Laura's Disney Lines

Lee and I spent October 10-12 at the Disneyland Resort. Some of this I have written about in previous blog entries (like the AllEars Meet), but here's a few more highlights.

I also wrote about our stay at the new Villas at the Grand Californian, which was very nice. Love that one-bedroom villa!!! Lee has decreed that we shall always stay in one-bedroom villas. :-) (Which we usually do anyways.)

Back to the rest of the weekend, though. Saturday was very crowded in the parks, even DCA had a lot more people than it usually does. They were even making AP holders get handstamps all weekend for park re-entry - and I've never seen that before! We were so glad we were staying on-site and not having to deal with parking and the parking tram and all of that.

Saturday evening we wanted to see the new fireworks show, Halloween Screams, again. We met fellow AllEars® teammate Lisa Berton at The Plaza Inn for dinner. Holy cow...it was soooooo crowded!!! Line out the door and no tables to be had (though we finally found one). It was my fault...I wanted their fried chicken for dinner. And it was good!

Anyway...after dinner we found a friendly CM outside who was starting to direct traffic into Tomorrowland, and we asked her about a good viewing spot for Halloween Screams, so she told us where she likes to watch it from. And Lee videotaped the whole show - it's a little better than the one he originally shot since he had a wide angle lens this time and he modified the exposure settings so the castle is a lot brighter. The show is over 10 minutes long, so there are two parts to the video.

As you can see, even though it was a great spot for seeing the fireworks and the projections on the castle, it was not such a good shot for seeing the "crystal ball", which was partially blocked by one of the castle's spires. Oh well.

Sunday morning Lee and I went into Disneyland for Magic Morning - which we were eligible for because we were staying at a Disneyland resort (and it's the ONLY way for AP holders to get it!) There seemed to be fewer people in the park than on previous occasions when we've done it on a Saturday morning. We did 5 attractions in an hour - Ghost Galaxy, Buzz Lightyear, Star Tours, Alice in Wonderland, and Peter Pan. And after the park opened we went to Haunted Mansion Holiday and Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Forbidden Ride (more commonly known as "Indy"). Seven attractions in an hour and a half! That's more than we often do in an entire day. :-)

Fast forward to later in the day after breakfast, the AllEars meet, and lunch at Rancho del Zocalo. As we were walking out of the park with Deb and Cathy at about 2:00 we saw the Hook and Ladder Company performing in front of the fire station. This is one of the things I love best about Disneyland...all of the little things like this that you find happening around the park. They were joined by several characters - Cruella DeVil tried to steal the stuffed Dalmatian puppy toy they had sitting on the piano, and she was run off by Chip and Dale, who did a cute shadow dance.

And then Goofy came out and danced to "Come on, Get Happy" - who knew that someone with feet that big could dance so well? It was a lot of fun to watch.

That evening we came back to the park with Deb and Cathy and did the Fantasmic! dessert package. Cathy hadn't seen the Disneyland version of Fantasmic! before, and I don't think Deb had, either, and they both loved it. Cathy is a woman after my own heart and loved the pirate ship.

This time the dragon mostly behaved - she moved around a bit more than the first time we saw her, though she didn't breathe fire. I love the way she leans down to look at Mickey like he's some insignificant little thing that's bothering her.

From there we had an excellent view of the Halloween Screams fireworks, but we couldn't see the crystal ball at all, and could only get a glimpse of Zero. Since the fireworks are really designed to be viewed from Main Street, it's not so obvious how many different places they are shot off from - they just appear to be at different depths. But when viewed from the side they appear side-by-side rather than front-to-back.

The next morning we were able to participate in the morning Power Walk around DCA. This is something they offer several mornings a week to guests at the Grand Californian, but we'd never been able to do it before because we were doing Magic Morning instead. But since this was Monday, there wasn't a Magic Morning. We had signed up a couple of days earlier - there's no charge, you just have to be a hotel guest. At the time they said we would do 2 miles in 30 minutes - which I don't consider a power walk pace. :-)

There were only Lee and I and one other female guest, plus the instructor. Because we were going into the park before it was open we all had to sign waivers. Once the security person let us in the DCA gate we did a little stretching, and then started walking. And since we were a small group who could all walk fast, we really did do a power walk, so I was happy. There was maintenance going on in the park so we had to avoid a few obstacles. We walked all the way around Paradise Pier, around "a bug's land", then all the way around the Hollywood Studios area, went past Soarin', and ended up at the rapids again. Normally they stop there, but we still had time because we'd been walking so fast, so we went once more around past Grizzly Rapids, the Golden Vine Winery, and Soarin'. We still only did 1.8 miles, though - I had my GPS watch on. After we stretched for a while longer we walked out of the park. It was really a nice way to start the morning! In addition to the Power Walks, they also offer Pilates classes several days a week. Our instructor said they hope to expand the program and offer some additional stretching and aerobic programs next year.

It was Columbus Day and Disneyland was busy, though not quite as horrible as I'd expected. Deb, Lisa and I took Cathy to Toontown and showed her some of the fun stuff there is to do there.

We met Lee and we all had a really nice lunch, and then Lee and I said goodbye and headed back home.

It was a really fun weekend. It's always really nice to be staying there and be able to head back to the room in the afternoon, and even better to go back to the room late at night instead of driving home!

As I'm sure most of you know, seeing Fantasmic! at Disneyland can involve a whole lot of waiting if you want to get a good viewing location. People start staking out spots along the Rivers of America as much as 4-5 hours in advance - and even then they are sitting on the ground and not in chairs! Disney offers one of their Premium Viewing Experiences for Fantasmic! for those willing to pay for it. For $59 (plus tax) you get a reserved seat (yes, in an actual chair!) for the show, and a box of desserts and other goodies, plus beverage of your choice.

To book the Fantasmic! Dessert Package, you should call 30 days in advance of the date that you want to see the show. (For June 12, call on May 12, for July 31, call on July 1, etc.) The number is 714-781-4400. Phone lines open at 8:00 Pacific time. Your credit card will be charged at time of booking, and there are no refunds or exchanges. If there are two Fantasmic! shows there will be two Dessert seatings, so you will also need to specify which show you want to see. The package doesn't necessarily book up exactly 30 days in advance, but if you know for sure the date you want to see it, I would recommend calling 30 days in advance. They will give you a confirmation number - write this down and bring it with you. You will also need to bring with you the same credit card that you used to reserve the package.

Lee and I did this on June 12, for the first night of Summer Nightastic! - when we were pretty sure that Fantasmic! would be packed (and it was). I booked on May 12, calling right at 8:00 in the morning, and had no problem getting seats. (In fact, one of the people in line with us while we were waiting for the show had called only about 3 weeks before, and he was able to get in, too!)

Once we arrived at Disneyland we had to go to Guest Services to pick up our tickets. Usually we can go to the Guest Services line that's outside the park (to the left of the turnstiles), but we arrived late in the day and it was closed, so we had to go to City Hall instead. I gave the Cast Member our confirmation number and my credit card - he also wanted to see my photo id and verify my address. And then he gave me our two Fantasmic! tickets for the 10:30 show.

As the next step we actually had to check in for the show at 8:00 even though our show time was 10:30 - they check in all the shows at the same time. This is where they actually let you choose the seats that you want, so people start lining up 30-60 minutes in advance so they can get first choice. The check-in podium is on the first terrace level above the Pirate's Lair raft boarding area - next to a churro cart and a coffee cart. We didn't arrive until about 7:45 and there were already probably 40 people in front of us.

Once they started checking us in at 8:00 things went fairly quickly. They divided us into two lines - one for the 9:00 showing and one for the 10:30 showing. We showed our tickets to the CMs and they checked our names off a list, and then showed us the seating chart where we picked the seats we wanted out of those that were left. There are about 50 seats in three rows. The first row, which is right up against the railing on the first terrace (it's not down at river level) is of course the first to go. We asked if we could stand if we were seated in the back and were told that we could, so we chose seats in the back row. We were on the end closest to the main light tower (next to the control booth). My opinion is that the middle row of seats are the worst, since you have someone in front of you AND you have to remain seated because there is also someone in back of you. (One good thing - people who are down in the lower terrace are NOT allowed to stand during the show, so they don't block the view of those in the reserved area.) Once the CMs wrote our seat numbers down on their chart and our our tickets we left.

At that point it was about 8:15, and it did not appear that they had started seating those who were seeing the 9:00 showing. I assume they start seating 30 minutes before the show starts, but I was not able to verify that since I forgot to ask (as you will read, we were pretty frazzled by the time we arrived for our seating time).

I had intentionally selected the second Fantasmic! because I wanted to be able to watch the new Magical fireworks show from Main Street, and there's no way you can see the first Fantasmic! and then get to Main Street for the fireworks show because they overlap slightly. Not to mention the fact that on opening night I knew Main Street would be packed for the fireworks. Disney encourages those who watch the early Fantasmic! show to remain in place for the fireworks show - you CAN see the fireworks from the Rivers of America, but you can't see anything on the castle, or any of the special effects like Tinker Bell's or Dumbo's flights.

After we had watched the fireworks show we waited for a few more minutes before trying to head back to Frontierland - usually that allows the Rivers of America area to clear out a little bit. But not that night - it seemed like *everyone* was trying to see the second show of Fantasmic! And many people who saw the first show were staying for the second show, so the area was not clearing out like it usually does! It was shoulder-to-shoulder shuffling all the way from the bridge into Frontierland back into New Orleans Square. And at one point we stopped completely for a while - it was about at that point (10:00) that they made the park-wide announcement that the Fantasmic! viewing area was full. But it wasn't full - we still had two seats waiting for us!!!! We were just about at the entrance to Pirates by then - and we were honestly wondering if we were going to make it in time!

Fortunately things started moving again and we finally made it to the entrance to the reserved seating area. It was just beyond the main light tower, and blocked off with a rope. We had to get someone's attention before they let us in. The CM looked at our tickets and took us to our seats, and then, after we sat down, gave us our dessert boxes and took our drink orders. (Coffee, hot chocolate, soft drinks and water were available).

Here's the dessert box with the Fantasmic! logo:

Inside there were five kinds of cheese, packages of crackers, and grapes. For the sweet tooth we had a macaroon, a mini chocolate cupcake with chocolate filling (it would have been a lava cake if it had been warm!), a mini cheesecake, a lemon tart, and a shortbread cookie with strawberry filling, with a white chocolate design on it. There were also two truffles - a chocolate truffle and a white chocolate truffle with some kind of citrus flavor (yuck!).

Here's the drink station:

After fighting the crowds we were a bit frazzled, as I mentioned, so it was nice to sit down. We arrived about 10:15 (and we weren't the last to arrive!), but still had time to enjoy some of our desserts and our beverages before the show started. I think they have done a good job of not placing the chairs too close together - we had more room than we did when they offered this on the balcony of the old Disney Gallery (which is now the Dream Suite). We were sitting on folding chairs, but they had a little bit of a cushion, and were comfortable enough.

The desserts were pretty good, but not great. My favorite was the chocolate cake - neither of us liked the lemon tart. It was nice to see the crackers and cheese in addition to the sweets, but I would've liked to have had more fruit than just the grapes (they were very good grapes, though). In the past they have had chocolate-covered strawberries, but not this time, and I had been looking forward to that. It was a LOT of dessert, though - neither of us came close to finishing everything (we could easily have shared one box) and we took our boxes home.

The show started fairly promptly at 10:30. As you can see in the picture below, we were a little off to the side of the middle water screen, which meant that we had a good view of what was happening on the stage - it wasn't blocked by the water. If we had had seats on the far left side of the seating area I don't know if it would have been as good - we would have been more between two water screens.

But in this picture you can see we had the great view of the stage area.

The Sailing Ship Columbia in its pirate ship guise is always my favorite part of the show. Our view of it was partially obscured by a light post, so we couldn't see it well until it was right in front of us. I love watching all of the stunt men swinging on ropes and sliding between the masts - there's always a lot of action going on! But it goes by way too fast.

One nice thing about being over on the left side of Rivers of America is that you get a good view of the final confrontation between Peter Pan and Captain Hook, and get to see Hook swing from side-to-side on the back of the ship as he tries to escape the crocodile.

The crocodile is new - and as you can see in this video clip he has more movement capabilities, and appears to lunge and snap his jaws as he chases down the tasty morsel that is Captain Hook.

The two completely new characters are Flotsam and Jetsam - Ursula's pet eels. Their eyes glow as they slither and glide across the water. Their mouths even open and close. They didn't move quite as much as I thought they would, though. (And what's the difference between Flotsam and Jetsam? They looked identical to me!)

The Maleficent character looked good - I'm not sure how much of it was lighting on the character or lighting on the costume itself.

The other big change to Fantasmic! was supposed to be the new fully animated 3-D dragon...but she's not quite ready yet. So instead we got the Maleficent character rising 30-some feet in the air on whatever lift they use - and swaying in the air as she dramatically waves her arms. Yikes. Looks like a precarious perch to me! And then the dragon was projected on the water screens. It still looked pretty impressive, and I think if you didn't know about the "real" dragon it would still seem like a great effect. (Cast Members informed all those people who showed up hours before the show that they wouldn't see the new dragon - but they chose to wait anyway.)

The show ended as it normally does with the all of the characters on the Mark Twain, and a final on-stage appearance by Sorcerer Mickey.

After the show ended there was no rush to leave - we stayed for a little while waiting for the crowds to clear out. The seating area was a nice little oasis!

It was a great show - and the dessert package certainly makes it a much more civilized way of enjoying it. I really wouldn't have wanted to fight the crowds on Friday - as it was we ended up being in them more than I had thought. I'd definitely pay the money to do it again...though I wish they would bring back the chocolate covered strawberries! :-)