Day 4 (Disneyland Day) – Wednesday
We had been given instructions to meet at 6:45 in the lobby of the Grand Calif Hotel to begin our day’s activities. Everyone was on time and we exited the hotel and walked through DTD. It was fairly quiet (CA had early entry at 7 but the crowds did not seem too big for that yet) and we made it through bag check and metal detectors pretty quickly considering the size of our group. After the group reconvened, our guides led us up to the gates of DL to one of the special event entrances. There were already some people lined up at the gates of DL that were staring wonderingly at us. We each entered the gates, with my DS of course positioning himself to be the very first one, and then took photos in front of the 60th sign below the railroad station. Our guides let us know that we were free to take pictures of anything except not of things that shouldn’t be there (i.e. anyone doing maintenance work or company vehicles on main street). I always love walking up Main Street and to be able to do it before hours with no one else besides our little group of adventurers around was so special.
We kept up a fairly good pace but people did break off and take pictures as we headed towards the Hub. We then had time to take plenty of pictures on our own around the Hub and then the guides took our family photos. Next we had a special visit from a Disney Representative (I won’t go into more details but it was not a character) who gave us a little speech about their job and welcomed us.
Despite all the picture taking I think it was still only 7:30 or so. I would have loved the opportunity to wander around the empty park a bit more or maybe get us on one ride that is not a FP ride (Peter Pan would have been perfect), but we were taken to the Plaza Inn for our breakfast. I have always thought that the Plaza Inn is a great character breakfast because of the number of characters that are there. For the first half hour, we essentially had a private character breakfast before other guests started coming in. We all had lots of fun as the characters came in unaccompanied to visit with our group and several of them were quite mischievous. Our entire group was fun-loving and pretty boisterous (not just the kids), and we all had a great time. There were plenty of choices for food including cooked to order omelets with no waiting since we were the only guests in the restaurant at the beginning.
Now it was time for the fun stuff. Up until about 3:30 we were with our guides except for an hour at lunch time where we were turned out on our own. Please skip the rest of today’s post if you don’t want to hear the particular attractions ( I will leave the specifics of one of them out as I have never seen it talked about in other reports and it may have been a “make-up” experience for Walt’s Apartment).
After leaving breakfast we headed to Adventureland for our first backstage ride experience. We entered the queue for Indiana Jones, but then headed back through the cast doors and met our cast member guide. Our cast member spent about 20 minutes telling us about the ride vehicles (and the now antiquated operating system they run on) and how they are controlled and maintained. Very cool! We then headed back into the attraction itself and went to the front of the line and road as a group. We then broke into two groups while one group rode an attraction, the other group received a tour of the Dream Suite. This is normally included in the Walk in Walt’s Footsteps tour, and I think is also usually covered in this
ABD. I won’t go into all the detail but again, an amazing experience and I wish I could find a way to stay there. After the two groups reconvened we headed to the Tiki Room for a private showing for our group of the tiki show. While we waited to enter our guides treated us to Dole Whips all around! One of our guides mentioned that she had never had a Dole Whip before and my husband went to the stand and had them make her a “First Dole Whip” button.
Next up, a trek back across the Hub and to Fantasyland where our group rode the Matterhorn together. Several people sat this one out, and I don’t blame them as it is a fairly rough ride. Once every couple of years is enough for me, but I was happy that my DD tried it. Once again we were taking to the front of the line and the biggest challenge was dividing our group up and who was riding with who. After we finished the ride we were turned loose for about an hour to get lunch. The guides provided us with vouchers for $20 per person. We weren’t super hungry because of the DoleWhips but headed to the Village Haus in Fantasyland for lunch. We used two of the vouchers and saved two to use at dinner time. It was a hot day and we wanted to sit inside which took a little bit of hovering until we found a spot. The food was fine for a quick lunch (not one of our usual dining spots, and I wish they had more of the flatbreads like at WDW) and for a chance to rest before reconvening. I think we hopped on one of the Fantasyland Dark Rides (Snow White and Pinocchio rarely have waits of more than 10-15 minutes) and then headed out to buy ears/hats. The women and girls in our group were big on the “ears” and DD felt left out. DS picked up some Olaf ears and then hats for me and DH.
The group met back up with our lovely guides and headed out for more exclusive back-stage fun. The next thing we did was billed as being a “make-up” item for losing Walt’s apartment, and I have never heard it discussed in reviews so I will leave it a secret. Let’s just say it was another one of those things that was truly exclusive, truly special and for a Disney fanatic really added to our understanding of the operations and the special daily magic. To get to this special presentation we walked out a doorway in Toon Town into a backstage area. As we walked along we were able to glimpse all the earth moving that was going on for Star Wars Land. This presentation/demonstration probably lasted about 30 minutes or so, and they had set up chairs for us in the shade and had bottled water. After this experience we headed back into Toon Town (we got lots of looks from people as our group of 33 emerged from behind the backdrops) and then we were escorted to a private character meet and greet (with photos of course).
Sometime while we were at our backstage presentation, Christina received a call and was on the phone for a bit. She came back to us saying she had great news and that we were going to get to see Walt’s Apartment after all. YAY!!!! We weren’t told why they had the change of heart, but we were told over and over that we would be the last group that got to go in. Once we reached the fire station we were divided into three groups that rotated between the apartment, the opera house, and a tour of the “windows” of Main Street. Everyone had come to acceptance that we would not be touring the apartment so what a nice surprise it was that we ended up getting to go in. We were very appreciative of all of the pleading our guides must have done. During the tour, Christina took photos of each family group in the apartment. The same woman (one of the plaid guides) that toured us through the Dream Suite guided us through the apartment. We ended up finishing up with our guides at about 3:30 and were set free for the remainder of the afternoon/evening. Our guides gave us one more present before they left us – a stack of 5 fastpasses for each member of the family. These were good for DL or DCA for that day only and were good only for fastpass attractions and few of those were carved out (Racers, Frozen, and possibly something else).
Up next will be a much shorter post about how we spend our on-your-own time that day and evening. Hopefully because it is shorter, I will get back to you all sooner. I also noticed that the ABD photos have now been published so just maybe I will put in a few pictures too.
Thanks for the patience in waiting for the updates.