Back from Grand Californian
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Hartster · 04-12-2009, 09:39 PM

Back from a stay at the Grand Californian, which includes visits to Disneyland/DCA, Knott's Berry Farm and Universal Studios Hollywood. There'll be more to come later, but a few random thoughts:

The Grand Californian's bedframes don't come to an L at the foot of the bed, but rather just to a straight line. In other words, I banged my leg against the end of the bed more than once.

Gray Line was great for tours in that they picked us up directly from the hotel. However, one of the tours dropped us in front of the hotel, necessitating us top cross the street, the other at the hotel itself. I guess it depends on what the bus' next stop is, since you can only turn right from the Grand Californian.

For those who are DVC members, make sure you get the discount stated in the Perks book - and if they don't give you the discount, ask for a lead. Pizza Port would give a discount only if we had a Disney Visa card, ignoring what's in the book, while Stage Door Cafe said the discount applied only to those who had annual park passes. We told the DVC desk, who confirmed the discount, and they told us to call member benefits. We did, but they wanted the cardholder's SSN (which we didn't have - we live in the same household) before they would listen to our complaint.

Long story short, we didn't get the discount from Stage Door - and it was only about a dollar and change. And we were so aggravated at not being able to get any kind of resolvement from DVC that we forewent not only going to Storytellers Cafe for breakfast ($50 loss to Disney) but we also forewent going to the park for another day ($138 loss to Disney).

Yes, we know that the discounts are subject to change. But still, to go through this much trouble for a dollar and change....

We did have good weather. We arrived on April 5th, in the afternoon, and left on Friday.

One tip: you don't need a part ticket to go through the bag check. So we walked through bag security, out the other way, and wound up on Harbor Boulevard. We did see the bus to downtown LA (which we wanted to go to, but wound up relaxing by the pool), but our reason for winding up on Harbor Boulevard was the IHOP and Denny's restaurants (we wound up at IHOP for breakfast.)

Again, more to come later.

**chezp** · 04-13-2009, 01:07 AM

Good start and thanks for the warning about the discounts.

Hartster · 04-13-2009, 06:39 AM

DVC said if it's in the Perks book, and you show them it, they have to give it to you. Let me put it this way: we had problems at the Grove Park Inn, where my debit card was charged by mistake for a tour. The person doing the debit said the money would be put back on the card immediately, which it wasn't, causing a problem. The manager of the inn gave us the cash (as well as canceling the cashback, obviously) after he heard me explain the situation. The discount at Stage Door was someting that could have been taking care of right there and then, but wasn't.

DVC also said we should have had asked for a lead at Stage Door, but quite honestly, we didn't want to make people behind us wait. But maybe we should have.

The Disneyland Resort Express bus was great - we came into SNA, went outside, handed the guy two MouseSavers discount coupons (since we were two people), and off we went to the hotel. (If you're going round trip, you'll need to save the tickets given you since they'll be asked for on the way back.)

Here's the thing, though: From Grand Californian you'll board a bus to another place, then transfer to the bus that'll take you to SNA. (The bus that picks you up is on a fixed route, and will go to LAX.) I dunno why they just don't run a regular shuttle to SNA as well in the first place (since the bus makes a regular stop, no reservations, every quarter of the hour at Grand Californian.)

We didn't realize, until we were headed back to SNA, that the transfer point was Disneyland Hotel. Had we known that, we coulda (since we travel with carry-ons most of the time) just walked to Disneyland Hotel from Grand Californian and grabbed breakfast while waiting.

The monorail ride from Tomorrowland to Downtown Disney was the best (we didn't have time to do a round trip.) You not only go though DCA via the Golden Gate Bridge (really!) but we went through the Grand Californian. We were puzzled as to why the monorail would go through the hotel without stopping. I thought perhaps, that the monorail at one point did stop there but was changed when Downtown Disney was built. Anybody know?

(On the way back to EWR, we had a layover in Dallas-Fort Worth. Their Skylink shuttle linking all the terminals is something to see. I counted at least four two-car trains heading in the opposite direction in the ten or so minutes from Terminal D to Terminal A, and thought that perhaps, that's the model Disney should follow - less a monorail and more a people-mover.)

Also, anybody know why Donald Duck is so hard to find, either at the Disney parks or in the Disney store? When we were at WDW Donald was the last character we found. We didn't spot anything Donald until we were at the SNA airport.

We didn't do character appearances, save forTigger, who was right there at the end of the Pooh ride. We were queued up for Pooh himself, and were the last ones in line, but some people with a little kid wanted to see him. We gave up our spot so they could.

We also had fun going though the castle at Disneyland, which is a walk-through explaining the Sleeping Beauty tale. Which also got us to thinking: if WDW has Cinderella's castle, and Disneyland has Sleeping Beauty's castle, whose castles do the other Disneylands have?

Every year, as a souvenir, I make it a point to stop by and get Snoopy dollars, and I did so this year. Since we went to Knott's Berry, I asked for Beagle bucks, which are similar. I forgot to ask whether Universal did as well.

CastleWishes · 04-13-2009, 07:05 AM

Donald can be seen at DHS fairly easily, but I agree I'd like to see him more since he's my favorite. Sorry you had so much difficulty with the DVC discounts.

Hartster · 04-13-2009, 12:59 PM

A few more things:

There are no microwaves in the rooms. (Or at least, not in our room.) There is a refrigerator. I brought some stuff for breakfast (or ate leftovers), so while my wife was buying stuff at White Water, I used the microwave there to heat up food.

There is also no convenience store within walking distance or in downtown Disney. When we were at Knott's Berry Farm and waiting for the bus back we walked down to a gas station and bought a 2-liter bottle of soda, which lasted us two people for the remaining three days (and saved on buying $2.75 bottles which only had 20 ounces!)

The change machine was out of quarters in the laundry room, which has plenty of washers and dryers. (And they weren't kidding about the laundry room only accessible by the elevators next to Napa, rather than the main elevators. It's the way the hotel is laid out.) I threw in a $5 bill at the change machine at White Water, which served its purpose well: two boxes of detergent, two washers, two dryers, and $1 left over.

**DyanKJ130** · 04-14-2009, 11:00 AM

Great start!

to hear about some of the challenges you ran into. Looking forward to hearing more about your trip!

jimmymac · 04-14-2009, 11:26 AM

Sounds like you had a challenging trip. Looking forward to hearing about the rest of it

Hartster · 04-14-2009, 10:17 PM

Photos from our room, x325, overlooking the courtyard:

Picture 140 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Picture 141 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

We were overlooking the Monorail; that's the brand-new Monorail Orange:

P4063108 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

bradbeckyk · 04-14-2009, 10:41 PM

We went to DL/CA at the end of Mar and stayed at the Grand Californian. It was a beautiful hotel but the lack of Microwaves in the room was the first thing my DW pointed out. We really liked it but the pool closed at 10 pm and had a locked gate so when you got back from the park you couldn't swim. I wonder if it's a state law people can't swim after 10 pm or something

We ran into the same problem with CM in almost every place we ate when it came to the DVC discount. The CM's didn't know what the DVC discount was and the first thing they said was we don't except it here. I would tell them to go ask their leadership and they would come back with the discount taken off.

Hartster · 04-14-2009, 11:15 PM

It may be that they just couldn't design a cabinet to hide the microwave, like they do the fridge.

The 10 p.m. closing time in the pool only "bothered" us when we got back from a tour about 7ish, had dinner, then realized, an hour in the spa may not be long enough after a hard day's walk....

What really annoyed us about the lack of discount at Stage Door is that we showed the guy our DVC member card (though the room key/charge card also said DVC member) and he handed it back to us without saying a word. By that act, we thought he understood what the card meant, and it was only when we looked at and questioned the receipt did he say anything. It's not like he said, "Gee, what's this extra card for?" at the beginning of the transaction.

This was also the first time we really used the discount, too; we just didn't bother with it at WDW, or at the Grove Park Inn (if they offered it) or at Hilton Head. Again, we didn't want to inconvenience other people while on line, but next time we will, I guess.

bitterchickey · 04-14-2009, 11:21 PM

Not making excuses, but maybe the CM's at DL just aren't as familiar with DVC as the ones at WDW; hopefully that will change with the GC villas opening.

Hartster · 04-14-2009, 11:25 PM

Slightly off-topic, but while it's in my mind, the reason we wound up in California is that we had trouble booking through DVC a place in Italy (although, with the earthquake this past week, that might have been a good thing.) I wasn't the one on the phone, but it was my understanding that in the first place, three months was _too soon_ to be reserving a room (after the New Year for April), and with the second phone call, that rooms went to "regular" people first and then if there was any left over, be offered to DVC members (since this was not a Disney property but rather an agreement with Disney that the points could be used towards an RCI property.)