Back Stage Magic June 2016 - Mini Trip Report - Finally Back to Finish Up

That's really too bad about Walt's apartment. :( I've heard it was a highlight for a lot of people. But the parade/fireworks viewing sounds like an excellent bit of extra magic!!

Sayhello
 
Didn't they also drop the tour of Walt's apartment for the Walk in Walt's Footsteps tour as well?
 
I've been skimming your posts to avoid spoilers for my trip next month. I did see your comment about not being allowed to see Walt's apartment. While this is disappointing, I am glad for the prior notice, so I will not be caught off guard on my trip.

I wonder why they have quit allowing this part of the tour. My understanding is that the apartment has always been non-ADA compliant, since it was built prior to ADA guidelines. I wonder what has changed...

Thanks for taking the time to share your experiences! I'm enjoying your reports, and they are helping to build more excitement for my upcoming trip!

I was just thinking the same. Definitely disappointed, but so glad that I have three months to put my excitement into other elements. (Since WDW is my home park, I am actually lucky in that a lot of Disney details at DLR are still new to me, so I'm going to concentrate on those!)

Also going to thank-you for your report!
 
Finally back with another update below.

That's really too bad about Walt's apartment. :( I've heard it was a highlight for a lot of people. But the parade/fireworks viewing sounds like an excellent bit of extra magic!!


Yes the spot was truly magical for the parade. This is a picture one of the guides took of the parade.

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And the fireworks:
fireworks.jpg

Didn't they also drop the tour of Walt's apartment for the Walk in Walt's Footsteps tour as well?

Yes, I believe they did drop it from that tour as well. We had friends who did the tour last summer and they did not see the apartment only the dream suite.
 


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.
 
I was just thinking the same. Definitely disappointed, but so glad that I have three months to put my excitement into other elements. (Since WDW is my home park, I am actually lucky in that a lot of Disney details at DLR are still new to me, so I'm going to concentrate on those!)

Also going to thank-you for your report!

Yes, there are so many differences between the two. It actually turned out to be one of the things we enjoyed the most was being "mini-guides" and helping our new friends explore the differences during on your own time.
 
Enjoying your report. Mimics my trip from last summer exactly down to the toon town which I am guessing had something to do with fireworks :) which honestly I enjoyed more than Walt;s Apartment. I must be a weird Disney fan but I wasn't too into Walts apartment. I think they drag it out a little bit up there> I don't know....I preferred the more behind the scenes rides etc. Glad you are loving the trip!
 


Enjoying your report. Mimics my trip from last summer exactly down to the toon town which I am guessing had something to do with fireworks :) which honestly I enjoyed more than Walt;s Apartment. I must be a weird Disney fan but I wasn't too into Walts apartment. I think they drag it out a little bit up there> I don't know....I preferred the more behind the scenes rides etc. Glad you are loving the trip!

Hmm, yes it sounds like the same surprise and I agree it was a highlight for me even over Walt's apartment. Kind of odd though as I am pretty sure that is one of the things they said no one ever gets to do but because we weren't going to do the apartment they arranged it. I am totally fine with the fact that things change and become unavailable over time, what I don't like is being told a story. I really enjoyed the trip and our guides, hopefully it wasn't a show with regards to Walt's Apartment.

As an aside, I replied to your thread on the the CA board. It looks like some people have taken your post OT. I would be happy to answer more questions in a PM if you want as you plan.
 
Here are a few pictures from Day 4 (Disneyland Day)

Empty entrance to main street:

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Empty main street - look at that!

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Chip leads the way with the paddle

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The kid's bedroom in the dream suite

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Day 4 - Disneyland Day Part 2


Up next is on your own time on Day 4



After being on the go since 6:45 and up since 5 on a fairly hot day, I think the majority of the group headed back to the hotel for pool and/or rest. We headed down to the pool and met up with two other families with teens. It was such a warm day that the pool deck was still pretty packed and it took some hovering and moving of chaises so that the parents could sit together. While the kids played, the grown ups rested in the very relaxing chaises and ordered pool drinks and snacks. We ended up staying at the pool longer than planned but everyone was having a great time hanging out.



We finally got back on our feet and back into the park for an evening of more adventure. Because we are DL regulars and our new friends had only been to WDW (one of the girls had not been to any of the parks), we had a good time helping them fulfill their Disneyland bucket lists and making sure that they got to see things that were different. I think the first thing we did was use one of the Fast Passes for Star Tours where unfortunately we did not get any of the new Force Awakens scenes. Next, most of the group wanted to ride Space Mountain so while they used another of the FP, DD and I headed for another ride on Thunder Mtn. Our timing on setting up a plan for dinner was off so after DD re-joined them in front of Space Mountain, we walked back to Frontier Land to have dinner at one of our favorites Rancho del Zoccolo. This is one of our favorite in-park places to eat at DL. You can usually find something to make everyone happy here, the portions are huge (it would be easy to share a platter) and tables are usually easy to find. Plus, I love the setting – so pretty in the evenings.



I can’t remember everything else we did that night, but we did several more rides although we did not quite use up all 5 of the fast passes. One thing that I did notice is that with the walk way from Frontier Land to Fantasy Land closed, it is much more challenging to criss-cross the park during parade time. We stayed entirely too late in the park – I think it was well after 10 when we left maybe 10:30. Our last ride of the night was on the Nemo Submarines and I think I dozed off for most of the ride. The Dad’s still wanted to keep going but everyone else was done and insisted we all head back. Thursday was going to be another busy ABD day and we were all already running on fumes.
 
Hmm, yes it sounds like the same surprise and I agree it was a highlight for me even over Walt's apartment. Kind of odd though as I am pretty sure that is one of the things they said no one ever gets to do but because we weren't going to do the apartment they arranged it. I am totally fine with the fact that things change and become unavailable over time, what I don't like is being told a story. I really enjoyed the trip and our guides, hopefully it wasn't a show with regards to Walt's Apartment.

As an aside, I replied to your thread on the the CA board. It looks like some people have taken your post OT. I would be happy to answer more questions in a PM if you want as you plan.

Thanks for the kind offer to help! Posts always seem to go off topic don't they :) When I did the BSM Was July 2015. Maybe what we are both talking about was standard then and now isn't type of thing but they moved it into your trip...I never read spoilers before my trip so not sure what to have expected but I agree it was very nice! So far our trips are identical except you rode matterhorn while we did haunted mansion lying on the floor in the stretching room... Kind of gross...Following it along as fun to reliv the trip!
 
All the ABD trips give you a new, exclusive pin every day.
 
Every trip has their own pins exclusive to that trip. They are seldom found amongst the general pin trading in WDW etc.... The pins usually reflect what the day's activity or area the specific ABD is undertaking.
 
Every trip has their own pins exclusive to that trip. They are seldom found amongst the general pin trading in WDW etc.... The pins usually reflect what the day's activity or area the specific ABD is undertaking.

Sorry, I have been out of town and hope to be back finishing this up this week. Carpenta answered all the pin questions. The pins on this adventure were really cool.
 
Sorry that I completely slacked off on finishing this up. I have used a slow car ride home from the snow to finally finish it up and will post the last two days and my final thoughts on this trip as a DL regular.

Day 5 (California Adventure Day)


Today we were able to sleep in a bit more. I think breakfast was at 7:15 in Storyteller’s Café in the Grand. This is one of my favorite character breakfasts food-wise and the characters are fun to interact with – it is not just the standard come by each table and pose for a photo. Our group had its own area near the front windows. We were able to order fancy coffee drinks here which were much needed after the late night. My kids were happy to get hot chocolates with piles of whipped cream on top. I love that this buffet has some unusual items-this time it was chilaquiles which were really good. The made to order omelets were also great and the line for them was not too long. The omelet station also had homemade salsa in little cups that they were encouraging guests to take.



After breakfast, everyone had time for one last dash up to the room and bathroom break then we were off to CA via the entrance through the Grand. We walked through the Park all the way to the Tower of Terror. We were given a special tour in the lobby and the group split into those who wanted to ride and those who didn’t. I am usually iffy on going on this ride, and since it was right after breakfast, I passed. There was a pretty big group of us that passed on this ride. Next we received a tour of one of the restaurants and all the special memorabilia inside. We spent quite a bit of time at this spot and were able to take lots of photos.

TOTPix.jpeg

We all then headed through CarsLand with a stop in front of the sign for a group photo. We headed all the way to the back towards Radiator Springs and then made a left and a duck behind a wall and we were backstage once again. It was quite a walk behind Racers to get to the control center for Racers. This was another one of the features that seems to be done on all the ABD tours and it does not disappoint. We had a lengthy presentation by one of the lead ride technical directors who walked us through the maintenance and functioning of the ride. He told us that they had kept the ride up just for us and that as soon as we got done with our ride they were going to take it down as some of the animatronics were not functioning properly. This presentation was really fascinating and we had time to ask lots of questions, see how the cars are monitored, how the ride flow is controlled and see some of the cars being maintained. Everyone in our group seemed to enjoy this part of the tour and this is one of those experiences thatmakes this tour extra special. After we trekked back to the Park we all boarded our cars for one of my favorite rides .

Carsland.jpeg

Our non-stop morning continued as we all rode Toy Story together. I was really hoping that we would get a chance to do this together since this ride does not offer a fast pass. As always it was fun and only slightly marred by the little tiff one of my exhausted tweens was in.

FunWheel.jpeg

We trekked back across the Park past Grizzly Peak. I have not heard any write-ups mention our next special event, so skip ahead if you don’t want to hear. It was truly another one of the highlights so I do want to talk about it here………………………..



We next entered the queue for the New Soarin’ but then took a turn off to the side where we met one of the ride engineers. He told us quite a bit about the ride and the movie that had just debuted the previous week. Next we were taken straight into the pre-ride part of the queue to ride the ride. The new film is beautiful and I think it will be great for Epcot, but as a California native I wish the film was solely focused on California still for this park. We had been told to not leave the theater but to walk towards the front. We all wondered what was coming next when we were led to a stairway that led forward and down. Once we made it all the way down we were told we could go anywhere to stand while the next “trip” of the ride went. We were in the bottom part of the big curved dish and were able to watch the whole “trip.” This was another unbelievable experience – it was crazy to think that we were right under the screen and all of the guests could not see us. The screen is actually made of perforated metal so we could not only see the projections from the other side but we could see and hear the guests riding. How cool was that!!! The fun was not over yet as we were then taken to a hallway where our ride engineer told us about the making of the new movie (where CGI had been added) and then scents.

It was probably getting close to 1:00 at this point and we had been going non-stop and had not eaten since breakfast, however our guides were not quite done with us. They handed out or stack of 5 fastpasses (good for either park) and then said that we could head off on our own or they would take those who were interested in seeing the brand new Frozen show over to the theater and set us up in the preferred seating. I was starving and tired but this seemed like too good of an offer to pass up for a brand new show. Probably about 2/3’s of the group took them up on the offer and we made a mad dash across the park to make the 1:30 show. We had not had lunch or snacks since breakfast so a few people stopped along the way to grab something to munch on to keep the kids from melting down, but it was tight getting to our holding area on time. Once we were in the reserved holding area Lori and Christina handed out popcorn and packages of candy so we all had something. The show was good and I am glad we got to see it in the first week, but it is going to be tough to live up to the Aladdin show which was a favorite for so many years.

After the show, we headed out with some of our new friends to hit a bunch of rides using our fast passes and taking advantage of some short stand-by lines. I got very lucky and did not have to go on Silly Symphony swings with my daughter. It is one of her favorites but it does me in. We ended our afternoon with a ride on Grizzly River Rapids – it is so nice to be able to head straight to the room after getting soaked on that one!
 
Day 5 Co nt - Farewell Dinner


We did not have too long from the time we returned to the room until out meet up for the farewell evening. We met our guides down in the lobby and headed over to a room in the conference center of the hotel. The guides had lemonade and water for us. Rows of seats and a projection screen were set up and we all grabbed seats. Before the slide show presentation, Lori and Christina encouraged everyone including the kids to share their favorite part of the trip. This is where you realize how quickly a group of like-minded travelers can bond. Several of us mentioned that our favorite part of this trip was that we were with like-minded travelers. Because of the specific nature of this trip, it really was full of Disney freaks – everyone was really into everything Disney. I don’t think anyone on this trip was a spouse or child that was just along for the ride – we were all super fans. This shared passion created an openness between the group to embrace all the fun little details of Disneyland – there was no holding back on our enthusiasm.


Next we were off as a group to our closing dinner at Carthay Circle in California Adventure. Our group filled up several tables in a separate (but not private) room in the restaurant. All of the kids were at one big round table with Christina. Because we were using existing restaurant tables some of them were only 4 tops. I wish we could have had several larger tables as our group all got along so well. Carthay is one my favorite restaurants and the meal did not disappoint. The restaurant offered us a condensed version of the regular menu with 3 or 4 entrees to choose from. I asked them what they could make for me as a vegetarian and they came up with a delicious pasta. ABD included one cocktail or glass of wine with dinner. The dinner was at a nice slow relaxing pace so that we could enjoy visiting with our new friends. After dinner, we headed over to a private viewing area for World of Color. DL was open late that night so some in the group headed off to take in a few more rides.

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Our menu for dinner:

Carthay Menu.jpeg

Diamond Celebration World of Color

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Day 6 - "Post Official ABD Day"


Breakfast was again the Storyteller’s Buffet which is one of our favorites and so convenient. Because there were no group activities for the day, there was an open range of time available for heading down to breakfast. We were probably the last ones to head down to breakfast and noticed that unlike on our Central Europe ABD where people left early, most everyone was at the last breakfast except for one family that had an early departure to drive up to Sequoia National Park. Both Lori and Christina were there and this is where we said our good-byes, received our final day pin and gave the guides their gratuities. We thought both of our guides were very good and had perfect backgrounds for guiding this trip. We were thrilled to be able to take one of our guides out to lunch at DL when we returned in October for our Halloween trip.



Luckily for us, the parting wasn’t sad as we still had a full post day ahead of us and we were planning to spend it exploring the parks with our new friends. We enjoyed spending the day as tour guides and the kids were thrilled to have one more day with their new friends. The highlight of the day was a visit to Launch Bay. The kids had a great visit with Kylo Ren who was fully in character. He even stepped out of his meet and greet to scold my 13 year old son for being noisy. He continued to “pick on” my son the entire visit and my son just ate it up. It is one of our best Disney memories to this day. We kept touring until we were about to drop and eventually had a late dinner at Napoli restaurant sitting outside enjoying wine and pizza.



We were up and out the door early the next morning as we were driving home to Northern California that day and my goal was to make it home in time to pick up the pets before they closed for the weekend.
 

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