Just Back

Hi Everyone!
We just returned late Saturday night and had a fabulous two days at DLR/DCA. My plans kept changing, but we went from opening until about 9pm on New Year's Day. My strategy this time was just enjoy the atmosphere and ride as many rides as possible. My boys aren't really into waiting for parades or lines. We were strolling up Main Street at 815am and by 1030am we had been on so many rides several times (SM, Matterhorn, Dumbo, Tea Cups, BTM, Astro Orbiter, POC, JC). We decided to head to DCA which we love. We spent the next few hours riding Soarin, Screamin, TOT, many of the rides near Screamin, Turtle Talk which Crush was talking to my little one for a good 5 minutes, Playhouse Disney. We headed back to Disneyland about 2pm for a bit of gridlock, but we had fast passes in hand from the morning and rode more of the big attractions and ate an early dinner at the Golden Horseshoe before heading back to DCA around 5pm for another 3 hours until we were losing steam quickly. Fireworks are my favorite, but I could tell that we just might not make it. We headed to Downtown Disney to do a little shopping and then planned on watching the fireworks from the front gates. We sat down for a quick bite to eat at DTD and that was all she wrote. We decided that we had enough and headed for the tram. I later found out that the Fog was really bad and if you weren't at the castle, seeing the fireworks was nearly impossible - that made me feel better. Since our vacation was mainly about Newport Beach and not Disney, I had decided one day was good this trip and we'd use our 2nd day in the next couple of months only to find out that our 2nd day had to be used within 13 days. This had me scrambling to find another day since we only had two days left and I knew we couldn't go the following day. I toyed with the thought of driving back the following weekend when the crowds would have been much lower, but I decided that it was just going to cost too much and there really wasn't time to do that. We went Saturday (1/3) from about 11am-5pm. My DS (10) wanted to start in DCA and there was no one there. We accomplished so much and headed to DLR at 2pm where we encountered massive crowds. Now it was just see how it goes for the next 3 hours before we headed back to AZ. We didn't get to do a lot, but did got to ride BTM several times which we love and then some smaller rides too. The boys were satisfied with the day and I was too, so we headed for the parking lot.

There was a post sometime ago that gave great directions from the Marriott Newport Coast Villas to Disneyland. I just want to thank that poster. They were great directions and learning of Jamboree for other destinations was really helpful.

There have been so many posts about poor/rude manners in the parks recently. I have to say that we encountered so many really nice guests and CM's, but we also had our fair share of downright rude guests/CM's. The 2nd Day at DCA we were going through the gates and I said Good Morning three times with no response from the CM. I was astonished. My son looked at me and said why didn't she say anything? I really had no explanation and it was not because she didn't hear me. We didn't let it affect our day.

Happy New Year!

Your report proves that fun can be had even during one of the most crowded times of the year. Glad you had such a great time. :thumbsup:

Thanks for the post ... it's great to see you had a good time even though crowds and fog were a downer! :mickey: