The Candlelight Processional is a long running holiday tradition at Disneyland.  It is a concert program that they typically run around the first week of December, which is a musical celebration of the religious aspect of the Christmas holiday, featuring a professional orchestra and a large massed choir formed from numerous church and school choirs as well as some Disney employees.  The show also features a celebrity narrator, who tells the Biblical Christmas story in between the songs.  This show has been a favorite Christmas season tradition for me for as long as I have lived out here in Southern California.  It is something I really look forward to every year.

Traditionally, this concert is performed on a stage set up in the Town Square area of Main Street, with the Railroad Station used as the backdrop.  In most years, there are just 4 evening performances of the show, two each on Saturday and Sunday.  The majority of the Town Square area is blocked off for the stage as well as for a large seating area.  Tickets for viewing the show in the seating area are mainly distributed to Disney’s corporate partners and other VIPs while regular park guests start staking out seats early to the sides and further back in order to get even an obstructed view of the show.

This can result in a lot of logistics problems and major bottlenecks in that part of the park on those days.  Because of this, Disney a fairly short-lived (5 years) experiment starting in 1998 of moving the show to the Fantasyland Theater, an outdoor performance venue located across from "It’s a Small World".  Walt Disney World had moved their version of the show from Town Square in the Magic Kingdom to a similar theater in Epcot a few years earlier and had eventually managed to expand it multiple shows a night throughout the holiday season, with reserved seating tickets being sold through popular dining packages.  There was a lot of speculation that this experiment with a change of venue at Disneyland was also hoped to eventually lead to a similar expansion of the program, although that never materialized and the show was finally moved back to Main Street starting in 2003.

Since the vast majority of the tickets to the show were still distributed to VIPs, the move to the Fantasyland Theater had an effect of pretty substantially reducing the availability of the show to the general public.  Unlike the Main Street location, guests that were outside of the theater would not really be able to see or hear much, if any, of the show.  The only options were really to either figure out a way to obtain tickets or to wait in a stand-by line outside the theater and hope to get the opportunity to fill-in leftover space (mostly due to no-shows) available right before the show started.

A few days ahead of time, Disney publicly announced that there would be a very limited number of tickets available to the general public the morning of each of the two show days.  The announcement stated that the tickets would be available on a first-come, first-served basis at the entrance to the theater immediately after park opening and that each guest arriving would be able to request a maximum of 6 tickets.  With the expected very limited availability, it quickly became evident that they would all be distributed very quickly and that it would be necessary to rush to the theater as quickly as possible after park opening to get a chance at them. 

Back in 1998, I was a very active participant on the old alt.disney.disneyland Usenet discussion group.  The local participants on that board had established a weekly meet at the park every Sunday at noon, which I attended just about every week.  Quite a few of the regulars there were interested in seeing the show, although a lot of people didn’t have the ability to easily get down to the park right at opening on a Sunday morning.  Since I was still fairly young and unattached at the time, I decided that I did want to try for tickets and I volunteered to pick up the full 6 ticket maximum so that I could share with some of the other members of the group.

The Saturday morning ticket distribution went pretty much as everyone (except, apparently, those at Disney that came up with this plan) would probably expect.  Locals that wanted tickets arrived as early as possible and got into position as far in as possible during the pre-opening period where only Main Street is usually available.  There was a mad, not particularly safe dash from the "rope drop" location at the end of Main Street to the theater right after park opening and the available tickets were all distributed within about 10 minutes or so.  This was widely reported in the online forums available at the time (mostly the newsgroups) and the story even got picked up by the Orange County Register newspaper.  I think Disney was between a rock and a hard place for Sunday, as Saturday’s distribution had shown them the problems but they couldn’t really change the announced procedures at the last moment.

On Sunday morning, I headed down to the park as early as I could and arrived a little over an hour before the announced park opening time.  After parking and taking the tram over to the entrance area, I quickly ran into another friend from the newsgroup and joined him in line at the turnstiles.  Once the park opened, we quickly made our way to the end of Main Street and positioned ourselves right by the rope.  It was pretty obvious that just about everyone waiting right by the rope was there for Candlelight tickets. 

While we were waiting at the rope, my friend recognized the sister of one of the other regulars from the newsgroup.  I hadn’t met her before, but knew her brother fairly well.  He had even mentioned to me a few weeks before that his sister was going to be moving down from Northern California and would probably start showing up at some of the park meets.  She was there for the Candlelight tickets as well, hoping to get tickets for her and her brother.  The three of us spent some time chatting while waiting for rope drop at the park’s official opening time.

For those of us trying for tickets, rope drop was much like the start of a marathon.  As soon as the park was opened, everyone headed to the Fantasyland Theater in as fast a sprint as they could manage.  Disney did post some employees along the route to the theater who made a few futile attempts to call for people to slow down, but who were clearly really there mainly to keep the pathway open and to be ready to attend to anyone that fell or otherwise became injured.  I really hated running through the park like that, but I knew it was the only possible way to get tickets.

My friend and I managed to pretty much stick together during the run and ended up in roughly the same position in line.  There were a fair number of people that made it into line ahead of us, but we were close enough to the front to get tickets.  Unfortunately, the girl had fallen behind by quite a bit and was considerably further back in line.  They did run out before she got to the front of the line, so my friend and I each quickly gave her one of our extra tickets for her and and her brother to use. 

In order to get to the entrance faster, my friend had parked at the Millie’s Restaurant on Harbor Blvd. and walked over instead of dealing with the extra time involved with the toll booths and trams for the Disneyland parking lot.  He needed to go back over to move his car and suggested the three of us all go over and get breakfast at Millie’s.  We all agreed that was a good idea and enjoyed sitting down for a leisurely table service meal after the morning’s excitement.  It was also a nice opportunity to get to know the newcomer to our group a bit.

After breakfast, my friend headed off to move his car to the Disneyland lot while the girl and I walked back to the park.  By the time we got back, it was still an hour and a half or so until the noon meet.  While it probably would have been logical for the two of us to have spent that time riding rides together or something like that, we both were pretty introverted and shy and instead just went off our separate ways.

At this point, I’m sure that anyone that knows me and my family at all well knows where this is going, regardless of having heard this story before or not.  Over the next few weeks, I did get to know the girl, her name is Ilene, better and started spending more time hanging out with her at the Sunday meets as well as a few other group gatherings that were scheduled that month.  I even had Christmas dinner with her and her brother (as well as the other friend from the Candlelight stampede) at one of the Disney hotel restaurants.  We hung around together quite a bit on New Years Eve at the park as well.

We finally got around to exchanging email addresses and IM screennames in early January and finally went on our first official date towards the end of that month.  Ilene and I were married a little under 2 years later and recently celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary.  While that Sunday morning in early December 1998 is probably one that Disneyland would generally rather be forgotten, it is definitely one that worked out extremely well for us.  Although the logistics still sometimes can be very difficult, although not as bad as in 1998, we still look forward to seeing the show every year (sometimes in Florida, including this year) as it holds very special meaning for us.

We left for the park around 11am and I was pretty surprised at how heavy the traffic on the south 5 freeway was.  In the past, I’ve usually found that traffic is pretty light on Thanksgiving, but the drive this time turned out to be pretty slow-going.  We didn’t see indications of any accidents or other problems, so I suspect that our timing was such that there were just a lot of people heading down to Orange County or San Diego for holiday gatherings.  The drive wasn’t particularly unpleasant, though, and we enjoyed listening to the Christmas music station on XM satellite radio during the drive.  Thanksgiving is the first day that I’m generally willing to start listening to Christmas music, even though it seems like some stations start playing it earlier every year.

We occasionally switched over to the traffic reports on XM, but didn’t get any information from that either.  We found it weird when they were reporting one major incident on “southbound I-10”, considering that the 10 is an east-west freeway.  Eventually, we figured out that the traffic reporter was misreading the first digit of “110” as an “I”.  We often find the traffic reports on there a bit amusing since the reporters are clearly not in Southern California and often seriously butcher pronunciations.  It is particularly fun listening to some of them trying to pronounce “Cahuenga” or “Sepulveda”.

By the time we actually got into the park, it was close to 1pm.  During a previous Thanksgiving visit, we had eaten at Carnation Restaurant on Main Street and had found that to be an especially good choice.  It is a table-service restaurant, which is preferable to cafeteria style for Thanksgiving dinner, and the Americana setting of Main Street just seems exceptionally suited to the holiday.  We were briefly concerned that the weather was a bit drizzly and overcast and the restaurant has all outdoor seating, but the weather was already clearing by the time we got there and we noted that they had large umbrella coverings over all the tables, so we decided to go ahead with it.  Even though we didn’t have reservations, we were seated with only about a 15 minute or so wait.

When they brought the menus and explained to us about the special Thanksgiving dinner, we immediately ran into a very large irritation, although it was one that wasn’t entirely unexpected based on a previous experience.  Despite the fact that it was Thanksgiving and the fact that Disneyland is obviously well-known for attracting families with small children, they were not offering a children’s portion of the turkey dinner.  Basically, children had to either order the adult portion (at the full price) or settle for a choice of chicken strips, macaroni & cheese, or PB&J.  Our 5-year-old most certainly was not going to willingly accept anything other than a turkey dinner, which is one of his favorite meals even when it isn’t Thanksgiving.

When this came up 2-years ago (and our son was only 3), we ended up escalating the issue to a manager and eventually the chef actually came out and offered to prepare a half-portion for our son.  He also instructed the servers to make that option available to any other families and we saw several other families order the same while we were at the restaurant.  I had hoped that after that experience they would start simply placing it on the menu, but I guess that didn’t happen.

Our son’s appetite has grown quite a bit and, quite honestly, we just weren’t in the mood to go through the big hassle of escalating the issue again this year.  Therefore, we just went ahead and ordered 3 adult meals.  We figured my wife and I can also augment our own meals a bit, if it proved to be too much food.  The portions were really quite large, though, and he did end up leaving some of the turkey (and most of the stuffing) on the plate, even after we did both take some of his food as our own second helpings.  We did see other children in the restaurant also struggling through the large portions and I suspect they ended up with a bunch of waste.  In retrospect, I do kind of wish that we had made more of an issue out of it again.

The food was generally pretty good, although we did agree on one complaint.  The gravy used on the potatoes and turkey was quite a bit more salty than it should have been.  It certainly didn’t help that it didn’t occur to me to test it before adding a little additional salt.  It still wasn’t bad enough to warrant sending the food back, but I did find myself scraping off much of the gravy.  Other than that, the turkey was served hot and wasn’t overly dry and the potatoes and stuffing were good as well.  The meal also came with some cooked vegetables which aren’t to my taste (I really don’t like any cooked veggies other than corn) and some fresh cranberry sauce and a dinner roll.  With the obvious caveats above, it was a pretty decent Thanksgiving meal for about $15/person and the location certainly was top-notch for it.

While pumpkin pie was available as a special Thanksgiving-only dessert option, none of us really care for that and decided to opt out from it.  Instead, we got ice cream sundaes from the Gibson Girl Ice Cream Parlor as our dessert and enjoyed them while listening to the piano player at Refreshment Corner.  One of Disneyland’s long-standing traditions for the holiday season is to offer special seasonal food choices at some locations and one of my absolute favorite is peppermint stick ice cream.  That was a key motivation for me wanting to get ice cream for dessert and it was as good as ever.

During the remainder of the afternoon, we took the opportunity to enjoy some of the park’s special offerings for the holidays.  This included two rides (one during the day and one after dark) on It’s a Small World, which they have been extensively decorating for the holidays for a number of years now.  That is something we look forward to every year and we were particularly excited to see this time, since the attraction had been down for a major refurbishment since the beginning of the year.  We only noticed a few minor changes (most notable being all new boats), but everything looked to be in excellent condition.  This is a very popular attraction during the holidays, but the lines were very short (10 minutes or so) each time.  Thanksgiving just isn’t a very busy day at the park.

Other than the two rides on Small World and one ride on King Arthur’s Carrousel, we didn’t actually do any other rides that day.  Instead, we spent some time looking at the various decorations as well as paying a visit to the "Reindeer Roundup" area on Big Thunder Trail to see the pardoned national turkeys (who usually end up at Disneyland after the ceremony with the president) and pay a visit to Santa Goofy.  We also enjoyed a walk through the newly re-opened and updated Sleeping Beauty dioramas in the castle.  This had been closed for about 7 years and it was nice to see it return.  After dark, while my wife went off to do some shopping, my son and I enjoyed sitting for a while at the hub waiting for and watching the lighting ceremony where they turn on the elaborate Christmas lights on the castle.

We left the park for home around 7:30pm or so and found traffic to be fairly light for the drive home.  We made a couple attempts to see if we could find any fast food restaurants opened for a small and quick dinner, but found that everything we checked was closed.  I guess there just isn’t much demand for McDonalds or Burger King on Thanksgiving. While we were getting a bit hungry by the time we made it home (and fixed some hot dogs), I did think it was nice that those places let their employees spend the holiday evening wieh their families.

This was a nice Thanksgiving and, despite some complaints about the meal, I felt we made a good choice as to how to spend the day.

During this visit, we let our son largely set the pace and do a lot of the choosing when it came to the rides and shows that we visited, but we also gave him a lot of encouragement to work some new experiences into the visit as well. He visited his favorite attractions (King Arthur’s and King Triton’s Carousels, Mad Tea Party, Tuck and Roll Drive ‘em Buggies, Goofy’s Playhouse, Playhouse Disney Live, Enchanted Tiki Room) while also talking him into visiting several that weren’t on his previous "approved" list (such as MuppetVision 3D, the Aladdin stage show, Toy Story Midway Mania, and the Mark Twain Riverboat). We still didn’t do any of the major thrill rides, even though he is now tall enough for many, but he definitely is making progress.

One thing to note is that we did almost entirely stick to visiting attractions that our whole family could do together. I really was the only one in our party that could have done most of the major thrill rides, since our son isn’t really up to them yet and everyone else in our group has restrictions due to medical conditions. I’m certain I could have gone off to do some of the coasters had I wanted to, but I really was far more interested in family time. I do look forward to the time when my son is ready to do some of those bigger rides with me, but I’m also in no rush about it. The experience of seeing the attractions with my child is so rewarding that I don’t miss the thrill rides.

In the rest of this post, I’m going to write up specific notes on a few key attractions. Our visits to the Disneyland Resort have become less frequent than they used to be and these trips ended up being the first opportunity to see a few new attractions and shows. I’ll also include a few notes about some of the other attractions and shows that included some memorable element.

Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage

The re-themed and re-opened version of Disneyland’s classic Submarine Voyage was the major new attraction for summer of 2007. Due to the extremely long lines (often over 2 hours or more) combined with our son’s skittishness, we hadn’t yet visited it before this trip. We were pretty determined to finally see the ride on this visit, with my father (who is a major Disney-enthusiast) being particularly excited to have the opportunity to ride the subs again.

During our first full day at the parks (Monday 6/23) the ride was having a lot of technical difficulties, resulting in it being closed for much of the day. I’m not really sure if it ever actually opened that day as it was listed as "temporarily closed’ every time we checked in. We did leave the resort for dinner at Knott’s that evening, though, so it may very well have opened later in the day. Seeing it closed so much on Monday did make us (my father in particular) pretty nervous about whether or not we would actually get an opportunity to ride it. On Tuesday, though, the ride was opened and we found that it had a posted wait time of around an hour shortly after we had finished our lunch at the Blue Bayou.

One really nice feature of the ride is that they offer a special, alternative experience for disabled guests who are unable to board the submarines. Off to the side of the dock where guests board the regular ride, there is a building containing a small theater (it seats about 30 guests) where they show a high-definition video presentation of the full ride experience. My mother suffers from severe arthritis in her legs (she has to use a motorized scooter much of the time) and couldn’t possibly have managed the narrow ladder to get onto the ride. My wife has a back condition and also had doubts about whether or not she could board, thus she decided to join my mother and attend the alternate version. They took our son along as well, since we were pretty doubtful that he would be willing to board the rather claustrophobic submarine.

Guests using the alternate experience enter through an entrance near the monorail entrance. With the fairly high-capacity and fairly low-demand for it, they found that they only had to wait for the next available showing. After helping them to get situated in the line for the alternate experience and arranging where to meet later, my father and I were prepared to head around to get into the hour-long queue for the regular ride. Much to our surprise, the ride attendants instead escorted us to a nearby waiting area and told us that we would be put onto the next submarine. That means that we boarded the regular ride about the same time that the others entered the theater, thus minimizing the amount of time our family was separated.

Having read plenty of threads regarding disabled policies at the parks on various discussion boards, I admit that I hesitated a bit to even post about our experience, considering the fact that it essentially meant we were able to reduce a 60 minute wait down to around 10. I want to state clearly that we did not ask for that accommodation and were fully prepared to wait in the line. We did really appreciate it, though, as that essentially gave us back about an hour of family together time in the park that we hadn’t expected to have. Certainly the various health issues do have an impact on the amount that we were able to do in any given day and I have to say that I think Disney’s decision to help out a bit in this way is a good one.

The ride itself is a lot of fun and I really think they have done an excellent job with it. It definitely is a very different experience from the old Submarine Voyage (there is a great nod to the original ride at the end), but I do think the more fantasy-oriented approach works well, although I kind of wish they had found a way to shift the ride entrance over to the Fantasyland side instead of keeping it in Tomorrowland. The various projection techniques are reminiscent of the Finding Nemo ride-through that was added to The Living Seas in Epcot a couple years ago, although the scope of the Disneyland ride is much larger.

The vehicles do continue to be a bit of a hindrance to the experience. Besides the slow-loading nature (which results in the ultra long lines), they have also made the seating a bit more cramped than it used to be, probably in an attempt to up the capacity a bit. I don’t know if it is a result of the projection effects requiring a more precise viewing angle or if I’ve just gotten older since the old ride closed, but I also found that I had to lean forward a lot more than I remembered from the old ride, leaving me with a bit of a sore back at the end. For this reason, I actually think my wife would have a really hard time with the ride and probably should stick with the theater version. I’m at least glad that the alternate experience is available in order to provide something for the guests that can’t ride the subs themselves.

Toy Story Midway Mania

We didn’t wait as long to ride the big new ride for this summer. We have now been on Toy Story Midway Mania at California Adventure three times, once during the 4-day stay, once on the morning of July 5, and then one more time this past weekend before joining some friends for dinner at Downtown Disney. The ride has very quickly become a family favorite. The wait times were all in the 45-60 minute range and the line moves pretty continuously, so we have found it to be a pretty easy wait.

Considering our son’s typical reactions recently, we really didn’t have particularly high expectations that we would be able to get him to go on this one. When we went on the ride for the first time, we decided to all get in line and see if we could arrange a parent swap at the front of the line if he didn’t go on it. We figured that, worst case, one of us would sit the ride out and then get back in line while others babysat.

While he was pretty fussy and quick to give his "I don’t want to ride" arguments when we got into the queue, he did finally end up deciding to ride. I think the nearly an hour wait worked quite a bit to our advantage as it gave us some time to talk with him and try to reassure him. We talked quite a bit about how the ride was based on Toy Story (he hadn’t seen the movies at that time, but he knew the characters) and also spent a fair amount of time emphasizing the other kids in the line, including ones younger than him. It also helped that my father had already ridden the Walt Disney World version and was able to help describe parts of it.

It also turned out to be helpful that we had already taken him to see MuppetVision 3D, so there was an immediate sense of familiarity when we got to the part of the queue where the 3D glasses were distributed. The final deciding factor came, though, from a bit of cleverly-themed phrasing in the safety spiel that was heard in the last part of the queue right before boarding. In that spiel, they referred to the ride vehicle as a"game tram". When we heard that, we immediately emphasized with our son how he regularly rode on the parking lot trams without being afraid. He accepted that and even now sometimes calls the ride the "indoor trams".

One part that was really funny was that, even though we had been emphasizing the theme of the ride throughout the wait, as soon as the ride started and we went past the first pictures of Woody and Buzz he exclaimed "Oooh! It’s a Toy Story ride!" The first time through, he did tend to grip the lapbar pretty tightly the whole time (the ride does have some fast turns) and did seem a bit nervous even though he was obviously having fun. He didn’t really try to actually work the interactive element of the ride during the first two times and I basically scored all the points that he got (on the second ride, I typically switched to using his gun when they started the count-down to the end of a game). By the third time, he was taking more interest in the controls and actually scored most of his points for himself. He took a pretty strong interest in his score and often brought up how many points he got even quite a while after riding. It is a shame that they didn’t use the "email-a-photo" technology that is on Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters, but it did occur to me on the 2nd and 3rd rides to use my cell phone camera to snap a photo of our scores.

There have already been a lot of articles written about the ride itself, so I won’t go into much details there. I really think that the mix of the 3D ride-through technology with the interactive "shooting gallery" concept works extremely well. Unlike previous interactive rides, the cause and effect is very clear and obvious. As for the 3D, I was impressed by the technology involved with the Spider-man ride at Islands of Adventure in Florida, but felt that the ride itself was kind of lacking in storytelling and particularly heart. I am pleased to now see Disney using similar technology and applying their superior storytelling skills.

One of the highlights of the ride is actually outside in the queue area. They have an animatronic figure of Mr. Potato Head that serves as an old-fashioned midway barker, giving various speeches intended to attract riders. It does use the voice of Don Rickles (who voiced the character in the movies), but is programmed with a very wide variety of phrases. An operator is stationed somewhere within site of the queue, which allows phrase selection that simulates a limited amount of interaction with the crowd (i.e. referencing the color of someone’s outfit or acknowledging when a joke gets no reaction from the crowd). It is a lot of fun to watch. During our first visit to the ride, our son was so focused on his indecision about the ride itself, that he didn’t really notice the animatronic. By our second visit, it definitely did catch his attention and he was watching it with a big grin on his face. Of course, he then spent the rest of the queue periodically asking us "why was there a talking potato?"

My only real complaint about the ride is that, even as good as it is, it really does seem a tad redundant. From the very first time that I started to hear details about what this ride was going to be, I found myself really wondering about whether adding a Toy Story based interactive dark ride really was the best idea they could come up with, considering that they already had Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters in Disneyland (as well as similar rides at some of the other Magic Kingdom parks). Both are really good rides and, in each case, the theme really does work very well with the concept. Still, I can’t help but think that this suggests that the vision of the current Imagineers is a a bit more narrow than it should be.

Innoventions Dream House

Pretty much since it opened, I have always felt like Innoventions was perhaps the biggest missed opportunity in the park.  The basic idea of a large exhibit in Tomorrowland that is used as a showplace for new or future technologies is a solid one.  It fits the land’s theme well (in fact, better than some of the other attractions there) and could certainly provide fun and interesting experiences for guests. Unfortunately, the attraction has pretty consistently fallen down badly in execution.  With a few exceptions (must notably, Honda’s Asimo robot demonstration), the sponsors have generally used Innoventions for exceptionally mundane presentations.  The result has been an attraction that should be pretty well suited to frequent visits has instead been one that we avoid.

Recently, Microsoft joined existing sponsor HP to fully re-work the lower level of Innoventions into a new high-tech house of the future exhibit, both an enhancement to the existing Innoventions complex as well as a bit of a throw-back to the House of the Future exhibit that was part of the original Tomorrowland when the park first opened.  This takes up the entire first floor of the complex and is a pretty highly-themed exhibit representing the interior of a house equipped with lots of high-tech equipment, although mostly current or soon to be available items from HP and Microsoft.

The Dream House exhibit had just been showed to the press the week before our visit and was expected to be opened that week.  We stopped by on Monday of the 4-day visit, but found that the exhibit was still closed off with guests instead entering Innoventions through the exit ramp up to the second level.  We talked with the attendant at the entrance, who told us that it wasn’t expected to open for at least another week.  We never thought to check back again during the rest of the 4-night visit, although I later heard that it actually opened on Tuesday.  We finally did visit the attraction on the 4th of July.

I have to say that I was generally rather impressed by the exhibit, a lot more than I had expected to be.  For starters, the entire exhibit is considerably more elaborately themed than anything I had previously seen in Innoventions.  The different sections are all made up to look like different parts of a real house (living room, dining room, girl’s and boy’s bedrooms, etc.) with pretty extensive decoration.  It all has a rather cozy feeling to it that I found quite appealing.  The storytelling aspect to the exhibit is further strengthened by having the attendants all playing the part of various members of the fictional Elias family (the name comes from Walt Disney’s middle name), staying in characters as they gave various demonstrations.

The technology in the exhibit isn’t extremely futuristic and I do think it could have used a bit more variety, but it still is interesting to see.  The most dominant technologies are Microsoft’s Windows Media Center (the audio/video/photo management software that is a standard part of Windows Vista) and Microsoft Surface, which is the table-top sized touch screen interface that they have recently been showing at trade shows and other similar venues.  Media Center is shown on the big-screen TV in a media room as well as on various smaller screens throughout the various rooms of the exhibit.  The idea is that it is all connected to a centralized media server and you can call up various media from pretty much any part of the house.

Microsoft Surface was used in various table-tops throughout the attraction, providing access to a variety of entertainment or informational function.  Some of the demonstrations involved using the touchscreen to manipulate photographs in various ways, including organization, sizing, cropping, etc.  Another really cool example was the use of a Surface table as a big electronic book where you could actually turn the pages by simply moving your hand across the book.  The dining room had a demo that was guided by one of the "family-member" performers who showed how various specially designed objects could be placed on the table to trigger specific programs.  One example that I recall included a figurine of a fish that triggered an interactive "fish tank" program.  Not very practical, but interesting.  One thing that I thought was particularly notable was that our 4-year-old very quickly took to interacting with the Microsoft Surface tables and was easily able to figure out the user interfaces.

My favorite part of the exhibit was the boy’s bedroom.  When you go into this room, one of the family members reads the story of Peter Pan as various clips from the movie are displayed on big video screens mounted to the walls of the bedroom.  There is even a cannon toy in the room which a kid from the crowd gets to use during the battle scene of the story, with the shots actually registering on the screens.  The whole thing is very charming and also rather effective.  The girl’s bedroom featured an interactive mirror where a touch-screen interface could be used to electronically try on various outfits or different hair styles.  I wasn’t as impressed by that, although admittedly that might be because I’m male…

We actually spent about an hour or so fully exploring the Dream House exhibit and would like to go back and spend some more time there on a future visit (for one thing, a few elements weren’t working).  I do think they could stand to upgrade the technology a bit with a bit more variety, but I overall think this is a huge improvement for Innoventions.

Indiana Jones and the Secret of the Stone Tiger

As a tie-in to this summer’s release of Indiana Jones and the Curse of the Crystal Skull, Disneyland replaced the long-running Aladdin storytelling show in Adventureland with this new kid-oriented Indiana Jones show.  Everyone in our group pretty much agreed that the show was a misfire on several levels and hoped that perhaps the vastly superior previous occupant of the theater would return once the value of tying in to the movie is pretty well past.

Pretty much everything about the show points to it being a pretty obvious rush job to quickly take advantage of the renewed interest in the character (which is, of course, already featured in a major E-ticket attraction in Adventureland).  All of the hosts and hostesses at the theater were still wearing the middle-eastern style costumes that were designed for the Aladdin show.  The set on the stage is still largely the same, even including the large walk-through tiger’s head designed after Aladdin’s Cave-of-Wonders.   The globe-trotting nature of the Indiana Jones character does make it pretty easy to adapt a show to just about any setting, but it still is a pretty obvious indication that not too much effort or expense went into this show.

The new show maintains the basic storytelling format as the previous Aladdin show, even though Indiana Jones really isn’t as kid-friendly a basis for such a show.  The seating is still set up with a large section of ground-seating in the front for children and then a number of rows of chairs behind for adults (and kids that, like our son, are still timid about sitting by themselves).  The storyteller this time is introduced as a female colleague of Indy that enlists the help of the kids in the audience to work out a series of clues that were left behind before Indy disappeared in his quest for a legendary object of great power.  Of course, Indy himself eventually shows up at the end after a few kid volunteers have helped out with the various tasks indicated by the clues.

The basic idea isn’t that bad, I suppose, but it really doesn’t amount to all that much other than some nice photo opportunities for the kids that are chosen to help out.  The old Aladdin storytelling had a lot of humor and a fairly substantial story (the plot of the movie) to hold the attention of the rest of the audience.  This show really gets rather tedious during some long segments where most of the audience is basically just watching other people’s kids going through some fairly uninteresting motions.

There is also a major story problem with the way the show has been structured, but I can’t really go over that without spoilers.  If you want to see the show and don’t want to know details about what happens, please skip ahead to the next paragraph.  BEGIN SPOILERS: The big twist of the show is that the storyteller ends up to be a villain who was trying to obtain the powerful artifact for herself.  The climax of the show is a fight sequence between Indy and the storyteller, who eventually is defeated.  The problem is that Indiana Jones isn’t really a character that instantly generates any kind of audience connection when he isn’t played by Harrison Ford.  That results in an ending where you are basically expected to be rooting against the character you have followed for the first 3/4 of the show and rooting for a stranger that just showed up.  That really doesn’t work.  The Indiana Jones show in Florida gets around this problem by making the whole presentation a behind-the-scenes demo and identifying the person playing Indy as a stuntman.  Trying to make a more literal Indiana Jones show really was a pretty bad idea at its root.  END SPOILERS

In addition to the show in the Oasis, they also added "Indiana Jones Moments" at various points around Adventureland.  These are just short (about 5 minutes or so) little stunt fights between Indiana Jones and some random villain.  The specific one we saw was on the upper level of the Jungle Cruise queue.  While I suppose these can be a bit of a disruption of crowd control in the already confined area of Adventureland, they also are kind of fun.  I think this was really a better choice of tie-in than the fairly lame longer show.

The Enchanted Tiki Room

The other attractions that I’ve discussed in this post so far have been new ones, but I did want to make note of our visit to this one classic attraction.  June 23rd (the second day of our visit) was the 45th anniversary of the opening day of The Enchanted Tiki Room.  When we visited the attraction that afternoon, we were pleased to find a completely packed theater and some very appropriate attention being paid to the anniversary.

Upon arrival at the waiting area for the attraction, the castmembers at the attraction all made a point of letting the visitors know of the anniversary.  Most of the castmembers were also wearing the standard Disneyland "Happy Birthday" buttons (with the number 45 printed on them) that are usually given out to guests.  A pretty large percentage of the guests at the show also seemed to be fans who were pretty aware of the significance of the day, although I did overhear one fairly clueless visitor inquiring at the nearby juice bar about whether the pre-show was the entire attraction or if there was something else to it…

The castmember that usually "wakes up" Jose to start the show first gave a short speech in recognition of the anniversary.  I wish that I had made a recording of it or could even find a transcript online as I thought it was really excellent.  I wouldn’t be surprised if Walt Disney Imagineering prepared a script for this as the speech managed the delicate balance of acknowledging the show’s significance without breaking the illusion.  The speech talked a bit about the characters and their connection to Walt Disney and then went into a brief discussion of how they led the way for such attractions as Pirates of the Caribbean and The Haunted Mansion.  The speech managed to convey all of this while never using words like "animatronic", "mechanical", or anything else that would even begin to suggest that the birds were not real.

I made a number of visits to the Florida park (at the time there was only one) when I was a kid and the Tiki Room was very much a family favorite.  I’m saddened that the Walt Disney World version has been replaced with a very poorly-conceived attempt to update the show, but I remain very happy that the original show is mostly still intact at Disneyland.  It is missing the old Offenbach segment, a trim that I do acknowledge was probably a correct one as its elimination has almost entirely stopped walk-outs.  I do wish they would perhaps program the show to allow that segment to be added back in on special occasions like the anniversary, though. 

While we pretty carefully avoided the pre-publicized anniversary merchandise event that was held the day before (and I heard was something of a madhouse), I’m really glad we were there and able to visit the show on the actual anniversary.  It made for a pretty special occasion.

Fireworks (including Fourth of July)

The fireworks shows at Disneyland (and the other Disney parks) usually have a lot more substance and complexity than you find in a typical fireworks show.  Disney pretty much pioneered the synchronization of fireworks to music and, particularly in recent years, they have been regularly raising the bar for the use of fireworks as a storytelling medium.  The various versions of Illuminations at Epcot and the finale for Fantasmic! at Disneyland really started this trend and then Believe…There’s Magic In the Stars, the fireworks show introduced for Disneyland’s 45th Anniversary, definitely set a new standard for the traditional over-the-castle fireworks show.  They have continued to grow this talent with the current Remember… Dreams Come True at Disneyland and Wishes at the Walt Disney World Magic Kingdom as well as special holiday shows in both California and Florida.

Our main reason for braving the crowds and working out all the complex logistics to visit Disneyland on the 4th of July is because we consider it to be the best place in this area to see a great fireworks show.  For the past several years, Disneyland would show the regular fireworks show followed by a special patriotic addition that was usually both  highly moving and viscerally spectacular.  Those special performances shot off an amazing number of fireworks in a very short time, while still managing to continue Disney’s recent mix of expert synchronization and storytelling.

This year, we were pretty excited to find out that Disney was producing a full-length, original patriotic show for the 4th of July instead of running the regular fireworks show followed by a tag as in previous years.  The new show had the somewhat awkward title Celebrate America: A Fourth of July Concert in the Sky and versions were being produced for both Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World.  The Disneyland version was scheduled to be shown only on the 4th of July itself, although the Walt Disney World version did run for a couple different nights around the 4th of July.  Unfortunately, through no fault of Disney, the evening ended up being marked by a fair amount of disappointment.

From experience, we have found a favorite place for viewing the 4th of July fireworks that still affords a good view, but isn’t as crowded or logistically difficult as most of the more popular locations in the park.  We do still generally have to stake out our spot about 2-3 hours before the scheduled start time, though.  Fortunately, other good friends also view the show from the same location, which allows for some good socializing during the wait for the show to begin.

The first sign of trouble came about an hour before the show when a castmember came over to where we were sitting and let us know that there was a small chance that we would be required to move.  She indicated that wind conditions were such that there was a little bit of concern that we could end up in an area that would have to be evacuated out of concern that ash and other debris from the show could fall there.  She said that they would likely make the final decision around 30 minutes before show time.  Fortunately, we never heard anything more about this and were able to stay in our seating area.

The next sign of trouble came about 15-20 minutes before the start of the show with an announcement that the show might have to be "modified" due to wind conditions at upper elevations.  This announcement was repeated a couple times before the start of the show and it never was entirely clear what the modifications might be.  Our guess was that the show probably included some low-level fireworks set off near the castle (a standard element of the regular show) and that those might need to be removed.  That was really only a guess, though.

The show did start on schedule without any additional announcement at start time about potential modifications.  It opened with some patriotic narration and then launched into a substantial and impressively choreographed display of fireworks set to various patriotic music.  While our location didn’t provide an optimal view of the castle, we could see that they were, in fact, using the low-level fireworks near the castle as well as all the other various launch points used during the regular show.  It was an impressive display and one that we were enjoying tremendously.

A little over half-way into the show, though, it abruptly came to a halt.  First, the audio cut-off and then soon afterwards all of the lights that had been dimmed for the show quickly came back on.  At that point, an announcement came over the sound system stating that the show could not continue due to wind conditions at high elevation.  The show was then over and our next possible chance to see the rest of the show, including what I’m guessing would have been a spectacular finale, will be July 2009.  The portion of the show that we saw was absolutely great and I’m glad to have seen it, but I do have to say that this ending really did cause a tremendous deflation of mood.  As we made our way out of the park and back to our hotel, I can’t say that we ever were quite able to shake the rather downbeat mood that this abrupt ending brought on.

Again, I don’t really fault Disney at all for this as they clearly can’t control the weather and also must stop the show if it becomes unsafe.  I am sure that they made every effort to keep the show going and I strongly suspect that the fireworks never would have started at all had it been any night other than the 4th of July.  I later heard that there was a long line at Guest Relations as people were asking for refunds and that Disney was pretty freely giving them out.  Asking for a refund for this kind of thing is not something I could ever see doing personally and I do tend to think it is a pretty tacky request, but I also can at least understand the mentality behind it.  I certainly can understand Disney’s reason for deciding that it was probably better to give out refunds when they didn’t necessarily have to than to deal with highly disappointed customers telling their friends (which, today, could be large numbers of people on the Internet) about their disappointment and Disney’s lack of caring.

What I saw of the show was great and there are videos of the full Walt Disney World show (which had an identical soundtrack, although the pyrotechnics were customized for each park) pretty readily available online that give an even better view of what the whole show would have been.  I do hope that they do the same or a similar show next year and that the weather cooperates so that we get a full performance.

On a happier note, we did see Remember… Dreams Come True in its entirety twice during our 4-night June visit and we still saw bits and pieces of it on the other two nights as well.  On Wednesday night, we staked out a spot in the Town Square area (near the train station) of Main Street to watch the show from inside the park.  We have found that this part of Main Street doesn’t fill up nearly as early as the areas closer to the castle, but you can still see pretty much all of the effects in their entirety from that vantage point.  It also puts you pretty close to the main gate, allowing for a pretty quick exit at the end of the show, if so desired.

The partial showings we saw were on Sunday and Monday night.  On Sunday evening, we went into California Adventure to watch the Electrical Parade and the fireworks started going off as we were walking back to the hotel.  The view isn’t very good from much of anywhere inside the park, so we just kind of glanced at them through the trees and between the buildings during our walk back.  On Monday night, the fireworks started going off just as we got off at the Disneyland Drive exit during our drive back from dinner at Knott’s.  We ended up watching most of the show from the Grand Californian parking lot before heading up to our room.  We even could faintly hear the soundtrack, which was being piped into the pool area at the Paradise Pier Hotel, which is right across from the parking lot.

Finally, our last viewing of the show was on Thursday night from the balcony of our hotel room.  During the 4-night stay, our room was located on the 4th floor of the hotel and the window faced directly towards Disneyland.  We had a pretty good view of the Matterhorn from the room and could even see the top of the castle.  This also meant that we were in a pretty good location to see pretty much all of the fireworks.  To make it even better, there is a TV station available in the rooms at the Grand Californian which plays the soundtrack during the show. 

Thanks to all of this, our last night of the initial 4-night visit ended with us getting a few desserts from the concierge lounge and then sitting on our balcony watching the fireworks show as the soundtrack played through the TV speakers in the room.  All-in-all, that made for a rather magical way to end that visit.

We have a membership in the Disney Vacation Club (DVC) timeshare and had originally planned to make a trip to Walt Disney World in late June right after our son completed his first year of pre-school.  After our October trip last year, we found that our son had become pretty skittish on rides and attractions and we decided it probably would be wise to delay our trip until December to increase the chance that he would grow out of that a bit.  Canceling that trip meant that we ended up with a number of DVC points that we had to use by August or end up forfeiting them.

My parents live in the Orlando area and they decided to come up to visit us during the same period that we had originally planned our Florida trip.  They were interested in staying down at the Disneyland Resort for a few days, so it then made sense to use up those points with a stay down there.  After researching, we discovered that we had the points available to cover the cost of a concierge-level room at Disney’s Grand Californian hotel for those 4 nights in June with enough left over for the 4th of July as well.  We had used points to stay there on July 4th for the last few years (avoiding the need to drive home after the fireworks) and it was very appealing to do that again this year while also having the chance to enjoy a longer, multi-day stay at the Grand Californian as well.

Instead of trying to test my memory with a day-to-day report on our visit, I’m going to categorize my report.  In this first part, I am going to concentrate on our dining experiences during the trip.  I’ll likely add additional parts to this over the next few days reporting on other aspects of the trip.

Character Dining

My parents arrived mid-afternoon on June 22 and we decided that a character dinner would be a good way to start the trip.  Around the 60 day mark before our trip, we made reservations at Goofy’s Kitchen (at the Disneyland Hotel) for that first-night dinner.  Our reservations were at 6pm and we were happy that they were able to seat us within about 5-10 minutes of our arrival at the restaurant.  Walk-up guests were being told that there was a 90 minute wait, so reservations are definitely a very good idea here.

Before seating, they gathered our family together for a photo with Pluto.  About halfway through the meal someone came to our table to try and sell us a pretty overpriced (around $40, if I recall) package of the photos.  They did the same thing when we did the character breakfast at PCH Grill later in the week (this time with Daisy Duck), so this must now be standard at the character meals.  In both cases, we declined as the packages were pretty costly and the photos weren’t that great.  I don’t remember encountering this there before (although it has been a while since we last did a character meal at DLR) and I don’t really care for this system.  I don’t mind the pre-meal photos, but I’d much rather they use Photopass to sell the photos.  At least at PCH, a CM did offer to also take a couple photos with our own camera, something that wasn’t offered at Goofy’s Kitchen.

The food at Goofy’s was ok, but nothing special.  This was consistent with our past experiences there.  We have always found that you definitely go there much more for the character-experience than for the food.  The food is definitely better than a low-end buffet like a Hometown Buffet, but I would also say it is closer to that than it to what you typically find at a high-end hotel buffet such as at the better Vegas hotels or at somewhere like a Hilton or a Hyatt.  Those used to the Walt Disney World character meals are also apt to be disappointed by Goofy’s based on our typical experiences.

The buffet does feature carved prime rib as a main entree and it was pretty decent.  On my first trip up there, I did get a piece that turned out to be quite a bit more rare than I generally like (and I prefer beef to be medium to medium-rare), but I can’t fault them too much for that since I didn’t specify a preference.  On a subsequent trip up there, I was easily able to get another slice that was more to my taste.  I do think they should probably ask before serving the meat that rare, but it still wasn’t that big a deal.  I did think the rest of the selection at the buffet was somewhat more limited than it should have been, which was not unexpected based on past visits.  For example, I was really surprised that they only offered one variety of roasted potatoes (which I couldn’t eat because they had onions) and didn’t even have the mashed potatoes and gravy that are usually commonplace at this kind of buffet.

I actually thought that the children’s section of the buffet was a better selection.  They had a couple different kinds of pizza, chicken strips, popcorn shrimp (I actually had quite a bit of this), macaroni and cheese, and spaghetti.  Our son actually completed finished off two pretty full plates of food, which was a larger meal than we are used to him finishing.  He especially liked the spaghetti and ate two pretty big helpings of that.

As I mentioned earlier, we also went to the character breakfast at the PCH Grill in the Paradise Pier Hotel.  This was something of a last minute decision on our part, with us making the reservations on Tuesday afternoon for breakfast on Wednesday morning.  Fortunately, this is a pretty easy character meal to get into, so we had no problems getting the reservation at pretty much our choice of time.  With 4 nights at the resort (and none of us being infrequent visitors to Disney theme parks), we were on a pretty leisurely visit and didn’t have breakfast until 10am.  The person taking our reservation actually asked several times if we really were sure that we wanted to have breakfast that late, so I got the impression that the demand for that time isn’t very high.

I was quite pleased with the food at the breakfast and would probably be inclined to recommend it over Goofy’s, at least if the food is a key consideration.  One of the best features of this buffet (which is actually standard at all the DLR breakfast buffets) is the omelette/eggs-to-order station.  I had a ham, cheese, and bacon omelette that was cooked exactly to my taste (I requested it well-done) and very good.  On a previous visit, we had found that they had pre-prepared scrambled eggs that were pretty bad, to the point where we thought they may have been made from powdered eggs.  We noticed that this time the only eggs they had on the regular buffet were a western-style scramble with all kinds of veggies and such mixed in.  For regular scrambled eggs, they cooked them to order.  My wife had some and, again, they came out exactly the way she likes them.

The rest of the buffet had most of the usual breakfast foods, including bacon, sausage, potatoes, waffles, pancakes, french toast, fruit and melon, and various pastries.  It was a good selection and the quality was generally high.  I particularly liked the bacon which was thick and had a strong smokey flavor.  A nice touch was that both the pancakes and the waffles were Mickey Mouse shaped and the waffles were offered in both larger waffles intended for adults and smaller ones intended for kids (or lighter eaters, I suppose).  Another really cool feature of the buffet was that they had a pitcher of fruit smoothies and plastic cups available.  These were a kind of citrus, banana mix which I found to be very tasty and refreshing.  I ended up going up for a couple refills on this.

I’ve talked about the food at both restaurants, but the character-interaction is obviously every bit as important at these buffets.  At Goofy’s Kitchen, we saw Goofy (of course…), Pluto, Chip & Dale, Baloo, Mulan, and Jasmine.  At PCH, we saw Daisy, Goofy, Pluto, Stitch, and Lilo.  Mickey Mouse doesn’t usually appear at any of the DLR character meals and we didn’t see Minnie at either one this time.  At Goofy’s Kitchen, Pluto did eventually circulate around to the tables, so I presume that some other character took over the arrival photos at some point.  We didn’t see Daisy circulate to the tables at PCH, even after Pluto took over the photo sessions mid-way through the meal (Pluto never circulated either).

As you might guess from those lists, the character greetings at both restaurants were pretty frequent, something that hasn’t always been the case at DLR character meals.  Both restaurants do unfortunately tend to have some stretches where no characters seem to be in the dining room at all, but fortunately they weren’t too long this time.  The overall experience at PCH is much more relaxed than at Goofy’s, where they occasionally stop to do the Macarana (using the “Tiki Room” version) or give kids a chance to pound on a bunch of plastic pots and pans.  The latter was something my son did enjoy quite a bit.  Goofy’s was also much more crowded and had a lot more occasions where all the characters were diverted for a bit for birthday parties.  The result was that the character visits tended to be shorter there.

Goofy’s Kitchen is a bit more expensive and guests are required to pre-pay before being seated, unlike at PCH where a check is brought at the end.  Goofy’s also automatically added a gratuity to the check for our group of 5, while it was left up to us at PCH.  It might seem surprising that the service was actually much more responsive and attentive at Goofy’s, but PCH really has a long-standing reputation for extremely poor service.  This was far from being our worst experience there from this standpoint, but we did tend to have to wave people down to remove used plates or get drink refills.

Table Service Dining

During our visits, we had 3 regular table service meals: lunch at the Blue Bayou, breakfast at Carnation Cafe, and dinner at the Catal Uva Bar at Downtown Disney.  All were very good and enjoyable experiences.  The only one we had a reservation for was the Blue Bayou (it is pretty much a necessity there), but we only had very short waits for our tables at any of the three.

Our breakfast at Carnation Cafe on Main Street was the morning of our first full day (Monday) and was actually the very first thing we did inside Disneyland itself.  I’ve always loved the location of this restaurant, which is an outdoor cafe right on Main Street itself.  It is a great atmosphere and extremely fun place to dine, particularly when the weather is nice.  I’ve not been too happy with their lunch or dinner menus for a while, so it was nice to have the opportunity for breakfast there.  The breakfast menu includes a nice selection of egg & meat platters, waffles, pancakes, etc.  I suspect most guests wouldn’t have much trouble finding something to their liking there.  I had the Mickey Mouse waffles, which were hot and fresh and very good.  Others in our party had the pancakes and the bacon and egg breakfast and everyone seemed happy with their choices.

Our lunch at Blue Bayou was on Tuesday afternoon.  The restaurant was refurbished a couple years ago with a new, upgraded kitchen.  At that time, it was upgraded to a higher-end “fine dining” location with quite a bit higher prices (Cafe Orleans took over as the lower-cost table service location in New Orleans Square), but also a reputation better food quality and a somewhat more upscale menu.  This was our first visit to the restaurant since this upgrade and we weren’t disappointed.  Three of the adults in our party all ordered the prime rib dinner and one ordered the pork chop.  I was happy to see that they actually offered a child’s portion of the prime rib as we have often complained about the tendency of Disney not to offer a kid’s version of adult entrees that our son would have enjoyed.  In this case, he decided he wanted the macaroni and cheese instead, but it is great to know prime rib is available to him.

We were all very happy with our selections.  The adult entrees were all served with the restaurant’s “wedge salad”, which is a wedge of iceberg lettuce topped with a light vinaigrette dressing.  I found it to be very good.  I do know that some people aren’t as fond of iceberg lettuce and I have read some concerns about whether that is really “high-end” enough for this kind of restaurant, but I prefer iceberg over other kinds of lettuce so it was very much to my own taste.

The prime rib was a good quality piece of meat and was cooked pretty much exactly right for the “medium” level that I had ordered.  The meat is served with a fairly strong wine-based sauce that I found complimented the flavor very well, although I do tend to really like beef served with that kind of sauce.  My wife was less enthusiastic about it and indicated that she would probably ask for it to be left off for future visits.  My mother was pretty happy with the pork chop as well.  I did try a small piece of it and can’t say it is something I would likely order there.  It is served with a sweet, apple-based sauce and I’m not generally a fan of most meats when served with a sweet sauce like that.  My mother does tend to like that better than I do and did really enjoy the entree.

On the last evening of our longer trip (Wednesday night), we made a somewhat spontaneous decision to have dinner at the downstairs Uva Bar at Catal in Downtown Disney.  My father had initially suggested Storyteller Cafe in the Grand Californian, but we hadn’t eaten at the Uva Bar for quite a while (and they had never eaten there) and I had heard from other friends that they had recently made a number of positive updates to their menu.  The restaurant was not overly crowded that evening and we were seated in the outdoors section almost immediately upon arrival.

When the restaurant had first opened, the downstairs location had initially specialized in tapas (smaller, appetizer-portions that are generally intended to be combined and/or shared).  They had generally moved away from this for a while, but have recently mostly returned to this format.  I typically find this to be a pretty appealing type of meal, particularly when there are a fair number of selections that are to my taste.

At this particular meal, I ordered three different items: BBQ ribs, garlic shrimp (which my father and I shared), and a “snack” type order of roasted almonds (my son ate quite a few of these as well).  Others at the table also ordered small Caesar salads and a few of us ordered strawberry smoothies to drink.

All of the items we ordered were excellent and we all left quite full.  My favorite item was the shrimp, which had a rich, garlicky flavor without allowing it to become overwhelming.  The ribs are actually served in fairly large portions for a tapas style restaurant and likely would be plenty of food for light eaters or for those not looking for an overly large meal.  The meat on the ribs was very tender (pretty much falling off the bone) and the sauce was very good and not too heavy.

Service at all three of the table service restaurants was generally attentive and friendly.  Blue Bayou has a reputation for somewhat spotty service, but that was not our experience at all on this visit.  We did find the food to come out a little bit slowly at the Uva Bar, especially for that type of restaurant.  While Catal is one of my favorite restaurants, we have often found that our one small complaint has been that the meal pacing has been a little off on many of our visits to both the upstairs and downstairs parts of the restaurant.  It wasn’t a huge flaw, but worth noting, particularly for those that are looking for a somewhat quicker meal, such as before going back into the parks.

Grand Californian Craftsman’s Club (concierge lounge)

We also had two breakfasts and a several snacks in the Craftsman’s Club, which is the special lounge that is only accessible to concierge level guests at the Grand Californian.  The Craftsman’s Club provides a number of different buffet-style food offerings, including continental breakfast in the morning, late morning/early afternoon tea time, late afternoon wine and cheese, and evening desserts.

For breakfast, they offer a variety of pre-packaged breakfast cereals as well as a buffet of fresh fruit and pastries.  The buffet also has bread and bagels and an available toaster.  Various juices, milk, and coffee are available to drink (the club also always has mini-refrigerators stocked with small bottles of water, Coke, Diet Coke, and Sprite).  I particularly liked the croissants, which were very fresh and light.  In fact, on the morning we checked out after our first stay, we ended up stopping in and picking up one of these for each of us as a quick, on-the-road breakfast before our drive down to Carlsbad for a day at Legoland.

The buffet at the tea included a few different types of mini-sandwiches, chocolate-dipped strawberries (we ate a lot of these…), more fresh fruit, a couple different kinds of cookies, and freshly-baked scones that were served warm.  For the scones, some fresh berry jam was provided as well.  Obviously, various types of tea was available as well, although neither my wife nor I are tea drinkers so we didn’t try any.  One nice touch is that they also had a big container of Goldfish crackers (and small bowls to put them in) as an extra kid-friendly snack.  These were also available during the wine and cheese time later in the day.  Our 4-year-old really enjoyed those, although I admit my wife and I ate quite a few of those too.

The afternoon wine and cheese buffet includes a good selection of different types of cheese and crackers.  Most of the cheeses offered are of the somewhat more gourmet varieties, including various soft-cheeses, brie, and even blue cheese.  This is very much to my taste, although my wife expressed some disappointment that they didn’t offer more in the way of simpler cheddar or other more mainstream types of cheese.  A number of different choices of wines were available by the glass and I believe I saw that they offered beer as well.  The alcoholic drinks are served by the hosts and hostesses on request, but the drinks were all complementary and they were reasonably generous about offering refills.

The last food selection is a dessert buffet that is offered in evening.  This buffet included a nice selection of cookies, cakes, and other sweets.  We were only at the hotel early enough for this on the last night of the first visit (since we were in the parks the other evenings), but we did enjoy picking out a selection of sweets to take back to our room and enjoy while we watched the fireworks from our balcony.

The Craftsman’s Club is generally a really nice benefit available to the concierge-level guests and I do think it does somewhat help to justify the higher cost of the room.  The one criticism that I do have is that I really think they could use some adjustments to the hours and schedules.  First of all, the club closes at 10pm every night, which is especially early when you consider that one or both parks is typically open later than that a fairly large percentage of the time.  It would be very nice to be able to make some use of the club upon return to the hotel after the nighttime entertainment in the parks.  If nothing else, we would have liked very much to have had access to the complimentary sodas and water.  It doesn’t help that pretty much everything in the hotel (except the bar) closes at 10, making it pretty difficult to find drinks or snacks that late.

We also thought that they were perhaps a bit too strict with the ending times for the various buffets, particularly breakfast.  Officially, the breakfast ends at 10am.  On July 5, we made it over there around 9:55 and found that the hosts and hostesses were strongly pushing a “last call” for everyone to get any food that they wanted.  Promptly at 10, they very quickly started gathering up all of the food.  This is despite the fact that there were still quite a few people still in there eating and the tea doesn’t start until 11.  To their credit, I did see the hosts and hostesses make a few trips to the back room to get additional items for people after the food had been put away, but it did seem like a bit more flexibility would be in order here, possibly even keeping the breakfast foods out until pretty much time for the tea to start.

Other Restaurants

I don’t see much need to go into too many details about our experiences at the more casual food locations in the parks and hotels (particularly with this post approaching epic length), but there were a couple things that I did want to highlight.

One of our happiest discoveries on this trip is that they have now carved out a portion of the underutilized MuppetVision 3D queue area to build a fairly good-sized dining area for Award Wieners in the Hollywood Pictures Backlot section of California Adventure.  This location has always had a pretty good selection of different types of hot dogs and sausages, with my particular favorite being an Italian sausage that they serve covered with a meaty marinara sauce and lots of cheese.  They also have chili cheese dogs that other members of our party enjoyed as well as plain hot-dogs for those looking for something simpler.

While we had liked the food on previous visits, this was a location that we visited extremely rarely due to the seating.  Previously, they only had about a half-dozen or so tables along the sidewalk in front of the restaurant.  These tables were very difficult to get and you usually ended up having to juggle the food on a bench or curbside, which was particularly difficult with the messier sandwiches.  The new dining area is pretty large and is covered and was fairly cool even on the pretty hot day that we ate there.  The Muppet-theming for the attraction also provides a kind of fun atmosphere.  This dining area is a great addition and will likely make this location a much more frequent choice for us.

The other casual dining experience that is worth mentioning was at French Market in New Orleans Square on the 4th of July.  This restaurant has just introduced a pretty heavily revamped menu that eliminated a number of the location’s previous signature items (including the fried chicken) in favor of a number of new entrees.  One of those new items is carved roast beef with a peppercorn au-jus sauce, something that is a particular favorite of my wife and me and, thus, something we really wanted to try.

The beef was quite tasty, although it did have a bit of a pre-prepared look and feel to it.  Nobody is going to mistake the beef for fresh carved, but it still was good for this kind of location.  The sauce is definitely very heavy on the pepper and other spices.  We both liked it very much, although it is perhaps a bit of a heavy item for a theme park.  The beef is served with mashed potatoes and a side of vegetables.  Since the veggies weren’t appealing to me (I generally don’t like cooked veggies), I asked them to leave them off.  Instead they gave me double potatoes.  That turned out to be pointless, though, as one bite quickly told me that they had onions mixed in with them.  Onions tend to badly upset my stomach, which meant that I was unable to eat the potatoes at all.  Note that the potatoes also had cheese mixed in with them, which isn’t a problem for me but might be for some people.  While the new menu at French Market isn’t bad and I did generally like the roast beef, I think they do need to rework the options for side dishes a bit.  At the very least, I do think they need to offer some form of plain potatoes.

Mrs. Knott’s Chicken Dinner

During the 4-night stay at the Disneyland Resort, we did have one meal that was off of Disney property.  Nearly 8 years ago, my wife and I had our wedding rehearsal dinner at Mrs. Knotts’ Chicken Dinner Restaurant at Knott’s Berry Farm.  My mother had remembered really enjoying that dinner and really wanted to eat there again on this trip.  It had actually been a few years since my wife, son, and I had been there either, so we were definitely very open to the idea.  We ended up driving over there for dinner on Monday evening.

Since it was a weeknight and we headed over there fairly early in the evening, we only had a very short wait for a table.  For dinner, we all decided to get the fried chicken dinner, which comes with several large pieces of chicken, a big helping of mashed potatoes, a side of either corn or spinach, a cup of chicken noodle soup, a side-salad, and dessert.    The child’s version of the chicken dinner included a couple drumsticks along with mashed potatoes and corn.  A bowl of Jello was provided at the same time that the adults received our soups and salads.  For dessert, the kid’s meal came with a Snoopy-shaped ice cream bar.  Since our son is a big soup eater, we also ordered an extra cup of soup for him.  The waitress had indicated they would have to charge extra for that, but it didn’t show up on the final bill.

At the start of the meal, they bring out a basket of fresh-baked buttermilk biscuits.  The buttermilk flavor, which most of us in our family don’t like very much,  is quite strong on them.  Unfortunately, we didn’t realize that before trying them.  For most of us, it wasn’t a big deal, but unfortunately my mother said that it left a pretty bad taste in her mouth that kind of reduced her enjoyment of the rest of the meal.  My wife and I didn’t really care much for them either, but didn’t have such a strong reaction to them.  My father and my son both did seem to like them quite a bit, though.

We did find that the pacing of the meal was not the best.  After ordering, it seemed like quite a bit of time went by before they brought out the soups and salads.  After that, they were then much too quick to bring out the main course.   We were all pretty hungry upon arrival and got a bit frustrated waiting for the first course to arrive (my wife actually ended up eating several of the biscuits even though she didn’t like them very much) and then most of us didn’t have enough time to completely finish both the soup and the salad before we had to turn our attention to the main course.  I absolutely love their chicken noodle soup, so it was the salad that I ended up largely skipping over.

The restaurant specializes in various fruit pies for dessert, with the boysenberry pie being their specialty.  On the night we were there, they had a special pie available that was a mix of apple and boysenberry filling.  That is what I ended up ordering and I found it to be absolutely delicious.  The two flavors really blended very well.  My parents both ended up ordering dishes of boysenberry sherbet for their desserts and they both found that to be very refreshing.  My wife had an ice cream sundae, which she also enjoyed.

Although we had a few complaints, we still found the overall food quality to be generally quite high and the prices quite reasonable (the full meal is around $15).  The restaurant is still one of the better bargains in the area and we thought it was a worthwhile side-trip during our stay.

The Taste of California Marketplace offers a selection of fairly small, sampler-style portions of a number of different food items, all designed by California-based chefs and intended to represent the state’s culinary culture.  Small cups of California-made wines and beers are also offered to accompany these.  All of these items are available at the now-defunct Lucky Fortune Cookery counter-service restaurant, which is located in the Pacific Wharf section of the park.  This location provides a good infrastructure for the food service as well a large dining area (shared with two permanent restaurants with a great deal of available tables and chairs.  It makes for a much more convenient location than the multiple locations that were used during the first year of the event and which are still in use at the Epcot event.

The sampler-sized portions served at the Marketplace mean that the typical guest is likely to try a variety of choices, particularly if the items are being ordered as a meal rather than as a quick snack.  I ended up ordering 5 of the different food selections as well as one cup of wine.  Another couple that was dining with us eventually ordered and shared at least one of every item offered.

I initially ordered one each of the chicken and beef California skewers, the Festival Cheese Plate and a cup of Mirassou Chardonnay on a first trip to the counter.  The Marketplace also has the usual selection of soft drinks available and, since it was a hot day and the wine doesn’t really work as a thirst-quencher, I did order a Coke as well.  After finishing those, I was still hungry enough to try a couple more items, so I went back up and ordered the Pepper Crusted Beef Tenderloin Slider sandwich and, for dessert, the Seasonal Berry Trifle.

I particularly liked the skewers, which included the meat and a few various vegetables with a sweet chipotle glaze.  The sauce was fairly strong, but I found it to be extremely tasty and to really complement the flavor of the meat.  I generally don’t like cooked vegetables, and I have a strong sensitivity to onions, so I didn’t really eat too much other than the meat.  That did make the portions especially small for these (a common problem for me with skewers), but I did really enjoy the portions I did eat.

The cheese plate was ok, although I tend to like somewhat softer textured cheeses than most of the ones chosen for this platter.  For one thing, I tend to find softer cheeses to be a bit more flavorful while these were a waxy.  The one big exception was what they described as a huntsman cheddar bleu, which I thought was absolutely delicious.  I love bleu cheese and it mixed with the cheddar to form a flavor that I found tremendously appealing.  The cheese plate also came with some seedless purple grapes which were very fresh and at just the right level of ripeness.  The platter also featured a good sized pita crisp.  I’m not really much of a wine expert, so I asked the clerk to recommend a wine that would go well with my order.  She suggested the Chardonnay as a good compliment for the cheese plate and I found that it did go well with it.

My least favorite of the items that I tried was the Pepper Crusted Beef Tenderloin Slider.  This miniature sandwich was served on a small brioche roll and also included onion crisps and what Disney described as a citrus mojo criollo sauce.  Due to my sensitivity to onions, I had to remove most of them from my sandwich, although I was able to leave a few on as I’ve found that fried onions generally don’t affect me quite as much as ones that are raw or cooked in other ways.  That meant that I was able to get at least a bit of the flavor that they added to the sandwich.  The sauce was very heavy on garlic, though, and I strongly expect that one’s taste for this sandwich will be very much measured by one’s tolerance for garlic.  I generally do like garlic and initially found that I really liked the flavor.  About half-way through the sandwich, though, I found that I had pretty much had my fill of it.  The friends we were with pretty much picked this as their favorite item, though, so certainly your mileage my vary.

For dessert, I had actually asked for the Ghirardelli Chocolate Marquise, but was surprised when they gave me the trifle instead.  When I checked the receipt, I found that it did show the trifle as well, so I guess that the cashier must have hit the wrong button.  Since the trifle was generally to my taste as well, I decided not to bother trying to get it corrected.  The berries were strawberries and were very fresh and nicely sweetened by both the vanilla custard and light whipped cream.  The pound cake was a tad more dry, but still tasted very good.  Overall, it was a good dessert, although I would probably be interested in still trying the other one if I make it back there before the end of the festival.

One thing that should be noted is that the marketplace does not make for an inexpensive meal.  The items are priced fairly high for the portion sizes and getting enough food for a filling lunch can quickly run up in costs.  They do honor the customary discounts for annual passholders and Disney cast members (employees), which can lower the cost a tad if you qualify.  Without discounts or tax, the food items that I ordered came to a total of $24.50.  The glass of wine was another $3 and the Coke was the usual $2.50 or so (I don’t recall the exact amount).  Those prices for just one person are in the same ballpark as lunch at a fairly high-end table-service restaurant, although with service and presentation that are more in line with fast food. 

I mentioned at the beginning of this post that I visited with my family, but I haven’t mentioned anything about my wife and son’s food choices.  The reason for that is that neither of them ended up ordering from the Marketplace.  The food choices just didn’t really appeal to my wife’s tastes and we also decided that the combination of the high prices and fairly exotic selections were questionable for a 4-year-old, even though our son does tend to be a fairly adventurous eater.  This was where the Food and Wine Festival’s setting inside of a Disney theme park was very much an advantage.  It was only a very short distance for them to go over to the Farmer’s Market counter service restaurant where both were able to get chicken strips for lunch. 

The close proximity between the somewhat upscale offerings of the festival and the more traditional theme park offerings served us well after lunch as well.  Our son did get restless with the somewhat longer, more formal lunch (and he was in a bit of a cranky mood anyway), but afterward  we were able to easily take him to do things that were more enjoyable to him.  Had we not been visiting with a small child, we might have been more interested in exploring more of the seminars and other events associated with the festival.  Instead, we park-hopped over to Disneyland where he got to visit with Mickey and Pluto, ride the tea cups and the carrousel, and then finally see the "Enchanted Tiki Room" show before we headed home for the day.  It was an extremely hot day, so we were fortunate that lines were pretty short allowing us to do quite a few things in just a couple hours.

California Adventure had been pretty crowded that day, so we were expecting much larger crowds at Disneyland than we actually found when we got there.  I suspect the Food and Wine Festival is turning out to be a pretty good attractor for the park, although I’m also sure that the "2 for 1" deal for that gives 1-day at each park for one price is also bringing a lot of people in.  I would guess that most weekend visitors taking advantage of the deal likely go to Disneyland on Saturday and California Adventure on Sunday, which would account for at least some of what we saw.  I did notice that the lines for the regular restaurants in the Pacific Wharf area of the park were substantially longer than the lines at the Marketplace, which probably isn’t too surprising at the prices they were charging.

I would overall consider our experience with the Food and Wine Festival to be a positive one.  The food choices at the Marketplace made for a very enjoyable and interesting lunch, even if the prices were definitely somewhat inflated for what was being offered.  Still, it was an overall positive once-a-year experience and I could easily see going again next year.

Since we have a 4-year-old that wasn’t likely to sit patiently for the 60-minute show (not to mention the fairly long wait), my wife and I decided to each go to a separate performance while the other took our son on attractions. Right after the second parade got past Main Street, my wife headed off to find a spot for the 5:30 performance. She ended up staking out a spot opposite the Opera House, pretty much right by the rope into the reserved seating area. As soon as the processional started to make its way into the theater, she joined the crowds in that area that were allowed to move in to fill the unused seats in the reserved seating area. As a result, she ended up with a really good seat for the show.

While waiting for the show to start, my wife asked some of the castmembers in the area what they knew about how stand-by for the 8pm show was going to work. She learned that they would be setting up a stand-by queue and called me on my cell phone with that information. I headed back to Main Street shortly after the earlier show started and found that they had roped off two queue areas, one on either side of the center of the street. My son and I went ahead and entered the queue on the east side and ended up pretty close to the front of the line.

At Disneyland, they have long had a way of being oddly coy about the processes and procedures for the show and I ran into that yet again tonight. Upon arriving at the stand-by queue, I asked the castmember manning the interest whether it was the stand-by line. His very odd reply was to tell me that I was welcome to enter that queue area in order to listen to the earlier show and that it “might be” the stand-by line for the second show. The phrasing made it sound very much like he wasn’t allowed to tell me that it was the stand-by line, so he was trying to tell me without telling me. During the next 20 minutes or so, I did see a number of people exiting the queue, apparently thinking they were just in a far back viewing area for the 5:30 show. Eventually, they did have a CM walking up and down the queue area specifically telling us that we were in the stand-by line for the 8pm show.

Towards the end of the first show, I sent my wife a text message letting her know where I was so that she could stop by on the way out and pick up our son. That worked out pretty well as she was very easily able to find us and get to us for the hand-off after the show. I doubt it was something they had intentionally set up, but the positioning of the queues and overall traffic control was really very well set up for doing a parent switch like that.

After the first show, it took them about 30 minutes to get the Town Square area fully cleared out. They then started letting guests from the stand-by lines into the viewing area in groups of about 25 people at a time. I was close enough to the front to be in the second group that was let in. On each side of Town Square, they had set up a number of regular Disneyland park benches that were the only seated viewing specifically intended for stand-by guests. I would estimate that there was enough seating space for around 100 guests on each side and I was fortunate enough to be far enough up in line to be able to get one of those seats. The rest of the standby viewing was standing-room only, pretty much filling in most of the rest of the area surrounding Town Square, keeping small walkways opened on either side. They also did have the backstage corridor open to guests from the Fire Station to Coke Corner in order to take up some of the additional pedestrian traffic that normally would be going down the center of Main Street.

It wasn’t a completely unobstructed view due to some of the trees in the Town Square area being a little bit in the way (ironically, the main thing that the trees blocked was the center choir that is positioned in the shape of a Christmas tree.) I did still get a pretty good overall view of the show, though. From where I was seated, I had pretty much a straight on view of the conductor and orchestra. I was also able to see Jane Seymour pretty easily, although I did have to lean forward a bit to do so. It definitely was very nice being able to sit down for the show and I’m glad I managed to queue up early enough to do so.

The show itself was, as usual, absolutely wonderful. Seymour did a good job with the narration, delivering it very clearly and effectively. She didn’t quite have the passionate delivery of some of the best previous narrators that I’ve heard (such as Dick Van Dyke or David Ogden Stiers), but she didn’t embarrass herself like Olympia Dukakas (who read the same page twice, at one point) or Edward James Olmos (who seemed to stumble over most of the readings and ended up giving a final thank-you speech that suggested that Christmas brings together people of all religions) did a few years ago either. As always, simply hearing all this great, traditional Christmas music performed by such a large choir and accompanied by a professional orchestra is an incredible and moving experience. Hearing it on Main Street at Disneyland brings a certain extra magic to it that really can’t be beat. Seeing the show each year does require a fair amount of effort, and sometimes seems to be a bigger ordeal than it should be, but every year I also end up feeling that it was worth it.