My short visit to the Trick or treat party About This Page:

[tkd lisa]

As I mentioned in the planning forum, I was blessed with a business trip to California, so I decided to get a Disney Fix by visiting the Trick or treat party.

Who: Me, 44 years old, many visits to WDW, but my first visit to the California side of Disney
When: The whole trip is 21-24 October, but my initial plan was to visit the party on the 23rd.
Where: Business trip, so I'm staying at a Hampton Inn about 7 miles west of the park

Background:

When this trip first came up the meeting was scheduled for 21-22 October, so I was going to visit the part the evening of the 22nd since my return flight didn't leave until 10:40 am. But the meeting was slid one day to the right. Given all the uncertainty on the meeting I decided to wait and buy my ticket once I actually arrived in California.

I had done most of my planning from the Disneyland website. I just assumed that the party would be the same as the one at the Magic Kingdom, but in reading some other comments, I found out that they wouldn't have a big parade or Hallowishes. But I didn't pick up the most important difference between the California and Florida parties until I actually got to California.

On to the actual trip:

I was scheduled to leave Tampa at 9:00 on Tuesday morning. My family had gone to the Food & Wine Festival over the weekend before my trip, and I ended up with a bit of a stomach bug, so I stayed home from work Monday. That meant I had to go into the office before my flight to pick up my computer and all the other work stuff! So much for a relaxing morning. I left the house about 5:30, and was able to get things cleared at the office before hardly anyone got in. I made it to the airport about 7:30 so I wasn't rushed. I decided to go ahead and check my bag since I was going to have to transfer in Atlanta, and didn't want to haul it through the airport.

The flight to Atlanta was uneventful, but the one to LA was a little more exciting. I was in a completely full plane (actually every leg was sold out on all the flights), and I was in a middle seat. The man in the middle seat behind me had one spectacular cold. He was snorting and coughing for about the first hour, and it seemed like he was hanging right over the top of my head. I could just see all the germs pouring down on me! It got quiet for about 20 minutes, then I started hearing these really weird sounds. The lady in the window seat actually woke up because of them! We finally figured out it was the guy behind us who was snoring! But it was the weirdest, loudest snores I've ever heard. It almost sounded like lawn equipment. He kept it up almost the entire ride.

We landed on time around 3:20 west coast time, and I headed out to pick up my rental car. Everything in LAX is off the airport, and there was a fairly long line. I ended up heading out about 4:00, and the lady at the counter warned me I'd hit rush hour. And boy did I! It took me 90 minutes to go the 23 miles to the hotel.

Once I'd checked in, I decided to head over to Downtown Disney to pick up my ticket to the party. I checked at the front desk, and found out that the road outside my hotel (Katella) ran right down to Disney. After about 20 minutes, I was pulling into the Downtown Disney parking lot.

They have a toll booth at DTD, but you get 3 hours free (5 with a voucher showing purchase). I wasn't going to be that long, so I didn't worry about taking the parking pass in. I wandered in by the ESPN zone, and took a few pictures on the way.


I didn't know that they had different monorails than WDW. I never did ride, but I thought about it.






They had several different restaurants, and their rainforest was really different! Looks like a Mayan temple to me.


They also had more street entertainment. This guy had some pretty cool effects set up. He also had CDs for sale.

I walked by the pin trader store, but they didn't have any traders outside. I was kind of hoping to trade some of my east coast pins (I have two from the Disney Med cruise that I thought would interest west coast traders), but in general, pin trading didn't seem to be as prevalent out there. Not very many CMs had lanyards, and I didn't see as many on guests either.

I had looked at the directory searching for a "guest relations", and didn't see one listed. So I decided to head to World of Disney and ask there. So I asked a CM "Do you have a guest relations, or somewhere for me to buy a ticket to the trick or treat party?" She looked at me a little funny, and said, just go straight and you'll see the booths."

I headed out of the store, and walked straight into the entrance to DisneyLand! Boy, I knew the parks in California were smaller, but I had NO IDEA how much smaller!



As you can see, it was completely deserted at this time of evening (about 7), so I walked up to a booth and explained that I wanted a ticket for the Thursday party. The CM told me that Thursday was sold out, but she had tickets available for Wednesday. I wasn't sure what time my meeting was going to end, so I asked when you could access the park with a party ticket (not sure if you could get in early like WDW special events). She said "Well, they start clearing out California Adventure at 6:00, and the party starts at 6:30. You can go in as soon as they get the park cleared. I was confused and asked "Do they have you wait in CA and then move you over to Disneyland?" She said "No, the party is in CA this year." Well, that was the first I'd heard of that, so I had lots more questions. I had done all my planning assuming the party was in DisneyLAND! I knew what attractions I wanted to visit, and had gotten over the grumpiness that there wasn't a parade. I didn't even know what attractions were IN CA. Then the CM said "Well, I don't know what we'll have up and running. We're pretty short staffed, so they probably won't have any of the big rides open. You can call in the morning, and they'll be able to tell you what's available, and you can decide then." So I asked, "If I don't decide to come until tomorrow, how will I get the free parking since I won't have my ticket yet?" She said "Oh, parking isn't included in the ticket anyway." And she seemed positive about that. I told her that the website CLEARLY said it included parking, and she said "Well, maybe that was a special offer if you bought your ticket online." With all that confusion, I decided to go back to the hotel and do some more research on line before buying the ticket.

I logged in at the hotel, and did see that the party information said it was in California Adventures. So I just missed that. But the ticket specifically said Parking was included, and that wasn't a special section under the DVC privilege or anything. I went to bed and was able to sleep to a reasonable time (I woke up about 5:30 california time, which is pretty good for an east coast early riser). Since one of my worries about going to the party Wed was that I'd be exhausted from lack of sleep, I decided to plan on attending the party.

As I was heading to my meeting, I called the Disneyland Guest Relations number that the CM had given me, prepared to order my ticket as a "will-call". I got a recording that they didn't open until 8 PDT, so I decided to call at our first break.

When I called about 9:30, I asked the CM I spoke to if they had any tickets for Thursday, since that was still my first choice. Nope, still sold out. So I asked what rides would be running that evening and she said "Oh, all of them. We always run all the rides, the only thing we don't have are the shows since those areas have treat trails in them." I said I wanted to buy and pick up at the window. She explained that they don't do will call, and told me "The ticket will be $39." I said "But I am DVC, I want the $25 ticket." She said "That's only advance purchase. You're too late". I explained about my encounter at the ticket booth the previous evening, and told her that if the CM there had actually known what rides were open and that parking was included, I would have bought it then. She put me on hold, and came back to say "If you get here before our booths close at 5:00, we'll give you the advance purchase price." I took her name, and hung up.

At our lunch break, I headed over to get the ticket so I didn't have to go during rush hour. It took a little bit, but I was able to get the $25 price, and there wasn't even any tax, which was better than I expected. Ticket in hand, I headed back to my meeting.

Up next, the actual party.