Originally Posted By Dabob2 Still day 1, Tuesday, Feb. 28th. After checking in to the Grand, we decided to grab some lunch before hitting the parks, and opted for Tortilla Joe’s in DTD. The waitress warned me that the only ice tea they had was “floral†and sort of an acquired taste. I’ll try anything once, so I told her that was fine. I tried it. And once was enough. After lunch we were ready for the parks. Jerry’s favorite of favorites, the Haunted Mansion was still down for refurb, (a shame, but the ONLY major attraction down), but his second-favorite, Soarin’ was not. So to start the trip on a good note, we decided to start with Soarin’. When we got there, though the park was not too busy - hey, there’s a reason we chose mid-week in February/March - Soarin’ had quite a line. The greeter explained that the heavy rains that morning had caused flooding in one of the theatres, so only one was running. (And there were STILL puddles everywhere, so it seems we missed quite a downpour). So we grabbed fastpasses for Soarin’ and headed for Monsters. It had a 10-15 minute line, but that was perfect for our first time, as we could check out the many clever touches in the last part of the queue, while bypassing the boring part of the queue. This was, of course, our first time on Monsters, and I liked it. Didn’t quite love it like some of the FaL dark rides... someone posted on a thread a few months ago that such FaL-style dark rides work best when the vehicles are very close to the sets and figures, and I think there’s something to that. When the action is that close to you, it instantly feels more intimate, and it’s not such a big deal that the figures don’t move like a proper AA - and in Toad and Alice and Peter Pan they certainly don’t. Yet those attractions really work. In Pooh and now in Monsters it bothers me a bit that they couldn’t at least make the mouths move in synch with the soundtrack. Hell, Teddi Ruxspin can do that. The one time they do do that, with Roz, it’s soooo much more effective and just seems, well, Disney park quality, as opposed to Disney Store quality.. That said, I really liked the design of much of this ride - the “endless†door scene is great, the animated choice-of-three-door scene is good, the spilled saki and ginger scent in Harryhausen’s is nice, and both the disappearing Randall and the color-changing Randall work great. They put some care into this and went above and beyond at least in certain ways... I wish they’d gone further above and beyond and made at least the major “focus†character in each scene have a synched mouth. I can’t see it costing them that much more than they spent on it, and then you’d have them for the many years this attraction will operate. It would have pushed Monsters from “good†to “really good†in my estimation. From there we went to the Animation Building, and checked out two things that were new to us: Turtle Talk and Drawn to Animation. TT was up first, and I thought it was delightful. I can see how the CM voicing Crush would have a huge impact on how successful any particular show was, but ours was wonderful. Yes, a few too many “Dude’s†and Dory didn’t show up (I didn’t know till I got back and read LP that her appearance was even possible), but still, two thumbs up. He had the audience laughing pretty much from start to finish, and he seemed to be quite facile in manipulating what I’m sure are a set of stock expressions – he chose wisely and appropriately, and the whole thing really worked. We then went to “Drawn to Animation,†also a new show to us. Now I can’t draw a straight line with a ruler, so I wasn’t sure about drawing something where people sitting near me could actually see and perhaps guffaw at what I was doing. But I was in the spirit of DL and said “why not.†Our lesson was Goofy, and I was certain I’d really butcher it. To my surprise, I only semi-butchered it; you could tell who it was supposed to be, (which to me was a major accomplishment) though it looked like a 6 year old had drawn it. Which would have made me feel pretty good, if I hadn’t seen at least two actual 6 year olds in the audience who had done far, far better than I did. Oh well. Compared to how I usually draw, I was actually pleased. I even took it home with me. Next we went into the Sorceror’s Workshop. I really love the atmosphere in here, though for some reason Jerry wasn’t as into it as on previous visits. We didn’t even do the voice replacement thing, which had always been fun. I thought maybe his favorite ride (Soarin’) was calling him, and he didn’t quite understand that they aren’t that strict about the one hour window if you come late. Actually, it turned out he was anxious to do Tower of Terror. Fine with me, TOT it was. I agree with those who say the grounds of the MGM version are better - and the fact that at MGM it’s set off on its own on a hill is nice too, though having it be on a “Hollywood street†in DCA was fine with me per se, since that’s how the Roosevelt and other actual Hollywood hotels are. But the grounds are definitely nicer at MGM. However, we didn’t spend any time in the outdoor queue on this February Tuesday, so we were right into the interior queue, and here the two versions were a wash for me. The lobby and library are a wash compared to MGM, and so is the boiler room, even though they’re quite different. I didn’t like the too bright cartoony look of the boiler, and the lighting scheme in general didn’t work as well for me as MGM. On the other hand, the basic set decoration and certainly the sound design was superior in DCA. So that was a wash for me too; and if they’d repaint the boiler and tone down the lights, it could be easily better than MGM’s. As for the actual ride, I definitely prefer DCA’s, even with it being shorter. Getting rid of the clunky 5-D room was a major plus for me. Having to lock in place at MGM, get checked, then re-checked, then hearing the same narration after all that happens really detracts for me. I loved how you went straight from the mirror scene to the drop sequence, though I did wish there was one more show scene. And the drop sequence was more fun to me than MGM’s - definitely more air time, which I’m big on. All in all, I’ve never been one who has considered TOT (either version) to be an all-time masterpiece like Pirates or HM, and was always mystified by those who chose it their favorite of all attractions at WDW. I feel the same way about DCA’s, but it is definitely an E-ticket, a great addition, and on balance I’m in the camp that prefers DCA’s to MGM’s. I’d love to see them add another show scene - yes, it would lengthen the line, but after the newness has worn off it would be more than worth the tradeoff. THEN we went over to Soarin’. Love, love, love this ride. Always have, but riding it for the first time after a couple of years away, it’s starting to take on the same “ahhhhhhhhhh†feeling I get when I ride Pirates or Mansion or Peter Pan or other personal favorites after a couple of years away. What surprised me was that it got applause at the end (!) – five years after it debuted. I’m assuming the ridership on this flight was largely newcomers (I know we were seated next to some), because we rode Soarin’ later in our trip to no applause, but still – that it’s getting applause at all so long after its debut is impressive. At that point I was getting tired, as I’d feared, so we went back to the Grand (love that entrance/exit from DCA) and had a rest. After the rest, I suspected (again, working on a tip I read on LP) that if we went down the fire stairs that were quite close to our room, we’d probably be let out as close to DL as possible from the Grand. When we went out to the hall, we asked a staff guy that was there, and he confirmed it; yes, just walk down these stairs (which are not reserved for emergencies only) and you’re practically there. And it was true. The door lets you out right at the La Brea Bakery, close to bag check. Brilliant! Unfortunately, you can only go OUT that door – coming back, you have to walk to the standard DTD entrance to the Grand, which entails much more walking to the room. But we saved a LOT of walking every time we left the hotel by using these stairs. We went through bag check and into DL for the first time in over two years. I like the way they do bag check at the esplanade now, rather than at the entrance to each park – makes park-hopping so easy. I know that’s old hat to most people here, but it was a new procedure to us. Anyway, we went through the left tunnel as always and walked slowly down Main Street (another ahhhhhhhhh moment), to take in the sprucing up they’d done for the 50th. Everything looked fantastic. Of course, at the end of Main Street we had to look at the castle for a few minutes. Jerry thought the gold decorations were a bit TOO much, but I was happier that the castle itself had been restored. I’d have gone with a more subdued pink for the “body†of the castle, but the blue parts looked great, and will still look great when the gold comes off. We turned left into AL and got fastpasses for Indy, then stepped into the (quite short) line for Pirates. There were a couple of new things for us here, notably the much higher splashes for the cannonballs in the battle scene. Way better than the old “plop with spotlight†they had for all those years. After Pirates I pointed out one of the “Happiest Faces†montages to Jerry – he didn’t know about them and thought they were pretty dang cool. I told him how you could find yourself in there if you had in fact submitted a photo they used, and he was impressed. We walked past the HM, just to look and see if it looked like there was any hope at all that it would open earlier than scheduled (i.e. in the next 4 days while we’d still be there). But it was obvious as we peeked through the gate that the equipment and debris in place was not something that could be cleaned up that quickly, and that we’d miss HM this trip. Jerry was really bummed – it’s his favorite. But at least it was the ONLY major thing down. We moved on to Splash, which on this fairly cool day had a quite manageable line. Everything seemed to be working except, of course, the photo preview at the end which they haven’t had on for years. From there we went on Pooh. I liked it slightly better this time than I did 2 years ago, but it did suffer from the problem I talked about on Monsters – not intimate enough to get away with the figures having basically no motion. I do like the trippiness of the Heffalump scene, though. We went back to AL and Indy, walking slowly through the queue even though FP has made that unnecessary, of course. But it’s just such a great queue. Great ride, although the rat effect was not working the whole trip – I think that effect has not worked more than it has in the 10 years it’s been open (at least on our random samples). It did work our last trip, but not this time. You still hear the squeaks, though. : ) Last ride of the night would be BTMRR. It’s been YEARS since I’ve ridden this in the dark; as it turns out, every time I rode it on this trip would be in the dark. You do miss some of the critters, but I forgot how much fun this one is after nightfall. At that point, the fatigue was hitting me again, so we left a little early, had a nice dinner at ESPN Zone (the tortilla soup appetizer was excellent!), and went back to the Grand to watch the American Idol “top 24.†And so ended Day one.
Originally Posted By amazedncal2 I'm glad you continued to feel OK Aren't those stairs at the Grand great? We didn't know about them during our 1st stay there and we also read about them here on LP.
