Disneyland Holiday Trip Review

We just got back from spending a few days at Disneyland for Thanksgiving and there is a lot to discuss!

In terms of food, we tried a couple of new places. The first was Storytellers Cafe in the Grand Californian. We tried their buffet which was pretty good, I'd give it an 8 out of 10. Extra points go to the fact that it is an actual restaurant. Normally we're not picky but since we were celebrating a birthday it was nice to have a sit-down meal. The restaurant is nice and the food was good, but I would have liked it to be hotter. I tried the Caesar Salad, Mac & Cheese, Chicken nuggets (supposed to be for kids), Tortellini and Flatbread Pizza. There was also NY Steak, regular salad, scalloped potatoes, cooked carrots and a custom pizza station that I did not see until after we were done and I was bummed. They had some good looking desserts, but nothing that's as good as what you can get in the park so I skipped, though I tasted the bread pudding which was good. The salad and flatbread were the best and what I went back for seconds for. It was really not cheap, but I'd go there again on a special occasion. I heard a woman at the table next to us complain that it wasn't 'grown up food', but that didn't bother me. Probably because I like kids' food.

We also tried the all-elusive Studio Catering cart at DCA. For cripes sake, we have seen this sandwich cart open once before in the past year and it was finally open on Thursday. I love sandwiches, and I have been wanting to try this place for a long time. It's in the Hollywood Backlot which explains why it is never open, but still. It was definitely NOT worth the wait. The sandwiches were premade, which I suspected, but what I had did not taste good. We ordered the turkey club which didn't have any bacon on it btw, so it was pretty much a turkey sandwich. It was so refrigerated that it didn't taste like anything and the cole slaw it came with was not good. I will stick with the nachos at White Water Snacks - SO good. On a side note, we also had the Holiday Gingerbread Cookie and Snowman Shortbread Cookie - both kicked ass. Also, we recently discovered the Cinnamon Crisp at the Mint Julep Bar in New Orleans Square, and it is sooo good! And, we stopped by the tortilla factory for the complementary birthday bag of tortillas, which has been downsized to three instead of like 10. Lame! At least it was a flour tortilla day.

Something we were looking forward to was seeing the Thanksgiving Day Parade. We saw it on our trip last year and it was an awesome. And by awesome I mean 10 people walking and waving and a float with Mickey and the presidential pardoned turkey in a clear box. I think the president of the Turkey Council was there or something too. The best part about this was on Wednesday when we asked a cast member working the Holiday Parade if he knew when the parade would be on Thursday:

Us: "Do you know what time the Thanksgiving parade is tomorrow?"

CM: "Um, we don't have one."

Us: "You had one last year, with the presidential pardoned turkey."

CM: "Um, we have a Holiday parade."

We had this same conversation with three other cast members. Then we checked the web later and, of course, it showed that the parade was at 10 am. Whatever! It did not disappoint.

We rode the Matterhorn and they were doing the self-seating thing they sometimes do just on that ride. I have never understood why they do this. Guests place themselves in the rows so of course everyone is riding by themselves and there are hella empty cars going out while two cast members are standing around watching butterflies. It makes the line go way slower and doesn't make any sense to me.

They now have these hand sanitizing stations all over the place. Apparently washing your hands is too much to ask of people. Oh well, I know it is better than nothing but it is weird seeing people use them and I think hand sanitizer smells really bad.

My favorite Christmas ride is the Haunted Mansion. We rode that about 10 times.

Also, we had to upgrade our Deluxe Annual Passes to Premium to be able to get in on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. You can also pay $30 a day instead of upgrading, but for two people we figured it would be better to just upgrade. Anyway, apparently they raised the cost of the passes since we last renewed ours, which was annoying. But the worst part was that, since we renewed early we saved $20 on each pass, so when we upgraded to Premium, they made us pay the extra $20 each that we saved up front. I think that is such a ripoff. Who cares what we paid? I think we should have been charged whatever the difference is between the Deluxe and Premium pass is now. It doesn't seem right to charge someone the difference between what they paid and what the pass is now worth. And the fact that they charge you the $20 you saved for renewing up front is totally whack. Holy crap, could they nickel and dime you any more? It's like, were you going to send me a bill for the price difference when you raised the price of the passes? No! I was pissed about that.

We also had quite a few celeb sightings on Friday. We saw Giuliana from E! with her husband Bill the Apprentice, Greg Kinnear and Sean Astin. In the past we have seen Jay Mohr, Dax, Maria Shriver and Adam Sandler there too.

We may go again on New Years Eve - if so, more reviews to come!