As of January 1, 2019, we have closed our forums. This is a decision we did not come to lightly, but it is necessary. The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk. The server software itself must be updated, and it cannot be without removing the forums.
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There are other changes as well.
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We go on to the joy and through the tears
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Moving on with the current of the years.
We go on
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It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
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If you miss us, you can still find some of us online. Sara started a new blog at DisneyParkPrincess.com -- I strongly urge you to visit and get on her mailing list. She IS the Disney park princess and knows Disney backward and forward. And I am blogging as well at JenniferMaker.com, which is a little craft blog I started a couple of years ago to make ends meet. You can see and hear me in my craft show at https://www.youtube.com/c/jennifermaker . Many PassPorter readers and fans are on Facebook, in groups they formed like the PassPorter Trip Reports and PassPorter Crafting Challenge (if you join, just let them know you read about it in the newsletter). And some of our most devoted community members started a forum of their own at Pixie Dust Lane and all are invited over.
So we encourage you to stay in touch with us and your fellow community members wherever works best for you!
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Okay--the best laid plans of mice and men...change with the weather!!! This trip report will be a little different as I plan on talking about topics, not day-to-day run downs. In amongst the familiar, we experienced many new and different things this time at DLR.
So, I start with the transportation to and from and around Disney. Over the past five years, we've gone to both east and west coast from the central US. We've traveled on most (not all) the major airlines and done everything from the simple bag check/walk through to the full body scan and physical search of the bags. I've always checked at least one bag and have been seen repacking our luggage at MCO because my bag was one pound over weight--yes, ONE pound.
I've also noticed I buy enough treasures (you know the saying--one man's treasure...) to fill whatever bags I bring along. So, this trip, we tried packing lighter. One checked bag for three adults! When put on the scales at United, that bag weight 49.5 pounds!!!! Yes, I have a luggage scale, but it's not an expensive one and tends to weight light. Depending on the airport scale--VERY light.
United has had a history with us about delays and problems coming home, but we've always had good luck getting out of town. Until this trip. Blame Karma or fate or mischievous little pixies, but I think it was the weather in Canada. Our Denver connection was an HOUR late!! Oh my, a whole HOUR you say, but remember I was trying to forget about the job I'd just interviewed for and I had PLANS!!! Kommando Kate. Well, instead of getting into SNA at 10:30 we got in about 11:30am and proceeded to catch the Disneyland Express to the Villas at the Grand Californian.
If you are in a hurry, hale a cab or towncar, as the DLExpress only shows up every half hour and then stops at all three DLR hotels, Grand Californian being the last. So it took us 45 minutes to get to our resort. Same with checking out--every half hour and the DLE stops at the GC FIRST, so you have to stop at two other resorts before getting to the airport. The bus was a Mears and was extremely clean and comfortable, though no getting that early on Disney spirit as you ride. Just watching the CA traffic scares me, so I was very glad someone else was driving.
The Villas have bell hops and they are glad to take your bags up to your room. I did not request such assistance, but really wish I would have. I love DD but her idea of help was to take her carry-on and nothing else. So here's old mom carting two suitcases, my personal bag, the room keys and the park maps across to the Villas building and lugging it all down the hall to the room, opening the door and collapsing on the bed, luggage in hand--just picture it friends, it must have been hysterical!!!! Oh, yes, I forgot--it started RAINING when we landed and rained the rest of the day. What a way to start a vacay! Love it, I do.
Anyway, trips are what you make of them and airlines try your patience. Gone are the days of "surprise" upgrades and peanuts and crackerjacks. But its a means to an end. And if you look at it that way--what an amazing way to travel! What took the pioneers months to do and costing each one dearly, took us six hours!! WHOA! I'll take it, even the one hour wait!
I hear you about the Disneyland Express - I had no idea that it only ran every half hour and that it stopped at other hotels first (although on the way there and the way back, we missed out Paradise Pier ) but we stuck with it, as I knew a taxi would be pricey.
Please don't think I've forgotten Alice--She's a subject all her own. Now to the room--
The Grand Californian is done in the craftsmen-style. Simple straight lines and gorgeous oak finishings. The main hall has a inlaid tile floor with an carpet inset--you don't know where one starts and the other stops. Beautiful.
We had a studio that easily sleeps four with the queen pull-out sofa. DD said the sofa was very comfortable, but if you had picky sleepers the studio might not be for you. The dishes in the kitchenette included paper place services and regular glasses and coffee cups. A microwave and dorm-style refrigerator along with a bar-sized sink finish it off.
The bath is split. Only a single sink the tub and toilet are in a separate area with a sliding door--very convenient. A flat-screen television--probably 42"--is sitting on top of a six drawer dresser. The room also has a table and two chairs. All of the villa rooms seem to have balconies either looking out onto the pool area or DCA. We were not fortunate enough to get a room facing the theme park. Maybe because we were early and the rooms that were ready were pool view. I didn't follow through on the request we'd made for the theme park view.
The Villa rooms are across a walk way in a separate building, but not a great distance from the main building. The elevators are immediate inside the door and with three of them, there is very little wait time.
Check-in was a simple process, however, CA is not as advanced as WDW with the room card/keys. First, if you've purchase tickets from another source DLR resorts cannot add those tickets to your room key. Also, they can only put one credit card on a group of room keys. WDW resorts can assign individual CC numbers to each card, so if you are rooming with different people each can have their own credit card. DLR would have to have one card number on everyone's card and split the charges to the credit cards later.
Check-out is just as easy. In fact, the reservations desk even printed our boarding passes for us. (It was after midnight and I think she wanted something to do.) Enough for now. I'll pick this up tonight with Theme Park and Tour Tickets.
I do believe that we may NEED to do a one-bedroom from now on. We are used to King beds, but don't really spend that much time in the room to justify the extra space of a one-bedroom. We'll try the queen beds one more trip, but we just may need to buy a few extra points so we can do the one-bedroom gigs in the future.
DLR is NOT WDW and if you are planning on going (at least in the near future), please remind yourselves that these may be the dream of one man, but the parks themselves are operated separately!
First we saved quite a bit of $$ ordering our tix through DD's work site. Better deal that undercover tourist. I think we saved about $40 a ticket OVER that from the Disney site. We were also able to customize the length of stay, so we saved even more by getting a shorter stay for hubby, since he was coming in a day later than we were. To save even more $$, we did a "will-call" for the tickets. That saved $5 a ticket in mailing fees.
We also decided to do both the Halloween Party and the Happy Haunts tour. DVC members beware--DVC cannot purchase any tickets for the CA-based operations. You need to call DLR ticket agents and use your DVC number to order them. The problem is that DVC member services aren't always paying attention to what you want to order. How do I know? I called DVC to ask some questions about our trip and the very helpful CM said--well, I can get those Halloween tickets for you and you can go on Oct. 6th. So, being BRILLIANT ME, I ordered them! Then when I looked a little closer later that afternoon, discovered the were for WDW not DLR!!! OOPS!!! Non-refundable tickets!
Not to worry. I called DVC back (that afternoon) and explained the situation. It took a supervisor, but since THEY had made the mistake, my card was credited back the price of the tickets. It did take a cycle to show up however.
With the knowledge that DVC won't handle California tickets, I called DLR to order the Halloween tickets and later the Happy Haunts Tour tickets. Using our DVC number, I saved 20% on both of them. YEA!!! The Halloween tickets were mailed to us, while the tour tickets were only available as a will-call.
While I was getting all crazy with special things to do, I also asked about the House of Blue Gospel Brunch. Those tickets cannot be ordered through Disney. You have to call House of Blues. For DVC members, there was a special--buy one, get one, so DD's ticket was free. WARNING--check that offer out. I think that it's changed now.
Then I got a little crazier and ordered the World of Color picnic tickets. Those did NOT have any discount associated with it, but I ordered them anyway. These tickets were also a will-call tickets.
Now with all these tickets, there are NO refunds, so your credit card is charged IMMEDIATELY. If you are into spreading out the cost, you would think this could help, however, none of these tours or tickets can be purchased earlier than 30 days out. DLR has no 180 days for making reservations. Early planning is just that planning. So save your pennies, your credit card will get hit hard.
Picking all these different tickets up is a little tricky. The Halloween tix, we had to remember to pack, the WOC tix we picked up when we checked in, and the tour tix had to be picked up at the tour office window. The park tix (since they were not purchased through Disney) had to be picked up at the will-call window at the kiosks in the esplanade between DLR and DCA. UGH!!! I thought that this would be a royal PAIN. But, in the middle of the week and the middle of the afternoon, there was no line. And since I'd remembered the confirmation # there was no problem locating and picking up all the tickets. WARNING--if you are doing a will call with any ticket, it is the person whose name is on the order that must be present to pick up the tickets. Fortunately, I always put my name on these orders (I've been stung before), so before we'd even entered the park the first time, I had all my tickets for the week in my hand! (Well my touring bag!)
WHEW!!!! My family doesn't call me Kommando Kate for nothin'! If you have any questions, please ASK ME! I have always done the Disney package before. Everything rolled up into one neat bundle and no thought necessary after booking. This was a first for me. And it was quite a learning lesson. Not hard, and we'll do this from now on, since we're DVC members, but different!
Enjoy! Next--DLR in the RAIN!!!!
__________________
Beautiful Mother
Last edited by Beautiful Mother; 10-12-2011 at 10:24 PM..
Even the CM's at DLR will admit that their technology is not up to the same standards as WDW. Maybe that's one of the reasons the Disney corp has moved all of the parks under one umbrella--to make all that "good stuff" available to everyone. I didn't have issues with the differences, just wanted to make who may be going to DLR for the first time (after experiencing the ease of WDW ticketing system) that they shouldn't expect the same options at DLR. Hopefully, in a few years, it will be more homogeneous.
When your trip plans get off=track, it isn't easy to get them back to where they need to be--which is what happened the day we landed at SNA. As stated before we we an ENTIRE HOUR late. And then as we were landing it started to rain!!!! UGH!
Rain is the bane of a vacation! And of course, uber planner had been so busy surviving her work schedule and trying to pack "light" (that will NEVER happen again!) we did pack the ponchos. So, what in the world will we do? Stay at the hotel, enjoying the fire and storytellers and... well, you get the idea. Or-do we press on, staying true to the Kommando Kate mantra. Well, of course-we press on. BUT--not without the beloved poncho. So, where do you get a poncho--just turn around. ANYONE will sell you a Disney poncho and I think California prices are higher, in fact, the prices are different between the parks here. I'm not sure of that, but they are.
DD questioned whether she needed one. I told her, that's up to you. I'm wearing one! And boy, when the rain opens up in Anaheim it stays open. Unlike Florida where you can get a 30 minute rain and it's over, at DLR when it rains, it usually rains a long time. And so it did with us!
We arrived at Walt's park about 1:00pm--in the steady rain and started toward Fantasyland--the first part of our Alice trip. The plan was to do Fantasyland--lots of pictures and all the rides. Well, the rain was so intense that many of the Fantasyland rides were not running because of leaks and other mechanical issues relating to the weather. DLR needs to do some basic maintenance. The ride buildings are aging and though the schedule had POC down for the time we were there, there were MANY ride outages.
So, we changed our game plan. We had decided during our planning to eat at different places. When we go in February , the Village Haus is usually closed. So we started by eating lunch at Villag Haus. Review--it is an okay fast food place. Nothing exceptional, but the food was fine and affordable. The restaurant was close to empty, as was the park--because of the rain and time of the week.
While eating we refocused on our plans and decided that 1. we probably wouldn't be at the park until closing and 2. we would go back to our timeless plan of hitting all our favs FIRST. Since it was raining SO HARD, we wanted to concentrate on moving from cover to cover and not standing around areas where there were alot of outdoor ques. (No, I won't melt, --yes, I like to stay dry!)
So off we went. Riding and shopping. We experienced two rides we either never ridden or were different. DD had NEVER ridden the Matterhorn. I wondered if my back would survive this one and DD would like it (she can be particular). Well, even with the rain, DD LOVED IT!!!! (Yea) and yes, my back survived, though we stayed away from other thrillers for the rest of the day. (DD was upset about this one because she wanted to ride Space Mountain) Fortunately, for me when we got to SS, it was closed. WHEW!
The second ride was Haunted Mansion. Yes, one of our favs, but now decked out for the seasonal Jack Skellington Nightmare Before Christmas. Yuck! Those who love this, please understand this is our opinion only. What a waste. There is nothing of the original ride poking through all the "Jack" in there. We were sorely disappointed. We aren't Jack fans at all and after riding through this three times--once for us, once w/DH, which I didn't have to experience, and once on the Happy Haunts tour--we thought it over-the-top, in your face, and too TOO much. Having said that, we've never seen 75 minute waits for this ride-until now. So, I'm guessing we are in the minority.
POC was down as well as the ENTIRE POC building. So, no chance at a ride on that. Indy Jones, and Small World--all a part of our afternoon. We stopped on Mian Street for some shopping around 4:30 having decided to call it an early day and I heard the band music for the Flag Retreat. Now, when I'm around Main Street, I MUST attend the Flag Retreat. Call me a sap, but I prefer patriotic and so, I walked toward the retreat. The rain stopped--yes!. And the retreat was on. With the rain (or because it was mid-week?) the music was pre-recorded. But the spirit and dignity were the same. The color guard even properly folded the soaked flags. I was extremely touched by the care they showed the symbols of our nation.
Well, back to the shops, and then--one more ride here and one more ride there and before we knew it, it was 7:30pm. So, we stopped to get the chocolate croissants and bread for our dinner and back to the room we went. Exhausted. And Alice--though we didn't do EVERYTHING we were planning that day, Alice was still in our thoughts and since we've been many times, we will pull pictures from previous trips for the DVD we're making.
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) but we stuck with it, as I knew a taxi would be pricey.
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