HUGE WDW Fan. Will Disneyland disappoint?

[Disney Babe]

As to the Real World there, I shut it off the minute I get off the tram or walk from Downtown Disney. I think its your own memories of growing up and things you did in the park year after year after year. Grad Nights, high school nights, company nights. Disneyland has always been my safe place and whatever park I'm in, it will always be.

My sentiments exactly.

I never thought of the Real World as being just on the other side of the border of the Disneyland. Quite the oppostite. Disneyland proved to me that there was actually such a thing as a magical world just within reach of the real world. I have memories of going down the 91 freeway and my sisters and I challenging each other to see the Matterhorn! Going down Harbor Blvd. to get to Disneyland we would see our first glimpse of the Matterhorn and get really excited. We were just on the other side of a magical world and it wouldn't be long before we would enter it.

When I was a young adult driving to Disneyland I loved the way I would be driving down Harbor in the far right lane and there would be the old Disneyland sign up ahead and I knew I just had to stay where I was and glide right from the real world of a city street into the magical world of the Disneyland parking lot! I always tried to get there as early as I could (usually I would park in the Flower section) so I could park up close and wouldn't have to take the tram. Just hop out and jog on over to the ticket window where I would hear the music of Zippidee-Doo-Dah and the recorded announcer's voice welcoming me to my "day at the Happiest Place on Earth". I never, ever saw the closeness of the border between the real world and Disneyland is a bad thing! It could only be good.

[Figment78]

Even though this thread is sort of old, I had to post a response for people who may come across it while searching for this kind of information in the future, like I did.

JRock - I completely agree with you 100%. We too are WDW veterans and HUGE fans, and we just returned from a weekend in Disneyland, our first visit.

I do not believe I will be returning to DL anytime soon, unless I happen to be in SoCal. As JRock said, the major issue for me was that it was too much in the middle of everything. I love that WDW is a completely escape, you are immersed in Disney from start to finish. That is one of the reasons I prefer WDW. I'm not comparing the individual parks though, because I do feel that DL has a lot to offer in the way of rides. I was blown away by how much better Space Mountain is at DL, but I did not think that any of the other "different" rides were better than at WDW. The lack of humidity was nice, although I was as cold at night in May in DL as I was in Feb in WDW! One really awesome thing about DL was the lack of lines. Although the park feels more crowded because it is smaller, we never waited that long.

It was an almost surreal experience being there - DL is similar enough to Magic Kingdom that if you are intimately familiar with MK, you will automatically feel a bit disoriented when in DL. The outdoor queue for Its a Small World is beautiful, however, and I much prefer it to the one in WDW, even if the ride is so similar.

I hope none of the native DL visitors get mad at me for my opinion, but I did not prefer the "hometown" feeling of DL over the "tourist" feeling of WDW. I was on vacation, not visiting my neighborhood amusement park and I wanted to feel like I was on a vacation! And maybe it was because of this different perspective of the locals, but I found a distinct lack of excitement in the people around me. Like it was nothing special to be in DL. And since everyone reports about the decline of cast member magic in WDW (which I do not agree with), I feel I have to comment that we had several very un-Disneylike customer service while at DL. From the moment we pulled into the Disneyland Hotel to the time we left, we just were not given Disney service. Which really surprised me because I would think that the company would put everyone through the same hiring and training processes. At work I typically cite Disney as an example of excellent customer service and I was disappointed. In fact, I was shocked!

Anyhow, this was just my experience. I am not a Californian or grew up going to DL, so I wanted to give my perspective for the sake of other WDW fans who might be planning a trip to DL. Yes, it is the first park, but I found myself hung up on some of what I imagine Walt felt when he bought the land in WDW (size, interference of the outside world, etc). Here's my bottom line: If I am looking for an entire vacation experience, I will go to WDW. If I have a few days and am near Disneyland it is still a great themepark to visit.

[disneylandrea]

It's been said but it's well-worth the repetition.
Sure, WDW is much larger in scale.
But it is NOT comparable to DL at all.
at all.
It is Walt's park, you can feel his charm everywhere you turn.
The quality of DL definitely surpasses the size of WDW.

[Figment78]

I don't think it's fair to claim that only Disneyland is Walt's park. Unless my Disney knowledge fails me, he was very involved in "the Florida Project" before he died.

And as for not comparing the two locations, the original question in this post was intrinsicly a "comparison." It is hard not to compare two vacation experiences, whether it is comparing a Hawaiian beach vacation to a trip to a Vegas Vacation or comparing WDW to DL. I think it is a fair question to compare the two, especially if that's what the poster was asking in the first place. However, I think what most people are trying to say is, 'don't spend time comparing the two parks, just enjoy them both!" and that I have to agree with!

That being said, all of the responses are opinions only and I'm glad we all have different ones because it makes life more interesting and puts more information out there to ponder!