Originally Posted By disneygrammie I literally just walked in the door from the Airport. Spent 5 days at Disneyland & a few hours here and there at California Adventure. It's not what it used to be. I have always loved everything about Disneyland. Stayed at Candy Cane Inn - it was great. Good service, nice continental breakfast. Very friendly and helpful staff. At the park I found a different story. Many cast members appear to be bored, lazy, not very well groomed, and less than helpful. The restrooms were awful. I remember when you could count on that area of the park to be well supplied with towels, soap, etc. and very clean. They were (in some areas) filthy. One of them by the Guest Services office was so dirty and smelly my sister wouldn't even use it. Others around the park weren't as smelly but were still just dirty. We found much cleaner facilities in California Adventure. Thank goodness the weather was good and we had fireworks Sat. & Sunday night. Over all a great trip but felt a little sad about the diminishing "magic" at the park. We did the Walking in Walt's Footsteps Tour. I have done it before and enjoyed it. Our tour guide was a nice young man, and of course very well versed in all things Disney...but you now are given a head set so you can hear your tour leader better. The only problem was the head sets had a lot of static in them. We told the tour guide about it many, many times but he continued without finding a solution. It wasn't just my headset it was all of our headsets. That was disappointing. The tours aren't cheap and we would have enjoyed it more without the headsets. I guess this sounds like a lot of complaining...but regardless of how it was I'm going back in Oct. It will be a different trip because my grandkids are coming along. Can't wait.
Originally Posted By disneygrammie I literally just walked in the door from the Airport. Spent 5 days at Disneyland & a few hours here and there at California Adventure. It's not what it used to be. I have always loved everything about Disneyland. Stayed at Candy Cane Inn - it was great. Good service, nice continental breakfast. Very friendly and helpful staff. At the park I found a different story. Many cast members appear to be bored, lazy, not very well groomed, and less than helpful. The restrooms were awful. I remember when you could count on that area of the park to be well supplied with towels, soap, etc. and very clean. They were (in some areas) filthy. One of them by the Guest Services office was so dirty and smelly my sister wouldn't even use it. Others around the park weren't as smelly but were still just dirty. We found much cleaner facilities in California Adventure. Thank goodness the weather was good and we had fireworks Sat. & Sunday night. Over all a great trip but felt a little sad about the diminishing "magic" at the park. We did the Walking in Walt's Footsteps Tour. I have done it before and enjoyed it. Our tour guide was a nice young man, and of course very well versed in all things Disney...but you now are given a head set so you can hear your tour leader better. The only problem was the head sets had a lot of static in them. We told the tour guide about it many, many times but he continued without finding a solution. It wasn't just my headset it was all of our headsets. That was disappointing. The tours aren't cheap and we would have enjoyed it more without the headsets. I guess this sounds like a lot of complaining...but regardless of how it was I'm going back in Oct. It will be a different trip because my grandkids are coming along. Can't wait.
Originally Posted By disneygrammie I literally just walked in the door from the Airport. Spent 5 days at Disneyland & a few hours here and there at California Adventure. It's not what it used to be. I have always loved everything about Disneyland. Stayed at Candy Cane Inn - it was great. Good service, nice continental breakfast. Very friendly and helpful staff. At the park I found a different story. Many cast members appear to be bored, lazy, not very well groomed, and less than helpful. The restrooms were awful. I remember when you could count on that area of the park to be well supplied with towels, soap, etc. and very clean. They were (in some areas) filthy. One of them by the Guest Services office was so dirty and smelly my sister wouldn't even use it. Others around the park weren't as smelly but were still just dirty. We found much cleaner facilities in California Adventure. Thank goodness the weather was good and we had fireworks Sat. & Sunday night. Over all a great trip but felt a little sad about the diminishing "magic" at the park. We did the Walking in Walt's Footsteps Tour. I have done it before and enjoyed it. Our tour guide was a nice young man, and of course very well versed in all things Disney...but you now are given a head set so you can hear your tour leader better. The only problem was the head sets had a lot of static in them. We told the tour guide about it many, many times but he continued without finding a solution. It wasn't just my headset it was all of our headsets. That was disappointing. The tours aren't cheap and we would have enjoyed it more without the headsets. I guess this sounds like a lot of complaining...but regardless of how it was I'm going back in Oct. It will be a different trip because my grandkids are coming along. Can't wait.
Originally Posted By WDWdreamin Wow, you were excited to post! Thanks for sharing. Too bad about the static. I've only done the tour once, with headset, and didn't have static.
Originally Posted By cinderella143also We found the very same bathroom situation in November. You are right-that was one thing that you could count on at DL-clean bathrooms. Not anymore.
Originally Posted By disneylandfan8 It was the same in Dec. - the bathroom situation. I'd never seen them so dirty.
Originally Posted By gidget_girl_rose I was just there this past Th and Fri and found no problems with the restrooms.
Originally Posted By dl071755 Things must have gone down hill since when I worked at DCA/Disneyland which was only 3 years ago but i havent been able to go back since then so who knows what happened. I know I prided myself on making the best experience possible for all the guests I hope your next trip goes better
Originally Posted By Gratefulmom I just got back from Disneyland on Friday and am so sad to be back at home (although grateful for my own bed!) I am a single mom and did a flight from Seattle, two days at Disneyland and the flight home with a 11yo with ADHD and Aspberger's Syndrome, a 9yo with ADD and a 4yo all by myself. Everything went extremely well. We flew JetBlue. Before we left, we went over the procedure at security several times with practice. No problems there. Kids calmly took their shoes off, took electronic gear out of their bags and put all in the trays, walked through the gate in the order we had practiced (11, 9, 4 then Mom) and then packed up their stuff again. We carried everything on as I did not want to deal with three hungry, tired children at baggage claim in a strange city. On the plane, the two oldest had their personal DVD players and the youngest had my laptop. Each had a new movie ($5, Walmart) that was saved for the trip. We flew JetBlue which has personal TVs for each seat. They got a little antsy waiting to get off the plane as we were in the very back row, but when we did, our shuttle to the hotel was waiting for us. The only glitch was that the driver didn't know where our hotel was. I told him the street and approximate location, but he couldn't locate it on the GPS, so we finally had to pull over at another hotel and get my itinerary out of my luggage so he could plug in the address. I had purchased a package so everything was prepaid. Check in to the hotel went smoothly. Because of the driver's glitch, it was after 10 and we were all very hungry. So we walked next door to Denny's (we were at the Alamo Inn and Suites) and ordered dinner to go. When we finally got our food, my oldest was so tired and overstimulated, I just wanted to get him back to the hotel, so I grabbed my bags of food and left. When we got back to the hotel, I realized we had not gotten our milks and water. I decided tap water at the hotel would do just fine, since we needed to get to bed! The next morning I got up to take a shower and are you kidding me?? There was no hot water!!! I was really awake. Got the children up and dressed, and walked first to get breakfast to go, then over to Guest Services to exchange our vouchers for actual tickets. The hotel is billed as "one block from Disneyland." Yep, that's as the crow flies, but just a good stretch of the legs. We ate our breakfast while waiting for guest services to open and exchanged our vouchers then headed into the park. I had been told it would be very crowded as it was spring break for many, but it was actually not that crowded. . .Using the Unofficial Guide touring plans, we saw everything for the first day by NOON and then started on some of the stuff for the second day. We had an adventure Tuesday night that can be read under the comments for Downtown Disney. Got up Wednesday and headed to California Adventure. Started off with the plan, but it quickly went haywire, when one of our party wanted to ride Mickey's Fun Wheel. We had actually all agreed at home that we wouldn't ride, but I didn't want a huge argument. After getting on, we all decided we do not like Ferris Wheels as we all discovered an unknown fear of heights. We went out of the park to each dinner, then returned for the Electrical Parade and the fireworks. Then went back to the hotel for a night's sleep. The children's father, who had not seen them in more than a year, came up to see them and spend the day in Disneyland with them. I was supposed to get the day to myself -- my first break in more than a year. Yep, somethings never change. Got about 2 hours to myself. Anyway, he didn't want to use the touring plan, he just wanted to do whatever so we didn't get to finish the rides -- good thing we did so many on the first day!!! We went back to the hotel and slept then got up for our ride back to the airport. The shuttle driver was very prompt (not the same one from our arrivale) and got us to the airport in plenty of time. The ride home was just as great as the ride out. I was just sad to leave Disneyland! The kids were troupers and took everything in stride. I would not recommend our hotel -- there was no hot water the entire time and the beds were hard as bricks! And the first day we were in the parks, when we returned to our room, the door was open. This was after being gone for 12 hours. The maid had apparently left it open after she cleaned our room in the late morning.
Originally Posted By MickeyMommy Sounds like you had a great time Gratefulmom, and my hat is off to you for handling 3 kids on your own on vacation. I have a 12 year old who is non-verbal/severe autism, as well as 15 year old boy with PDD/Aspergers, so I know it is not always the easiest to travel to new places for them. We were just there spring break too, and had a great time as well. We stayed at the Sheraton Park Anaheim, which used to be the Coast Anaheim. I would definitely recommend that hotel. The bathroom is a bit small for a group our size (two adults and two boys), but the beds were very comfortable, and the pool area is wonderful! Thanks for the heads up on the Alamo Inn. That is horrible about the door being open like that, and hot water is a definite MUST. Did you let the manager know?
Originally Posted By Gratefulmom Thanks for the advice on the hotel. Now that I know I CAN do it by myself, the next trip will be even better. My mother has already asked if she can go with us next time after she got my glowing report on the children -- planning for May 2011 or 2012. I want to go ahead and prepurchase as early as possible and make payments on the trip. I can hardly wait to go back -- I must remember not to wish my life away!! Glad to hear your trip went well also!
Originally Posted By Rsey103 Couldn't you just remove the headset and listen to your guide the old-fashioned way? What did you learn on the Footsteps tour that you didn't know before?
