Disneyland firstimers trip (WDW vets): May 16-19 (all in one thread)

Cast of Characters:
Me (Laura)-23 years old, LOVES the Disney parks. I went to Disney World in 1999 with my parents at the age of 15 and fell in love with the parks, the dining, and especially the planning. I have been back to Disney World 6 times since then, and have a trip planned for October of this year. I hate amusement parks, but Disney theme parks, now that’s another matter!! I am the master planner.

DH- 26 years old, also loves Disney and the parks, but his love doesn’t really show itself until we get there. He will tolerate my planning talk, but doesn’t really understand the thrill I get from planning. However, once we get there, he is happy as a clam and is as much of a Disney lover as I am. He is also slowly decorating his office with Disney stuff and Stitch has become his favorite character. (I think I am converting him, but keep that between you and me  )

Intro:
This was a much needed vacation for my husband and me. I have been searching for a new job closer to home because I work too far away from home. (and job searching is hard) I am in the process of getting my masters degree in business (via night class 2 nights a week). And then of course working at my job, which has become increasingly difficult due to deterioration in management (as in my manager is mostly absent now and trying to micromanage us from home, and it is not working). I also got an awful virus a month ago that left me with low grade fevers everyday for 2 weeks and my absent manager did a good job of making me feel guilty for missing only two days of work. So, to say the least, life was getting us down, and we really needed the trip. Our 1st year wedding anniversary is in July and we wanted to take a special trip. We took our honeymoon in Walt Disney World last year and we both wanted to go to Disneyland since neither of us had been before. The problem was of course money, and my classes. I am taking 10 week courses, which means no break in the middle of summer for me, so when would we take the trip? Also, where would we get the money from to fly there? Tickets from Houston to LA are expensive!!

Well, I downloaded Ding in the beginning of April and hoped and prayed for something really good to pop up. Then, one Sunday morning before church (about 3-4 weeks prior to our trip), I sat down to check my email and low and behold, there were $49 fares to LAX from Houston!! Hooray!! I sent a text message to my DH (he is the media director at our church, so he was already at church) and he said to book them, so I did!! The tickets would fly us to LA May 16 and fly us home May 19. I would finish the semester the week before, and I don’t start the summer semester until June, so it was perfect. Later that afternoon I booked us rooms at the Howard Johnson, bought our 4 day park hopper passes, and made a reservation for the Blue Bayou for lunch the second day of our trip. The next day, my husband and I reserved a car through Enterprise so we wouldn’t have to worry about bus schedules and getting back to the airport on time.

Everything major was set, so all I needed to do was set down an itinerary and pick some places to eat, and remember what to not miss. I did lots of research on Disneyland about where to eat, the best snacks, what little details not to miss. I had about 3 weeks to prepare for our trip.

The Week of: The week of our trip we both were to work on Monday and Tuesday. The Thursday right before, my boss told me to take Monday off because we had a light schedule. I asked her if she was sure and she told me yes. I am salaried, so I assumed like always when I didn’t work, she would be paying me. Well, the Monday before our trip, and my day I was given off, I got a call offering me a job, finally!! I had been going on 1-2 interviews a week for about a month and finally I got a new job! I had been very open with my boss about the job searching since I had been searching for a job for about a year or so. I gave her a call to let her know about my job offer and she was compliant at the time and we agreed to talk about the exact last day the next day. The next day (May 15th) and the day before we were to leave, was pay day and I had a little note on my check telling me she would be taking the hours I did not work the day before out of my final check and that my final check would be on May 25th, so I was quite upset that she would give me the day off, then later tell me she would not pay me for it, because I would have never agreed to that if I knew it was unpaid!! Also, no chance to work out my last day with her, as she really wants me to leave since she decided my last day for me! She is just mad I suppose because she might now have to actually come into the office now that I am leaving. In any case, this put quite a damper on my spirits. So now I really, really, needed a great Disney trip!!!

Day 1-May 16th
We woke up very early at 5:00am. We had an 8:25 flight out of Houston Hobby airport (which is 30 miles and on the opposite side of the city from us). We were flying out of that airport because that is the one Southwest flies out of in Houston. We parked at The Parking Spot (you know, the yellow busses with the black spots) because they were a decent price and the busses were easy to find. They took us to the airport and we jumped into the A boarding line after a quick breakfast at the Wendy’s in the airport. We got onto the plane and departed on time! The flight to California from Texas was great. It’s about 3 hours and 20 minutes long nonstop and then accounting for the two hour time change back, we landed about 9:45am in LA. We quickly got our luggage and jumped on the Enterprise rent-a-car shuttle. When we stepped out of the airport, we noticed the lack of humidity and how cold it was!! To our southeast Texas bones, it was chilly! We waited in a quick line and picked up our little silver Chevy Aveo with absolutely no bells and whistles, not even a CD player. It didn’t matter because we didn’t have CD’s anyways. My husband had to drive because I am not old enough to drive a rental car. We are from Houston, so we are familiar with freeway traffic in a big city and had no problem navigating ourselves to Anaheim. We got to our hotel very quickly and had checked in by 12:00 pm. We got into our room, changed some shoes and got our park things together and we were out the door and walking to Disneyland!!

Now, I have been to Disney World many times, and know a lot about it, and therefore, I also knew a lot about Disneyland before we went as I stored little nuggets of knowledge away. So, we entered the park and we admired the detail of main street in town square first. My DH reminded me of the light in the firehouse (because I had been educating him as well). We stopped to look around us and marveled that this park had opened in 1955 and Walt had actually gotten to walk around in its “finished” state. As we began to round the corner, I reminded my DH of the smaller but still charming castle. He looked at it and said “Wow, it is smaller”. I agreed but then we both decided that it was really wonderful!! Once we got to the hub I really understood how Disneyland has much less walkway and the space is much better utilized than in Florida. The entrances to Adventureland, Frontierland, Fantasyland, and Tomorrowland were so close together!! We were very hungry and I had a plan. DH loves corndogs and they have some great corndogs in DL, if you know where to find them. I located the Little Red Wagon and we got him a corndog. Then, we walked over to Adventureland and to Bengal Barbeque and got ourselves a Coke to share and I got two of the yummy skewers and breadsticks. After eating, we walked over to Indiana Jones with only a 15 minute wait. This was a fabulous ride! I have ridden Dinosaur in WDW several times and so I knew it was the same ride technology, but I liked this ride so much better! It is well done and my DH loved it because it is one of his favorite movies. The effects were very convincing and we walked off that ride more happy than ever to be in DL!

After our first ride, we headed over to Pirates of the Caribbean. This ride is so good in DL!!! I just can’t express how wonderful it is except to tell you that we rode it 3 times while we were there, and it might have been as many as 5 if it hadn’t been shut down twice while we were there. My DH and I still wonder if it was shut down because certain stars were in the parks that weekend due to a famous movie premier. Might they have been riding their own private ride? After exiting Pirates we wondered around New Orleans square a little bit. They had the bleachers set up for the big pirate premier that would take place on the day we were to leave so you could not really see the river. That was a little disappointing, but we lived with it. They had the traffic through that side of the park routed differently because the bleachers take up so much room. We really loved the detail in New Orleans square. We have not been to NO, but I believe that it must be a close replica to the real thing. We found Haunted Mansion and got into a short line. I really loved this attraction better here also. You do actually go downward in the stretching room and there were a few different things in this ride as I remember. Also the sound seemed in much better condition. We jumped off that ride and walked back to Adventureland to Jungle Cruise. This ride was good, the castmember was not the funniest I have had before, but then the guests we were riding with didn’t exactly help her either because they had little reaction. They are very funny in the line for this ride however. There becomes a point in time when you have to pick a side because they split the line in two and the castmember on the intercom system said something along the lines of “pick the shorter line if you want to wait less time, and pick the longer line if you have time to spare”. I heard other funny things coming from that ride intercom system when we would walk by it later in our trip. On our way out of Adventureland, we stopped at the Tiki Juice bar so I could get a Dole Whip. I really, really, loved how it didn’t melt right away the way they do in more humid Florida. I actually enjoyed a cold, non melted Dole Whip all the way to the end! We walked through Fantasyland and into Tomorrowland and went to Honey I Shrunk the Audience. I have seen this in Epcot as has DH. We both agreed it feels outdated to us and we do not like the mouse tails effect.

After this, we grabbed a spot on Main Street to wait for the parade. We had a long time to wait, so we shared a cookie from the Blue Ribbon Bakery. Finally about 7:20pm the parade made its way to Main Street. It was really wonderful! Not the best Disney parade, but really good. In DL they really focus on Walt and his “Welcome to this Happy Place speech” which is really inspirational, especially for a Disney fan like myself. The floats were great, the characters were very interactive and really awesome.

Note: The general castmembers in DL are not as into their job as the ones in WDW. They were friendly, but you easily remember that they are there doing their job. Also, the castmembers cycle through different rides and multi train for lots of jobs. At the end of the day, I saw Indiana Jones castmembers on Main Street helping with flow of traffic before the parade. In WDW I find that I hardly think about the castmembers as employees because they are so much in character.
However, the performers in DL are better to me because I imagine that performing in DL is another way to help some to stardom, or at least perform even if they never become a star.

After the parade, we left DL and jumped into our car to go to In and Out Burger for dinner. I had always wanted to go here and the burgers really are very good!! (and cheap). We bought t-shirts here as well. We were very cold at night and wanted some jackets, so we tried to find some at Target, but it is not jacket season I guess. We went back to our hotel tired and cold, but happy, and went to sleep!

Wow! that's a lot of drama right before your vacation! Sounds like a great 1st day! :mickey:

First - congrats on the new job! Sorry your old job is being such meanies about the situation! I hope all works out for you! Sounds like you had a GREAT first day! I so can't wait to get there in November... the more I read these trip reports the more excited I get to go! I'll have to remember to pay attention to what is said over the speakers in rides... thanks for sharing your day with us!

Day 2: May 17

Today we didn’t make it to Disneyland park until 9:30 because we were so tired from travel the day before. We stopped at the McDonald’s so DH could get some protein and we then completed our walk to the entrance gate. We entered the park and wandered around Main Street until we decided to ride the Matterhorn. We rode on the left side. This was a great ride for a girl (me) who doesn’t like roller coasters. The dips were not bad and it was fairly smooth. I really enjoyed going in and out of the mountain. We were wandering around Fantasyland when we saw a place by the water where you can get your name done in Fantasy characters. In WDW we had our last name done at this place in Downtown Disney but it was just some type of Asian symbolizing. We decided to have our name done again. This time we would have a castle and dragon for one letter, Jack Sparrow for another letter, Cinderella, and then Ariel as well. We put in our order and paid and decided to pick it up that evening. After this we decided to ride some fantasyland rides, and of course there were 30-minute waits at least for the more popular rides. We rode the Storybook Land Canals first. The whale mouth was covered up with green tarp, so I guess they are repainting it or something. The ride was really cool with all the little buildings in so much detail from favorite Disney movies! It was a relaxing entertaining little ride. When we got off I informed my DH that they decorate all the little houses at Christmas time with Christmas décor and he thought that was really cool. After this we considered riding more fantasyland rides, but decided to check out Toontown next. I have really only walked through the Florida one, but this one was really awesome!! My DH got a picture with Goofy here and we walked around pulling on the doors and turning the knobs in the post office. It was great fun! Then we went on the Roger Rabbit Ride. I was only 5 when this movie came out but my DH was 8, so he reminded me of the plot and I remember some of the movie. We rode it and I thought it was ok, but DH wasn’t that impressed. We decided next to go to the Tiki Room, and this time it was not under new management! We really loved this version of the show! A lot of people sang along with the birds and the totem poll men were really funny with their chanting. We really loved this show and were glad we got to experience the original. After this, it was nearing our lunch reservation at Blue Bayou so we decided to go ahead and check in. Even though we were 20 minutes early they went ahead and checked us in and we were seated 5 minutes later. This was a really cool meal!! Our server was really great and fast with our food. We got the shrimp appetizer to share and my DH seemed to like it even though he doesn’t really like seafood. Then we decided to share the Monte Cristo sandwich. We have a restaurant here in Texas called Bennigan’s and they also serve this sandwich, but the one at Blue Bayou was so much better!! Because we split the plate they charge you $4 extra, but you each still get a salad each and they actually split the sandwich and sides up onto two separate plates for you. It was plenty of food! The potatoes side were so wonderful!! We got the cookie boat for dessert and it was really delish. We did not get to sit next to the water, but it didn’t matter, it was a great dining experience.

After Blue Bayou, we park hopped to California Adventure. My first impression of this park was good. We did not venture any further than Condor Flats area and the backlot area. First we went to Soarin’, got a fast pass, rode it, then used our fastpass to ride it again. It was really awesome!! I usually am lucky to ride this once at Epcot but it was easy to ride it multiple times here. We took a little break afterwards and I went into Taste Pilots to get a coke. I really thought their ordering system was cool, with the computer screens. After drinking our Coke we wandered over to the Backlot area and stopped to take a picture with Stitch (my DH favorite character now). We entered the Back lot area and it really, really reminded me of Disney Studios. The forced perspective at the end of the street was really well done. We headed over the Monster’s Inc ride first. I really liked this ride because I know the movie and I loved the line area. It is like you are waiting in a transportation depot for Monstropolis and they have all sorts of cool signs and video screens in one area. I still wish they had made a ride where you ride on the doors. Next we got in line to see the Aladdin Show in they Hyperion Theatre. Wow!! This show is really amazing. The guy playing the genie was really very funny with all his pop culture references. The actors playing Aladdin and Jasmine were really outstanding as well. It was as good as any Broadway show. After the show we went to the Muppets 3D show. I really loved this show and the waiting area is also really awesome with the video. Make sure you read the time clock ticker, there is some really funny stuff!! The show was great as always, but there were not many people in the theatre with us. In WDW this show is usually busy, but here it was not.

California Adventure was closing soon, so we walked back over to Disneyland park and picked up our name from fantasyland. We went and tried to ride Pirates, but it was closed (mabey because a movie star was riding it??) I only say it because the Castmembers standing at the entrance seemed to be to happy about the fact it was closed and we learned later the Johnny Depp had been seen (mabey?) in Downtown Disney earlier in the day. We left the park before the parade that night and walked to Downtown Disney. We went to World of Disney store and this is where I discovered another difference in WDW and Disneyland. In WDW there is merchandise everywhere, and you can buy a lot of it in the World of Disney Store. At Disneyland, the different types of merchandise are way more spread out and you can only buy a small selection of merchandise at World of Disney. We bought a few things we wanted and then went to eat at Naples (where we had reservations). We were seated outside and we were freezing cold!! The food was only OK and really expensive in my opinion. Our service was also very poor. We went back to World of Disney to buy jackets because we knew we would be out late the next night and we would really want to be warm. After this my feet, back and legs were really hurting so we made the long walk back to our hotel.

It was a really wonderful Disney day!!

Day 3: May 18
This was by far the best day of our trip! We woke up in plenty of time and made it to Disneyland park for rope drop in the hub area. They play special music at the first of the day to welcome you to the park. We went to Riverbelle Terrace to eat breakfast because we had heard good things about the food. We both got the Mark Twain and it was very good. I was sad we couldn’t actually see the river because of the bleacher seats, but it was still a good breakfast. Afterwards we went down to ride Pirates of the Caribbean and it was good as always. Then we park-hopped to California Adventure as we had only see a few things the day before. We went back to Soarin’ and used fastpass to ride it twice in a row. Yay!! 4 times in Soarin!! (yesterday and today’s rides) Afterwards we went to see It’s Tough to Be a Bug, which we always enjoy in Animal Kingdom also. After all the rides we wandered over to the Paradise Pier area. We toured the Mission Tortilla factory (it was ok, had a cute video at the front) and then walked through paradise pier. We stopped to get a Mickey Bar outside the Orange Stinger. I really don’t like amusement park rides to me, part of the charm of Disney, is that it isn’t an amusement park, but a theme park. I appreciate the theming of the boardwalk, but really, I didn’t like the selection of rides. We got fastpasses for Mullholland Madness and then went over to Whitewater Snacks in the Grand Californian for lunch. We had cheeseburgers, which we didn’t really love and then went back to the park. We both decided we did not want to go back to Paradise Pier because it just wasn’t Disney to us, so we gave our fastpasses away. We went back to the Hollywood area and went to the Animator studio. We drew Donald which was really great fun!! My DH loves to draw so he really loved this class. After this we went to Turtle Talk. We have been to this in Epcot, but the theatre here is really very nice, the “Aquatorium” is what they call it. The kids were really cute and my DH asked Crush what he and Squirt like to play. The technology is so cool in this show. My DH loved that he got called on. We left the park after this and went back to Disneyland. It was about 2pm by this time.

We decided to ride more rides in Fantasyland next, so we rode Pinocchio, Alice in Wonderland, and Peter Pan. Alice in Wonderland is really a cool ride, my favorite part is at the beginning when you go down into the rabbit hole. We noticed the witch from Snow White peeking out the curtains of the Snow White ride while waiting for Peter Pan. After this I told my DH about the Bill Hilly and the Hillbillies show in Frontierland so we headed over there. This was a really amazing show!! They played great instruments and now my DH walks around every now and then and says “Billy!” (If you have seen the show you know what I mean). We then decided to eat dinner at the Ranco Del Zocalo where I got 10% off with my Disney Visa card. It was ok food, but we are used to really good tex mex, so it wasn’t the best meal I have had. After this we made our way over to the hub to save a seat for ourselves for the fireworks show. We waited a really long time and placated ourselves with popcorn, cherry coke from coke corner and dole whips. Finally at 9:30pm the fireworks started!! Oh my goodness, these were the best Disney fireworks I have seen yet. They incorporate all of the most popular rides into the show and do lots of cool lighting effects on the castle. Wow, it was just amazing! Even better than Wishes in my opinion. After the fireworks we ran to the bathroom (we had to wait forever and at some point we were blocked in and couldn’t leave to find a bathroom) and then ran over to Pirates to ride again. After Pirates we rode Haunted Mansion again and then did a little shopping. I bought some very cool ornaments in Frontierland and we went up Main Street and bought a few little things. We left the park by 10:30pm and stopped at McDonald’s for late night quarter pounders and fries. It was a tiring but wonderful day!!

This is pretty funny reading your trip reports being as we were there at the same time and are both from the Houston area.

Day 4-May 19th (last day) and Final Thoughts

Our final day we had a really slow start. I coaxed DH out of bed at 8:30 and we made it to the park about and hour later. We were so tired and our feet and legs were still hurting! When we got to the Disneyland park gate they were handing out special pins for the Pirates Premier so we each picked up one. Also, the maps were special that day with the Pirate skull and crossbones on the front and then of course special times for events that day because the parks had special hours. When we walked into town square there were lots of people already seated next to the already set up red carpet. The red carpet stretched all the way around town square, down Main Street and around most of the hub. There were about 3 places with small sets of bleachers set up and absolutely no standing room left right next to the carpet. They were still setting up lighting and sound and dragging cables everywhere! It was really amazing to see. We went over to Tomorrowland first to ride Buzz Lightyear’s Astroblasters. This was an awesome ride. I loved how you can pull the laser guns out of their holders and shoot. I scored a measly 5000 points but DH scored more like 12000. We left Tomorrowland after this and did not return. Yes, I know, we did not ride Space Mountain, or Star Tours. We never made it to Space Mountain and we can ride Star Tours in October in the Studios, plus DH really doesn’t enjoy simulator rides. We went back to Fantasyland and finally rode Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. It had been down for rehab and was back up on that day. This ride closed down right before I went to WDW for the first time in ‘99, so I was really happy to finally get to ride it! We rode Casey Jr’s Circus Train, which was cute. We completed Fantasyland by riding Snow White’s Scary Adventures. I have ridden this in WDW, but I can’t remember it very well, all I have to say is, the story was just told very quickly and ended abruptly, as if they ran out of room in the ride to tell the whole story, and you only see Snow White once. I was the most disappointed with this ride of all the rides in Fantasyland. It was about 10:30 by this point and we had not had breakfast yet, so we wanted some food. It was too difficult to get to Blue Ribbon Bakery, so we hoped we could find somewhere in Frontierland to eat lunch, no such luck. Then we decided to ride Pirates again, but it was closed. Finally, we settled in to wait for Coke Corner to open up at 11:00. When it did we stood in line with all the hungry red carpet people for about 20 minutes (it seemed) before we got our chili dogs, flavored cokes and cream cheese filled pretzel. It was pretty good!! Next we stopped in the candy shop and got some chocolates for the plane and then stopped off finally at the emporium for some t-shirts. We stood on the sidewalk in town square and said goodbye to Disneyland for a moment then walked back to our rental car at our hotel and drove back to LAX. Our flight was uneventful and we got home by 11 pm on Saturday night.

Final Thoughts:
Our hotel was only ok really. (Howard Johnson) I would stay there again, but we got a decent rate on orbitz and found out after booking that it was a smoking room. We don’t smoke, so I brought Febreeze to cut down on the smell some. We got used to it and it didn’t bother us after the first night. We would have rebooked but a lot of the close resorts were pretty full or if not full, they were charging full price. We really loved Disneyland Resort as a whole. We still consider our “home” Disney destination to be WDW, but Disneyland has its own charm. I agree with some that it is like apples and oranges; each resort is special in its own way. I am so happy we got the opportunity to go. Also, this is the first trip me and DH have actually paid for all on our own without any parents or family helping us, it was another big step in our adulthood. (I know that sounds silly to some, but when we got married and began paying for everything ourselves with no help, it was very gratifying, we had both been in college prior to our wedding and if our parents or family weren’t helping us, then student loans were) This trip was a much needed break for us as life had been getting us down. We felt so rejuvenated after that trip even though we were tired at the end of each day.

The rides were better in some cases and worse in others. The rides not in WDW were pretty phenomenal. What I loved about visiting this time of year was the ability to go on favorite rides twice. I was conflicted about the Pirates premier because it was cool that it was going on our last day, but at the same time, the park was completely different with a completely different vibe the last day, so it made me feel in some ways like I had already left even though I was still there. We missed the Electrical Parade in California Adventure because we only had one weekend night. I wished we could have afforded to stay one more night, but my husband works for a church and so we try to avoid missing Sundays. I have seen this parade in the MK in WDW, but DH had never seen it, so I was disappointed we missed it.

I returned to my current job for my last week today, and it was not much fun, but I discovered (from the girl who works in the suite down from us) that every former employee at my job has been treated this way by these people (see intro post), so I know its not me, its them. I can’t wait to start my new job next week. I know I will have challenges, but it will feel good to turn over a new leaf. And now I have a fun WDW Halloween trip to look forward to in October (which is already paid for!!) Hope everyone enjoyed this report!

It was fun reading your trip report because we're planning a first time trip to DLR this summer too. What I didnt understand is your comparison of WDW's World of Disney to DLR's..?

Thanks for sharing:mickey:

Basically, the World of Disney store in WDW is really large and has just about all the merchandise you might want to purchase (and if it does not have it, one of the other marketplace shops will). In DTD in Disneyland, the World of Disney store is smaller, and there are really not a lot of other "Disney" shops to make up for any lack of merchandise you might have wanted. So, I learned that if you find something you want in the park, buy it at the end of the day, don't wait until WoD. In WDW we always wait until DTD to make our major purchases, but in Disneyland, we learned you should just buy things where you find them because they won't necessarily all be in one place for you to buy them later.

For instance, I wanted a Castle ornament. In World of Disney, only about 6 varieties of ornaments. In WDW WoD, you can just go to the Christmas store. In DLR, I had to find a better selection on Main Street and Frontierland to get the ornament I wanted and was sure existed.

What a great report!! :clappy:

I love the way your visit to Disneyland began - Red Wagon corndog and Bengal Barbecue skewer!! :eat:

Hope you can visit again when the Rivers of America are visible & accessible. :balloon:

Thats funny that you mention the World of Disney store at DLR being smaller. To me, that store is huge! And it has everything under the sun thats Disney! I actually like that all the Disneyland stores offer a little something different because i like to browse and it would be boring if every time i went looking, i came across the same things. Many of the stores do carry a lot of the same items but i like how they mix it up a bit.
I was so surprised to hear that you didn't ride Space or Thunder! And Tower of Terror over at CA. And if you would have given it a chance, CA Screamin is the most awesome ride!! ;)
I realize that Splash was down for refurb when you visited but i think the WDW version is a little better anyways so you didn't miss much. I wonder when they're going to make ours double ride logs...
Anyways it sounded like you had a great trip despite the pirates premier thing, that can be so hectic!
Hopefully you can return and really take it all in without being so tired and sore because i know that can definatly take a toll on some.
Thanks for the report!

We did miss most of the mountains this time. I really don't like roller coasters and will not ride anything that goes upside down (California Screamin') and the other roller coasters that I do like and will ride we simply didn't get to. We were really trying to ride new stuff and the different stuff we cannot ride in WDW, more than once (like Pirates), so we never really took the time to ride the mountains.

I actually liked the fact that there were different things in the stores at DLR. I am a girl, and I like to shop, and mixing up shopping with park fun and rides is great to me!! But, I didn't realize the way the merchandise was spread out until we had been there a couple of days. We caught on though, and I got everything I wanted.
And you are right *tinker_belle*, it is kind of boring to shop in WDW because the shops all look like they have different merchandise at first, but then it turns out, its all the same!!

LOL your right angel, but both are great parks despite the repeat merchandise. :D When i see something i want to buy, i just do it because you never know if you might find it again or not.
Next time, get on some of the Mountains. I don't like roller coasters either but these have the right amount of thrill for someone who doesn't like coasters. Even CA Screamin, i don't like loops but i just close my eyes and the rest of the ride is amazing with an incredible view of the park!
Glad you enjoyed your trip :)

Great reports.

I'm glad you took the time to see the Billies. Disneyland has phenomenal entertainment. Something that is really lacking in Florida.

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We were really trying to ride new stuff and the different stuff we cannot ride in WDW, more than once (like Pirates), so we never really took the time to ride the mountains.

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It's too bad you missed Space Mountain. There is no comparison between the two. Next time - huh? ;)

Thanks for the trip report. It sounds like the trip was exactly what you needed. I enjoyed your report because my DH and I are planning a trip to DLR in early Dec. We've been to WDW many times and this will be his first trip to DLR. I've been to Disneyland 3 times. The first two trips were when I was a kid so it was a lot different. The third trip was two days added to an existing trip to California. So my question is do you feel like you had enough or too much time at DLR? We are going for 4 nights. Our tentative plan is to spend 2.5 days at DLR and 1 day at Knott's Berry Farm. Do you think this would be enough time or did you feel like you needed all 4 or your days in the parks?

2.5 at DLR and 1 day at Knott's sounds good, but if you like to really take your time and ride things over then take some extra days at DLR.

I can not tell you how much I enjoyed your reports, Laura! I could feel you falling in love with the Disnleyland Resort, just as I did last November. I am glad that you both enjoyed it so much. And good job for getting into a Billy Show! They are so much fun and what I am most looking forward to seeing again next month. Thanks so much for sharing your West Coast Adventure with us!! :mickey:

Sounds like a fantastic trip! Too bad you had to experience New Orleans Square/Frontierland with those giant bleachers there though, especially breakfast at the Riverbelle Terrace. Oh well, just another reason to go back. :)

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Originally Posted by angel8783

We toured the Mission Tortilla factory (it was ok, had a cute video at the front)...

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See my signature: "M A S E C A"! :D The video is the best part! :D

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Originally Posted by angel8783

After this I told my DH about the Bill Hilly and the Hillbillies show in Frontierland so we headed over there. This was a really amazing show!! They played great instruments and now my DH walks around every now and then and says “Billy!” (If you have seen the show you know what I mean).

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Yeah! More new Billy fans! :thumbsup: (also see my sig :D )

Thanks for taking the time to share your trip with us - I enjoyed all of your reports! :)

:congrats: 0n the new job. Sounds like you and you husband had a great time.:mickey: