too:
Just a heads up for anyone with allergy/vegetarian/any dietary restrictions: Blue Bayou is not accommodating anything right now. We ate there for our Thanksgiving meal in the parks and it was probably the worst Disney dining experience we've ever had. No vegetarian options at all and they wouldn't allow us to order sides of veggies/potatoes/etc. Our server refused to ask the kitchen to do any modifications for us and I did it have it listed on our reservation. That was why I asked for the lead and he also refused to ask the kitchen. Server and the lead were really hateful about it... first time I've ever experienced that at Disneyland and due to my years of suffering in food service in college I am always super nice in restaurants... there was just no reason for it. Lead told me they don't have staff or enough food so they're not allowed to modify anything even for allergies or vegetarians.
We ended up just ordering a few kids meals to try and get some food without meat. They wouldn't even agree to leave the meat off any of the dinners either so it wouldn't be touching the other food which makes me think everything may have been pre-plated for Thanksgiving. Such a disappointing experience. Still no bread either and no refills on mint juleps. We were fine with anything meat free- not just what was on the Thanksgiving menu and were told no modifications allowed or side dishes ordered separately. So we bought four kids meals of mac and cheese and made do but wow- they were super rude about it. I got a survey about our dining experience on Thanksgiving and voiced my concerns. Blue Bayou always used to be so wonderful for vegetarians but not anymore. This seems to be primarily a Blue Bayou issue, we didn't have issues elsewhere- everywhere else was positive!
Tropicana Inn & Suites: We stayed at the Tropicana which is right across the street by the intersection to Disneyland. Hotel was clean, housekeeping was actually pretty frequent despite not doing full room cleanings each day anymore. We had two full room cleanings on our seven night stay and each day they emptied the trash and refilled towels- which is much more than other places are doing these days. In WDW they didn't even do that for us every day! The location for this hotel was awesome, we've never stayed this close before and I don't think I'll ever go back to staying far and having use ART. Pool was okay, we only used it once but it's just fine for a trip where you're spending most of your time in the park anyways.
The Bad: Until Genie+ launches I don't see how folks with smaller kids could handle the parks right now- every ride we walked by looked miserable. In our experience ride wait times were totally all over the place. Sometimes they were inflated and sometimes they were way understated. You would randomly see Space or Guardians go down to 20 minutes on the app but if you walked by the wait was easily an hour. You really couldn't trust the app to be accurate, eyeballing it seemed to be the best bet. Guest services was so understaffed trying to deal with DAS folks, we had to wait more than 30 minutes a few times to get a return time- it will be great once this is done on the app because this will free those people up. I really missed the entertainment like the Frozen show, Mickeys Magical Map, Fantasmic!, etc. You could notice the gap in your day those experiences provided. And of course, not being able to ride its a small world was a bummer.
The Good: We had a wonderful trip and managed to get great spots for both the parade and fireworks. We watched the parade on Main Street instead of our usual its a small world spot and were lucky enough to be on a bench. Boy, what a difference that makes- people can't crowd you as much and easier on the back. It's well worth that long wait to be on a bench! I found so much xmas decor in the parks that I haven't seen hit ShopDisney at all which made me so happy. My wallet wasn't so happy but hey, it's Christmas time. Most of the CMs we encountered were super sweet, we had many positive interactions with all of them and some memorable conversations. Plenty of magic still around- like others on here have commented, you get what you give. If some CMs looked stress usually being extra kind received a kind response in return. Only exception was Blue Bayou which just seems like a hot mess.... and probably not even the CMs fault but Disney's upper management- they need to give them more staff or limit the reservations until it's under control.
It was so good to be back at Disneyland, since we usually take our next trip in the summer I'm hoping by then all the 'bads' I mentioned will be worked out. And honestly, the biggest negative was the lack of Genie+ which hopefully will come any day now. Hope this helps!
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Let's hope Disney gets 
