Theme Park Discussion / Road Trip - 6 Parks in 6 Days

As some of you may know, I've put the Marriott Project on hold right now as I get ready for a major road trip down to SOCAL

We leave Seattle at around 3pm on 8-17-07 and drive straight through (renting a van with 4 of us driving) to Anaheim arriving around 11am on Saturday or so. Once we check into the hotel, we are off to the parks.

Sat – Disneyland / DCA
Sun – Disneyland / DCA
Mon – Disneyland / DCA
Tues – Knotts Berry Farm
Wed – Disneyland / DCA
Thur – Universal Studios Hollywood
Friday – Drive back to Seattle

In short, it’s non-stop until we get back home. The cool thing about this trip is that we are taking along some family members that have never been to these parks. Going to be a blast to show them what Dland is all about!

I’ll post a trip report after I get back. I’m also hoping this will help with the MUS project as I’ll be taking some much needed reference photos.

Mini Trip Report

Left Seattle at around 3pm on Friday and drove straight down to Anaheim arriving around noon. After checking into the hotel, we hit DL at around 4pm. As this was a first time vist to DL/DCA for my brother in law, we took our time around the parks

Saturday – Arrived at 4pm

• Disneyland Railway (10 min wait) – Been awhile since I’ve been on this and realized that you can’t see much anymore. Disembarked in Tomorrowland
• Star Tours (15 min wait) – Great ride because the sound didn’t work for some reason. That’s ok because many of us new the spiel be heart and we all talked it through (comets, COMETS!!!!) Love it
• Space Mountain (45 min wait) – Love the new layout as it is much smoother now. It also seems faster at the bottom!
• Autopia – (30 min wait) – Still fun to ride and perhaps the king of all car rides
• Monorail – (15 min wait) – Did the loop. We also got to ride in the back compartment. They could only fit 5 up front however they could fit us all in the back. (Just as good)
• Buzz Lightyear – (30 min wait) – Forgot what my score was but I smoked everyone in our group!
• Honey I shrunk the audience – Classic stuff and still fun to see!

In short, we took care of Tomorrowland that night. Saw the fire works from there; they had the band going and did some shopping down Main Street. In short, great first day considering the crowds that day.


Sunday – Arrived at 8:30

• Jungle Cruise - (walk on) – Great line I had not heard before “This is Schweitzer Falls, don’t worry, we’ll go over that later in the trip”.
• Indiana Jones – (30 min wait) – I noticed this with Space mountain that they are keeping the que back and not letting everyone in at once. They basically let 20-30 people go ever few mins. When I first saw the lines, I was thinking the wait time was much longer because I knew how long the que is inside however now, once you get inside, you walk straight through to the movie area. I wonder if they have been having problems with some folks in the area they cant monitor. In either case, it was not bad. The ride is still a lot of fun!
• PotC – (15 min wait) – Notice they are now playing the music form the movies when you get to the battle scene with Barbosa. Nice touch. I do wish they would make they ship look like the Black Pearl!
• Haunted Mansion – (15 min wait) – Normal stuff – I do really like what they did with the magic ball!
• Headed over to DCA
• Soarin over Ca – (30 min wait) – Great ride as we got middle/middle. Only part that looks choppy to me is the part of LA at night. Gives me a small headache.
• GRR – (Fast Pass) – Got soaked on the first drop! Not sure what happened but a rouge wave got us! I also don’t remember spinning down the last drop. Was great though as it turned us from getting even more soaked!
• Screamin’ – (30 min wait) – Still one of my top 5 coasters. The banking is perfect for the speeds and really is a blast to ride
• Muppets 3D / Bugs Life – Good shows.
• Monsters Inc – First time on this for me and was cute
• Headed back in to DL
• Had dinner and watched the Fireworks from Main Street. Still a great show and love how they did the castle and the fireworks around the hub.

Again, a great day at the park and had a blast. Crowds were not bad for a Sunday and the temps were in the mid 80’s



Will add more tomorrow…………….


James - rctnw

Why in the hell would you go to DL/CA 4 times but not go to SFMM at all??? You should change Wed to SFMM. The park is generally uncrowded on Wednesdays and you should be able to hit up every ride if you go for a full day.

I count four parks. I've never been to Disneyland or California Adventure but I don't think I could spend four days at either without getting bored.

eman - We have done SFMM every trip we've made done to SOCAL and the thought of going to SFMM in mid August with all the heat is not something we are eager to do on this trip.

Gir - As for the 4 day hopper to Dl/DCA, we are taking some family members to disneyland for the first time and that alone is what we are looking forward to the most. I would imagine most of you would not understand however my family and I are big fans of the park and there is no chance we will get bored.

I am currently posting from my cozy hotel room at Port Orleans in Walt Disney World, and I have already been here for about 5 days and it is not boring. Not to mention this is probably like my fifteenth trip to the resort. It's different I guess 'cause there's four parks here, but there are people like James and I who can go to a park for days on end and not be bored.


ps. it's like 435 degrees in orlando during the day. i want to die.

Initial trip report added to first post. Will add more tomorrow and photos this weekend

Sounds like you had a good time to me. By the sounds of it the crowds were pretty good too, which can sort of make or break a trip.