04-13 Special Breakfast and Hotels

Our Club had arranged for us to have a breakfast together in The Lucky Nugget (think Golden Horseshoe Review at Disneyland) before the Park opened. We shared a table with our a long-time friends, Greg and Carolyn, from our local Disney club.

Entering a Disney park when no one else is there is very special and a treat. The opportunity to take pictures without people in them was nice! Everyone was taking pictures of everyone else with the beautiful castle in the background and we also had cast members taking pictures of our entire group with a variety of cameras. I'm sure ONE of them turned out nicer than ours.

After the typical European breakfast of breads, luncheon meats, and cereal we gathered in front of Phantom Manor (think Haunted Mansion) for another group photo and then we were on our own for the rest of the day.

We rode a few rides in Disneyland and then we headed over to the Walt Disney Studios since we hadn't finished riding everything we wanted to ride. We also needed to ride Crush's Coaster one more time since it was such an unusual ride for Disney.

This park has a Lights, Motors, Action attraction similar to the one at Walt Disney World. They incorporate cars from the Pixar movie CARS as an added bonus.

Rockin' Roller Coaster is also similar to WDW but Aerosmith must not be very popular here since the gift shop had very little merchandise related to them. No big lost to us since we just like the ride.

We saw a cute show called Stitch Live! It is like Talking with Crush in WDW. An animated Stitch talks with audience members, asking and answering questions. There are hidden cameras pointed at the audience and a cast member's voice is altered to sound like Stitch. The kids think they are really talking and interacting with Stitch. It was well done, funny, and entertaining.

There were a couple of unique rides in the Toy Story area. One ride was themed to Slinky the Dog. He was chasing his tail. The riders sit along the length of his body and just ride round and round. They are similar rides but NONE themed to Slinky! The other ride based on RC Racer was new to us. There was this giant coaster track shaped in the form off a "U". You boarded the remote control car from Toy Story and then you would go back and forth a few times within the "U". The ride didn't last long but you got weightlessness at both ends of the ride.

With all of the Disney Studio rides done with we headed for resort shopping. We go around to each of the resorts and see if they have something unique to that resort. We visited Disneyland Hotel, New York, New York, Newport Bay, Cheyenne, and Sante Fe. Each resort had its own theme.