Disneyland : THE END (...or is it??)
Oct. 23rd, 2016 07:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrSo as you can see I ran out of steam for the daily posts. I did post my photos to Tumblr though:
And now for the rest of the trip!
Day 4:
I was way too tired for going to the parks so just slept in then took a Lyft to a "health food supermarket" Sprouts, where I hoped to get a non dairy milk I could drink. And I did! Also some nice fruit and chopped vegetables and interesting looking 'healthy' snacks.
We both napped then Cam went out to Disneyland...at which point I realised I'd lost my phone. Lyft user support was very helpful about helping me contact my driver but it turned out that while I had left it in his car he'd already left the phone at the hotel front desk. So I gave him a large tip :) The reason I installed Lyft in the first place is it lets you add a tip using the same card you use to pay for your trip instead of making you carry cash.
Tips confuse the hell out of me, we missed/underpaid a few at various points out of cluelessness or inability to access cash. I'm glad restaurants and Lyft make it easy to add a tip to a bill you're paying electronically but I wish more places did. That or the US got decent labour laws and tips were abolished, that would be more convenient (for me, anyway :)) The hotel was not at all helpful when I asked if there was any way to give the cleaning staff tips as part of our overall bill, luckily I managed to figure out how to get money out of ATMs in the end (pick credit, not savings, oops).
Day 5:
We queued up to get in early for the queue for a popular ride at California Adventure...only to discover we, like most of the rest of the queue, were an hour early for the main opening, since while Disneyland opens at 8am, California Adventure opens at 8am for guests of the offical Disneyland hotels but at 9am for everyone else. We looked at the now extensive queues behind us (and opposite us for Disneyland) and decided to just sit for an hour. Later we noticed the small signs with opening hours at security, but they could stand to have some on the gates where people actually wait.
We were let in partway at 8:30 then had to stand at a rope waiting for another half hour while Disneyland hotel guests wandered around in front of us. And then we got to queue some MORE for the ride itself. "This better be worth it" I thought.
And it was!
Soaring over the World: a simple but amazingly effective ride: you are strapped into an airplane-like seat for about 5 people, attached by long metal arms to the ceiling and facing a screen. This arm moves the seat in three dimensions to match the video on the screen, scenes of flying over mountains/forests/landmarks etc. There's air blowing into your face with subtle scents to match the visuals. And it FEELS LIKE FLYING.
And then back to Disneyland!
Sleeping Beauty's castle: not an actual castle, just an arch with a castle like top. My inner 5 year old was dissappointed. I think I may have missed some parts behind doors in the arch though.
It's a Small World: "We have a while to kill before our fastpass to Indiana Jones, and this has a short queue" we said. Little did we know what awaited us. Words cannot do it justice, see my (transcribed) photos.
Indiana Jones: You're on a "jeep" going through an ancient cursed temple full of spiders/falling rocks/shooting arrows etc. It was ok, kinda racist in the way the movies are. Disneyland has these things called "Fastpass"s where you grab a ticket early to skip the queue during a set window of time later, so we grabbed one for the now fixed Indiana Jones ride, I thought my wheelchair would make it redundant but it didn't, I get the feeling they'd have made us wait even though I didn't travel the same way as the actual queue.
Monte Cristo sandwich at Cafe Orleans: we arrived just before the opening at 11:30am...to discover there was already yet another queue just to get a booking. Cam really wanted one of their Monte Cristos, but since that's a deep fried ham and cheese sandwich eg Sophie Death I was less enthused. So I wandered off to find a spiced pumpkin almond milk smoothie from Jamba Juice and we met back at the hotel, where we were both dubious of how happy the other was with their purchase :)
Since this was our last day I spent the rest of the afternoon resting.
Day 6: We were super tired but had to pack and get out of the hotel for our plane. We finally made it down to the front desk to hand in our keys....
...only to find out we weren't checking out until the next day. We went back to the room...and the maid was in the middle of preparing it for new guests, since we'd clearly left. All our food was gone. I was VERY SAD but she went and got it back for us, having (as I had intended) neatly packaged it up to take home. She seemed happy enough to give it back, probably because I'd finally managed to figure out the atms and had left seven days worth of tips along with the food.
Cam and I discussed going out to the parks but were both just done so spent the day resting and had sandwiches for dinner.
Day 7: ACTUAL LAST DAY. The extra day of rest and most of our stuff already being packed made checking out pretty painless. We had to kill a chunk of time so just sat on the hotel's couches surfing the web on the free wifi for several hours, then caught the Disneyland Express from Greyline to LAX. Except at the last hotel pickeup we all had to leave the bus and get into multiple hired vans for some unexplained reason?? And they didn't have enough vans so we sat around waiting for a while AGAIN, we did not have much luck with Greyline this trip. Luckily we were running pretty early for our plane.
After checking in at LAX we had to sit and wait a while for someone to come with a wheelchair to get us through security (which was as intense as you'd expect for getting on a US plane, but everyone was very helpful) and to the shuttle to the departure gates. The food court was close by but annoyingly we weren't allowed to use a wheelchair to get there, so we walked and had mediocre Panda Express Chinese (which tasted very much like Chinese food in Australian food courts)
And then FIFTEEN HOURS OF SITTING omg my bum was sore by the end of it. Otherwise it was fine, though the sandwich I'd packed from Panera Bread would have been nicer if I'd taken out the complimentary pickle slice instead of letting the pickle juice soak in for a few hours /o\
Melbourne airport was annoying: they were more people with mobility issues than they had room for on the shuttle from International to Domestic and the woman driving it was very impatient with us all, glossing over the needs of the frail woman next to me with a "I don't speak English" note and passive aggressively insisting I would be fine walking several longish coridoors. Once we got to Domestic we just found a Qantas wheelchair and took it. When we got to the plane there was another woman from the shuttle standing up because noone had gotten her a wheelchair. Luckily I had just eaten the remains of a bag of delicious customs unfriendly sugary nut based snacks so had some energy for annoyances.
And then a tiny 4 hour trip and we were hoooome.
It's nearly a week later and feel moderately crappy but not as terrible as I worried I would, and I've been able to catch up with laundry etc.
We're thinking we'll go again in a few years. It was fun for what it was, but also just...the joy of everything being accessible! But this time we'll stay in LA itself for few days so I can finally get to the La Brea Tar Pits, which I had intended to do this time before deciding it was all too hard from Anaheim. (And also see other LA stuff)
- Lego Store
- Introduction to Disneyland
- Touring the Universal backlot and props room on the VIP tour
- The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios
- It's A Small World
And now for the rest of the trip!
Day 4:
I was way too tired for going to the parks so just slept in then took a Lyft to a "health food supermarket" Sprouts, where I hoped to get a non dairy milk I could drink. And I did! Also some nice fruit and chopped vegetables and interesting looking 'healthy' snacks.
We both napped then Cam went out to Disneyland...at which point I realised I'd lost my phone. Lyft user support was very helpful about helping me contact my driver but it turned out that while I had left it in his car he'd already left the phone at the hotel front desk. So I gave him a large tip :) The reason I installed Lyft in the first place is it lets you add a tip using the same card you use to pay for your trip instead of making you carry cash.
Tips confuse the hell out of me, we missed/underpaid a few at various points out of cluelessness or inability to access cash. I'm glad restaurants and Lyft make it easy to add a tip to a bill you're paying electronically but I wish more places did. That or the US got decent labour laws and tips were abolished, that would be more convenient (for me, anyway :)) The hotel was not at all helpful when I asked if there was any way to give the cleaning staff tips as part of our overall bill, luckily I managed to figure out how to get money out of ATMs in the end (pick credit, not savings, oops).
Day 5:
We queued up to get in early for the queue for a popular ride at California Adventure...only to discover we, like most of the rest of the queue, were an hour early for the main opening, since while Disneyland opens at 8am, California Adventure opens at 8am for guests of the offical Disneyland hotels but at 9am for everyone else. We looked at the now extensive queues behind us (and opposite us for Disneyland) and decided to just sit for an hour. Later we noticed the small signs with opening hours at security, but they could stand to have some on the gates where people actually wait.
We were let in partway at 8:30 then had to stand at a rope waiting for another half hour while Disneyland hotel guests wandered around in front of us. And then we got to queue some MORE for the ride itself. "This better be worth it" I thought.
And it was!
Soaring over the World: a simple but amazingly effective ride: you are strapped into an airplane-like seat for about 5 people, attached by long metal arms to the ceiling and facing a screen. This arm moves the seat in three dimensions to match the video on the screen, scenes of flying over mountains/forests/landmarks etc. There's air blowing into your face with subtle scents to match the visuals. And it FEELS LIKE FLYING.
And then back to Disneyland!
Sleeping Beauty's castle: not an actual castle, just an arch with a castle like top. My inner 5 year old was dissappointed. I think I may have missed some parts behind doors in the arch though.
It's a Small World: "We have a while to kill before our fastpass to Indiana Jones, and this has a short queue" we said. Little did we know what awaited us. Words cannot do it justice, see my (transcribed) photos.
Indiana Jones: You're on a "jeep" going through an ancient cursed temple full of spiders/falling rocks/shooting arrows etc. It was ok, kinda racist in the way the movies are. Disneyland has these things called "Fastpass"s where you grab a ticket early to skip the queue during a set window of time later, so we grabbed one for the now fixed Indiana Jones ride, I thought my wheelchair would make it redundant but it didn't, I get the feeling they'd have made us wait even though I didn't travel the same way as the actual queue.
Monte Cristo sandwich at Cafe Orleans: we arrived just before the opening at 11:30am...to discover there was already yet another queue just to get a booking. Cam really wanted one of their Monte Cristos, but since that's a deep fried ham and cheese sandwich eg Sophie Death I was less enthused. So I wandered off to find a spiced pumpkin almond milk smoothie from Jamba Juice and we met back at the hotel, where we were both dubious of how happy the other was with their purchase :)
Since this was our last day I spent the rest of the afternoon resting.
Day 6: We were super tired but had to pack and get out of the hotel for our plane. We finally made it down to the front desk to hand in our keys....
...only to find out we weren't checking out until the next day. We went back to the room...and the maid was in the middle of preparing it for new guests, since we'd clearly left. All our food was gone. I was VERY SAD but she went and got it back for us, having (as I had intended) neatly packaged it up to take home. She seemed happy enough to give it back, probably because I'd finally managed to figure out the atms and had left seven days worth of tips along with the food.
Cam and I discussed going out to the parks but were both just done so spent the day resting and had sandwiches for dinner.
Day 7: ACTUAL LAST DAY. The extra day of rest and most of our stuff already being packed made checking out pretty painless. We had to kill a chunk of time so just sat on the hotel's couches surfing the web on the free wifi for several hours, then caught the Disneyland Express from Greyline to LAX. Except at the last hotel pickeup we all had to leave the bus and get into multiple hired vans for some unexplained reason?? And they didn't have enough vans so we sat around waiting for a while AGAIN, we did not have much luck with Greyline this trip. Luckily we were running pretty early for our plane.
After checking in at LAX we had to sit and wait a while for someone to come with a wheelchair to get us through security (which was as intense as you'd expect for getting on a US plane, but everyone was very helpful) and to the shuttle to the departure gates. The food court was close by but annoyingly we weren't allowed to use a wheelchair to get there, so we walked and had mediocre Panda Express Chinese (which tasted very much like Chinese food in Australian food courts)
And then FIFTEEN HOURS OF SITTING omg my bum was sore by the end of it. Otherwise it was fine, though the sandwich I'd packed from Panera Bread would have been nicer if I'd taken out the complimentary pickle slice instead of letting the pickle juice soak in for a few hours /o\
Melbourne airport was annoying: they were more people with mobility issues than they had room for on the shuttle from International to Domestic and the woman driving it was very impatient with us all, glossing over the needs of the frail woman next to me with a "I don't speak English" note and passive aggressively insisting I would be fine walking several longish coridoors. Once we got to Domestic we just found a Qantas wheelchair and took it. When we got to the plane there was another woman from the shuttle standing up because noone had gotten her a wheelchair. Luckily I had just eaten the remains of a bag of delicious customs unfriendly sugary nut based snacks so had some energy for annoyances.
And then a tiny 4 hour trip and we were hoooome.
It's nearly a week later and feel moderately crappy but not as terrible as I worried I would, and I've been able to catch up with laundry etc.
We're thinking we'll go again in a few years. It was fun for what it was, but also just...the joy of everything being accessible! But this time we'll stay in LA itself for few days so I can finally get to the La Brea Tar Pits, which I had intended to do this time before deciding it was all too hard from Anaheim. (And also see other LA stuff)
no subject
Date: 2016-10-23 09:53 pm (UTC)(Also, I have the same confusion with tips! Up here, a lot of people automate it with the thing where you can just select one of the three Classic Tip Rates and it's like angels descending from heaven, lol.)
no subject
Date: 2016-10-24 06:53 am (UTC)Thank you! And yes we were SO GRATEFUL for the places that did that.
no subject
Date: 2016-10-24 12:05 am (UTC)I'm glad the fun parts were fun! I think one of the reasons the It's A Small World ride is so weird is because it's kind of a tradition--if they changed it, people would panic that it's no longer like it was when they were kids. But yeah, it's... it's a thing.
no subject
Date: 2016-10-24 05:27 am (UTC)Yeah, my mum said the photos reminded her of the kind of thing she'd thought was cute as a kid in the 60s then grew up and went "actually that was weird".
no subject
Date: 2016-10-24 07:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-10-24 07:17 am (UTC)Oh, I didn't know that! I feel better about the people we didn't manage to tip now :)