I don't think we're in Kansas any more - a power trip through Disneyland and California

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Great update!

The TCD gang all loved those fried biscuits at the Carthay Circle too.

And props to you for wearing a Fort Wilderness shirt at DCA!

That's awesome that your daughter scored FP's for TSMM.  Wouldn't the movie Cars have been a correct answer too?

TCD

[shoreline99 137]

4 hours ago, Tri-Circle-D said:

Great update!

The TCD gang all loved those fried biscuits at the Carthay Circle too.

And props to you for wearing a Fort Wilderness shirt at DCA!

That's awesome that your daughter scored FP's for TSMM.  Wouldn't the movie Cars have been a correct answer too?

TCD

She did say 'aside from Cars'. That one was kind of obvious, LOL.

Since I didn't have any photos from RSR, here's a link to a video of the ridethrough:

 

[shoreline99 137]

I'm just going to pop in with a short update to finish up our first day.

We enjoyed our stroll along Paradise Pier and the gift shops, and started heading back around towards the World of Color viewing areas. One important note in planning your rides at DCA is that the attractions behind the WOC display area close early, before the show.

There was only one showing the night we were there, and we had gotten fastpasses for the 'blue' viewing area. Some people get there as early as an hour before the show, but we walked up about a half hour or less before the show and were able to walk down to the front pretty easily. There are areas posted as 'spash zones' along the front, but we ended up not getting wet. The 'yellow' viewing area is up higher and closer to the walkway around the lagoon.

One cool feature in the park to help kill time while you are waiting for the show is an online color guessing game that you can log in to using your smartphone. Many of you old timers (like me) will remember the game 'Simon' from when we were kids - you follow a given color pattern and have to remember it and enter the pattern correctly to continue. Here they do the same game using the lights on Mickey's Fun Wheel, with one lucky winner getting to control the light colors and patterns for a period of time. The kids all enjoyed that and it helped kill the time we were waiting.

I guess we were lucky, as I've heard stories of not being able to see because of people with kids on their shoulders, etc., but we made out OK. Only our youngest daughter had a problem seeing so I picked her up to head height so she could enjoy the show.

I have to say World of Color was pretty impressive. There is currently a 'retrospective' WOC show running featuring Neil Patrick Harris as part of the 60th celebration, which is different from the original show. It features all your favorite movies starting with Steamboat Willie (it alllll started with a mouse), continuing through today and the Frozen sisters.

Here's a link to a video (not mine) of the full show:

After the show, we got a text from our daughter who was there for the Orchestra trip saying that they were at Disneyland. This being our first full day in CA, and still running on East Coast time, we were all pretty tired but wanted to catch up.

I will tell you this - there is a huge rush as soon as WOC is over of people heading over to DL to catch the nighttime show. While we were there Fantasmic was down (because of the Star Wars Land construction) but the evening firework show was still on.

The show here is pretty neat, because they use video projection on the buildings of main street as part of the show. The castle is really small compared to WDW, so everything feels kind of low.

A few quick observations from walking in to DL at night, never having been there before:

    -I was totally lost within about five minutes. Main Street is smaller and effectively flipped from WDW, where the food shops are on the left and the stores are on the right.
    -Things are just different enough to feel like you stepped into a strange version of WDW, even though that park came later. Reflecting on the visit here, it's easier to see how the imagineers took this original concept and expanded it for the larger crowds they hoped would come in Florida.
    -The hub is tiny, and the distances to the lands from the hub are much shorter compared to what we were used to. I found this very disorienting at night.

We walked into Tomorrowland as far as space mountain, and were able to meet up with our daughter by the hub for a few photos in front of the castle. She was off with her friends with fastpasses for the Indiana Jones ride, and we strolled around the statue of Walt and Mickey over to the music pavilion where a jazz/swing band was playing to a crowd. People got up to dance and it was easy to get the old 'date night at Disneyland' vibe. That was really neat. I'm sure that would never fly at WDW.

By this time everyone was exhausted and ready to head back to the Park Vue, but our youngest daughter wanted to stay for the Paint the Night parade that was starting shortly so we grabbed a spot on the curb to wait while everyone else headed back.

Holy cow, I get where TCD was coming from on his earlier trip report. That song was stuck in my head for days.

It is also one of the most amazing parades I think I've seen. We really enjoyed it and stayed until the end.

Here's a video (not mine) of the full parade; I'll have some of my pictures of the parade from the second day in an upcoming post:

A quick check at the fire station told us Walt was still in the park (at least in spirit), and we headed back to the hotel for some much needed sleep.

Tomorrow, a full day at Disneyland!

[dvccamper 32]

Great updates, I am loving this trip report. 

We also got the park hopper option for our upcoming two days there. Wondering if you thought it was worth it. But I figured we could jump over to Disneyland like you did after DCA closes.

[keith_h 420]

1 hour ago, shoreline99 said:

and we strolled around the statue of Walt and Mickey over to the music pavilion where a jazz/swing band was playing to a crowd. People got up to dance and it was easy to get the old 'date night at Disneyland' vibe. That was really neat. I'm sure that would never fly at WDW.

All through the time I lived in California, mid 70's to early 90's, Disneyland would have big bands perform on a regular basis and even had an annual big band festival for a while. I saw a number of big bands including folks like Buddy Rich, Lioniel Hampton and Maynard Ferguson. When I was still single in the 70's it was a good place to take a date. I don't remember the exact cost but it was like $5-$10 to get in and then buy tickets if you wanted to go on a ride. Not a bad price for the high level of entertainment they had along with dinner at the Blue Bayou.  

[sherryberry 35]

Loving your report so far! I'm dying to head back out there. Another great resource for Disneyland info is dlrprepschool.com. I follow her on Facebook - she heads to the parks at least a couple of times a week and shares lots of tips and posts pictures of new merchandise in the parks.

[shoreline99 137]

I wanted to post these videos as I honestly wished I had watched them before our trip - they are walking tours of the parks, and while a bit long they really help to show the layouts of both parks. I'll try to wrap this trip report up in the next day or two.

 

 

Enjoy!

[fladogfan aka Gretchen 259]

I'll watch these when I have more time.  They look interesting.

[shoreline99 137]

The family woke up early on Sunday with the intent on hitting rope drop, but alas it was not to be. The weather was still uncooperative and it was raining, so we took our time with breakfast and getting ready for the day. Again, I have to say the free breakfast at the hotel was pretty good.

We hit the store in the hotel for a couple of postcards for my daughter to send to her friend from Disneyland, along with the front desk for a couple of stamps, then we were off.

Hey, look - a fancy star

Park Map:

Park Aerial:

We made it through bag check and headed over towards Disneyland

The skies were pretty ominous and it looked like it was going to open up on us, but the flowers there didn't care. Also note the guy with the clipboard in the last photo, more on that later.

The trains were not running due to the Star Wars land construction, but they were parked at several of the stations, including Main Street, so you could walk up and see them.

Walking through the tunnel - we always go through the right side at WDW, so we did the same thing here. I think it's a holdover from when we used to have to get a stroller rental.

Walking down Main Street again during the daytime, you can see that the scale is much lower. Most of the buildings at WDW on Main Street are 3 stories. If they were any taller here they would make the castle seem that much smaller!

They still have a theater here, playing cartoons on a loop

And lots of vehicles around! This was one of my favorite parts of walking down Main Street.

Even the double decker bus was out. Look at the clouds, though...

The Partners statue. I read somewhere that Walt used to say that he always wished he was one inch taller, so when this statue was made the sculptor made him an inch taller than life size.

You can really get a sense of how small the castle and hub area are by comparison.

Looking back from the hub towards the train station:

The kids wanted to go on a few rides, so we took a vote and headed into Frontierland. Love the fort gates; there is all kinds of theming behind the gates and in this area.

The famous Golden Horseshoe, home for many years to Wally Boag and his cowboy act

At this point the clouds decided to open up so we opted to head over to Pirates of the Caribbean. This fountain is outside in the queue.

The ride itself is pretty awesome. Originally we planned on having lunch at the blue Bayou, but at the last minute decided to cancel our reservation and find something on the fly, which ended up being a good decision.

The ride in CA, in my opinion, is much better than the WDW version. We were talking about it after and really couldn't put a finger on why. Other than the extended transition through the bayou and a couple of extra drops/scenes it's basically the same ride. Still, we all agreed this version was the winner.

They still wants the redhead:

You exit out of the ride into New Orleans Square, home of the famous Club 33. As others have noted, WED got the theming and atmosphere right here.

Look at that wrought iron work:

As we exited the square, the sun was trying to poke through even though it was still showering a bit. We decided to head over towards the Haunted Mansion and Critter Country.

The Mark Twain with Big Thunder Mountain behind it - you can see what I meant when I said things were the same, but different...

The left hand side shows Tom Sawyer Island, with the stage for Fantasia in the foreground. This show is not running due to the Star Wars land construction.

Looking the other way is the sailing ship Columbia. The Rivers of America are closed and the ships aren't sailing, but you can go on board both ships to tour them. If you look closely at this photo you can see where the temporary wall/dam is in the back.

Haunted Mansion!

The mansion here fits well into the New Orleans square theme, with the verandas and ornate iron work:

Like Pirates, we agreed that the ride here was better than the one in Florida. Very similar, but with enough differences that it took me a while to figure out that both of these rides were slightly scaled down (or maybe Florida is scaled up to handle higher traffic volume) and felt more intimate. The stretching room elevator was pretty cool.

After this we headed over to Splash Mountain, where there wasn't much of a line due to the weather. The ride vehicle here is a toboggan style, with one per seat as opposed to the wider boats in Florida. If my experience here was any indication, it's also a much wetter ride as I was soaked when we got off. Hence no photos for a bit.

There is also a delay in the ride photos popping up as they are all screened before they are posted; I don't know if that is the case in WDW.

Apparently there's a reason the ride was called 'flash mountain' when it opened

Anyway, while we were drying off our older kids split off to check out the rest of Frontierland and go grab fast passes for Space Mountain while my wife and I rode Pooh's adventure with our youngest.

We'll catch up with them in the next post.

 

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Great update.

That stinks that you had a rainy day.  My girls were in California for 5 months and told me that there were only a couple of truly rainy days the whole time they were there.

It sounds like you did well with your touring plan, and I'm looking forward to hearing about the rest of your day.

TCD

[ependydad...Doug 176]

16 hours ago, shoreline99 said:

I'm loving the update. I completely agree with you about POTC and HM - they just feel different in DL than WDW. We generally liked a lot of the DL rides better than the WDW versions.

But, Haunted Mansion - what a difference without the NBC overlay! I'm shocked to see how "plain" it looks.

Sounds like you all had a good day regardless of the weather and I'm happy for that!

[shoreline99 137]

I saw this last night on Facebook and wanted to post this photo to give you an idea of the breadth and scale of the Star Wars land and it's impact on the existing park:

This was from a MiceChat article (credit to the original author) about the new proposed hotel at Disneyland, but it clearly shows the scope of the construction there now. It's MASSIVE. You can see it from BTMRR and the top of Splash Mountain, as well as Toon Town. It's even visible from the 5, which cuts through at the top right of the pic.

They are relocating the train from it's original path as shown in this photo (credit to original author):

And it will have a trestle along the edge of the affected area (rendering from Disney):

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Wow!

Thanks for those photos- I knew that Big Thunder Ranch had been bulldozed, but I didn't visualize how big a footprint their Star Wars land will have relative to the park.

I also didn't know the railroad track would be moved that much.  I really question if whoever prepared that graphic got it right- that it's going to cut across Tom Sawyer Island?  I can't even imagine that.

And that new hotel?  Holy Moly, it's going to be a mess out there for years!

TCD

[shoreline99 137]

Bonus pic of us in toboggan mode on Splash Mountain!

Not as cool as the Rock riding it a few years ago though.

After riding Pooh and meeting up with the others, we rode Big Thunder Mountain RR. No pics, but you could clearly see into the construction area I mentioned above from the ride. The queue is all outside and almost entirely uncovered. The ride in CA is nowhere near as good as the one at WDW.

I mentioned a few posts back to note the guy with the clipboard - as we were making our way around the park we noticed all these groups of people running around with clipboards and matching shirts. Turns out there was an event going on in the park that day as part of the MouseAdventure group (club?). I'm not sure this is a 'sanctioned' thing, but we've seen similar groups before in EPCOT and WDW.

Their website describes them as "part-scavenger hunt, part-road rally, and part-trivia challenge; it’s a team-based competition that guarantees you will never look at the Disney Theme Parks in the same way again. You’ll notice buildings you usually walk past (do you know the address of the Main Street Music Company?), colors you might not have noticed (how many purple cars are there on the Mickey’s Fun Wheel?), and little details you didn’t even acknowledge (cannonballs on City Hall? You bet we’ve seen ’em)."

I dunno, while it's not my thing these people looked like they were having fun. I'm not sure if there is a prize or if the winners just get some kind of internet bragging rights.

We headed over to the castle to regroup and figure out our next move. Our youngest daughter had a friend that was as the MK at the same time, so there was a break for some 'castle to castle' facetiming that had to take place; her friend's family are long time WDW fans but had never been to Disneyland and wanted to see the castle.

We then walked through the castle, which was pretty neat, and then rode Snow White. We wanted to ride Mr. Toad, but the lines never worked in our favor. That was one ride that I wanted to hit but we never got to.

After checking out the rest of fantasyland, we headed over to Adventureland for Dole Whip Floats and a stop at the Enchanted Tiki Room. As others have stated, the original version is far superior to the one at WDW.

the Jungle Cruise was still closed for some renovations, but they had a show entertaining the crowd in front of the ride entrance with some of the skippers that was pretty funny.

At this point our FP window opened and I grabbed passes for the Indiana Jones ride while the kids climbed Tarzan's Treehouse. The dole whip floats were tasty but everyone still wanted a snack. The smell of BBQ was too much to resist so we grabbed some skewers at Bengal BBQ (highly recommended).

Our return time for Space Mountain was approaching, so we headed back over to Tomorrowland. While it seems like we did a lot of cris-crossing, the smaller hub and overall size of the park makes this a relatively easy thing to do.

Space Mountain currently has a Star Wars overlay and has been re-dubbed 'Hyperspace Mountain'

Again, the queue here is much different from the ride at WDW. it's more open and brightly lit compared to the Star Tunnels at MK that go under the railroad tracks.

You enter from above:

The ride vehicle is a side-by-side car, and there is only a single track

In general I think we felt this ride was better than the one at MK, and the Star Wars overlay was pretty cool. I wish they could do more things like that at WDW.

Autopia was closed for maintenance so we walked over to try to ride the Nemo subs. The weather had been steadily improving so the line here was longer than we felt like waiting for. The kids decided to go ride the Matterhorn instead, so we headed over there.

I've read that the space mountain layout at WDW is based on the Matterhorn ride, and I can see how that's true - it's rough, man. We all agreed that we had to ride it, so we skipped the line, split up and rode single rider. While it's pretty cool, and the yetis are well done, it's definitely showing its age.

From here we headed over to Small World, which is pretty impressive to see in an outdoor setting. The older kids went off to check out Toon Town while we went on the ride.

Lots of topiaries, and we caught the on-the-hour clock show

Overall we liked the ride here, it seems to have been renovated more recently than the one in Florida and we liked the additions of the Disney characters in the different scenes.

We met up with the others in Toon Town but skipped out pertty quickly to avoid getting stuck in the afternoon parade. Besides, it was time for us to ride Indiana Jones.

The ride istelf is great, and quite possibly the best one in Disneyland. The queue, however, is crazy long. Even with fast passes it felt like we were on the Bataan Death March. This aerial will give you an idea how long it is - the entrance to the ride is in the upper right corner while the actual ride building is down and to the left, outside the train tracks. It's about the same distance as walking from the train station to the hub.

Once we got out of the ride, the kids decided to head back over to DCA to try to meet up with our oldest daughter, so with park hoppers in hand we headed over there.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Sorry that you missed Mr. Toad- that's a ride that has to be experienced.

Good job with that aerial shot of the Indy queue- it is crazy long.

I am surprised that you like MK's BTMRR better than Disneyland's.  It makes me wonder if the explosion scene was not working for you?

TCD

[mouseketab.....Carol 1,261]

I've participated in a WDW version of one of those scavenger challenges. They are pretty fun, but I'm getting too old for that kind of running around.

12 hours, all four parks, all resorts, very obscure questions. The prize is actually pretty good. Everybody pays a fee to enter, and they use the money for a nice dinner on property or some other nice tour or something for the winner. It is most definitely a privately run thing. The folks that create the hunt put a LOT of work into them. They spend all year at the parks writing down stuff, develop the questions, then also go around again right before the event to verify they have everything right, and make sure Disney hasn't moved or remodeled a question/answer out of existence.

[shoreline99 137]

1 hour ago, Tri-Circle-D said:

Sorry that you missed Mr. Toad- that's a ride that has to be experienced.

Good job with that aerial shot of the Indy queue- it is crazy long.

I am surprised that you like MK's BTMRR better than Disneyland's.  It makes me wonder if the explosion scene was not working for you?

TCD

No explosion. Maybe due to the weather?

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

2 minutes ago, shoreline99 said:

No explosion. Maybe due to the weather?

Yeah, or maybe they have stuff break and still let guests on anyway like they do all the time at WDW (we recently saw It's Tough to be a Bug with no Hopper animatronic).

I'm sorry you missed that effect- it really enhances the ride.  There have been rumors that it will be added to the MK BTMRR, and it's going to be down for a refurb later this year, so we may finally be getting that added to ours.

TCD

[shoreline99 137]

The BTMRR in Florida is my wife's favorite ride, so I think it would have to be pretty impressive to sway her opinion.

At least all the animatronics at the Radiator Springs Racers were working, including the tipping tractor. I was glad to see that.

The Indiana Jones queue reminded me of the dueling dragons queue at Uinversal Orlando - up, down, around, you have no idea where you are or far you've gone. The newsreels were pretty cool, and the ride itself was well worth the walk. I thought the ride vehicles here were put to better use than the ones in Dinosaur at Animal Kingdom - the ride is pretty long (at least it felt that way).

As I mentioned my daughter had been on it the night before, it took so long for them to walk back through the queue after the ride to the bus pickup that they were the last ones back and they had to hold the bus for them. Oops.

[fladogfan aka Gretchen 259]

Wow, you got a lot done!  this is you, up front?  Right?

[shoreline99 137]

On 6/10/2016 at 5:00 PM, fladogfan aka Gretchen said:

Wow, you got a lot done!  this is you, up front?  Right?

Ha! There are a pile of sites that have some great Splash Mountain photos - people playing board games, dressed in costumes etc..

 

[shoreline99 137]

I'm glad that we headed over, as it was Food & Wine festival and we were just in time to sample some of the booths. The lines weren't too bad, and we sat at the 'Brewhouse' booth at the end of Radiator Springs and enjoyed the scenery and a few pours of local beer.

The prices weren't bad, but they were pouring half the beers from bottles which led to a backup. My wife liked the Hangar 24 Orange Wheat, and I liked the Coconut Stout from Barley Forge.

It was turning into a lovely afternoon.

The kids went off to find their sister and ended up riding California Screamin' a few times. We strolled around the food booths and sampled several of the offerings.

The food booths are centered in one main area, right by the Radiator Springs Racers fast pass distribution. - the numbers on the map below. The letters show where the demonstrations & shows were held. Most were in Hollywood Land, but there were a few at the Wine Country Trattoria restaurant closer to Paradise Pier.

By far our favorite booth was The Farm, which featured a Veggie Curry, a Tenderloin Slider and a Meyer Lemon Macaron. Yum.

The ahi poke was delicious, and we also liked the food at the Wine Country booth - braised wagyu beef, a beet salad and a blackberry gallette.

A quick review of Food & Wine is that it is more like the food booths at the Flower and Garden Festival at EPCOT used to be - a few booths here and there - before it became Food & Wine festival Part 2. While we didn't catch any of the festival presentations or shows, I know there were several going on while we were there, including some dude named Guy Fieri. Whoever that is.

Was it cool? Yes, it was fun but I wouldn't fly across the country for it. Food & Wine at EPCOT was pretty amazing, except for the hordes of drunks making their way around the world on the weekends. Disneyland has a way different vibe to it, which I'll talk about in my next post.

After walking around the displays we went into an area we hadn't been the day before, the Pacific Wharf section of the park. To cut to the chase, it's basically a giant outdoor food court. Not much to do there except go on a tour of the Boudin Bakery or eat. We opted to stop and split a sundae at the Ghirardelli shop.

After riding a few rides the kids had caught back up to us and they grabbed noodle bowls from one of the restaurants in the Wharf area. We finished there and met up with our daughter by Paradise Pier and saw some of her friends from school; they were heading back to ride RSR.

The sun was starting to set - I have to say the imagineers got the layout of this park right, it makes for some dramatic sunsets.

Since we still wanted to catch the parade and fireworks in Disneyland, we started heading back over that way and avoided the crowds starting to reserve spots for that night's World of Color show.

Suitcase... and a dream

Oswald's

A quick trip across the compass and we were back on Main Street. Walt was still in the park - Man, that guy never leaves.

Night time on Main Street

We stood by the Fire Station to watch the parade. We had seen it the night before and were looking forward to a repeat performance.

Man, I wouldn't want to ride the entire route with that harness on, it looks more than a little uncomfortable.

Tink sure gets the short end of the stick. If she's not getting thrown out of a castle window, she's getting goosed by a parade float.

The Sully float was cool to watch, each of those doors are screens with different characters popping up on them. Mike was waving at us again:

Plaid vest guy was keeping the paparazzi away from Lightning McQueen

Mack is a pretty amazing piece of machinery. Really fun to watch the patterns and lights.

I thought I had more photos, but that appears to be it for the parade. I must have been stuck holding someone's bag at that point.

If you haven't watched the video of the parade that I linked to earlier, I highly recommend that you do. The last float with Mickey on it was spectacular.

A blurry Main Street

City Hall

Since we had seen the projection show the night before, and everyone was tired, we decided to watch the fireworks from the central courtyard. Even from there it was a great show.

And anyone can walk in off the street, pass through bag check and watch the fireworks from here. Pretty cool. That would cost you a FP+ at WDW.

A few more:

and we started heading back to the Park Vue. We had an early day tomorrow; I had to pick up my daughter at her hotel and we were heading up the coast. I don't think anyone really felt that we had missed anything.

This was the first weekend of a whirlwind trip to CA and we were heading up the coast to San Francisco, looking at colleges and sightseeing along the way. I'll probably have one more post with a wrap up of DL and some bonus vacation pics.

[dvccamper 32]

On June 7, 2016 at 1:21 PM, shoreline99 said:

I wanted to post these videos as I honestly wished I had watched them before our trip - they are walking tours of the parks, and while a bit long they really help to show the layouts of both parks. I'll try to wrap this trip report up in the next day or two.

 

 

Enjoy!

Wow, those are some lengthy detailed videos. I admit I didn't have time to watch them all the way through but it helped me so that I have some idea of where things are. Thanks for posting.

I was tempted to watch the RSR video but I want to be surprised.

 

 

[shoreline99 137]

Disneyland definitely met and exceeded all of our expectations. I was talking with the kids this weekend and while no one felt like we really missed anything by powering through in two days, we agreed a third day would have been gravy to be able to go back and hit a few things again or that we skipped. Some general DL/DCA observations:

-DL is much more intimate than WDW. As has been mentioned in other trip reports, there are things that are done here that wouldn't fly at the MK. Characters roam the park freely, without long lines; there is live entertainment all over the place; while crowded all the lines were manageable and we didn't think we were stuck in one place forever.
-The parades are better at DL.
-The original rides are better at DL than their eastern counterparts. Again, due to the intimacy.
-Cars Land is awesome. I'm curious to see how that translates over to DHS as while the scale is pretty huge in California, it works because it's still relatively small in size. Not sure how that would translate to the larger crowds at WDW.
-The food is better in Orlando, in my opinion, but we really didn't sit and try every option. Although there is a churro cart every 30 feet.
-There is a different sense of entitlement at DL than WDW, and it's very noticeable. I've read (and now observed) that there is a high volume of annual passholders at DL that are relatively local and visit the park monthly, weekly, daily in some cases. There is a 'pride of ownership', for lack of a better term. The Disneyland 'social clubs' that treat the park like their own playground, for example. WDW has a different sense of ownership - it's the DVC people that truly feel like they have rights above and beyond the average park goer; the people that demand special treatment because this is a once in a lifetime trip for them or because they paid and it's their right; longer lines, shorter rides, less new things. It's hard to explain in words, but the difference is tangible. Maybe because WDW is a true destination resort and DL is the kind of place you can wake up on a Saturday and decide to head there. We did decide that we would go back again if we had the opportunity. I'd love to see some of the holiday overlays there too that we don't see on the east coast.

Overall it feels more like an amusement park than a true theme park. They got that right at WDW.

I'm curious to see what others that have visited both parks think or have thought.

Since we have a lot of 'mouse gear', we went light on souvenirs.

My daughter picked up a cool set of ears, though:

I got a new mug:

And that's about it for that.

I did say I'd throw in some bonus vacation pics from our drive up to SF, so there will be at least one more post.

Beaches! Redwoods! Alcatraz! In-n-Out burger!

 

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

You did a great job with you final thoughts.  I think I agree with all of them.  Except the food one. The thing I liked about Disneyland is that there is more variety because the food service locations are not constrained by the Disney Dining Plan like we have at WDW.  The snack places like Bengal BBQ and the corn dog stands are real treats at Disneyland.  Also the bakeries in the parks actually bake stuff.  At WDW, everything is made in some off-site warehouse.

I'm looking forward to your bonus photos!

TCD