A Trip Down Memory Lane – Day 7

I was in no particular rush that day. I was awake by 6:00. I had a shower. Then I put my clean laundry into my suitcase, and had the last of my melon.  On the way out, I went to the check if they have a business centre. I needed to print out our luggage tags. Normally it is possible to get luggage tags at the port, but I had an email a couple of days earlier advising that it was necessary to have the luggage labels attached. I could not find a business centre and went to see the front desk. They no longer have a business centre, but I was given an email address and they printed out the luggage labels for me. There was not even a charge for this. With this taken care of, I headed towards the park.

When I got to the entrance of Downtown Disney, security was already open and although it was busy, there was no line.  There was a bit of a line at the entrance to the monorail as they had not opened the turnstiles yet, however, this did not look bad at all. I used the downtime to text my friend Alison. I know that she was going to be in the parks that day with a local friend. She had only just come back from a trip and was pretty busy that week. I did not really want to interfere with plans that she had with a friend, but when it came to it, I could not face the idea that I would not see her on this trip. She messaged me straight back to advise she would be happy to meet up and that they had no specific plans. She checked that I had a ticket for the parks, and we agreed that we would coordinate meeting up later.

They opened the turnstiles exactly at 7:30 and a monorail was already waiting. Unfortunately, the cut off for this monorail was one family in front of me. We were advised that the next monorail would be due in about 20 minutes. By the time the next monorail had arrived, was loaded, and had arrived in the park, the park was open. I have come to the conclusion that 30 minutes early access for hotel guests is a complete waste of time. At least it was offered at both parks every day. From the beginning of this year, the parks alternate, which will make it even more difficult to get in before park opening.

My mood did not improve. As soon as I was through the turnstiles, I had made my first Genie Plus reservation for Matterhorn Bobsleds. When I got to the bottom of the monorail station, I noticed that the reservation had disappeared off my app and the ride was down. It must have gone down just as I tried to confirm it. I made a reservation for Space Mountain, but the reservation was 45 minutes away and I headed over to Fantasyland to do Peter Pan’s Flight in the meantime. The posted waiting time was 45 minutes, but I actually waited about 30 minutes. I used this time to work on my trip report on my phone. While I was waiting in line, a multi experience pass came through. Space Mountain had gone down. I made a new reservation for Haunted Mansion Holiday. Within seconds, I got another multi experience pass. The ride had gone down, too. I made reservation for Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, which was not for another couple of hours. I enjoyed Peter Pan’s Flight and then I headed in the general direction of Matterhorn Bobsleds.

I came past Pixie Hollow and there was no visible line. I decided to stop by. On previous visits, there was always Tinker Bell in residence plus a visiting fairy. This time, there was only Tinker Bell. She did not have a Photopass photographer with her either, but a cast member took some photos with my phone.

As I walked past Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage, I noticed that the ride had a 5-minute posted waiting time. This ride is very cute, but it is a slow loader and often has crazy waiting times. 5 minutes was just too good to pass up. I got in line and soon I was seated inside a submarine. The ride was as good as I remembered, and I enjoyed this very much.

I decided to get some breakfast. On the way, I went past Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters. The posted wait time was only 10 minutes, and this was too good to pass up. I did better that time than I had done earlier in the week. Then I headed over to Market Cafe, which is the Starbucks location at Disneyland. I got into line. Unfortunately, as soon as I had got into line, I had to leave again. I have a chronic bowel condition that is normally pretty well managed. It had given me some trouble ever since we got to California, but up to that day, it had not really interfered with my days. However, my luck had run out. I left the line and found a bathroom. I then decided to make a mobile order for a late breakfast/ early lunch. I made a couple of attempts that failed, but finally I managed to place a mobile order for an early lunch at Jolly Holiday Bakery Cafe.

I had a look at the Emporium. I found the cutest blue tie dye Stitch spirit top. I just had to get this. I am glad that I had been on the fence about the DVC Member spirit top. My Loungefly backpack turned out to be a Tardis. The spirit top fitted in there easily.

I figured that I could have dessert before lunch, when I walked past the Gibson Girl Ice Cream Parlor. Unfortunately, they were not open. Instead, I got a frozen orange Fanta at the Candy Palace. I took this over to the hub and found a bench in the shade. This definitely hit the spot. I needed to make another urgent pit stop.

After this, I headed slowly towards the Jolly Holiday Bakery Cafe. My mobile order window opened slightly early again, but then there was quite a bit of a wait from the point that I confirmed I was there until I had my food. I found a seat on the patio. Considering that it was quite late for breakfast and quite early for lunch, it was very busy. I had the Jolly Holiday Combo, which consisted of a toasted cheese sandwich with tomato basil soup. For dessert, I had a Halloween macaroon, which was a huge coconut macaroon dipped in chocolate and sprinkles. I also had a Chimney Sweep Cold Brew, which is a cold brew coffee with hickory-smoked syrup, chocolate & caramel sauces, cream, and smoked salt-sugar sprinkle. I was a little unsure about this before I ordered it , but I ended up really enjoying it.

While I was waiting for my food, I had a message from my friend Sue who let me know that she was expecting to arrive in the parks by 14:00. We had plans to spend the afternoon and evening in the parks together. Unfortunately, there was also a message that I could have done without. We had made plans to spend the last day of our holiday with Ken and Sue. Unfortunately, she had realised that day that she had a previous commitment that had not been in her calendar. She had to cancel on us. I absolutely understood, but I was still disappointed.

Once I had enjoyed my lunch, I headed over to Mickey’s Toon Town to ride Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway. This time round, there was hardly any wait at all. I did not really stop until I got to the doors leading to the preshow. I had just about enough time to make my next Genie Plus Reservation before we entered the preshow. I enjoyed the ride again.

I still had a fair amount of time before my window for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad was due to open. Matterhorn Bobsleds was open again and as this has a single rider line, I decided to give this a go. The single rider line on this ride is very bizarre. It was not moving at all for a few minutes and then it suddenly jumped forward by a lot. All became clear when I got closer to the loading dock. For some reason, they were sending about 10 people at a time to the loading dock. Once it was my turn to be sent to the loading dock, it did not take long until I boarded my bobsled. I have a bit of a love hate relationship with this ride. I love the history behind this ride as well as some of the special effects they have added over the years. What I don’t love is how rough this ride is. My old bones do not love this aspect of this ride. I kind of think that I have got this ride out of my system. There are so many rides that jolt me around less and are still fun.

I still had some time until my window for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad was due to open. I had found out the previous day that there is a DVC member lounge in Tomorrowland, and I decided to check this out. This is in the old Carousel of Progress building. When I first visited Disneyland, this building was home to the west coast version of Innoventions. At some stage, it was mainly used for character meet and greets. Shortly after my last visit, it became Star Wars Launch Bay. I never got to experience this as this closed at the beginning of the pandemic and never reopened. Nowadays, the ground floor is used for meet and greets with Darth Vader. The top floor is now the DVC member lounge. Getting in turned out to be a bit of a production. DVC has done away with physical membership cards. I had downloaded a temporary card from the DVC website before we went to California. This was acceptable for discounts at restaurants and shops. Apparently, it was not acceptable for access to the DVC member lounge. I was asked to download the Walt Disney World app, which would then allow me to add a membership card to my wallet. This seemed silly considering I was at Disneyland. I could not get internet access for love nor money. Neither WIFI nor mobile data worked. In the end, the person manning the entrance sent me inside to a desk. There they were able to look up my membership record and on presentation of picture ID, they let me in. Ironically, as soon as I was in the lounge, I had internet access. I did download the Walt Disney World app and added the membership card to my wallet. The lounge is quite a dark space that looks rather futuristic. It does however have comfortable chairs and sofas. It also has a fancy coffee machine plus a couple of Coca Cola Freestyle machines. They also had baskets with snacks. I had a couple of different flavours from the Coca Cola Freestyle machines and some Oreos. It was nice to just have some downtime.

I started to get a little worried that I had not heard from Alison. As my internet had been playing up, I wondered if I had missed a message from her. I texted her to say that I would be at Disneyland for another hour and then would cross over into Disney California Adventure. She texted me back saying she was just parking. I replied back that I was heading towards Big Thunder Mountain, but she never got this message. Fortunately, she thought it was strange that I was not replying and messaged me via Facebook Messenger. I repeated my reply, and she asked me to let her know once I was off the ride. They let you on 5 minutes before your window opens and I made use of this. I enjoyed the ride again.

Once I was off the ride, I messaged her again and we arranged to meet at the top of Main Street. This worked well as we arrived pretty much at the same time. We caught up with each other in record time as both of us had other plans and we did not have the chance for a leisurely catch up. I was just happy that we got to spend any time together at all. However, things have the habit to work out for the best. I mentioned that our plans for our last day in California had come apart earlier this morning. She checked her diary, and she had no plans for that day. She offered to pick us up from the port, spend the day with us and then drop us off at the airport. I was overjoyed at this turn of events. We agreed that I would email her once I had a clearer idea when we would be off the ship, and we would nail down details then. Soon, it was time to say goodbye, but this was not as hard as I had anticipated as I knew we would see each other again before this trip was over.

As I was walking down Main Street, I got a message from Sue that she was parking at the Mickey and Friends parking structure. I messaged her that I had some business to take care of at City Hall. She messaged me back that she would meet me there. If I am totally honest, if I had not arranged to meet up with Sue, I would have called it a day after I meet up with Alison. I was still not feeling great and felt guilty that we would probably spend a lot of time with various pit stops. Disneyland offers something called Disability Access Service (DAS), which is designed to accommodate guests who have difficulty tolerating extended waits. On that particular day, this described me to a tee. I still was not sure if I would be eligible, but I figured there was no harm in asking and the worst that could happen is that they say no. When I explained to the cast member what the issue was, he reassured me that this is precisely one of the reasons why they offered the service. He sent me inside to set this up. I explained to the cast member inside that I normally manage perfectly well with using the Genie Plus service, but was suffering from a bad flare up, which made waiting in even moderate line a risky proposition. He asked me if I knew what brought this on. At the time, I had no idea. Normally stress is my main trigger, but I did not think this could be it. I hazarded a guess that it may be an after effect of a long-haul flight. With hindsight, it was precisely stress that had brought this on. I had got myself wound up when I had yet again missed out on early entry due to no fault of my own. This then triggered the flare up, which in turn wound me up even further as I used precious park time with finding bathrooms rather than enjoying myself. Having the pass removed a lot of the pressure and I started to feel better. I would only go down this route if I really had a bad day. I have spent significant amounts of time in parks all over the world without needing a service like this, but if I ever got in a situation again where I had a choice of either being able to carry on with my day or having to cut a visit short, I would not hesitate to swallow my pride and ask for help.

Sue was waiting for me when I came out of City Hall. I explained what I had done. Fortunately, she is familiar with how this works. We needed to get her pass linked to my app. Even though the cast member that I had spoken to had asked if I was with somebody else, he had not explained that part to me. There are some umbrellas set up not far from City Hall where they can assist with this. We headed there and got Sue’s pass linked. The cast member also assisted us with making our first reservation. I picked Haunted Mansion Holiday. The idea is that you wait the same time as the posted time for the standby time, but you do not have to physically stand in line. I had noticed that Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters only had a 5-minute wait, and we headed over there to zap some aliens while we waited. Once we had defeated Zurg, I suggested that we head over to the DVC member lounge to get something to drink while we waited for our window to open. Each member can bring up to 5 guests. This time I had the membership card in the right format and access was granted very quickly. It was a lot emptier than it had been earlier. We both had a couple of cups of soda from the Coca Cola Freestyle machine and Sue had some crisps. It was nice to have some downtime in an airconditioned space with comfortable seats. Once we had finished our drinks, we used the bathroom and then headed out.

As soon as we approached Haunted Mansion Holiday, we realised that all was not well. The line for the Lightning Lane looked longer than the standby line. It took us a while to find the end of the line. We got in, but it was not moving at all. After about 10 minutes, we decided to give up as we had an early dinner reservation at Disney California Adventure. I cancelled the reservation for Haunted Mansion Holiday and then we headed across to Disney California Adventure. As soon as we entered the park, I tried to make a reservation for Radiator Springs Racers. It initially did not work, but I think it just took a while for it to register that I had cancelled the previous reservation. While we were waiting to check in at the restaurant, it then allowed me to make the reservation.

Sue had offered to make a reservation for the Magic Key Terrace. This is an exclusive restaurant for annual passholders and their guests, which is located above the Wine County Trattoria. They specialize in small plates and cocktails. The views from there over the park are spectacular. Sue asked if I fancied sharing the charcuterie platter, which sounded good to me. This was far from a small plate, but was huge and consisted of various cheeses and deli meats, grapes, olives, and bread. There was more than enough for the two of us. We had every intention to share a churro later, but we were still stuffed when we decided to call it a day.

When we had finished our dinner, our window for Radiator Springs Racers had opened and we headed over to Carsland. By then the sun had gone down. It is pretty cool to do the ride in the dark. This time, we went down the body shop side again. We did not win the race, but we had fun.

I had made the next reservation as soon as we had scanned in at Radiator Springs Racers. I had picked Toy Story Midway Mania. Strange enough, the waiting time was not long for this ride. We cut through the new San Fransokyo Square area. This is the one slight regret that I have is that I never made time to explore this area. This will have to go on the to do list for next time round. I tried to take a quick photo in passing, but this did not come out.

While we were waiting for our window for Toy Story Midway Mania to open, we had one more thing to take care of. The holiday season was officially starting the following day and they were giving out commemorative tote bags that evening to annual pass holders. The pick-up point was not far from Toy Story Midway Mania. Sue ended up with two bags and gave me one of them. Then we went over to Toy Story Midway Mania. There was a little bit of chaos outside the Lightning Lane entrance. Since we had scanned in at Radiator Springs Racers, the app had gone down and with it all the app-based reservations. The cast members took this in their stride. They just asked what kind of reservations people had and for what time and then did an override. We enjoyed the ride. Sue is better at this then I am, but at least I got a beaver.

We decided to cross back over into Disneyland. As we headed down Buena Vista Street, Sue noticed that Mickey was meeting and greeting. I would have walked straight past him. While we were waiting our turn, I took a photo of the Christmas tree. I was quite surprised that there was no Photopass photographer with Mickey, but the cast member that was with him took some photos with our phones. Once we had said goodbye to Mickey, we headed out of the park. By then, the app had gone into complete meltdown mode. Sue had a Magic Band, and this was still working, but I could not access my ticket. Fortunately, I had a PDF of the original eticket saved on my phone and this worked to get me back into the park.

There were two things still on my to do list. I wanted to do Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance one last time and I also had still not managed to do Pirates of the Caribbean this trip. They had drafted in all available cast members as people who had Genie Plus reservations or DAS reservations could not access them. We got in line to see if we could get a reservation for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. By the time we got near the front of the line, the app was thankfully up and running again. We made our reservation and then we headed over to Pirates of The Caribbean. The line looked pretty impressive, but moved quickly. We were on the ride 15 minutes later. This is still my favourite version of the classic Pirates of the Caribbean rides. The one in Shanghai is of course out of this world, but it is very different from all the other parks.

Once we had done the write we slowly wandered over to Star Wars land. When we got there, our window for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance was just about to open. As I did not have to worry about the drop this time round, I enjoyed this even more. I also noticed a lot more details. It really is an amazing ride.

By the time we had finished the ride, we both had enough. We headed for the exit. We walked together until the tram stop and then said goodbye. I walked back to the hotel through Downtown Disney. I had a look at the Pin Trading store, but nothing caught my eye. I then headed back to the hotel. Graham was already asleep. I got ready for bed, and I was asleep as soon as I was in bed.