clappyclaps
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Nov 19, 2024
- Messages
- 24
Hi all, apologies I'm a bit of a lurker on this forum rather than an active poster (I aim to do better!) however when I registered last year I got some great advice and recommendations from members on here about a solo trip I was planning to DLR and LA. Last month I finally went on my trip and I wanted to write up my experience and share some thoughts and feedback on my visit. I'll throw in a few pictures for good measure.
First just to give you a bit of background about me and how my solo trip came about. I'm a lifetime lover of Disney and film geek in general, love rides and a huge foodie. Had a rather disappointing trip to WDW with family in October 2024 (more on that here https://www.disboards.com/threads/first-family-trip-in-over-20-years-oct-2024.3957978/), and following this I decided a needed a break somewhere on my own. A life goal of mine is to visit all of the Disney parks, and with only WDW and DLP under my belt, DLR seemed like an ideal choice for my first solo trip.
My Trip
I travelled from Manchester, UK to LAX on 10th March via a connecting flight at London Heathrow, with British Airways/American Airlines. The flights were on time and uneventful and the leg from Heathrow to LA was actually quite pleasant. Food was good, a great choice of all the recent Oscar winning and nominated films to watch, and where I was sat at the back of the plane, there were so many empty seats that it was incredibly quiet and peaceful. And aside from the long queue at passport control, getting through LAX to the LAX-It drop off was stress free and straight forward.
For the first half of my trip I was spending 4 nights down in Anaheim, so hopped in an Uber to get to my hotel, Best Western Plus Pavilions (a recommendation from here). While it would have been nice to stay a little closer to the parks, I genuinely can't fault this hotel. The rooms might not be the most modern, but they were clean, spacious and well equipped. The hotel area was quiet but felt incredibly safe, even later on in the evening. It was around a 15-20 minute walk to the parks which for me was perfect and an ideal distance, and the cut-through via the Grand Californian is very handy. And the free breakfast options are a really nice extra touch. The only negatives I could give about the hotel were the fact that there wasn't a safe in the room (which I didn't clock when reading the amenities beforehand) and in a ground floor room you can hear a bit of noise from the 1st floor (but again my fault as they gave me a choice of room). Aside from this, I'd highly recommend this hotel for the price if you don't mind a slight walk.
For the first night I just went to explore Downtown Disney to get my bearings, have a wander round the shops, purchase a magic band (to hopefully reuse for my next trip to WDW) and then picked up a very quick bite to eat before heading back for an early night after being up for 24 hours.
I had a 4 day park ticket starting on the 11th, which I split equally between DLR and DCA. I've included a bit of a summary further down of my thoughts on the parks, rides and food, but overall despite the hit and miss weather (the poncho was out every day), I really enjoyed my trip. One thing I did learn was that I'd opted for a lightning lane multi-pass, which while I definitely used, wasn't really necessary. Rope dropping every day plus being a single rider would've got me everywhere I needed – the only exception being Rise of the Resistance which I ended up buying the single LL pass for. However having LL multi did mean I could take it fairly easy and not rush around as much as I'd expected, which made for quite a relaxing trip.
The only other thing I did while in Anaheim was go and watch an NHL game, the Anaheim Ducks vs the Washington Capitals at the Honda Center. I'm a big hockey fan and have been to NHL games in the past, but I was a little worried about going on my own. I needn't have worried though, I had a great time (despite the atrocious overpriced food), great seat and getting to see the Mighty Ducks was a lifetime dream!
After my 4 nights in Anaheim, I left to spend 3 nights in LA itself, staying slightly out of the city at The Garland hotel. Originally this was a little higher priced than I wanted to spend but after recommendations, I decided the extra money would be worth it and I pleased to say that overall I wasn't wrong. This is a stunning hotel, with very modern, clean and well equipped rooms that even have their own balcony. There was an on site restaurant, bar and shop, and they also ran a free trolley to Universal Studios hourly each day. The only issue I had with The Garland is that the walls in the rooms felt like they were paper thin – you could hear every word said by people walking down the corridors and I'm pretty sure I could hear the neighbouring rooms using their hair dryers and going to the toilet... I'm a light sleeper so fortunately had brought ear plugs, but this is probably the worst hotel I've stayed at in terms of noise. I'd go back, but only on the basis I could request a room out of the way!
For my first night at The Garland, I took the trolley down to Universal and spent a few hours wandering round CityWalk and enjoying a drink and bite to eat. The following day I went on a full day sightseeing tour from A Day in LA, and following an early morning hotel pick up visited Santa Monica Pier, Venice Beach, Rodeo Drive, The Original Farmers Market, The Grove, Griffith Observatory and the Walk of Fame. For someone with a relatively short amount of time in LA, this tour was the perfect choice to cover the main sights and was a great way of chatting with other tourists, but as the stops were unguided meant I still had the freedom of going off on my own. The only downside was that I should've looked into doing one that also included celebrity homes. Notable mention for this tour was the deep fried oreos I got at Venice Beach and the empanadas at the Farmers Market – all incredible.
My second day at LA was spent at Universal Studios, more on that in my little park summary below. And my final day before flying home in the evening of 17th March was spent doing the Warner Brothers Studio Tour, followed by a nice walk back to my hotel via the Smoke House Restaurant for lunch before heading on to LAX. As I love films in general, I was always going to find the studio tour interesting but overall I found it a bit disappointing. The backlot bit was good, but the warehouse areas were a let down for someone like me who wasn't really interested in flying a broom or getting my picture taken. The final area was advertised as DC and Harry Potter which it was, but the Harry Potter stuff was a waste of time. It was too small and obvious that the majority of the sets and props were elsewhere (presumably in the UK).
Here are some of my thoughts on some of the rides and food I experienced in DLR, DCA and Universal Studios:
Disneyland
•Tiana’s Bayou Adventure – despite not being a fan of the WDW version, I loved this. Might be partly down to being the first person on it at 8am in the pouring rain, getting a whole log to myself. Which was typically the only time the photo system had a technical fault and couldn't download my photo!
•Pirates of the Caribbean – I loved how different this was to the WDW version, and while I didn't visit Blue Bayou, I really liked how they've done the ride around this.
•Matterhorn Bobsleds – probably controversial but I hated this ride. While I've managed to medicate and control my motion sickness, the jerky bumpy nature of this ride just wasn't enjoyable.
•Had a lot of tasty food at DLR – beignets from The Mint Julep, the fried chicken from The Plaza Inn, the raspberry rose macaron from Gibson Girl Ice Cream Parlor, Ship to Shore's chimichanga – however the tastiest by far was the cheesy garlic pretzel bread from Edelweiss. Looked like a hot mess but with the marinara sauce it tasted divine.
•The only food let down was the Alien macaron from Alien Pizza Planet. Looked good but tasted far too sickly and I couldn't finish it.
Disney California Adventure
•Radiator Springs Racers - wasn't too sure about this before going on before I really enjoyed it. It's a lot of fun and much quicker than I expected. And the single rider queue is a must to save a long wait or paying for LL.
•Incredicoaster – by far my favourite ride in the entire resort. From looking at it, I'd expected it to be quite rickety and shaky but it wasn't. It was smooth, really quick and super enjoyable.
•Soarin' Around the World – another controversial opinion but I don't really understand the hype and fuss around Soarin'. It was alright but not something I'd be in a rush to go on again.
•Biggest disappointment was that Guardians of the Galaxy was closed for maintenance during my trip (didn't announce until after I booked). Tower of Terror is one of my favourite rides at WDW and was really sad I didn't get a chance to experience what they've done here.
•Food wise, the food and wine festival was on during my visit so I managed to experience a few treats – sirloin gruyere mac & cheese, California wine cocktail, pineapple & coconut cheesecake and a lime parfait – but in all honesty, there was too much to try and fit in!
•I also managed to try out some churro toffee, and the Baymax bread and macaron, as well as a much needed strawberry lychee cocktail.
Universal Studios
•Super Nintendo World – I was really excited to visit this but I ended up being a bit underwhelmed. It was fun, but super busy and really small, and the Mario Kart ride while also fun and with some interesting new tech, didn't wow me.
•Toadstool Cafe – I managed to get a reservation here and had read up in advance about how it worked, but again I was underwhelmed. The food was nice and tasty (garlic knots and tiramisu) and the general atmosphere and decoration were good, but they weren't worth the hassle and queuing up you have to go through to order. They really need to rethink the set up here, it was chaos and not a particularly enjoyable experience.
•Jurassic World – as a diehard Jurassic Park fan, I wasn't impressed that this had been styled into Jurassic World but I have to admit I was won over. The ride styling was really well done and it ended up being the ride and area I enjoyed most.
•Tried a Jurassic Water cocktail from Isla Nu-Bar in the souvenir raptor tiki – the cocktail itself was nice and strong but the raptor tiki, which looked amazing, was disappointingly made of cheap feeling plastic.
•Studio Backlot Tour – I really enjoyed this, it was a great way to spend an hour and you get to see more than I expected. And the addition of experiences within the tour like Kong and Jaws made it even more fun.
•Ended the day with a meal at Bubba Gump Shrimp - Shrimper's Heaven followed by the Strawberry Shortcake. I will always stop at a Bubba Gumps whenever I'm visiting the US, and it never disappoints.
Overall I really enjoyed my solo trip to LA. I'd been worried that I'd struggle or be worried on my own but to be honest, I never really noticed I was alone – I was too busy revelling in being able to do whatever I wanted without hassle and enjoying the stress free and relaxing experience. To anyone considering but hesitant about doing a solo trip, I couldn't recommend it more highly and LA would be a great place to do it.
As a general view on my visit as a whole, while I certainly enjoyed myself, I probably wouldn't go back unless I was in the area passing through. The parks are great but the highlights for me were experiencing the differences between them and WDW, and I'm probably a little too used to the vast scale of the resorts in Orlando. But despite this it was a really memorable and enjoyable holiday – the only major negative to the entire trip was something not attributed to the trip itself but rather a nasty allergic reaction around my eyes that flared up as I left the UK (I later discovered this was a reaction to a type of gel nail polish I'd been using). Didn't stop me from doing anything, but the itchy, swollen, red eyes certainly made the first few days rather uncomfortable – the ice machine at the hotel was a life saver!
Just as a side note to any motion sickness sufferers, the recommendations I gave in my WDW report (linked at the start of the post) were used again for this trip and I’m pleased to say I didn't have any issues with sickness during the entire trip, despite the rides and travelling. For those in the UK, I tried the Boots own version of Kwells and these worked a treat so I would highly recommend these tablets and the patches to anyone suffering - they've changed my life and made theme parks enjoyable again!
I wanted to finish by saying a big thank you to the members on here who gave recommendations and advice prior to my trip, and also for the vast information and knowledge available on the forum in general. It really helped with my confidence and planning on this trip and I am very grateful.
First just to give you a bit of background about me and how my solo trip came about. I'm a lifetime lover of Disney and film geek in general, love rides and a huge foodie. Had a rather disappointing trip to WDW with family in October 2024 (more on that here https://www.disboards.com/threads/first-family-trip-in-over-20-years-oct-2024.3957978/), and following this I decided a needed a break somewhere on my own. A life goal of mine is to visit all of the Disney parks, and with only WDW and DLP under my belt, DLR seemed like an ideal choice for my first solo trip.
My Trip
I travelled from Manchester, UK to LAX on 10th March via a connecting flight at London Heathrow, with British Airways/American Airlines. The flights were on time and uneventful and the leg from Heathrow to LA was actually quite pleasant. Food was good, a great choice of all the recent Oscar winning and nominated films to watch, and where I was sat at the back of the plane, there were so many empty seats that it was incredibly quiet and peaceful. And aside from the long queue at passport control, getting through LAX to the LAX-It drop off was stress free and straight forward.
For the first half of my trip I was spending 4 nights down in Anaheim, so hopped in an Uber to get to my hotel, Best Western Plus Pavilions (a recommendation from here). While it would have been nice to stay a little closer to the parks, I genuinely can't fault this hotel. The rooms might not be the most modern, but they were clean, spacious and well equipped. The hotel area was quiet but felt incredibly safe, even later on in the evening. It was around a 15-20 minute walk to the parks which for me was perfect and an ideal distance, and the cut-through via the Grand Californian is very handy. And the free breakfast options are a really nice extra touch. The only negatives I could give about the hotel were the fact that there wasn't a safe in the room (which I didn't clock when reading the amenities beforehand) and in a ground floor room you can hear a bit of noise from the 1st floor (but again my fault as they gave me a choice of room). Aside from this, I'd highly recommend this hotel for the price if you don't mind a slight walk.
For the first night I just went to explore Downtown Disney to get my bearings, have a wander round the shops, purchase a magic band (to hopefully reuse for my next trip to WDW) and then picked up a very quick bite to eat before heading back for an early night after being up for 24 hours.
I had a 4 day park ticket starting on the 11th, which I split equally between DLR and DCA. I've included a bit of a summary further down of my thoughts on the parks, rides and food, but overall despite the hit and miss weather (the poncho was out every day), I really enjoyed my trip. One thing I did learn was that I'd opted for a lightning lane multi-pass, which while I definitely used, wasn't really necessary. Rope dropping every day plus being a single rider would've got me everywhere I needed – the only exception being Rise of the Resistance which I ended up buying the single LL pass for. However having LL multi did mean I could take it fairly easy and not rush around as much as I'd expected, which made for quite a relaxing trip.
The only other thing I did while in Anaheim was go and watch an NHL game, the Anaheim Ducks vs the Washington Capitals at the Honda Center. I'm a big hockey fan and have been to NHL games in the past, but I was a little worried about going on my own. I needn't have worried though, I had a great time (despite the atrocious overpriced food), great seat and getting to see the Mighty Ducks was a lifetime dream!
After my 4 nights in Anaheim, I left to spend 3 nights in LA itself, staying slightly out of the city at The Garland hotel. Originally this was a little higher priced than I wanted to spend but after recommendations, I decided the extra money would be worth it and I pleased to say that overall I wasn't wrong. This is a stunning hotel, with very modern, clean and well equipped rooms that even have their own balcony. There was an on site restaurant, bar and shop, and they also ran a free trolley to Universal Studios hourly each day. The only issue I had with The Garland is that the walls in the rooms felt like they were paper thin – you could hear every word said by people walking down the corridors and I'm pretty sure I could hear the neighbouring rooms using their hair dryers and going to the toilet... I'm a light sleeper so fortunately had brought ear plugs, but this is probably the worst hotel I've stayed at in terms of noise. I'd go back, but only on the basis I could request a room out of the way!
For my first night at The Garland, I took the trolley down to Universal and spent a few hours wandering round CityWalk and enjoying a drink and bite to eat. The following day I went on a full day sightseeing tour from A Day in LA, and following an early morning hotel pick up visited Santa Monica Pier, Venice Beach, Rodeo Drive, The Original Farmers Market, The Grove, Griffith Observatory and the Walk of Fame. For someone with a relatively short amount of time in LA, this tour was the perfect choice to cover the main sights and was a great way of chatting with other tourists, but as the stops were unguided meant I still had the freedom of going off on my own. The only downside was that I should've looked into doing one that also included celebrity homes. Notable mention for this tour was the deep fried oreos I got at Venice Beach and the empanadas at the Farmers Market – all incredible.
My second day at LA was spent at Universal Studios, more on that in my little park summary below. And my final day before flying home in the evening of 17th March was spent doing the Warner Brothers Studio Tour, followed by a nice walk back to my hotel via the Smoke House Restaurant for lunch before heading on to LAX. As I love films in general, I was always going to find the studio tour interesting but overall I found it a bit disappointing. The backlot bit was good, but the warehouse areas were a let down for someone like me who wasn't really interested in flying a broom or getting my picture taken. The final area was advertised as DC and Harry Potter which it was, but the Harry Potter stuff was a waste of time. It was too small and obvious that the majority of the sets and props were elsewhere (presumably in the UK).
Here are some of my thoughts on some of the rides and food I experienced in DLR, DCA and Universal Studios:
Disneyland
•Tiana’s Bayou Adventure – despite not being a fan of the WDW version, I loved this. Might be partly down to being the first person on it at 8am in the pouring rain, getting a whole log to myself. Which was typically the only time the photo system had a technical fault and couldn't download my photo!
•Pirates of the Caribbean – I loved how different this was to the WDW version, and while I didn't visit Blue Bayou, I really liked how they've done the ride around this.
•Matterhorn Bobsleds – probably controversial but I hated this ride. While I've managed to medicate and control my motion sickness, the jerky bumpy nature of this ride just wasn't enjoyable.
•Had a lot of tasty food at DLR – beignets from The Mint Julep, the fried chicken from The Plaza Inn, the raspberry rose macaron from Gibson Girl Ice Cream Parlor, Ship to Shore's chimichanga – however the tastiest by far was the cheesy garlic pretzel bread from Edelweiss. Looked like a hot mess but with the marinara sauce it tasted divine.
•The only food let down was the Alien macaron from Alien Pizza Planet. Looked good but tasted far too sickly and I couldn't finish it.
Disney California Adventure
•Radiator Springs Racers - wasn't too sure about this before going on before I really enjoyed it. It's a lot of fun and much quicker than I expected. And the single rider queue is a must to save a long wait or paying for LL.
•Incredicoaster – by far my favourite ride in the entire resort. From looking at it, I'd expected it to be quite rickety and shaky but it wasn't. It was smooth, really quick and super enjoyable.
•Soarin' Around the World – another controversial opinion but I don't really understand the hype and fuss around Soarin'. It was alright but not something I'd be in a rush to go on again.
•Biggest disappointment was that Guardians of the Galaxy was closed for maintenance during my trip (didn't announce until after I booked). Tower of Terror is one of my favourite rides at WDW and was really sad I didn't get a chance to experience what they've done here.
•Food wise, the food and wine festival was on during my visit so I managed to experience a few treats – sirloin gruyere mac & cheese, California wine cocktail, pineapple & coconut cheesecake and a lime parfait – but in all honesty, there was too much to try and fit in!
•I also managed to try out some churro toffee, and the Baymax bread and macaron, as well as a much needed strawberry lychee cocktail.
Universal Studios
•Super Nintendo World – I was really excited to visit this but I ended up being a bit underwhelmed. It was fun, but super busy and really small, and the Mario Kart ride while also fun and with some interesting new tech, didn't wow me.
•Toadstool Cafe – I managed to get a reservation here and had read up in advance about how it worked, but again I was underwhelmed. The food was nice and tasty (garlic knots and tiramisu) and the general atmosphere and decoration were good, but they weren't worth the hassle and queuing up you have to go through to order. They really need to rethink the set up here, it was chaos and not a particularly enjoyable experience.
•Jurassic World – as a diehard Jurassic Park fan, I wasn't impressed that this had been styled into Jurassic World but I have to admit I was won over. The ride styling was really well done and it ended up being the ride and area I enjoyed most.
•Tried a Jurassic Water cocktail from Isla Nu-Bar in the souvenir raptor tiki – the cocktail itself was nice and strong but the raptor tiki, which looked amazing, was disappointingly made of cheap feeling plastic.
•Studio Backlot Tour – I really enjoyed this, it was a great way to spend an hour and you get to see more than I expected. And the addition of experiences within the tour like Kong and Jaws made it even more fun.
•Ended the day with a meal at Bubba Gump Shrimp - Shrimper's Heaven followed by the Strawberry Shortcake. I will always stop at a Bubba Gumps whenever I'm visiting the US, and it never disappoints.
Overall I really enjoyed my solo trip to LA. I'd been worried that I'd struggle or be worried on my own but to be honest, I never really noticed I was alone – I was too busy revelling in being able to do whatever I wanted without hassle and enjoying the stress free and relaxing experience. To anyone considering but hesitant about doing a solo trip, I couldn't recommend it more highly and LA would be a great place to do it.
As a general view on my visit as a whole, while I certainly enjoyed myself, I probably wouldn't go back unless I was in the area passing through. The parks are great but the highlights for me were experiencing the differences between them and WDW, and I'm probably a little too used to the vast scale of the resorts in Orlando. But despite this it was a really memorable and enjoyable holiday – the only major negative to the entire trip was something not attributed to the trip itself but rather a nasty allergic reaction around my eyes that flared up as I left the UK (I later discovered this was a reaction to a type of gel nail polish I'd been using). Didn't stop me from doing anything, but the itchy, swollen, red eyes certainly made the first few days rather uncomfortable – the ice machine at the hotel was a life saver!
Just as a side note to any motion sickness sufferers, the recommendations I gave in my WDW report (linked at the start of the post) were used again for this trip and I’m pleased to say I didn't have any issues with sickness during the entire trip, despite the rides and travelling. For those in the UK, I tried the Boots own version of Kwells and these worked a treat so I would highly recommend these tablets and the patches to anyone suffering - they've changed my life and made theme parks enjoyable again!
I wanted to finish by saying a big thank you to the members on here who gave recommendations and advice prior to my trip, and also for the vast information and knowledge available on the forum in general. It really helped with my confidence and planning on this trip and I am very grateful.
