AlliGirl
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- May 6, 2011
This Thursday was our last day in the parks. We had a special reservation planned so we started our morning off in Disneyland.
We came in during the Magic Morning hour and headed for Peter Pan’s Flight. I love this ride and the story of Peter Pan; it puts me in the perfect Disney state of mind. Our wait was pretty long and slow-going.
While in line, we were very entertained by this large child in a stroller wearing a neck pillow drinking from a bottle…
Inside, this ride is very similar to the WDW version, however WDW has a few more details etc. Oh and WDW’s Peter Pan’s Flight has just added an interactive queue that looks leaps and bounds better than the previous queue. Hopefully we will get to check it out soon!
After the ride, we headed to Jolly Holiday Bakery for breakfast. I had a particular treat on my mind…the cinnamon roll. It was incredible! I’m not a huge fan of cinnamon rolls because there is such a variety in how they are made. The WDW cinnamon rolls that used to be served in the Main Street Bakery (which is now a Starbucks) are now served at Gaston’s Tavern in New Fantasyland (bad name choice for an amazing park area). That was the only Disney cinnamon roll I had ever had and it’s just…dry. The Jolly Holiday Café cinnamon roll is the epitome of all cinnamon rolls! It was very warm, well-frosted, and huge. Once we had sat down with our food, Scott ran back inside and came out with a surprise: a Matterhorn Macaroon! We definitely recommend this as well, that is if you like coconut! We thought it had a great texture.
We headed to Big Thunder Mountain for a second ride.
The first time we rode BTMRR we had a fastpass, this time we waited standby. I like this queue a lot, and there are a lot of good picture taking opportunities. If you remember way back, after our first ride, we thought that the newly added finale effects were awesome! We were very impressed and thought that they bumped the whole ride experience up to a new level. Well here’s the funny thing about that…we hadn’t even seen them operating at their full capacity! From what we remember, the fuses going up the sides were functioning and a few other elements, however we did not experience the true finale ending until this ride, which we loved! I think it really elevates and differentiates this ride from all the other mine train type coasters at virtually every amusement park around the world.
Afterwards, we went for a walk through Tarzan’s Treehouse. As we look back at the list of attractions we hit, it seems so random! We were walking all over that park! Tarzan’s Treehouse is a very fun walkthrough. We prefer it to Magic Kingdom’s Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse, because it has more interactive elements to play with and things to see. There was also a lot more space in a few areas, whereas SFRT is very confined.
Keeping with our morning of running all over the park, we headed to Buzz Lightyear’s Astroblasters. We prefer this ride to the WDW counterpart, but the differences are pretty subtle. I felt much closer to all of the targets and I was able to score more points, which is always fun.
We decided to take a ride on the Monorail afterwards. It’s funny how different the experience is from riding the Monorail at WDW, where it’s more of a mode of transportation (but with that fun vacation feeling added). At Disneyland, the Monorail felt more like an attraction, especially because everyone has to be seated. I think I hit my head coming in and going out though, the cars are much smaller than the ones in WDW.
We even got a nice view of our hotel room balcony. (Bottom left room, middle of the frame.. We passed right under it!)..
We went and got fastpasses for Indiana Jones and then we were planning on going to watch Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln. I think our erratic travel pattern was caused by us trying to get in a bunch of smaller things on our last day, things we were interested to do but not at the very top of our list. Well, this day was the 59th Anniversary of Disneyland, so a press event was taking place at the entrance of the park. In all of our walking back and forth, we missed the whole event, which I believe involved 59 different characters coming out and few speeches. However, the whole area was still covered in mass amounts of confetti. They were using Great Moments as a welcome area for different media guests so it was closed on this day, bummer. We went in the Disneyana store and looked around and then to the Main Street Cinema to watch a few of the old cartoon clips.
We made our way to New Orleans Square and wandered through all of the shops, paid a visit to the Pirate fortuneteller, and checked in for a very special reservation!
That’s right, we had a lunch reservation for Blue Bayou. I made my reservation for 11:30 I believe, which was the first reservation slot for the day. I was nervous as we approached, because there was a bit of a lineup at the podium. I’m pretty sure those were people trying to get a reservation for that day though. Our lunch at Blue Bayou was highly anticipated, and the choice of the first reservation slot was no accident. I had read here on the DisBoards that choosing that slot gave you the best chance for one of the few tables right on the water. However, with all the other parties showing up for their reservations, I wasn’t sure if we’d get the table of my dreams.
Next time: Our review of lunch at Blue Bayou and many more scattered Disneyland attractions, plus this former Skipper’s first time at Trader Sam’s!
We came in during the Magic Morning hour and headed for Peter Pan’s Flight. I love this ride and the story of Peter Pan; it puts me in the perfect Disney state of mind. Our wait was pretty long and slow-going.
While in line, we were very entertained by this large child in a stroller wearing a neck pillow drinking from a bottle…
Inside, this ride is very similar to the WDW version, however WDW has a few more details etc. Oh and WDW’s Peter Pan’s Flight has just added an interactive queue that looks leaps and bounds better than the previous queue. Hopefully we will get to check it out soon!
After the ride, we headed to Jolly Holiday Bakery for breakfast. I had a particular treat on my mind…the cinnamon roll. It was incredible! I’m not a huge fan of cinnamon rolls because there is such a variety in how they are made. The WDW cinnamon rolls that used to be served in the Main Street Bakery (which is now a Starbucks) are now served at Gaston’s Tavern in New Fantasyland (bad name choice for an amazing park area). That was the only Disney cinnamon roll I had ever had and it’s just…dry. The Jolly Holiday Café cinnamon roll is the epitome of all cinnamon rolls! It was very warm, well-frosted, and huge. Once we had sat down with our food, Scott ran back inside and came out with a surprise: a Matterhorn Macaroon! We definitely recommend this as well, that is if you like coconut! We thought it had a great texture.
We headed to Big Thunder Mountain for a second ride.
The first time we rode BTMRR we had a fastpass, this time we waited standby. I like this queue a lot, and there are a lot of good picture taking opportunities. If you remember way back, after our first ride, we thought that the newly added finale effects were awesome! We were very impressed and thought that they bumped the whole ride experience up to a new level. Well here’s the funny thing about that…we hadn’t even seen them operating at their full capacity! From what we remember, the fuses going up the sides were functioning and a few other elements, however we did not experience the true finale ending until this ride, which we loved! I think it really elevates and differentiates this ride from all the other mine train type coasters at virtually every amusement park around the world.
Afterwards, we went for a walk through Tarzan’s Treehouse. As we look back at the list of attractions we hit, it seems so random! We were walking all over that park! Tarzan’s Treehouse is a very fun walkthrough. We prefer it to Magic Kingdom’s Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse, because it has more interactive elements to play with and things to see. There was also a lot more space in a few areas, whereas SFRT is very confined.
Keeping with our morning of running all over the park, we headed to Buzz Lightyear’s Astroblasters. We prefer this ride to the WDW counterpart, but the differences are pretty subtle. I felt much closer to all of the targets and I was able to score more points, which is always fun.
We decided to take a ride on the Monorail afterwards. It’s funny how different the experience is from riding the Monorail at WDW, where it’s more of a mode of transportation (but with that fun vacation feeling added). At Disneyland, the Monorail felt more like an attraction, especially because everyone has to be seated. I think I hit my head coming in and going out though, the cars are much smaller than the ones in WDW.
We even got a nice view of our hotel room balcony. (Bottom left room, middle of the frame.. We passed right under it!)..
We went and got fastpasses for Indiana Jones and then we were planning on going to watch Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln. I think our erratic travel pattern was caused by us trying to get in a bunch of smaller things on our last day, things we were interested to do but not at the very top of our list. Well, this day was the 59th Anniversary of Disneyland, so a press event was taking place at the entrance of the park. In all of our walking back and forth, we missed the whole event, which I believe involved 59 different characters coming out and few speeches. However, the whole area was still covered in mass amounts of confetti. They were using Great Moments as a welcome area for different media guests so it was closed on this day, bummer. We went in the Disneyana store and looked around and then to the Main Street Cinema to watch a few of the old cartoon clips.
We made our way to New Orleans Square and wandered through all of the shops, paid a visit to the Pirate fortuneteller, and checked in for a very special reservation!
That’s right, we had a lunch reservation for Blue Bayou. I made my reservation for 11:30 I believe, which was the first reservation slot for the day. I was nervous as we approached, because there was a bit of a lineup at the podium. I’m pretty sure those were people trying to get a reservation for that day though. Our lunch at Blue Bayou was highly anticipated, and the choice of the first reservation slot was no accident. I had read here on the DisBoards that choosing that slot gave you the best chance for one of the few tables right on the water. However, with all the other parties showing up for their reservations, I wasn’t sure if we’d get the table of my dreams.
Next time: Our review of lunch at Blue Bayou and many more scattered Disneyland attractions, plus this former Skipper’s first time at Trader Sam’s!