One big lesson we’ve learnt from our trips to Walt Disney World is the advantage of Rope Drop (being at the parks for opening times). It’s amazing how much you can achieve within the first couple of hours, before the huge crowds arrive. Unfortunately for us, the park was due to open at 8am this morning, so, despite our fatigue from a few late nights, we managed to walk from the hotel, were through bag-check, received our Disneyland tickets and were walking down Main Street by a few minutes past 8am.
When working out timings for your arrival, you will need to factor in the bag-check line. It’s generally quite a long line, but does move relatively quickly. Hint: Take a note of the people in the line in front of you. People with pushchairs, huge baby holdalls and/or big back-packs with lots of pockets will obviously be subjected to more extensive, longer searches than those with a small over the shoulder bag.
A new policy, Disneyland have recently introduced, is the scanners (much like the airport scanners), that you'll also be asked to walk through once exited the bag-check line.
Once through security, you join the queue of people at the turnstiles. Having ordered our Disneyland tickets online, as we reached the Cast Member at the turnstiles, we handed over our ticket confirmation printouts. The Cast Member then took a photo of each of us, using a handheld device, issued us with our actual tickets, and permitted us entry to the park. The whole process was easy and efficient, but again, if you see people in the queue at the turnstiles clutching pieces of paper, they are going to take longer to move through to the parks than those with actual tickets in their hands.
We questioned why Disney doesn’t have separate queues for those wishing to redeem their paper printouts for tickets, and for those who have already been issued with their tickets. Maybe this is the easiest way to move everyone through the turnstiles but it was just frustrating when there were huge groups of people in every queue waiting for their tickets to be issued when you had already redeemed yours. Yes, I know it was us this morning, but we would quite happily have stood in a separate queue on our first morning, if we knew that for the rest of the time we could have passed quickly through the turnstiles.
Anyway, tickets in hand (take care of these, they are your entry to the parks, plus you will need them to pull Fastpasses for the rides), we walked down Main Street and over to Matterhorn - a ride which is unique to Disneyland, and one which at the time of our visit, didn't have a Fastpass option, so we were keen to ride it as early as possible. Note: Since our visit, FastPass has now been added to the ride.
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad was our next ride. As it was due to close for refurbishment tomorrow, riding today was our only option. It’s an attraction that every Disney park has, but each one is slightly different. This one we all loved - so we rode it twice.
Another ride unique to Disneyland, Indiana Jones Adventure, was next. It’s very similar to DINOSAUR, a ride at Animal Kingdom in Walt Disney World, but much better. Zachary even got to ‘steer’ the truck.
On to Splash Mountain - another ride which Walt Disney World has, but again, we preferred this one. We then pulled FastPasses for Space Mountain before the return time became too late. At 9.40am, we we received a return time of 12.25-1.25pm. We also pulled a FastPass for Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters, which gave us a return time of 10.25-11.25. At the time of our visit, Buzz Lightyear FastPass was disconnected to all other attractions, so you could hold a Buzz Lightyear FastPass, plus another at the same time. This is no longer the case and the same rules now apply to Buzz Lightyear Fastpasses - once you pull a FastPass, you cannot pull another one until the start window of your current FastPass, or for 2 hours, whichever is sooner.
Now on a breakfast hunt, we chose the Jolly Holiday Bakery Cafe, where we enjoyed coffees, cinnamon rolls, muffins, cookies and a milkshake. Admittedly, not the most healthy breakfast we had, but those cinnamon rolls were good!
Fuelled up on sugar and/or coffee, we continued through New Orleans Square, taking the obligatory photo outside Club 33 before riding Pirates of the Caribbean (another ride which tops the Walt Disney World version), Haunted Mansion and Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters (using our FastPass). Our FastPass time for Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters had lapsed by 5 minutes, but we were still permitted to ride. On exiting the ride at 11.40am, we then pulled a FastPass for Star Tours, which gave us a return time of 2.25-3.25pm.
After more sugar in the form of churro’s, we waited for our Space Mountain FastPass return time to begin by touring the Star Wars Launch Bay area, admiring the range of artefacts and taking the opportunity to rest our tired legs a little.
The new Star Wars overlay on Space Mountain is great and we preferred the side by side seating, as opposed to the individual seating at Walt Disney World. Time for lunch at the French Market Restaurant in New Orleans Square. The food was good, but nothing amazing. Between us, we had the jambalaya, which was tasty, but quite a small portion for the price. The French dip was rather uninspiring - there was plenty of meat, but it was cold, not warm as expected. Plus, the bun was rather boring - a french baguette would have been nicer. The New Orleans Salad was extremely tasty - I’d definitely have that again. For the kids meal, the mac ‘ n’ cheese was accompanied by a banana, applesauce and a small bottle of water.
As expected at this time of day, queues for the rides had grown long, so we wandered through Toontown, before backtracking to ride It’s a Small World. Then made our way over to Tomorrowland, pulled another FastPass for Space Mountain, which resulted in a return time of 8.55-9.55pm, before using our FastPass to ride Star Tours. We loved the new BB8 messenger and the scenes from The Force Awakens.
It was time for a pool break now, so we walked the short distance back to the hotel and spent a couple of hours in the sunshine, while the kids enjoyed the hotel waterpark, before heading back to Disneyland to watch the Paint the Night Parade.
As the parade was due to start in less than 2 hours, and we needed to secure a decent viewing spot, we opted for a quick dinner. The Pizza Press ticked all the boxes - it was located between our hotel and the Disneyland Parks (it's since moved to a bigger premises further along the road), was number 2 on Trip Advisor, and is classed as fast food. The pizzas are freshly made to order. For $10 (the same price as most of the pizza’s on the main menu), you can build your own pizza, there's no limit to the number of toppings you can add, and the selection is extremely wide. Pizza bases are nice and thin, on which is spread either a red sauce (tomato), olive oil or white sauce base, then pile it high with mozzarella, ricotta, parmesan, italian sausage, pepperoni, chicken, ham, bacon, red onion, mushrooms, roasted peppers, pineapple...plus much more.
Then, once your pizza emerges from the oven, you select your extra topping from a choice of: barbecue sauce, balsamic reduction, pesto, basil (pronounced ‘bay-sul’...they struggled to understand the English pronunciation, which had us all laughing). Buy your drink, pay for your meal, then find a table. The servers are all friendly and fun - they were impressed with Zachary’s very meaty pizza. We managed to find a small table outside and thoroughly enjoyed our meal.
We sat down to eat at 7.30pm and still managed to be back in the Disneyland Park by 8.15pm. The large crowds on Main Street encouraged us to walk further into the park to find a reasonable viewing spot. Settling on some steps near It’s a Small World, we broke open the glo-sticks and waited for the parade to begin. The parade is fantastic. Although the nostalgia of Main Street Electrical Parade, at Walt Disney World, will always make it a popular choice for us, Paint the Night Parade knocks it out of the park (no pun intended). The music, the effects accomplished by the 1.5 million lights, the characters and dancers are all amazing.
Once the parade had passed, we managed to weave our way through a very busy Tomorrowland to ride Space Mountain, using our Fastpass. As we exited Space Mountain, the Disneyland Forever Fireworks Spectacular had begun, so we stood and watched from Tomorrowland, with The Matterhorn creating a great foreground and giving us a fabulous view of the fire during one of the sequences.
As this was our only chance to ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad in the dark, we wandered over to ride it -once we’d remembered it wasn’t on the same side of the river as it is in Walt Disney World, and we’d walked the wrong way. This was proof that fatigue was definitely setting in by now, so after riding we headed back to the hotel, arriving just after 11pm.
