Winnowill
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jan 25, 2014
Our long-awaited, much postponed trip happened last week. Daughter and I had driven out to San Diego a week earlier for her Nationals dance convention, husband flew out on Friday to join us, and we drove up to Anaheim Saturday night - there was a big gala at the convention that ended at 10:00 pm Saturday that we hadn't anticipated or we'd have shifted it a day (I'm just glad we weren't planning on driving home to Phoenix on Saturday!)
We stayed at the Portofino Inn & Suites. We'd paid for a standard room. There's something to be said for checking in late: they were sold out of the standard rooms and upgraded us to a suite. That was awesome. Not awesome - lack of parking at that hour. I would happily stay at the Portofino again, especially if I could get a room at the rate we got for this trip.
Unlike our usual strategy, we planned to get to the parks each day AFTER rope drop, when the crowds had dispersed into different lands. This turned out to be a mixed bag.
Sunday (this was the 4th), we got boarding group 17 for RotR at the 7:00 drop. We headed straight to SW:GE, since we hadn't ever seen it before. I'm not a Star Wars fan, though DH is. We rode MF:SR (DD was pilot, DH and I were both gunners - we didn't have any engineers or a second pilot), then RotR. I must say - while very impressive, visually, we didn't find that either ride had been designed with "fun" in mind. After that, we did most of the left side of the park (got drenched on Splash), including an intentional ride on Winnie the Pooh since it was going down for refurb two days later, and DD started to feel...not so great. At noon, we got a BG for WS. We had lunch at Cafe Orleans, then went over to DCA to await said WS Boarding Group (and then 40-minute wait in line after it was called). Our impression of WS was the same as our impression of RotR - too much pre-show, not enough fun in the ride itself. After that, we took our midday break. Around 7:30, we were ready to go back (we were lucky that the big power outage happened during our break), but DD was feeling too sick and chose not to come with us. DH and I wanted to ride Guardians, and, we hoped, Space Mountain, and we planned to see the fireworks, so we went back, getting into DCA around 8:15. We went straight to GotG, with a posted wait time of 55 minutes. We were through the pre-show and on the ride 20 minutes later. We were excited to FINALLY get the sixth song ("I Want You Back" - we'd had multiple rides of the other five, but somehow never had gotten that one.) We found that a lot of the time GotG had a wildly inflated posted wait time. We decided that we would skip the fireworks that night and ordered a pizza from Pizza Press to pick up on our walk back. How right we were to skip the fireworks! The whole walkway to Harbor was FULL of people. Harbor itself, FULL of people, all the way down to Katella. Pizza Press? Dead. But I'll bet it got pretty crowded not long after!
Since DD wasn't feeling great, we decided to add a day to our stay (meaning we had to change hotels because the Portofino didn't have any vacancies) in the hope that she'd rally. We cancelled our park reservation for Monday, and spent the day in the hotel and at DTD (where I bought the new Cruella dress at the Dress Shop because I couldn't resist it). We had lunch at the Uva Bar. We had had a reservation for Napa Rose for that night, but we cancelled that, too. I have no recollection of what we wound up doing for dinner. Maybe nothing.
Tuesday, we started on the right side of the park. Space Mountain was down when we got there, so we did Star Tours and Buzz, then Snow White, and had breakfast at Red Rose Taverne. Then we rode Matterhorn and IASW and saw that Space was back up. We lucked into a 30-minute wait for it, but that was, sadly, the only time we rode it this trip. Our RotR boarding group was a high enough number that we couldn't try for WS at noon and, when we went to RotR, we scanned in, waited in line, got through the pre-show and then BOOM! The ride went down. They gave us multi-experience passes to make up for it, but, somehow, only scanned two of our tickets for them. We did Storytellers for dinner that night (first time we'd ever so much as set foot in the GCH), which was a LOT OF FOOD. After that, we decided to use our passes for Soarin' and explained our plight (the missing pass) to the CM, who let all three of us in. (Also, we encountered Oswald by the fountain - DD LOVES Oswald).
Wednesday, we started in DCA, where we discovered that, while the late arrival may work for the DL side, rope drop really IS the best strategy on the DCA side. We did manage to ride just about everything we wanted to. We had gotten a BG for WS at the 7:00 drop, but, as with RotR the previous day, it was called so late that we didn't have a chance to try for RotR at noon. And, when we looked at the queue for WS, we decided to forego it that day. We actually didn't ride it again - we didn't even try for a group, because none of us had really enjoyed it that much the one time we did ride it. We did RSR a few times in the single rider line, and were pretty happy - DH and I were always placed in the same car, and, on one ride, we were racing against the car DD was in. That day we had lunch at LL, where we split the lobster nachos and the potato skins (different, but YUMMY!) After our break, we went back to DL, where we had reservations at Oga's Cantina (which I got for DH to see) - dinner had been our leftovers from Storytellers. DD and I rode MF:SR - DH's tummy was bothering him. We watched fireworks from IASW, then rode that as we were waiting for the park to clear out.
Thursday was our last start on the DL side (it had originally been intended as our last day), and we focused mainly on Fantasyland to start with. We failed to get a boarding group that morning, and weren't planning on being at DL later, so we didn't try at noon. Dinner was at WCT, and we arrived early, which was a mistake - we were seated indoors and it was a lovely evening. But I wanted to make sure we were in place for Sh-Boom on time, and then to ride RSR after dark (again, single rider). We'd hoped to do Incredicoaster and GotG after dark that evening, too, but in the end opted just for GotG. We got off that around 9:30 and took the opportunity of being there after the park closed to look around AC at night without a lot of people there. It was cool. We never did see the Dr. Strange show, though, and we weren't really interested in the others (though we accidentally caught Spider-Man several times). That evening we packed everything up that we wouldn't need the next day and took it out to the car.
Friday, we checked out of the hotel, packed the rest of our stuff in the care, and rope-dropped DCA, where we went straight to RSR - we wanted to ride it with all of us in the same car at least once and that was the best way to do that without waiting forever. An hour later, the wait time on it ballooned up to 300 minutes(!) We rode many things, did Animation Academy, ate lunch at the PYM Test Kitchen and got a last BG for RotR. When we took our break, we also switched hotels to the King's Inn, which is a perfectly nice hotel (but where we didn't get a suite, sadly). When we were going back, DD wasn't feeling great again and she opted not to return with us. So we went back, rode RotR (the second ride did not improve our opinion of its fun factor), Jungle Cruise (soft opening that day), then HM, and then we hung around Main Street in anticipation of fireworks, which I wanted to see with the castle. My opinion of the changes to JC are mentioned elsewhere - suffice to say, I believe that whatever your opinion was before, the changes are unlikely to affect it.
This trip, DH and I did coordinating t-shirts each day except Sunday, when we wore patriotic garb. Tuesday we did the He's/She's My Foolish Mortal ones. Wednesday we did "His Eve/Her Wall-E," which I had made as I did our Thursday shirts - "His Duchess/Her O'Malley." Friday's were "His Ellie/Her Carl." That was fun.
We stayed at the Portofino Inn & Suites. We'd paid for a standard room. There's something to be said for checking in late: they were sold out of the standard rooms and upgraded us to a suite. That was awesome. Not awesome - lack of parking at that hour. I would happily stay at the Portofino again, especially if I could get a room at the rate we got for this trip.
Unlike our usual strategy, we planned to get to the parks each day AFTER rope drop, when the crowds had dispersed into different lands. This turned out to be a mixed bag.
Sunday (this was the 4th), we got boarding group 17 for RotR at the 7:00 drop. We headed straight to SW:GE, since we hadn't ever seen it before. I'm not a Star Wars fan, though DH is. We rode MF:SR (DD was pilot, DH and I were both gunners - we didn't have any engineers or a second pilot), then RotR. I must say - while very impressive, visually, we didn't find that either ride had been designed with "fun" in mind. After that, we did most of the left side of the park (got drenched on Splash), including an intentional ride on Winnie the Pooh since it was going down for refurb two days later, and DD started to feel...not so great. At noon, we got a BG for WS. We had lunch at Cafe Orleans, then went over to DCA to await said WS Boarding Group (and then 40-minute wait in line after it was called). Our impression of WS was the same as our impression of RotR - too much pre-show, not enough fun in the ride itself. After that, we took our midday break. Around 7:30, we were ready to go back (we were lucky that the big power outage happened during our break), but DD was feeling too sick and chose not to come with us. DH and I wanted to ride Guardians, and, we hoped, Space Mountain, and we planned to see the fireworks, so we went back, getting into DCA around 8:15. We went straight to GotG, with a posted wait time of 55 minutes. We were through the pre-show and on the ride 20 minutes later. We were excited to FINALLY get the sixth song ("I Want You Back" - we'd had multiple rides of the other five, but somehow never had gotten that one.) We found that a lot of the time GotG had a wildly inflated posted wait time. We decided that we would skip the fireworks that night and ordered a pizza from Pizza Press to pick up on our walk back. How right we were to skip the fireworks! The whole walkway to Harbor was FULL of people. Harbor itself, FULL of people, all the way down to Katella. Pizza Press? Dead. But I'll bet it got pretty crowded not long after!
Since DD wasn't feeling great, we decided to add a day to our stay (meaning we had to change hotels because the Portofino didn't have any vacancies) in the hope that she'd rally. We cancelled our park reservation for Monday, and spent the day in the hotel and at DTD (where I bought the new Cruella dress at the Dress Shop because I couldn't resist it). We had lunch at the Uva Bar. We had had a reservation for Napa Rose for that night, but we cancelled that, too. I have no recollection of what we wound up doing for dinner. Maybe nothing.
Tuesday, we started on the right side of the park. Space Mountain was down when we got there, so we did Star Tours and Buzz, then Snow White, and had breakfast at Red Rose Taverne. Then we rode Matterhorn and IASW and saw that Space was back up. We lucked into a 30-minute wait for it, but that was, sadly, the only time we rode it this trip. Our RotR boarding group was a high enough number that we couldn't try for WS at noon and, when we went to RotR, we scanned in, waited in line, got through the pre-show and then BOOM! The ride went down. They gave us multi-experience passes to make up for it, but, somehow, only scanned two of our tickets for them. We did Storytellers for dinner that night (first time we'd ever so much as set foot in the GCH), which was a LOT OF FOOD. After that, we decided to use our passes for Soarin' and explained our plight (the missing pass) to the CM, who let all three of us in. (Also, we encountered Oswald by the fountain - DD LOVES Oswald).
Wednesday, we started in DCA, where we discovered that, while the late arrival may work for the DL side, rope drop really IS the best strategy on the DCA side. We did manage to ride just about everything we wanted to. We had gotten a BG for WS at the 7:00 drop, but, as with RotR the previous day, it was called so late that we didn't have a chance to try for RotR at noon. And, when we looked at the queue for WS, we decided to forego it that day. We actually didn't ride it again - we didn't even try for a group, because none of us had really enjoyed it that much the one time we did ride it. We did RSR a few times in the single rider line, and were pretty happy - DH and I were always placed in the same car, and, on one ride, we were racing against the car DD was in. That day we had lunch at LL, where we split the lobster nachos and the potato skins (different, but YUMMY!) After our break, we went back to DL, where we had reservations at Oga's Cantina (which I got for DH to see) - dinner had been our leftovers from Storytellers. DD and I rode MF:SR - DH's tummy was bothering him. We watched fireworks from IASW, then rode that as we were waiting for the park to clear out.
Thursday was our last start on the DL side (it had originally been intended as our last day), and we focused mainly on Fantasyland to start with. We failed to get a boarding group that morning, and weren't planning on being at DL later, so we didn't try at noon. Dinner was at WCT, and we arrived early, which was a mistake - we were seated indoors and it was a lovely evening. But I wanted to make sure we were in place for Sh-Boom on time, and then to ride RSR after dark (again, single rider). We'd hoped to do Incredicoaster and GotG after dark that evening, too, but in the end opted just for GotG. We got off that around 9:30 and took the opportunity of being there after the park closed to look around AC at night without a lot of people there. It was cool. We never did see the Dr. Strange show, though, and we weren't really interested in the others (though we accidentally caught Spider-Man several times). That evening we packed everything up that we wouldn't need the next day and took it out to the car.
Friday, we checked out of the hotel, packed the rest of our stuff in the care, and rope-dropped DCA, where we went straight to RSR - we wanted to ride it with all of us in the same car at least once and that was the best way to do that without waiting forever. An hour later, the wait time on it ballooned up to 300 minutes(!) We rode many things, did Animation Academy, ate lunch at the PYM Test Kitchen and got a last BG for RotR. When we took our break, we also switched hotels to the King's Inn, which is a perfectly nice hotel (but where we didn't get a suite, sadly). When we were going back, DD wasn't feeling great again and she opted not to return with us. So we went back, rode RotR (the second ride did not improve our opinion of its fun factor), Jungle Cruise (soft opening that day), then HM, and then we hung around Main Street in anticipation of fireworks, which I wanted to see with the castle. My opinion of the changes to JC are mentioned elsewhere - suffice to say, I believe that whatever your opinion was before, the changes are unlikely to affect it.
This trip, DH and I did coordinating t-shirts each day except Sunday, when we wore patriotic garb. Tuesday we did the He's/She's My Foolish Mortal ones. Wednesday we did "His Eve/Her Wall-E," which I had made as I did our Thursday shirts - "His Duchess/Her O'Malley." Friday's were "His Ellie/Her Carl." That was fun.
