Laura's Disney Lines

As many of you know, when considering a trip to Walt Disney World, the issue of whether to stay on-site or off-site can be rather hotly debated. At WDW staying on-site certainly has advantages with its access to Disney transportation, proximity to the parks, and the wide range of resorts (and room rates!) available.

At Disneyland it's really not so much of an issue, though.

Location, location, location.
Though Disneyland was originally built in the middle of an orange grove, the city of Anaheim grew up all around it, and it's surrounded by its own variety of hotels with a wide range of prices and amenities. In fact, all of the Disney-owned hotels (Disneyland Hotel, Paradise Pier, and Grand Californian) are all "high-end" hotels, so those traveling on a more modest budget have no choice but to choose an "off-site" hotel. Proximity of the Disney hotels is a non-issue, though, since several of the off-site hotels are actually closer to Disneyland's entrance than the Disney hotels! Just a short walk (~5 minutes) across Harbor Blvd are several moderately priced hotels that provide clean-but-no-frills accommodations at a much lower rate than any of the Disney hotels - and there's that shorter walk to the parks, too. Now, there's also no theming at those hotels, either, but some of them do offer a complimentary continental breakfast, free parking and high-speed internet, *without* the "resort fee" Disney charges.

So what about transportation?
The Disneyland Resort is a "walking" resort - other than the trams from the two parking areas, the only Disney transportation is the monorail, and it only has two stations: one inside Tomorrowland, and the other at the far end of Downtown Disney. It's closest to the Disneyland Hotel, but it's really not so convenient to any of the hotels that I'd consider it a factor in deciding to stay there.

That Disney theming
Of the three Disney hotels, only the Grand Californian was originally owned and built by Disney - the Disneyland Hotel and the Paradise Pier were originally built by third parties, and later acquired by Disney. So a lot of the "Disney" touches in terms of design and theming are missing from those two hotels. Both hotels were constructed as very ordinary rectangular high-rise towers (three at the Disneyland Hotel and one at the Paradise Pier) - pretty boring and quite a contrast from the beautifully designed Grand Californian across the street.

The Disneyland Hotel has done a lot of remodeling and renovation in recent years, and it does have a lot more of the "Disney resort feel" these days. The grounds and landscaping are quite nice, and the Neverland Pool area can compete with any of the WDW pools. The Paradise Pier suffers from a lack of space, though - the hotel itself takes up all of its lot, and there's not much room for niceties like landscaping. The pool area is actually built on top of the convention center.

You notice I haven't really mentioned the Grand Californian - it's really in a class by itself, at least in comparison to the other Disneyland hotels, and reflects Disney resort theming at its finest. And it has the price to go along with that, too...

So...on-site or off-site?
Well, in my opinion, at Disneyland it's really a matter of economics. If you can afford to stay at one of the Disney-owned hotels you're going to get more of a Disney experience in terms of theming, service, and room decor than you will at any of the off-site hotels. But as far as proximity to the parks goes, a number of the off-site hotels are better choices, as well as being much more inexpensive.

What about you? Where is your favorite place to stay at Disneyland, and what do you like about it?

Laura

We made another trip to Disneyland on the afternoon/evening of Friday, August 17...thought I'd share a few observations...

With the "Year of a Million Dreams" extended through 2008 (doesn't that make it "Years of a Million Dreams?" the banners in the main entry plaza have changed...and the letters in front of DCA that spell out "CALIFORNIA" now have a blue-sky-and-clouds look, like the "Dream" mouse ears.

The waits for most attractions were less than an hour (15 minutes for Indy, 5 for Pirates, 10 minutes for Buzz, etc.), but Finding Nemo was still two hours.

This was a first for us - the standby line for Big Thunder Mountain was shorter than the Fastpass Return line! Since the attraction loads on two sides they send Fastpassers to one side and standby riders to the other, so we got on faster than a lot of people who had Fastpasses!

We saw the Ratatouille "pre-parade" float with Remy and Emile - since it doesn't fit into the Parade of Dreams it gets to be its own mini-parade.

On our raft ride over to Tom Sawyer Island at about 4:25 we saw one of the Pirate Stunt Show characters climbing up to the "crow's nest" waiting to make his grand entrance - which was still about 10 minutes away. I recognized this particular actor as one that had been playing Jedi Master Endo Valaris in Jedi Academy...from Jedi Master to Pirate...guess he went over to the Dark side!

 

The Disney Gallery (above the Pirates of the Caribbean) is closed, which means no more Fantasmic! dessert buffet on the balcony...but Riverside Premium seating for Fantasmic! is still available.

Disney's new High School Musical 2 movie premiered Friday night, and a new street show at DCA, High School Musical 2: School's Out, opened on Saturday, replacing the High School Musical Pep Rally.

The three towers at the Disneyland Hotel now have signs over the entrances with their new names: Magic (formerly Marina), Dreams (formerly Sierra) and Wonder (formerly Bonita). The hotel map signs scattered around the property have not yet been changed to reflect the new names, though.

We had dinner at Hook's Pointe (review to come) - Lee noticed that there's a map of Never Land on the ceiling.

The Fantasy Waters show at the Disneyland Hotel has been gone for a while, but the fountains and lights still put on a little bit of a show - we seem to have been there at just the right time to see it.

Until next time...

Laura

I'm just back from a short overnight trip to Disneyland - we went up to attend Taste - the final signature event of this year's Food and Wine Festival. Taste was fun - I'll have more information and pictures up later.

We stayed at the Paradise Pier - the last time I stayed there was almost 11 years ago, when it was still called the Pan-Pacific. We had a room with a view of the Paradise Pier area of DCA - it was really pretty at night:

And in the early morning:

It also gave us quite an interesting perspective for viewing the Pixar Play Parade, which has changed (again) from what I saw a couple of weeks ago, as I reported in this blog entry. Lightning McQueen and Mater were back at the beginning and end of the parade. And the stilt-walking chefs of Ratatouille also returned - though there were only three of them.

From the room we could see many of the floats on the parade route

The biggest change, though, is the return of the "bug's life" parade unit - Heimlich and his many parts plus the float. The float was modified significantly - only the front part with Flik and Atta on the swing is there now. It looks a little odd when you compare it with the size of the floats for all of the other units.

Even with the "bug's life" float back, the weird Toy Story Tinker Toy creature is still part of the parade (but don't get me wrong, I think it looks pretty cool):

The acrobats have not returned to the Toy Story float - it's still just the monkeys hanging on the bar.

A while ago I talked about the Prince Caspian Pre-Parade that was coming to Disneyland at the end of April, and I had a chance to see that. I didn't notice any swooning females, but Caspian looked pretty good. And the horse was quite beautiful, and BIG.

He had quite an entourage - the banner bearers in front, the standard bearers, plus the courtier leading the horse - but it was his final attendant who cracked me up - The Royal Pooper Scooper. :-)

During Magic Morning I had a chance to get a close look at Jingles, the lead horse on the King Arthur Carrousel, which was dedicated to Julie Andrews last month. If you look closely you can see Mary Poppins' umbrella on the rump. Her initials, JA, the number 50, and Mary Poppins' boots and flying silhouette are on the saddle. It's really beautiful - so detailed!

The sparkling/chasing lights that are on the floral Mickey at the entrance to Disneyland cooperated with me a lot better than they did when I was there with Lisa Berton back in March - this time the light show was running almost continuously. It's more impressive in person when you can watch the lights as they move and twinkle, but hopefully you get the idea.

And now that I'm back from Disneyland I'm leaving for Disney World, where I'm planning to blog live this week. A little bonus trip for me - but I'll be writing more about that in my next blog entry.

On Thursday I had the opportunity to take a "Sneak Peek Hard Hat Tour" of the DVC Grand Californian Villas. These villas are still under construction - they are scheduled to open late this fall - November according to some of the literature we were given.

Our tour began with a continental breakfast and an overview of the Disney Vacation Club (DVC) program from DVC Sales Director Mike Brunson. Lee and I have been DVC members since 1996, so the program itself is quite familiar to me. (Since AllEars has a very comprehensive DVC page, I won't cover it here - see the AllEars Disney Vacation Club page for all of the details.)

Some things I learned about the Grand Californian Villas (GCV):

It is the smallest DVC resort to date - a total of only 50 units. There are 48 two-bedroom units (most of which can be split into a one bedroom and a studio) and two Grand Villas.

It will be the 10th Disney Vacation Club property to open.

The Grand Villas will sleep 12 and are two stories high.

Our next stop was the DVC Models, which are located near the Wonder Tower of the Disneyland Hotel. I had seen these last year, but at that point they were not quite ready for the public and we were not allowed to take photos.

What can I say - the rooms are gorgeous. They have models of a Studio and a One-Bedroom unit. The rooms are decorated in the Arts & Crafts style like the rest of the Grand Californian, so there's lots of wood, granite counter tops, stained-glass lamps, etc. We started our tour in the Studio, since it just gets better from there. Yeah, staying in a Studio is a pretty tough assignment. :-)

We moved next door into the One-Bedroom unit. These units have a design that is a little different from most of the other DVC resorts - the major difference is that there is a second bathroom. Which would make it a lot easier if there's 4-5 people staying in it. These units also accommodate 5 people instead of 4 - there's a Murphy bed built into the bottom of the entertainment unit. Very tricksy! :-) The dining room table has a built-in bench seat, so it takes up a little less room that way.

For the hard hat tour we moved into the construction site itself. We were not allowed to take any photographs, so that's why all you'll see are photos taken from outside.

First we had to put on hard hats - they were white and said "VISITOR" on them.

Our two guides were Leah Jason, the Walt Disney Imagineering Construction Supervisor, and Bruce Campbell, the Senior Superintendent, who works for CWD - the building contractor.

We started on the very bottom floor, which is actually the valet parking garage. Since space is at a premium, they put the parking garage below the new part of the hotel. There are two parking levels and about 300 spaces.

From there we went up the freight elevator to the third floor. The rooms in that section are all standard guest rooms - the new wing of the Grand Californian adds about 200 new guest rooms in addition to the 50 DVC units. Most of these rooms had drywall on the walls, and the tile in the tub area was done. But no plumbing or any other fixtures yet.

There are going to be "bridges" to tie the new part of the building to the existing part on the second through sixth floors. On the first floor will be a covered walkway. To me that description sounded quite similar to the way that Wilderness Lodge and Villas at Wilderness Lodge are connected.

There will be three passenger elevators.

From there we went up to the 5th floor and into one of the Grand Villas. We were on the second floor of it, where there is a balcony that overlooks the living area below, and also what will be a two-story window overlooking Paradise Bay in Disney's California Adventure. Wow. That is going to be a wonderful view - and it should be a prime view for the new World of Color show that starts next year.

We went across the building to the other Grand Villa - this one will overlook the new pool area. This new Mariposa pool and spa are located on what used to be the wedding lawn. There will be a walkway connecting it to the existing pool area.

This floor was a lot less finished - the interior walls were still open and not yet covered with drywall. I found it It very confusing being in a building that really had no identifying features and all of those open walls. Good thing we had expert guidance! :-)

Bruce told us that there are 250 workers on-site per day. And he's worked for Disney before - he was part of the team that built the Tower of Terror attraction.

Our final stop was the Observation Deck on the sixth (top) floor. This area also overlooks Disney's California Adventure. The area will have a trellis type of cover and its own set of restrooms - apparently it will be available for booking special events.

We went back down the freight elevator and turned in our hard hats before leaving the site. Thank you to Leah and Bruce for taking us on the tour - it was very interesting to see the construction in progress.

I'm glad that there is finally going to be a DVC resort in California, but it's so small that I'm not sure I'll ever get the chance to stay there. Since we don't live that far away, we don't stay overnight very often - and when we do I don't make reservations 7 months in advance, which is probably what it's going to take to be able to book a stay. Up until now we've been able to use our points to book a hotel room at the Grand Californian, but once the DVC resort opens we will no longer be able to do that - though we will still be able to book stays at the Disneyland Hotel and the Paradise Pier.