Back in the 70s Disneyland LA was a fantastic deal for me. I was a Disneyland Daddy back then, working for Western Air Lines. I would fly my kids up from NZ for their Xmas holidays. They would have their Xmas Day in NZ then get the 8PM flight to LAX and arrive Xmas Day in the morning. Magic!!! Their flights cost me as an airline employee the princely sum of $32 each RT! There was always a Disneyland trip and as an airline employee I received a 75% Discount for a suite at the Disney Hotel. We’d take the monorail out of the hotel lobby and stop at the section of park they wanted at that time. We didn’t mess with the ticket book and sorting the ETicket rides, we received an all encompassing pass that was on a lanyard for $15. For any ride. Yeah, just about the cost of a one way ticket to NZ. A Real Disney Daddy, sometimes things just worked out right. My eldest Daughter works in New Delhi, she stopped by for a couple of weeks at the beginning of August. One evening we sat out and reminisced about those days over a couple of G&Ts. Good days.
Wow! That long for a ride. My kids went to ride on Space Mountain just after it opened. They walked right on no queue at all. Then at the end the controller said you can just stay on if you want. They got 3 rides without getting off, they were pretty giddy by then. Yep, then one time I made a mistake and went on Cinco de Mayo, in LA. !!!!!!!!
Funny there is a thread for this and my oldest wants to go to Legoland and Disney. His spring break lines up with my wife’s so we may do it in a few months. The big question is FL or CA since both have a Legoland, thinking CA. In to John Wayne Airport, few days at Disneyland, drive to Legoland, stay a few nights then on to SD for a night and fly home. But if anyone has tips, tricks, advice, or whatever that would be appreciated!
I have done similar trips many times in my career as a dad. We have family in San Diego and LA so a week-long trip would usually involve grandparents -> Legoland -> Disney -> other grandparents. How old is the child? Legoland has a lot of good stuff for kids of most ages - my high schooler is probably too old now, we haven't been for years - but littler kids are going to spend their time differently than middler kids. Legoland is a lot mellower than Disneyland as well. More stuff to kind of walk through and see (Lego cities, Star Wars scenes made from Legos, things like that) and less rides to wait in line for. There's a couple of roller coasters for bigger kids which my kid really liked when he was in middle school. There's a few safari-type rides - like the jungle boat ride at Disneyland - that are OK for smaller kids but bigger kids will get bored by. There's a pretty amazing playground, a castle with rope ladders and slides and such - that a playground-enjoying child can spend a lot of time at. My kid would spend an hour or so at the "Build-n-Play", a place where you get a set of lego wheels and many bins of Legos and you make vehicles and race then down a ramp. So he would be entranced there, and my wife would get a coffee and go stroll through the Lego cities at her own pace. She likes Legoland much more than Disneyland. The Legoland water park probably won't be open during Spring Break, so it will save you the trouble of having to deal with the water park. It's just not warm enough to enjoy the water park for a bunch of the year, even in San Diego. Disneyland is a lot less interactive and a lot more waiting in lines. The lines can be fun, there's things to enjoy while you're waiting in line, but there's nowhere that you can just kind of hang out and relax.
If you do CA you might consider adding in a day at Knotts Berry Farm, it’s very close to Disneyland. I haven’t been in 30 years but in general it’s much better on the thrill rides than Disney if you’re into that sort of thing. I can tell you my kid liked Legoland much more than Disneyland, but he was a Lego fiend so it makes sense. I actually think he liked the Lego store at Downtown Disney more than Disneyland, they had a bunch of cool things for sale there I’ve never seen anywhere else.
Dave, a (North) Carolina alum, has been triggered to the point where he's defending Duke. What's become of our planet?
dusting off/cross-posting this thread and because I like updating on the Meatball/Mickey news https://www.bizjournals.com/orlando...ntral-florida-tourism-oversight-road-cut.html DeSantis's Board will cut Disney road maintenance to the tune of $ 3 million. They already ending some minority engagement programs
I might be the only person who posts on this thread. Since I am bored on a Friday night and wondered how much "wokeness" has disrupted Disney, I found this gem: Looks like the slogan "Go woke, Go broke" doesn't apply. It is more of a case of lazy movie ideas and mismanagement. As an aside, the movie Elemental actually didn't flop at the box office. It took a while to get its legs underneath it and there was little competition for its audience. https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a45098433/elemental-box-office-explained/ https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/ne...ce-bomb-to-comeback-of-the-summer/ar-AA1gIetR
I saw a keyboardist named Michael Iceberg at Tomorrowland Terrace in 1978. This is from a year earlier. There were three or four people from my band listening to him. Spoke with us after his set. Nice enough guy, but a bit weird.
I am perpetually amazed at how many people believe bumper-sticker slogans without ever seeing any proof that they are true.
I was in Disneyland Paris once about 25 Years ago. It was nice but the relentless ever preset unescapable disneyland music burrows its way into your brain after an few hours and does wired stuff to you. I'm convinced it's an escaped CIA torture device.
I've been to Disney World 3X. Once when I was a teen, when we were first married and once when my kids were young. Overpriced, hot & crowded for the most part. I liked Universal better TBH. 6 Flags Great Adventure & Hersheypark have more rides and are closer to home.
I went once in 1984 when I was a tiny tot. I remember it distinctly because it was smack dab of the 1984 Olympics/McDonalds promotion. My sisters and I ended up hating McDs, but my dad loved it because he saved money on the trip. My mother hated it as well because she never got used to fast food. My wife has taken us three times (Disney and Universal) since 2014. My SIL/BIL are big Disney fans. The SIL was in the IT department at Disney World and knew how to navigate through the lands. We would go in the offseason and never really had issues other families seem to have. It felt like everyone else was stuck in second gear. My niece's girlfriend is a huge Disney fan and is starting an internship there this week. My other niece is a huge Universal parks fan, but IMHO Harry Potter is the only thing worth visiting. When it comes to creating an amazing customer experience, all companies can learn from Disney. This is a completely different experience from when my wife and I went to Busch Gardens in the before times, and the kid (uni? high school?) shut down the kiosk while we were in line. Turns out the person 2 or 3 ppl in front of us were ordering but the kid was busy talking to the other kid in the kiosk -- completely ignoring the customer. The kid just had enough, and shut the window on the woman and went back to their conversation.
Wow, I thought that only happened in "Socialist" countries! I was in a train station in Beograd, when it used to be Yugoslavia. YUUUGE portrait of Tito on the wall just as you walk in so you can't miss it. About 7-8 people ahead of me in line, moving slowly. When I got up there, the guy put's the "closed" sign up, and I was like Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. He says "why you no ask Washington?" Sure, lemmie call up the President on my handheld device that won't become commonplace for another 10 years...
When I was a kid, a friend of our family took his family to Disneyland, a big deal for Argentines of our socioeconomic status at the time, and he was nice enough to record an audio tape for us, so we could listen to it and sort of experience what it was like. I must have been like eight years old, my brother seven and my sister six, and I remember we were so excited to listen to it. What we got was the sounds, and a sort of minimalist narration of what he was seeing. He recorded Pirates, Haunted Mansion, all cool. Then he got to Small World. Even at age eight, it got old very fast.
If by "socialist" countries, you mean most fast food places before closing with young adults, then yes. There is a Popeye's near our rental property in Hampton Roads. If I am peckish and it is less than an hour to close, I don't bother with them. They are 100% not going to take your order. I have been there an hour before closing and employees were in the parking lot telling people they are closed. To bring it full circle - they won't be working at Disney any time soon.
Yes, good days. But also, I reckon, a bit of rosy retrospective. Flying standby leads to experiences at both extremes. Like packing up for a trip halfway around the world only to find out you don't fit in the plane and have to fly 2 days later (and you already boarded your dog). Or spending 10 hours in LaGuardia waiting for an open middle seat to bloody Chicago and its anyone's guess what plane your luggage will fly on. Or having a first-class boarding ticket in your hand only to have it taken away cuz some paying passenger arrives for the flight at the last minute. But yes, I also flew round-trip to/from NZ once for < $150 iirc. Outbound flight was first class all the way from New York in a 787 Dreamliner. It still had its new plane smell. After a 5-course meal I slept like a baby for 8 hours straight! That trip alone offset a lot of bad experiences, even if the return trip was cattle class.
So, we are going to drive out to Anaheim with the girls. Our 3+hr camping trip drives have been quite miserable, so we are going to break up the drive into two chunks. Also, we’ve decided to get a portable dvd player and screen for the drive. Any recommendations?