Sept DL Trip Report 09/10-09/13

Day 1 - Expo and DL
Day 2 - DCA and DL
Day 3 - DCA/DL and Club 33
Day 4 - DL

We arrived around 7:30 and made it to the Disneyland Hotel around 8:30 for check in. We stayed about ten minutes in our room before heading out to meet up with Steven's Mother and her best friend. They weren't in the mood to do anything, so Steven and I headed out on the DLH grounds to look around, then walked to Downtown Disney to grab a bite to eat and shop a little. Most things were closing early, so luckily we didn't spend much money. We saved that for the remaining four days and boy, did we ever shop.

It was fun updating Facebook every hour or so throughout the day. Not sure if it was very interesting, but a quick photo and caption seemed to be enjoyed by a handful.

Thursday morning, we were up at 6am and to the shuttle for the D23 Expo by 6:30am. By 7am, we were at the front of the convention center. It was already as OrlandoMike puts it, Organized Chaos. For the most part, the CM's knew what to do, where to send people and what was going on. It was all the attendee's who didn't and seemed to wander aimlessly.

We saw two lines immediately upon entering, after receiving our official wrist band for the week. Found out one was for Iger's opening speech and the other.......was for a pin release. They had been there since 4am standing in line. All vouchers for limited pins were gone, so that nixed that idea. Sad thing is they let them in at 8am to stand in a 2nd line. Which they stood there for another hour before being let in to the Arena and the Dream Store to shop.

We decided to look around some to let the lines die down. There was a wonderful Disney Park's and Resorts Future preview area. Very Disney, with an elaborate preshow and grand entrance into the viewing area. Here, we saw the new Abe Lincoln, how animatronics were made/programmed, DVC preview and talk about the new DVC property in Hawaii, preview of the new Disney Cruise Ship and preview of the Hong Kong Disneyland expansion. The best part was seeing Lucky the Dragon and Wall-e. TWo of the most entertaining and elaborate robots I've ever seen. Amazing shows on both of them.

After this, we spent the remaining time getting our pics taken with tons of characters, including a float from the Electric Light Parade. We toured the Disney Dream Home which was nice, but could have been put together better to make it look like an actual home. There were booths and kiosks for every type of Disney product, TV show, music group and whatever else Disney offers, such as DVC, Disney Credit Cards, etc. We signed up for every single raffle, but didn't win anything.

Over all the Expo was ok. Not very "Disney like". Very little "magic" other then the Parks preview center. The rest seemed very sterile and convention like. The crowds were good for a first day, weekday. I heard the weekend was SO crowded. The few presentations we went to were spot on. One of the best things they did at the event. Everything else, seemed to need more work on presenatation. The archives tour had only a few items worth seeing. Sleeping Beauty book which opens the animated feature, Captain EO's outfit, Nautilus ship, etc. The rest were gowns worn in various movies, most of them newer and not that old.

We realized quickly that you can't see the Expo and do the parks at the same time. You need to concentrate 100% on the Expo for a few days, then when it's done, concentrate on the parks. It would take about 6 hours out of your day including going back and forth, waiting for shuttles and standing in long lines, to see what you wanted. Not worth missing out on the parks, so we did the Expo for one full day, then the parks the rest. We learned our lesson and will do it differently next year. Despite the Expo just being OK, I know they will improve and make it better. Comic Con was horrible the first couple years too. These things have to grow and expand. After a couple years at DL, it will be perfect by the time it moves to WDW in about 3-4 years.

But, I wouldn't tell anyone not to go. It's a wonderful experience that any Disneydork should see. Just don't combine it with trying to go to the parks. Pick one or the other for each day.

The one thing that was a HUGE hit, more then we ever expected, was our Disneydork tshirts. I think we were stopped by every other person (no joke) asking us where we got them. Once we said we made them, people were begging us to make one for them somehow. If we could make a tshirt for every person at the Expo only who wanted one, we could pay for at least two more trips to Disneyland. :rotfl: Seriously! Don't even get me started on the number of people who stopped us when we were at Disneyland.

After 5pm when the Expo was finished for the day, we headed directly to DL and spent the next few hours before closing. We rode the POTC is all and spent the rest of the time shopping. We met our match when it comes to shopping with Steven's mother. We all walked out with bags and bags. The parked closed at 8pm, so it was a short night for us. We did end up eating at Cafe' Orleans for Gumbo and Pomme Frittes.

After 8pm, we wandered DTD, which is a minute walk from the gates of DL. Takes about 15 minutes to walk through DTD to our hotel which is nice. We shopped some more, bought some kettle corn then crashed for an early evening.

Disneyland Hotel. Not bad for a hotel built ni 1955








CarsLand model


The workings of the new Abe Lincoln:


Replica of Disneyland created in minature by Bob Ozlewski, which you of course can by each individual piece:


Bob himself!


Official D23 painting which you can buy prints and glecee's of:


Mickey in his band costume!


Couple more photopass pics we had taken. LOVED the one with the turtle float from ELP:



Thought it would be funny to get one at the wedding area:


We had to buy D23 ears:


Seeing Lucky and Dinosaur and Wall-e was one of the highlights for us. Two of the most amazing interactive animatronics:




For those wanting to have a Disney Wedding:




Ended the night with a great dinner at Cafe' Orleans with a beautiful sunset in the background. Perfect way to end the night.

 

We love DCA, but it's always been a one day park. ; Might not look very pretty at the moment, but the retheming to make it more Disneyland in appearance and the 1920's Victorian era Californian theme is going to be beautiful when it's done. ; In the mean time, we just hang out there to ride our favorite attractions, do a bit of shopping, then it's back to Disneyland.

Steven and I got up early and hung out at Disneyland for a couple hours until DCA opened at 10am. ; We wandered Mainstreet, having our coffee and cinnamon roll, then headed for Nemo Subs to get it out of the way. ; It eventually has an hour and a half wait, so we made it on in ten minutes. ; Then we headed to Buzz Light Year. ; Steven's mom was so excited. ; She has three grand kids now, so she's scoping everything out for when she can have us all go as a family, including grandkids. ;

We made the mistake of taking his mom and friend to Little Green Men pin store. ; Got them totally hooked and they had full lanyards by the end of day two. ;

We then wandered over to Adventureland and rode POTC and Jungle Cruise. ; By that time, we headed to DCA. ; We spent a lot of time shopping and meeting tons of characters. ; We got some GREAT pics. ; They were all out in force that day. ; We purchased tshirts, new artwork for our Disney bedroom at the new home and a Mickey Self Portrait sculpture. ; We went to TOT, Turtle Talk, Monsters, Inc, Muppet 3D Vision, California Screamin', Toy Story Mania and Soarin'. ; All of this was done before 2pm. ; Seriously, lines were so short. ; We never waited longer then 15 minutes for anything and the parks even seemed crowded. ; We shopped some more (got so tired of shopping), then parked our butts for the Pixar Parade. ; So mad that the Electric Light Parade shut down a week ago.

Once the parade was over (we got so wet from the floats), we headed back to DL while the women stayed at DCA. ; We went straight for Cafe' Orleans for Gumbo again. ; The sunset was beautiful pink color. ; Sitting there watching, listening and absorbing all things about the park was an amazing moment. ; It kind of just hit us at the same time. ; We then took a ride around the Rivers of America on the Mark Twain.

The girls showed up for a while, so we hit the dark rides in Fantasyland, Pinnochio, Snow White, Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan, which has now become one of our favorites. ; Flying over the city at night in a ship is pretty cool. ; We rode the Matterhorn and IASW, so we could have the song stuck in our heads for hours. ; We spent the rest of the night wandering, taking tons of pictures, meeting characters and shopping. ; The women headed back to the hotel early, so we had some alone time. ; We planted our butts at the HUB and watched Magical Fireworks. ; Yes, when Dumbo flies across the sky while the singer sings Baby Mine, we cried. ; You can't help it! ; We then battled the horrible traffic and made our way to NOS for Fantasmic! ; We made it with a few minutes to spare for the 10:30 showing. ; It was great to see the new 50ft fully animatronic fire breathing dragon. ; She's pretty stunning in person. ; I hope you all get one in WDW. ; It's a must see! ;

We had an hour or so, so we rode POTC to end the evening, then wandered Mainstreet before walking back to our hotel. ;

Exhausted.







Random shots from DCA:















Few shots from DL and Fantasmic Dragon:







Our favorite picture:

 

Day 3 - Club 33

We had good intentions of going to Magic Mornings. ; We didn't get to bed until midnight the night before, then we forgot to set our alarm, so we woke up at 7am and missed it. ; So we ended up making it to the park by 8am, had our coffee and cinnamon role and started our morning ritual. ; The girls decided to sleep in so again, we it was just the two of us for most of the morning. ;

Again the parks weren't busy, so we rode all the dark rides again, then hit Splash Mountain, POTC, Pooh, Big Thunder Mountain, IASW and Nemo Subs, all before noon. ; Every day we were reminded how disappointed we are that Casey Jr and Storybook Land were closed. ; As well as HM and SM. ; Oh well, next trip. ;

The girls called us and said they were at DCA. ; My partners mother's friend's daughter (got that?) arrived and she wanted to ride a few attractions there, so we met them for TOT, California Screaming and some shopping, before heading back to the hotel to relax (our feet and backs were killing us by this 3rd day). ; We just can't seem to stay out of the parks from 8am to midnight. ; After getting cleaned up and dressed up, we walked through DTD for dinner at Club 33.

Let me first say that I had been nervous all day. ; We were given the opportunity by a wonderful person, to experience the club. ; I was fine until that day, when I suddenly became nervous about it. ; Not sure why. ;

We arrived at the front door of Club 33 in NOS and took pictures of course. ; I was given the the golden opportunity to buzz us in. ; Within a few minutes, a woman answered the door and asked for our name. ; We walked into a very small voyer, with a grand staircase and old French elevator, that only holds 3 people at the most. ; It's so tiny!. ; The walls were rich red, dark cherry wood, gold and black on the staircase. ; We were told to make sure we took the elevator, so the five of us went up in stages. ; LOL

At the top, we were greeted very warmly by the staff. ; Off to the right is a small dining room, which has the infamous microphoned chandelier and animatronic Vulture in the corner. ; To the right is a hallway with a curio cabinet full of things to buy, wonderful artwork and places to sit. ; Then to the right you go into another seating area with ornate couches, then the beautiful bar, small dining area, which leads into the largest dining area with probably 12 tables. ; The entire place was very ornate, with dark wood, royal blue and cream colors. ; We took time to take in every detail and look at all of the artwork on the walls.

One odd thing that I didn't realize, is that half of Club 33 is over Blue Bayou, the hall way actually goes over NOS street, then the remaining restaurant is actually over Cafe' Orleans. ;

First thing we noticed was the beautiful table, with a gift on our plate that was given to us by our benefactor. ; A Club 33 keychain sitting on our plates. ; Such a sweet thing to do! ; We ordered wine and looked over the menu for appetizers and main courses. ; We opted for this rather then the 5 course meal. ; Our waitress was very professional, sweet and personable. ; We loved her!

Soon, she brought out an Amuse Bouche, a one bite appetizer compliments of the chef. ; SO tasty! ; It was some sort of asparagus puree (with crab?) on toast with sun dried tomatoes. ; After our amuse bouche, we got our appetizers (rather then salads). ; They all had the crab cakes served with a side of fresh crab legs and asparagus and I had a Chicken Confit Ravioli.

For dinner, I ordered the Monk Fish with Caviar and fresh greens and mashed potatoes. ; Steven and his mom had the same. ; Other dishes at our table were free range chicken with melon risotto and fingerling sweet potatoes, and another had the Short Ribs with um....something. ; I forget. ; The food was amazing and filled us up so much, none of us could finish all of it. ;

One thing we noticed was the table next to us. ; Two Disney executives sat down with 3 people from Japan and their interpreter. ; They talked a lot about the parks, what they had to offer, etc. ; We tried to hear more, but it was difficult. ; Yes, we're nosey!

During dinner, we took a couple breaks to walk around and take pictures. ; They encourage it, so we took advantage of it. ;

Then a surprise birthday dessert showed up. ; My birthday isn't until the 21st, but that didn't stop someone at our table from telling the waitress. ; It was a very nice surprise. ; After dinner was complete, we ordered Bailey's and coffee. ; A couple of them in fact. ; Then headed out to the balcony for pictures and to enjoy NOS from a completely different perspective. ; We were hoping to watch Fantasmic! from this vantage point, but it didn't start for quite a while, so we opted to go back in to buy a few things for ourselves, soak up any last minute things we could from Club 33, then headed downstairs, taking one last look.

It was an experience none of us will ever forget. ;

We immediately headed to the Hub to see Magical. ; The girls hadn't seen it yet. ; Somehow, we got lucky and found an empty spot close to the castle. ; I tell you, it was the perfect night. ; After fireworks, we went ornament shopping for our Disney Christmas tree. ; We headed back to the hotel around 11pm so we wouldn't miss our last chance at Magical Mornings on Sunday.

Other then night time at Disneyland during Christmas, this was one of the best nights we've experienced there. ;

Here's a few pics:



Foyer:


Hallway:






First diningroom on your right as you enter




A look outside:


Entering the 2nd seating area and bar:






Large dining area:






Food Porn!














From the Balcony:

 

After missing Magic Mornings the day before, we made sure we were in bed early so we could make it in time for the 7am opening. We arrived at 6:30am, like we were told and we found ourselves the only people on the plaza. The security person who showed up 15 minutes later told us they changed opening time to 9am, so MM wouldn't start until 8am. Nice.

This day is all about relaxing and soaking up as much of DL as we can before we left the following morning back to Dallas.

We were first in line of course and once they opened the gates, we let the small crowd literally run past us. We had already rode all of the dark rides in fantasyland and the rides in tomorrowland numerous times the past few days with little or no line, so we didn't care about using that hour to ride anything. Instead, we used that time to take some photo's of a nearly empty park. After about 15 minutes, mainstreet was almost a ghost town and so was the HUB. Great photo opportunities. By the time 9am rolled around, we decided to spend our last full day riding everything again. We like to spend as much time wandering around the park, riding our favorites one more time.

Even after full opening of the park, we were able to ride everything in Fantasy and Tomorrowland by noon. We decided to run over to DCA one last time, rode TOT and CS one more time, ate at the place by Soarin', then finished up MORE shopping, then headed back to DL. We rode Mark Twain, the train, monorail, Subs, POTC, Splash, Big Thunder, mixing it with shopping and some last photopass shots before getting our CD. We paid 59 for just a CD, no printouts with borders. Does that sound about right? I thought we got photo's included with that price last year. Who knows.

The girls wandered around some on their own, getting photo's with Princesses. We had no desire to stand in line for two hours with them, so we headed to Toontown for a while, which was nothing but a sea of screaming children for some reason. We didn't last long and headed out to IASW and rode it three times in a row. There were no lines, so we just stayed in the boat. Nothing like embedding that song in your head for the rest of the day!

We hadn't seen Celebrate! A Street Party, so after IASW we planted our butts near IASW, nibbled on a couple Churro's caught the parade. Actually, it wasn't as bad as I kept hearing. Sure, it's nothing NEAR the parades of before, but it didn't suck. I'll be glad when ELP comes back to DL next year, where it belongs. We missed not being able to see it this year.

After the parade, more mindless wandering, snacking, shopping. We spent quite a while buying more Christmas ornaments. We have an entire Disney tree/garland we put up every year so we have to continue with this buying addiction as well.

It was starting to get a little dark. The girls were getting tired and headed back to DTD for dinner. We joined them for Mexican food, then headed to the hotel to freshen up for a few minutes. We decided to take the Monorail back to the park, but when it showed up, it came in short on the loading dock, shut down and wouldn't move. They had to restart the monorail, which by the way takes forever. We made it just in time for Magical Fireworks one last time, but watched it from IASW which is really amazing! The show on IASW front is really cool and you're SO close to the fireworks. Then headed to NOS which is our favorite part of the park for the last few hours. We wandered around, rode POTC in a boat all by ourselves, then walked out just in time for Fantasmic! so we could get a few shots of Murphy the Dragon.

Always a sad point of our trip. We want the weekend to last forever, but know that it has to come to an end. We slowly walked through the park, through Mainstreet and out the front gates, without saying one word to one another.

We both know how each other feels. Hate seeing it come to an end. It's the only place where we both can act like kids again, leave all troubles behind and forget the world even exists for a few days.

Until next time.........


Few of our favorite photo's:

 

great report, great photo's, and seriously, you should copyright those shirts, if that many wanted them i sense a nice little sideline income opportunity there

 

Yeah it's one reason why we haven't put them on our zazzle tshirt site with all of the other shirts we've made. ; We tried one time and it got kicked out due to the word Disney on it. ; I'm sure the corporation would frown on it if we were making money, but seriously SO many people wanted one. ; Not to say if they made a paypal "donation" we wouldn't send them a gift. ; LOL

Thanks for all the kind comments about my trip report. ; We had such a great time and can't wait to get back, especially to Club 33 again.

 

great report love the T Shirts

 

Thanks so much for sharing - love the pics from club 33 - not many of us get in there!

 

Thanks everyone! ; I was lucky when it came to Club 33. ; I was on another forum and I mentioned how it would be a dream to go there some day. ; A forum member PM'd me and said that he would love for my partner and I to experience it as their guests. ; A total stranger. ; Because of this we've become friends. ; Now he said we could go any time we go to DL, which was just the icing on the cake. ;

Although I have to say, as amazing experience as it was, it sure does hit the pocketbook. LOL ;

 

Nice report and photos. ; Club 33 does sound fantastic!

 

Here's the link to all 800+. ; DL SEPT 2009 Pics (Club33) ;

We take TONS of snapshots, so don't look for anything professional. ; :