A special birthday, a diamond anniversary and a west coast adventure UPDATED 9/7 About This Page:

[chezp]

Originally Posted by jandsdennis

ohh I am so looking forward to your TR as we are going to Vancouver and to Victoria next June.

I hope I can help you guys out with some planning.

[KMB733]

Glad you were able to squeeze in some time in Victoria.

[lauriep]

I'm glad you'll get to Victoria, although, for me, 6 hours wouldn't be enough time for just the gardens!

[manticorjenn]

Signing in to catch up after our trip (which was wonderful). I can't wait to read all about your upcoming adventures.

[cubfancolleen]

Originally Posted by chezp

Without giving too much away, would I be able to have it? i.e. I assume it wasn't meat?

No, it was not meat. Although I believe there may have been some chicken stock? (as I just replicated the item here a week ago, and I'm sure I had to have stock)

Glad you've figured out a way to get to Victoria. With all our plans for Vancouver, we just couldn't work it out. We looked at an option that was 13 hours door to door (hotel, to ferry, ferry to Victoria, back again) and we decided that was more than we could do in a day. I was really sad to drop it, as I've wanted to go to Butchart Gardens for as long as I can remember. Another trip! And in the meantime, I'll enjoy the pictures I know you're bound to take!

[SuperDave]

Glad you were able to work Victoria into your trip! Hope all works out well!

Glad that you mentioned the DCL planning on the site as I really never considered their packing lists as I have my own. I have a few on my computer and just took my WDW list and just edited things out and added those I would need for my cruise. It worked well and is just common sense!

[chezp]

Originally Posted by lauriep

I'm glad you'll get to Victoria, although, for me, 6 hours wouldn't be enough time for just the gardens!

It probably won't be nearly enough time, but I figure any time is better than none.

[chezp]

Originally Posted by manticorjenn

Signing in to catch up after our trip (which was wonderful). I can't wait to read all about your upcoming adventures.

Welcome back! Glad to hear you had a good time.

[chezp]

Originally Posted by cubfancolleen

No, it was not meat. Although I believe there may have been some chicken stock? (as I just replicated the item here a week ago, and I'm sure I had to have stock)

Thanks for the info - good to know.

Glad you've figured out a way to get to Victoria. With all our plans for Vancouver, we just couldn't work it out. We looked at an option that was 13 hours door to door (hotel, to ferry, ferry to Victoria, back again) and we decided that was more than we could do in a day. I was really sad to drop it, as I've wanted to go to Butchart Gardens for as long as I can remember. Another trip! And in the meantime, I'll enjoy the pictures I know you're bound to take!

Yep, that was one of the options I looked at - the 13 hour one and that was the point where I almost gave up. Thank goodness I didn't!

[chezp]

Pre-trip report – part six: planning for Disneyland

The next morning, we fly out of Vancouver, heading for Los Angeles. For a long time, I was resigned to the fact that we’d have to fly into LAX, which I really hate with a passion, as you’ve probably already gathered from this trip report. We much prefer SNA or John Wayne Airport (isn’t that one of the best airport names ever in the world? ), as it’s a lot smaller and much closer to Disneyland. I ruled it out immediately, because it’s so small. Surely it wouldn’t have any direct flights from Vancouver coming into it? I assumed not, but I decided to check it out just in case. Surprise!

There was one direct flight a day, in the late morning, arriving early afternoon. It wasn’t ideal, as it did limit our time in Canada after the cruise more than I’d have wanted, but heck if it meant not flying into LAX, it would be worth it. I went ahead and got it, and again priced out different travel websites, and different airlines, and again it was amazing to see the difference in the prices. In the end, I opted for WestJet, who are actually the operators of the flight. They appear to be a cheaper carrier, from what I can see, so I double checked their luggage fees, in case they were higher, but they weren’t, so that was perfect.

When we get there, we’ll head for Disneyland, rather obviously. We’re staying for the third time at Disney’s Grand Californian Villas. I have to say I am always amazed that we’re able to get in there, as there are only a small number of villas, but so far we’ve stayed there in September 2011, Christmas 2012 and now September 2014. This is even more amazing as we don’t actually own points at the Grand Californian.

For those who aren’t sure how the Disney Vacation Club works (and if you’re not, you need a copy of my book! ), basically wherever you own points, that’s your home resort (you can have more than one – we have three different home resorts ) and you can make bookings there 11 months ahead of when you want to stay. All DVC Members can make bookings at any DVC resort (regardless of whether it’s your home resort or not) at seven months before your trip.

That means we can only book at the Grand Californian at seven months beforehand, meaning people who own there have four additional months to make any bookings they want. Given that, and the small size of the resort, I just assumed we’d never be able to get into the Grand Californian, but not a bit of it. We went for a one bedroom villa for this trip, as we just love having the additional space, and especially the master bathroom with its Jacuzzi spa bath.

Around February, there were a lot of rumours that Disney ticket prices could be about to go up, based on the fact that they went up in February 2014 mainly, so I decided not to waste any more time and just go ahead and get the tickets we’d need. As I now knew we were flying into John Wayne Airport in the early afternoon, I figured we’d head to the parks that afternoon, so I went for a four day ticket, rather than a three day ticket. To be honest, the difference between the two wasn’t that much, and I didn’t want us sitting around wasting a day when we could be in the parks.

I had fun and games when it came to printing the darned tickets though, as I’d always rather carry a printed copy of things like this with me. I know a lot of people would just show them on their mobile device, but I’m a bit paranoid like that. I mean, what on earth happens if you don’t have a Wi-Fi connection at the crucial moment? Well, I don’t know what Disney managed to do, but my computer and printer would have nothing to do with the tickets, and there was nothing I could do to persuade them. In the end, I took screenshots and stuck them in a Word document. Hopefully that will be fine…

Now I need to explain here that we’ll have some friends putting in cameo appearances at during the Disneyland part of the trip. The first are our friends Mari and Raleigh, who we first met on the inaugural Med cruise in summer 2007. Ever since then, we’ve stayed in touch, and met up every time we’ve gone to Disneyland. Last summer, they came with us on the Eastern Med cruise on the Magic, and then we took them on a road trip around parts of Northern Italy. All in all, we spent two weeks with them, and we had an absolute ball.

The other people who’ll be joining us are much more familiar to PassPorters. One is our very own Princess Sharon, and she’ll be in Disneyland with Karen, who some longer term PassPorters may remember, as once upon a time, she used to write trip reports… well, she used to start them anyway, that’s all I’m saying on that subject…

Of course, the main reason I wanted to be at Disneyland this year above any other was for the diamond anniversary celebrations they’re having. Here’s a bit of background to my history with Disneyland. I first visited it in 1987 with my parents. We were on a three week trip to the States, which took in (deep breath here… trust me you’ll see why in a moment ) New York City, Washington D.C, Walt Disney World, San Francisco, Yosemite National Park, Death Valley National Park, Las Vegas (including the Hoover Dam), Phoenix (from where we visited the Grand Canyon by plane), Disneyland, before finally heading back to New York City for the final couple of nights, and then home. Now do you see where I get my crazy travel plans from? You see, I was 14 years old, and I figured this was how people always travelled, and I figured I could just go wherever I wanted and it would all work out. This is why we did a two week vacation back in 2008 that took in New York City, Walt Disney World, Chicago, Disneyland and Las Vegas. Not quite as insane, but close…

Anyway, I’m digressing a bit, as I sometimes can. That was my first experience of Disneyland, but sadly even though I knew I wanted to make it back, that didn’t happen until April 2006, when Mark and I took our first trip over there. Now given that Disney loves a celebration, and a year is just too short for a major celebration, that meant we were there for Disneyland’s 50th anniversary, so it seems very appropriate we’re back for the park’s next major anniversary.

In the intervening time, we’ve become semi-regular visitors to Disneyland. We were back in October 2008, then September 2011 (on the same trip as we took our first Alaskan cruise) and December 2012. This will therefore be my sixth trip to Disneyland, and Mark’s fifth.

I think it’s important here to say something about our most recent trip out to Disneyland, which was actually over Christmas 2012. Some of you may have read that trip report, but you may have forgotten the details (heck, I know I have! ) and I’m sure there will be some who won’t have read that trip report.

I’ll start with the positives. We were a little bit sceptical about how much we’d like the changes to Disney’s California Adventure. Now I want to make it clear here that I am not talking about Cars Land here at all. What I’m talking about were the changes they made to the rest of the park. We used to love the unique entrance to the park, for example, and when we learnt it would be a carbon copy of Disney’s Hollywood Studios, that didn’t fill us with much enthusiasm. I hate it when Disney just recycles ideas or theming between different parks, as it makes me feel short changed. However, when we saw the finished article, it looks pretty neat, and I actually felt it worked a heck of a lot better here than it does in Florida.

I loved the whole feel to Buena Vista Street, which is what you walk through when you enter the park. To me, it takes you back to the glamorous old days of vintage Hollywood. It’s exactly how you imagine it to be, although I suspect it wasn’t really like that in reality. The Carthay Circle was just beautiful as well.

However, that was nothing compared to the joys that awaited us in Cars Land. It’s so immersive that you really do feel as if you’re in Radiator Springs somewhere out along Route 66. Everything about it was just perfect, and it looked as wonderful at night as it did during the day.

The big draw here, outside of the amazing theming, is Radiator Springs Racers, and we absolutely adored this. It was still working out some of its kinks when we were there, and the ride was a little up and down, shall we say? It was pot luck whether it was running when we had Fastpasses for it, but we were lucky enough to get a couple of fun rides on it. Thank goodness for those Fastpasses is all I can say, as we saw standby lines of over three hours, and something I’ve never seen before personally – Cast Members walking down those lines selling drinks!

I just want to say here how devastated I was by the news that Luigi’s Flying Tires is no more, and will re-open as something else different in early 2016. While I know it wasn’t hugely popular, as it never had that long a wait whenever we went on, we both really enjoyed it. It was just so much fun, and we always laughed so much on it. I really will miss it, and I’m so sad that Disneyland took the decision to get rid of it during their diamond anniversary. It was a real surprise to me, and I’d just like a moment of silence to remember one of the most fun and innovative rides at Disneyland – for us at least. Sigh.

The other fear we had about Disney’s California Adventure was that Paradise Pier, that was still undergoing its makeover when we were there, wouldn’t really amount to much. It’s never been one of our favourite areas of the park, so it’ll be interesting to see what we make of it now it’s all completely done.

We were lucky enough to see the holiday versions of both It’s A Small World and the Haunted Mansion, and I’m so glad we did, as both were absolutely wonderful. We also adored the Holiday tour that we took, and I can thoroughly recommend it to anyone who goes to Disneyland during the holiday season.

The other things we loved during our last trip were our meals at the Carthay Circle Restaurant and its accompanying lounge, which are located in the same building in Disney’s California Adventure, and Steakhouse 55, over at the Disneyland Hotel.

Unfortunately, that’s where our stellar meals for that trip ended, and that was a huge disappointment to me. I think our worst dining experience came at the Napa Rose, the signature restaurant at Disneyland, which is located at the Grand Californian, which was Christmas Day dinner. I can’t bear to go back into all the sad details of it, but the service was extraordinarily slow, the food wasn’t so great (at least let’s put it this way, I don’t remember it being that good as to outweigh the negatives) and we had a medical emergency at the table next to ours. Not Disney’s fault, but equally I just don’t think they handled it that well.

Our lunch at Storyteller’s Café, also at the Grand Californian, was Ok, as was our dinner at Catal in Downtown Disney. We also tried Naples Pizzeria and Ristorante, and that was equally nothing to write home about. In all respects, our dining experience at Disneyland last time around didn’t leave a good taste in our mouth, and given that dining is one of my favourite things to do at a Disney park, that was a huge disappointment to me.

I share all of this with you, as I think that’s why I’ve struggled so much to get excited about returning to Disneyland.

Next: come on Disney, can’t you do things the same on the west coast as the east coast?

[Thomhazel]

Thanks for your dining recommendations, I have Steakhouse 55 firmly in my plans now.

[lauriep]

I loved the look and feel of DCA, too, much more than I expected and agree completely about the fantastic job they did with Cars Land. I'm intrigued by the fact that you and Mark enjoy Radiator Springs Racers so much because I know you're usually leery of the thrill rides. I skipped this because I was afraid it would mess with my head the way even mild coaster rides do. Is this one different? Less intense? Less difficult in terms of swooping and turning and dizzy-making? After I read your report from your last trip I was sorry I didn't try it. We were given two FP for it by the ABD tour and I gave them away! Carthay Circle wasn't open when I was there and I really was disappointed in the TS meals I had at DLR. I enjoyed my lunch at Storytellers, but everything else underwhelmed, including Steakhouse 55. I think the QS options are much better and more interesting than at WDW, though.

[disney_duke]

So glad you are able to get a flight right into SNA! The two times I've been to DL, I've flown into LAX, so I know what you mean. I'll be flying into SNA for the first time this November - so excited to see this little airport!

Your story of your US vacation as a teenager explains a lot about how you travel! My style is not actually much different than yours though - we try to cram in as much as we can too!

I remember that TR from last time and the lackluster meals. I'm hoping this trip works out better for you guys.

[mpwife153]

It sounds like you have another fun trip planned!

[Colexis Mom]

How great to be able to fly into SNA! I hope the dining works out better this time around!