ahhhshmatthew
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Aug 13, 2019
Hi All --
Never done a trip a report here before, but thought I would share some high-level thoughts on our experience. For color, we live about a 30 minute flight from Anaheim and visit DLR multiple times per year. This is our "home" base, with WDW being a less frequent stop (once a year-ish). We visited the parks for a quick trip: 06/18 for Pride Nite and 06/19 for a full CA day. We visited without our 5YO on this trip.
Pride Night Thoughts --
Never done a trip a report here before, but thought I would share some high-level thoughts on our experience. For color, we live about a 30 minute flight from Anaheim and visit DLR multiple times per year. This is our "home" base, with WDW being a less frequent stop (once a year-ish). We visited the parks for a quick trip: 06/18 for Pride Nite and 06/19 for a full CA day. We visited without our 5YO on this trip.
Pride Night Thoughts --
- Overall, thought the event was fun. Fantastic vibes, and a heck of a lot more overall cheer and happiness than a standard ticketed event. Decorations and lighting were great.
- Snacks were very 'meh.' Mostly popping rainbow/color on standard snack items. There were some exceptions, but overall the snacks weren't anything to write home about (at least those specific to the event).
- The entertainment was lovely. We really enjoyed the cavalcade and the nighttime fireworks. The firework are SHORT (~5 minutes) and the cavalcade is just that (i.e. not a full parade), but I think it's surprising they do anything special at all entertainment wise for a 2-nights-only event.
- Many character photo opps and backdrop photo opps. Was pleasantly surprised with the backdrop lines - weren't very long. Characters who are popular on average had fairly long lines, others who are lesser known did not. We mostly took note of character lines, but got in several backdrop photos.
- We attended the pre-party at Hearthstone Lounge. Loved that they did anything at all. Tables outside, live DJ, live MC...party atmosphere with a great rainbow entryway carpet. Enjoyed a few of the specialty cocktails. This was a great little add-on. Highly recommended as a pre-party stop.
- Biggest Gripe: While we overall had a fantastic time, DLR clearly made a concerted effort to only staff rides halfway (or in some cases, less). I'm not sure if this is now just commonplace for ticketed events, but BTM had only half the trains runnings, and Indiana Jones was operating at 1/2 capacity at BEST (maybe 1/3). This led to multiple very long lines, and in this case, purely b/c they didn't want to pay CMs to operate things at full capacity. Maybe it's just me, but any hard ticket extra cost event, IMO, should at minimum be offering low wait times for attractions. In addition, they did not have Toon Town open at all (and taking away MMRR also increases already stressed lines at other attractions). All of this, combined with HM and Pooh being down, really just made for a pretty poor ride experience.
- Overall, we had a fantastic time at CA. We didn't rope drop, but were in the park within 30 minutes of opening. Breeze to get in. Were able to knock out multiple rides before midday, as well as try multiple new food items for us. Toy Story (SB), Incredicoaster (SB), Web Slingers (LL), Ariel (LL), and Soarin' (LL) all were done before lunch.
- Took a nap, headed back around 5:00. Toy Story (LL), Incredicoaster (LL), RSR (LL), and Philharmagic (SB), plus multiple Pixar Fest food items and the parade. Lines were significantly busier the latter half of the day. I'd say the top 5-6 rides had their LLs gone by 6:30 or 7:00. However, everything was very well-staffed. We didn't have any LL or other technological issues. Pixar Fest parade was great we though, food was hit and miss. Really enjoyed the bao bun, not so much on the Angry mac n' cheese. Cocktails were good, but as has become a bit too common for our taste, had 1-2 too many ingredients making them fruit/sugar forward.
