Park Hopping

We spent the next two days park hopping. The mornings were nice, but by the afternoons the parks were fairly crowded and hot. Even though the ride is the same as in Florida, we enjoyed the queue at Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway. The ride is in Toowtown, and the line contains “props” from Mickey’s animated films, amongst other things.

 

As at the Magic Kingdom, Splash Mountain was being converted into a Princess and the Frog ride. 

Nearby the are rethemeing the French Market restaurant into Tiana’s Palace. 

We weren’t willing to wait for the Star Wars rides in Galaxy’s Edge, but we did enjoy walking through Disneyland’s version. It’s mostly the same as the one at Hollywood Studios, although there are some minor differences. Last night we headed to the airport for our flight home.

Hurricane Hilary

We were a little surprised to learn, shortly after we arrived in Southern California, that a hurricane was coming our way. Course as it moved north it weakened to a tropical storm. Today started out with a steady drizzle, growing heavy at times. The rain kept the temperature down, and the crowds away, and we enjoyed fairly low wait times in both parks.

As with the rest of the resort, Disneyland was decorated for the 100th anniversary. 

Unfortunately the rain also meant rides going down and other disruptions. We went to ride the Indiana Jones ride, but it was down. Next door they were removing the Tarzan’s Treehouse overlay on the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse. 

We planned to eat an early dinner at the Lamplight Lounge at Pixar Pier, but it was closed due to a power disruption. Instead we picked up some food from the quick serve at the hotel, and ate in our room as the storm came through.

Avengers Campus

Since we visited five years ago, there’s been a few changes at California Adventure, the biggest of which was the creation of the Avengers Campus in place of the old Bugs Land. It’s pretty similar to what they did in the Paris Studio park, although here they changed the Tower of Terror into a Guardians of the Galaxy ride instead of changing Rock n Roller coaster into an Avengers ride.

We did enjoy experiencing the Spider-Man ride in English rather than a mix of English and French.

They were also changing the Pacific Wharf into Big Hero Six’s San Fransokyo, and had completed the change of Paradise Pier into Pixar Pier. While the details of these areas are well done, it’s disappointing to see the park moving farther away from the California theme it had when it opened.  

When we last visited DCA in 2018, they had just converted the California Screamin’ coaster into the Incredicoaster. I didn’t get to ride it then, but I did this time. I did enjoy the new Incredibles overlay, and although I missed the old soundtrack, it’s still the same coaster.

Nixon Library

The first couple days we were at Disneyland were fairly hot and crowded, so we spent some of our time outside the park, in the room or at the pool. Friday morning Susan and I visited the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda.

The library was pretty interesting although not cheap. It was built next to the house he was born in, which had been restored with most of his parents actual furniture. The President and his wife are buried nearby. We spent about two hours there learning more about them and about the Nixon presidency; it would have been easy to spend another hour or two if someone wanted to read all the detail available. 

When we got back we walked through Downtown Disney to the Disneyland Hotel, hoping to get into Trader Sam’s, but there was already a long wait. There were decorations throughout the resort for the 100th anniversary of the Disney Company. 

The old Rainforest restaurant building is now being used as a Star Wars store. 

And they are building a new restaurant where the AMC theater used to be.

Disney Studios

On the way back to our hotel from Universal we stopped at the Disney Studios. Since Susan and I were cast members we were allowed to enter and bring the kids in as our guests. We shopped in the Employee store but the cafe had closed earlier in the day so we walked around a bit and then called it a day.

This morning we checked out of our hotel in Burbank and slowly made our way down to Anaheim. We drove through downtown Burbank and down Hollywood Boulevard, then made our way to the Grove shopping area, where we looked around for about an hour. We then continued south, stopping at the only Me-n-Ed’s pizza parlor in Southern California for lunch.

 

Around 3 pm we arrived at the Grand Californian, where we checked into a DVC villa to enjoy a few days at the Disneyland Resort. 

Across the street, Disney was converting the Paradise Pier hotel into the Pixar Pier hotel, to match the change they made in the California Adventure park. 

Over at the Disneyland Hotel, they were getting ready to open a new DVC tower. 

Universal Studios

 

This morning we got up early and made the short drive to Universal Studios. Bryan wanted to go since he hadn’t come with the rest of us when went in 2018. We paid extra for early access to the new Super Mario World, so we got there a little more than an hour before park opening.

 

We got into the park and headed down to the lower lot, entered the Super Mario World area, and got in line for Mario Kart. A half hour later we were on the ride. It was pretty cool, although a bit confusing for those who have never played the game, like Susan and I. Once we were off the ride Bryan and Jennifer played the mini-games in the land for about an hour, then headed to the upper lot to take the tram tour. 

Although much of the tram tour of the backlot was the same as it was in 2018, there were a few differences. It also seemed a bit shorter. We finished a little before 11:30, and headed back to Super Mario World for our lunch reservation at the Toadstool Cafe.

We ordered our food then waited in a fairly long line for a table, then waited some more for our lunch. It took almost two hours from entering the restaurant until we were done. The food was good, but expensive. By then the park was hot and crowded. The kids went on the Mummy roller coaster; we wanted to go on the Jurassic World boat ride but the wait was over an hour, so we left the lower lot and walked through the upper.  

We rode the fairly new Secret World of Pets dark ride, which was cute but not worth the half hour wait, and looked through the stores, then decided to leave around 3 pm. I wanted to watch WaterWorld again but the next show wasn’t until 4. We looked around Citiwalk for about an hour and grabbed some Voodoo Doughnuts. They replaced the Hard Rock Cafe with a Toothsome Chocolate Emporium earlier this year.

Warner Brothers Studio Tour

I’ve been wanting to do the Warner Bros Studio Tour for almost ten years, and yesterday we finally went. We got up early in the morning for a direct flight to LAX. Five hours later we landed. We were upgraded to Delta Comfort Plus which was pretty nice. After picking up a rental car and dropping off our luggage at our hotel in Burbank we arrived at Warner Brothers just before 1 pm.

I paid for the Studio plus tour, which was a little longer and included food and drink. A friend of the kids joined us. After some snacks to start we loaded into a golf cart for a tour of their back lot and sound stages. 

We enjoyed driving through the backlots and hearing about the different shows and movies that were filmed on them, and how they were changed over the years. We also walked through part of the prop building and saw how sets were constructed in soundstages.

After about two hours we stopped for food at Central Perk in Soundstage 48, which also included a Friends shop and some exhibits on filmmaking and photo opportunities. 

For the final portion of the tour we walked through displays of costumes and props for Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, and the DC super hero movies. Then we shopped for souvenirs. We left around 6 pm.