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February 5-8, 2004
The cast :
Bryan, Former Disneyland CM
Elizabeth, my wife and Disney park fan
The plan:
The purpose of the trip was actually to go to
Orange County and see one of Cirque du Soleil’s latest touring
productions, Varekai. We love the Cirque shows and have seen them
when they visit the Seattle area. We have recently bought all the
Cirque DVDs and particularly like Varekai. However, no Cirque show
of any kind is scheduled to come to Seattle this year, but Varekai
is currently showing at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa,
CA. I suggested to my wife that we could go down to Orange County
to see it, and use our Disney Vacation Club points to stay at
Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel and visit the parks at the same
time. The only catch was that we were already booked on a 10-night
trip to Disney World for February 12-22 and it might be a bit much.
Elizabeth seemed excited by the idea and the next morning announced
she wanted to go. Since we were taking the kids to Florida, we
would be able to justify not taking the kids to California, which
would cut the cost of the trip nearly in half. Moreover, my niece
had generously offered to come stay at the house and watch the boys
(age 12 & 14) anytime we felt we wanted to get away alone together.
I checked the airfares for the
last weekend in January and they were around $350 a piece, but the
first weekend in February they were still only about $250 each.
Cirque tickets were plentiful. I checked with Disney Vacation Club
member services and rooms were available at the hotel. I won’t go
into the details of switching from promotional rates at the hotel, a
pre-planned exchange to Vancouver that we couldn’t confirm, a mixed
points/cash stay, etc. Suffice it to say that by the time the trip
was finalized we would be spending three nights in a theme park view
room at the Grand Californian. The hotel is blessedly a non-smoking
hotel and I requested a Grizzly Peak view – I had no desire to
overlook Paradise Pier. We bought 2 3-day passports in advance at
AAA, saving $5 each over the price at the Disneyland ticket booths.
The hotel itself does not sell passes.
We would arrive at the hotel
around 8pm, have dinner at Catal in Downtown Disney. Friday, the
plan was to spend the day at Disneyland, and have dinner at the Blue
Bayou. Saturday morning we had breakfast reserved at Storytellers
Café, would spend the morning and early afternoon at California
Adventure, go to see Varekai at 4pm, and dine at Napa Rose. Sunday
would be Disneyland in the morning, California Adventure in the
afternoon and the last flight from John Wayne to Seattle at 8:45pm.
Day One
Thursday, February 6, 2004
Fly to Orange County
Check in to Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel
Dinner at Catal
I needed to leave work at 1pm to get home in
time to make last minute arrangements so we could leave the house at
2pm and get to the airport in time for the two-hour wait before our
4:45 flight to John Wayne. Of course, someone scheduled me at the
last minute for a 12-2 meeting but I gave them fair warning that I’d
only be able to attend half of it. Sure enough at 1 I was able to
sneak out and go home. Oh, the blessed lack of rush hour traffic
when one leaves work early! Stopped for gas on the way home,
finished up last minute packing and we were on our way at 2pm.
Traffic was light to Seatac, where we were trying out a new parking
lot, ShuttlePark 2, because we got a discount coupon in the mail.
The place was fairly easy to find and the shuttle picked us up right
away. The driver gave us each a bottle of water – nice little perk,
which meant we wouldn’t have to buy any for the plane. In no time
we were at the terminal where there was not a soul waiting at the
Alaska self-checkin counter. We had already checked-in on the web
and so just had to register our luggage. The agent helpfully
pointed out that if there had been a line we could have gone to a
special web checkin counter. This hint would save us a lot of
waiting on our Orlando trip, where the checkin lines would be the
longest I’d ever seen. We breezed through security, took the
airport subway to terminal N and settled in to wait for our flight.
The aircraft was a 737-400, a
tiny little thing with only 23 rows. Since we started flying Alaska
I’ve decided I like it better than Delta. One of the reasons is
that Alaska gives you more legroom, so the flight is more
comfortable. According to
http://www.geocities.com/profemery/entertainment/legroom.html
it’s only an inch more, but it makes a difference to me! One of the
flight attendants, based in Seattle with her flight-attendant
husband, did nothing but work this Seattle/Orange County shuttle,
making 1 round trip flight each working day and sleeping in her own
bed every night. She loved it. The fellow sitting next to us on
the flight was a young gate supervisor for Alaska Air who had just
been transferred to Orange County – he’s in the management training
program at Alaska and expects to get transferred quite a bit before
he settles down. I asked the gate agent, the flight attendant, the
check-in agent and this young man if they had seen the new reality
series “Airline” on A&E and none of them had watched it but felt
that it was extreme. I responded, “Of course it is, that’s what
makes interesting television.” In any case, the series has made me
a lot more sympathetic to what airline personnel have to put up with
every day.
In Orange County we rented an
Avis economy car and shot up the carpool lanes on 55 and I-5
straight to Disney Way, which has its own dedicated carpool exit-
very convenient. We drove around the south side of the resort and
up Disneyland Drive to the Grand Californian. The security booth
was manned and we were offered valet parking at $12 per night by the
valet. The self park is just across the street next to the Paradise
Pier hotel and is included in the cost of the stay, so we opted for
that. We left the car under the porte cochere and went through the
beautiful stained-glass entry doors into the Great Hall to check
in. There were 3 clerks behind the counter and only one guest
waiting so I thought we’d be waited on right away but two of the CMs
were so busy in their personal conversation that they didn’t notice
us waiting. I finally gave up hoping that they’d notice us on their
own and asked for their assistance. Then they were very courteous
and gave us our room key, parking pass, hotel charge card (which
also can be used as an express-boarding pass at the Tomorrowland
monorail station), event schedule and hotel map. The charge card is
not coded on the room key, as at Walt Disney World, but is a
separate, small piece of paper. We were assigned to room 5351, in
the east wing overlooking the entrance to Grizzly River Run.
Elizabeth waited in the Great Hall while I drove the car across the
street to the hotel parking. I hadn’t realized I needed my room key
to open the parking lot gate and had just brought my parking pass,
which I expected to show to the guard. However, the guard only
deals with you on the way out. Fortunately, there was a phone at
the gate, so I called. No one answered but the gate did open. On
the way back to the hotel I found a sweatshirt that someone had
dropped right in the middle of Disneyland Drive, so I picked it up
and took it to the guard at the hotel gate.
We settled into our room and
freshened up. I went out on the balcony and admired the view of the
Golden State area of California Adventure, with clear views of
Grizzly Peak, the Hyperion Theater, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Main
Street Railroad Station and Space Mountain. Of course there was the
overarching hum of Anaheim traffic, too. It would be better during
the day when the waterfalls on Grizzly Peak were turned on,
effectively masking the city noise. We also called the boys to let
them know we’d arrived safely and to see if they were having a good
time.
We headed down to Downtown
Disney, stopping briefly at Acorn Gifts to see if they had some new
pins that I didn’t have. I bought a couple, but unfortunately, they
probably won’t be getting in the lovely stained-glass Grand
Californian pin that I’ve been coveting. There are none available
on e-bay either, sadly. In Downtown Disney we turned left and
headed to Catal where we went upstairs to the main dining room. At
first I thought we might try to eat outside on the balcony as we had
in November 2002, but it wasn’t warm enough so we opted to stay
inside. I should have taken notes to remember what I ordered, but I
neglected to do so. I’m pretty sure I had a roasted lamb shank with
garlic that was delicious, I can’t remember what my wife ordered,
but we were both pleased with the meal and the attentive service.
After dinner we headed over to
the World of Disney store to see what they had. Unfortunately, if
you’re not a child there was nothing much of interest in there. I
bought a few pins and looked at the ties. Shopping at Disneyland
was so much more interesting years ago, with the China Shop, the
Candle Shop, the One of a Kind shop, Le Gourmet and so forth. Now
it’s all Christmas shops, candy shops, plush and t-shirts. Just at
the time when I can afford all the neat stuff they used to sell,
they don’t sell it any more! Well, I figure Disney has saved me
thousands of dollars that way,
After the shopping we headed
back to the room and went to bed.
Day Two
Friday, February 6, 2004
Disneyland All Day
Dinner at Blue Bayou
Didn’t get up too early (my
usual hour for arising is 5 am so that I can take my oldest son to
early morning seminary at the LDS church) but it was about 7.
Elizabeth was still asleep so I took a shower and then went out on
the balcony to read. The sun is up a lot earlier here than in
Seattle. There were CMs down below, cleaning the walkways, driving
trucks around and getting California Adventure ready for a new day.
After Elizabeth arose and was ready we headed over to Downtown
Disney to see what the breakfast offerings were. We’re both on the
Atkins diet so we hoped to find low-carb offerings. We stopped at
Catal downstairs where they had bacon and scrambled eggs for $6.50.
Then we went over to RainForest Café where they had bacon and eggs
for $9.50. Needless to say, we went back to Catal and had a nice
breakfast then went over to Disneyland at 8:45, where they were
already letting folks onto Main Street. One of my goals this trip
was to check out the music store and the new CD soundtracks they
were offering. I had made about 6 or 7 CDs years ago when they
still had the Disneyland Forever music-on-demand system where you
pick your tracks and made up a custom CD. I had thus previously
picked up some music from my favorite attractions when I was a
teenager, including the Monorail Song (original PeopleMover theme),
the sound track to the Carousel of Progress and some others. I
browsed the titles and listened to a few tracks and decided I would
definitely come back later to buy some. The hostess told me that if
there was a line at the kiosks when I came back, I could just
request CDs right at the counter. It turns out they’ve got a bunch
of them already made up and when you click to buy on the kiosk, it
doesn’t do anything at all – it doesn’t even print out a list of
what you ordered or send a list to the CM’s register. We heard the
opening fanfare and walked outside to join the mad rush that begins
every Disney day.
First we headed over to Critter
Country to ride Splash Mountain and Winnie the Pooh. I got in line
by myself for Splash Mountain as Elizabeth doesn’t want to risk
getting wet. For some reason, even though they were cycling logs,
they didn’t let us in until 9:15. The ride was somewhat of a
disappointment because I had the impression that a lot of the
animation was missing. There were spots in the attraction where I’m
pretty sure there was supposed to be animatronics but they were
empty. I hope they’re just off getting repaired. None of the
jumping water effects were on in the laughing place and the works
lights were on down there in an adjoining room. When I got off,
there was still hardly any line and Elizabeth told me I could go
again. Usually I would take advantage of the lack of a line but I
didn’t want to go again so we went for our first ride on the new
Pooh ride. It was pretty cute, with some nice special effects. The
pooling and dripping water effects in the blustery day sequence was
very effective. I was almost sure there was real water there, but
it was totally an illusion. The CM at the exit assured me that the
effect was even more convincing when the attraction just opened.
When we left the ride, there was no one in the queue so we asked the
CM if we could just stay in our beehive and ride through again.
After that we went on the
Haunted Mansion, where naturally people were talking loudly in the
stretching room and hallway. Don’t they realize that these are part
of the attraction and not part of the queue? It’s very annoying.
Next was Pirates of the Caribbean. We went to the Boutique de Noel
where they had some very beautiful Mardi-Gras-themed ornaments, but
I almost fell down when I saw the price – most were over $30 each.
I won’t be covering my tree with those! I also admired and examined
the blue cut glass vases in the Crystal Shop. I’ve been wanting one
of these for a long time and as these were bought before the fall of
the dollar against the euro, they were very reasonably priced.
Ultimately, reason prevailed and I didn’t pick one up. Still, if I
change my mind, I may pick one up next week at Disney World.
I thought we’d better head over
to Fantasyland and do the dark rides before their lines got too
long, so we hit Peter Pan, Snow White, and Mr Toad’s Wild Ride in
short order. While we were waiting in the Toad queue, I noticed
that the Mad Hatter “thatched” roof was looking pretty shabby.
Still, I hope they’ll be getting to it. It seems there’s a lot of
work going on to restore Disneyland’s former splendor. There’s new
pavement being installed in Tomorrowland, City Hall is shrouded in
tarps, Toontown was just repainted and looks great, etc.
Then we did both
sides of the Matterhorn, where the line for the left side was
considerably shorter than the line for the right, Alice and
Storybookland. Finally, we headed to Toontown and did Cartoon Spin
and then the
now-restored-to-its-pristine-original-gold-and-white-colors It’s A
Small World, with original soundtrack, too. We both agreed that we
had liked the pastel look on the outside better. We were starting
to get hungry, but decided to call the boys first, as they only had
a half day of school and we wanted to see if they had gotten home
safely. After the call we headed over to the Village Haus
restaurant in Fantasyland for some burgers. Elizabeth held a table
outside while I went in to get the order. Since we didn’t want
fries, I asked if I could order the burgers a la carte. Upon
receiving an affirmative reply, I proceeded to do so. When the
order came, there were fries with it! They said the meals always
came that way, even if you order it without. Oh well, Disneyland’s
loss I suppose, as long I didn’t pay for them. We enjoyed our
burgers (without the bun) and Diet Cokes in the very pleasant and
warm sunshine.
In Tomorrowland we
rode the Monorail. Both Monorail Orange and Monorail Red were
running. It was apparently the last hurrah for Monorail Orange as
only two days later it would be irreparably and permanently
retired. Then we went on the Autopia. Since the main entrance is
blocked off by the repaving of Tomorrowland, both the entrance and
the exit are by the same ramp, with a white stripe painted down the
middle and arrows on either side to indicate the direction of
traffic. Apparently, many people are blind, as we encountered lots
of folks going up or down the wrong side. The line split into two
at one point and we rode on the inside track, as this had not been
opened on our last visit. Innoventions came next. I like to see
the Carousel Theater turning and listening to “There’s A Great Big
Beautiful Tomorrow” The pre-show with Nathan Lane as Tom Morrow is
pretty good but the only area they ever seem to have open when we go
on is the Entertainment section. The rest of Innoventions is pretty
boring and not nearly as good as its Epcot counterpart and we didn’t
linger very long.
On to Adventureland. We
visited the Tiki Room, also looking shabby, with thatched roof bare
and rotting in some places, and some animatronics not working, but
due for a long rehab this fall. There was a “Walking in Walt’s
Footsteps” tour going on and they took them in first and made us
wait outside for 5 or 10 minutes before we could go in. Then it was
the Jungle Cruise, with practically no wait and a laughing guide who
had a few new jokes (new to me, anyway). Briefly explored the
shops. In one of them, I thought I recognized a CM I had worked
with in Fantasyland years before. His name tag read “Hector” and I
asked him “Not the Hector who’s been here forever?” He recognized
me from way back when and told me that he had now been at the Park
for 28 years and brought me up to date on a few others I might have
known who were still around after all this time. I asked him what
he thought about Matt Ouimet, the new president of Disneyland and he
said that he was sorry to see Cynthia go, because she was very nice.
We then decided to
make our way back to the hotel to get our coats before it got too
cool. The 45th birthday parade, held over by popular
demand I guess, was just starting, and since we’d never seen the
whole thing, we stopped to watch. It was fairly nice, but poor
Tarzan was almost completely naked without even a body stocking and
I don’t know how he kept warm, as it was almost 4:30 and the
temperature was dropping steadily, with a little breeze to boot.
After the parade we stopped at
the music store where I picked up CDs for “Great Moments With Mr
Lincoln”, “The Country Bear Jamboree”, “The Golden Horseshoe
Review”, “Totally Minnie” (a great dance and workout disk and whose
main theme accompanied a parade tribute to Minnie herself back in
the 80’s) and “The Enchanted Tiki Room”. I already had made an
America Sings disk when they had Disneyland Forever. They had a
Walt Disney’s Disneyland CD, but as far as I could tell, it was only
narration (by the master himself) and I wasn’t sure I wanted it.
Armed with my new purchases we headed back to the room via
California Adventure and the private entrance. As we passed Burrr
Bank Ice Cream, Route 66 was singing. This is a group of men and
women who sing a cappella harmonies and we caught the last of their
set. They were very good and attracted quite a crowd.
At the room the housekeeper had
turned down the beds and laid out some chocolates, which we put away
for the boys. We freshened up and I went out on the balcony again
to watch the goings on around Grizzly Peak. Lucky for me, the Barn
Cats, a sort of bluegrass group, was playing down below and I got to
enjoy the last of their set. They’ve got fiddle, banjo, base and
guitar. The lights were on all over now and the waterfalls glowed
white in the deepening evening. Storytellers Café was full of
families with young children taking an early dinner. We stopped
at Napa Rose to check out the menu. We had looked at the latest
posted menu at http:\\www.mouseplanet.com, for Winter 2003 and liked
it very much. However, the menu was not as interesting to us this
time and we decided we would cancel our reservation for Saturday
evening.
We had a 6:50
Priority Seating at the Blue Bayou, so we needed to be heading back
over . We chose to go through Downtown Disney this time. A
musician was holding forth in front of Naples restaurant and doing a
brisk business in CDs. We made our way through Frontierland where
the early preparations for the 8:30 showing of Fantasmic were
underway, with the CMs in their honey bee costumes gathering to
organize the crowd control. The foyer to Blue Bayou was crowded
with diners as we checked in at the podium. In fact the restaurant
was so congested that when the hostess came to take us to our table,
we had several false starts trying to find a path to the table.
Unfortunately, we were not by the water side, but the atmosphere was
pleasant in the perpetual moonlight. I started off with a salad
with roasted pepper dressing. The dressing had a kick to it and was
delicious. I ordered the New Orleans chicken, stuffed with spinach
and Elizabeth had a delicious filet mignon with mushroom sauce. We
both had double vegetables in place of the rice or potatoes our
dinner normally would come with.. The desserts were not
sufficiently tempting to lure us off the wagon. By the time we left
the restaurant, it was about 8:15. I had assumed that that late
there would be no place left to watch Fantasmic and was planning on
the 9:30 showing. Still, when we went around the front of the
French Market we could see plenty of standing room with an
unobstructed view on the middle walkway (la moyenne corniche?) and
decided to stay. It was a delightful show, missing Ursula and the
Mark Twain finale, however, the paddlewheeler being in drydock for a
much needed overhaul.
At this point, we decided to
call it a night and head back to the room. We checked in on the
boys again – they had gone to Quizno’s for dinner and Coldstone
Creamery for dessert and were settling down to watch a DVD.
Day Three
Saturday, February 7, 2004
Visit California Adventure
See Cirque du Soleil’s Varekai
Go back to California Adventure
Dinner at Storytellers Café
Early sunlight again this morning with an 8:30
reservation for breakfast at Storytellers Café. Since California
Adventure didn’t open until 10am we were in no rush. We were seated
fairly quickly and had an enthusiastic waitress who was thrilled to
work at Disneyland and couldn’t imagine anyone leaving. When I told
her that I had worked in Fantasyland Merchandise for several years
in the late 70’s and early 80’s, she asked me again” Why did you
ever leave?” We both ordered the Denver Omelet, no toast with a
side of fresh berries. We asked for cream and the server brought us
a little pot of what I think was only half and half (which as you
low-carbers may know, has more carbs than cream). The omelet was
very good, moist, with plenty of stuff in it and the berries were
fresh and flavorful. We went back to the room to brush our teeth
and get my poncho for Grizzly River Run. At 9:30 we headed down to
the private entrance to CA, which was open and headed to Soarin’
Over California, our favorite ride in the park. In the line with us
was a woman, also from Seattle, who was visiting CA for the first
time. She had left her husband outside with their child who was
either too young or too afraid to ride, I can’t remember which.
She enjoyed Soarin’ very much and on our way out, told us that her
husband was going to ride next. When I saw the now very long ride,
I asked if he had requested a child swap. He hadn’t so I suggested
she explain to the CM what had happened to see if he could get on
without waiting. Elizabeth and I then picked up Fast Passes to ride
again later. We then headed to Grizzly River Run where I put on my
poncho and rode twice. Unfortunately, the second time through, I
took off my hood prematurely and was drenched by the midstream
geyser near the end. Since I had my hood off, water ran down my
back, too. Oh, well, the best laid plans ….
We now headed through the San
Francisco area of the Golden State. What a waste, nothing but empty
store fronts here and a stripped down film, Golden Dreams, which was
originally going to be an American Adventure style spectacular.
Anyway, we skipped this and headed to California Screamin, which I
rode alone. It left me verging on dizzy and nauseous.
Unfortunately, as I get older, I’m more and more susceptible to
motion sickness.. I suppose eventually, I won’t be able to ride
these things at all. When Tower of Terror opens up at Disneyland,
I’ll ride it once to try it out and see the special effects, but
then that will be it, especially with the way they’ve programmed the
drops at Disney Studios these days. When it was just one
predictable drop, I could ride but now it just makes me sick.
For the same reason, we next
rode the stationary gondolas on the Sun Wheel and got a wonderful
view over the park. By this time our fast passes for Soarin’ were
ready so we rode that again and then headed to the Hollywood
Pictures Backlot to wait for the Aladdin show, which had not yet
opened during our last visit. The show started at 12:45 and we were
advised to be in line no later than 12:15 if we wanted a seat. At
12 we showed up in the waiting area and opted for orchestra
seating. While our seats were good, the next time I may go for
something higher to get a better view of the Prince Ali processional
and the flying carpet scene. When you are in orchestra seating the
flying carpet is right over your head. I left the line once to buy
a bottled coke (I curse the proliferation of Outdoor Vending carts
clogging the walkways everywhere, but they sure are convenient when
you need them.). The doors opened at 12:30, when they let in a
bunch of folks who I assume had bought Walt Disney Travel Company
packages and so were entitled to priority seating. Still, once we
were let in we got good seats. The show itself is very high quality
– a real treat. The genie was funny and his jokes were topical,
full of references to recent news and events. The actress who
played Jasmine was quite good but seemed a little old to be
convincing as a young princess. After the Genie, I thought Jafar
was the best as he seemed to relish his role as the delicious
villain. There was no Abu but Iago was played by a hand puppet and
the actor who gave him his voice sounded just like Gilbert
Gottfried, who voiced the role in the films. The scenery was made of
huge dramatic set pieces and drop down hangings with elaborate
props.
After the show let out at 1:30
we grabbed a quick bite at Award Wieners. I tried the Caesar Dog,
which had a sausage in a bun, topped with chopped Caesar Salad. It
was surprisingly good. By this time we needed to think about
driving down to the Orange County Fairgrounds, as traffic might be
unpredictable. We went back to our room, left still more pin
purchases on the table, picked up coats, as it would be evening when
the Cirque would get out, picked up the car keys and headed down to
the Concierge Desk in the Great Hall. There I made reservations for
Sunday to take the Art of the Craft tour held daily at the hotel at
2pm. There was more traffic than the night before and the traffic,
even in the car pool lane, slowed down at several points. At the
fairgrounds the weekend swap meet was still in full swing and we
were directed completely around the perimeter to Gate 5 where we
entered and parked. The familiar blue and yellow tent, le grand
chapiteau, awaited us and promised a wonderful spectacle within.
Before long we were seated inside and treated to a wonderful show
which I will not detail here. During the intermission we chatted
with one of the ushers, who is actually a stage manager intern with
Cirque and he told us that two of the acts were out of commission.
In one case, one of a trio of aerial artists had fallen 25 feet to
the floor and severely injured herself and in another case, the man
in a male/female acrobatic duo had failed to catch his partner and
she fell and broke her hip and her face. A mighty dangerous
business this and Cirque insists on a minimum of nets and cables to
enhance the sense of danger, which makes the show more exciting for
the audience.
At the conclusion of the show,
it was night and we drove back to the park via 55 & 5, with a detour
trying to find the northbound freeway onramp. Parked at the
self-parking, crossed the street and dropped off the La Nouba DVD
and Cirque du Soleil t-shirt we had bought at Varekai and then
headed back to California Adventure. Saw Golden Dreams and wandered
around shopping, looking for pins and sleep shirts before find a
place for the Electrical Parade. The street was full of ODV carts
selling lighted toys, etc. and when the parade music started, they
paraded down the middle of the route as if they were the parade
itself. I thought this was a really sorry and distracting spectacle
which detracted from the excitement of waiting for the parade. I
love watching this parade, even if it is 27 years old, as it reminds
me of the many evenings I worked crowd control on it when I worked
in Fantasyland years ago.
After the parade was over, we
followed it to the San Francisco area and then escaped the
“performance corridor” to head out of the park through our private
entrance. By now it was 9:30 so we headed to Storytellers Café for
a late dinner. At this time of night, there is no need to have a
reservation, since the families with young children have already
eaten. I ordered the Pacific Northwest Salmon and we cheated and
both ate the jalapeno cornbread muffins the waiter provided, which
were very good.
Back to the room, which where
our beds were turned down and still more chocolates were provided,
which we again stowed away for the boys.
Day Four
Sunday, February 8, 2004
Morning at Disneyland
Afternoon at California Adventure
Fly back to Seattle
Yesterday we had made reservations for
breakfast at Storytellers Café for 8:45 but I decided that was later
than I wanted to eat if we were to get into the park on time to
avoid the crowds. So I cancelled the reservation this morning and
hoped we could walk in around 8. I woke up early again and tried to
read on the balcony but it was too cool and breezy to be
comfortable. I cracked the curtains and read on the bed which had
the added advantage of waking Elizabeth up and she, seeing the
light, thought it was later than it was. We packed up all our gear
and then headed down to breakfast where we ordered the Spanish
omelets. We explained to our waitress, Charlene, that we were on a
low-carb diet and she went to extraordinary lengths to ensure that
we had the meal we needed. I asked if the tomato sauce had sugar
and she said yes, but that she had seen pico de gallo in the
employee cafeteria that morning that we could use instead, and went
to get us some. We asked for cream again on the berries. She said
they had half and half, but we asked if they couldn’t find cream.
She made several trips to the kitchen to find out if they had any,
because they usually don’t have it. Lo and behold, when the berries
were delivered, a little bowl of heavy cream came along with it. We
complimented her on the hotel comment card and I sent in an e-mail
at Disneyland.com to praise her hard work and initiative. She even
made sure there were no potatoes on the side, but just some grilled
vegetables. I gave her a 40% tip for her trouble (admittedly not as
big a deal on a breakfast check, as it would be on dinner, but
still….).
With that magical beginning to
our day, we took the luggage down to the Bell Services desk and had
them check them for the day and headed through Downtown Disney to
the Park. We did Pirates again, tried to go to the Haunted Mansion
but it was 101 with no ETA for reopening, so we headed over to ride
Pooh again. By now the Mansion was open but the park was getting
crowded and the line was already long. We toured the Disney Gallery
and then headed back to Fantasyland to ride Peter Pan and Toad
again. On the way, we checked out Rancho de Zocalo, closed on our
last visit. It looks pretty good, but there were no lo-carb options
for us. They were prepping it for opening. A woman was in the
courtyard to change her toddler’s diaper but for some reason,
instead of going to one of the interior tables, she was doing it
right in the doorway, which made it difficult to go in and look
around. We rode the Matterhorn, left track because the line was
shorter, then Autopia. In the line for Autopia there was a group of
3 12- or 13-year-old boys teasing the girls and us. They weren’t
mean, though, just squirrelly. We saw them later in the Hub talking
to a woman in a wheelchair, who I assume was one of the boys’
grandmothers. I got the impression that they were annual
passholders and that this was a frequent outing for them.
It was time for
lunch, so we decided we’d have burgers again and went to Stage Door
Café where we ordered 2 burgers and Diet Cokes, without fries.
Here, if you don’t order fries, they don’t give them to you.
However, they have no plates, so I asked for fry boxes in lieu
thereof, so we could eat our burgers with a knife and fork. “We’re
not allowed to do that,” the hostess replied, but relented. We ate
outside next to the railing along the main walkway – a very pleasant
location. After that we rode the train once around and then, after
debarking, stopped in Adventureland so Elizabeth could buy a
necklace she’d seen on Friday.
We were now done at Disneyland
so we left and went to the hotel, walking at a pretty good clip to
be on time for our Arts of the Craft tour at the hotel. The tour is
an hour long visit describing the essentials of the arts and crafts
movement and showing the elements of the hotel and how it was
designed. There are many touches and elements honoring various
portions of the movement and tributes to some of the major artists.
The tour is free and well worth an hour, although children might be
bored. The hotel is designed around the 3 metaphors of bungalow,
forest and garden. The great hall for example, is like a giant
living room, where the enormous fireplace represents an oversize
fireplace you might find in an arts & crafts bungalow. Even lamps
outside are oversized because this hotel is the largest Arts &
Crafts structure ever built and they need to be in scale to match
the giant bungalow.
After the tour we
walked through the private entrance back into California Adventure,
hit It’s Tough to be A Bug, Muppet Vision and I took one last swing
on Grizzly River Run. We were getting tired so we spent more time
sitting and watching, listening to some of the live entertainment
and doing some last minute window shopping.
Around 6 we headed back through
the private entrance to the hotel on last time, picked up our
luggage and headed off to the airport for an uneventful, and
fortunately, not full, flight home.
Summary
This was just a quick
trip but since we are quite familiar with Disneyland, it was
enough. The highlight, in deed the whole purpose, of the trip was
our attendance at Varekai, which was sensational. On Bravo they’ve
got a 13 part series they’re broadcasting right now, called, “Cirque
du Soleil: The Fire Within” which details the development of the
show – very interesting. It was nice to be just the two of us for a
few days and we very much enjoyed Alaska Air’s service to Orange
County. I’m not sure when we’ll be back down, but I suppose we
should make an effort to come next year for the 50th
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