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Old 10 Nov 19, 07:18 PM  
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mr-paul
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#BeastOnTour: Disneyland & LA Solo Trip - Travel day/first night at Disneyland

Introduction/Travel Day

Hi, I’m Paul and I’m 29 years old and live in South London. A life-long Disney fan, I’ve been to Disneyland Paris 11 times over the years, made three trips to Walt Disney World, in 1994, 2000 and 2003, and also visited Hong Kong Disneyland in 2014. I have never, however, been where the magic started.



Earlier this year I was fortunate to get a job for ESPN, who are owned by the Walt Disney Company, working in their European headquarters in London. I’ve been eager to visit the California parks and revisit WDW for a long while now, having not been there since I was a child. I’m also a massive Star Wars fan, so the opening of Galaxy’s Edge had me desperate to get over there again. Getting this job was the last push I really needed to go and do it - I get free admission into all of the parks except for Tokyo! Not going to lie, best job perk ever, though it is subject to certain block-out dates. So the planning began!

#BeastOnTour - this hasn’t got anything to do with Beauty and the Beast, Beast is a nickname some of my old colleagues gave me, because of how good I was, aka ‘beasting it’ One of them brought up this hashtag in reply to my Instagram stories through this trip, so I’ve decided to adopt it for my trip report.

Itinerary

I had a very busy summer at work, so knew that once that was over I deserved a proper holiday to reward myself in September. I decided to go to California, feeling that DLR was more suited to a solo trip than WDW, and the weather would be better, with it being the end of hurricane/rainy season in Florida. And that it’d be totally new for me. I decided to go for 10 nights from 22nd September, arriving back in the UK on the 3rd October. On the 4th October, I would be flying out again for a weekend in Poland with some friends.

After hours of deliberating on the flights, as I’m sure we all have done, I booked indirect flights with American Airlines, via Phoenix on the way and San Diego on the way back, for £331.92. I opted to go hand baggage only. The layovers were only short, but I was confident they’d be fine as I wouldn’t have to collect any luggage on the stops.

Sunday 22nd September:
9:30am - 12:40pm London Heathrow to Phoenix Sky Harbor International
1 hour 15 minutes layover
1:55pm - 15:21pm Phoenix Sky Harbor International to Los Angeles International

Wednesday 2nd October:
6:26pm - 7:15pm Los Angeles International to San Diego
1 hour 30 minutes layover
8:45pm - 3:20pm San Diego to London Heathrow

I wasn’t going to spend all 10 of my nights in California at Disney, opting to have my first five nights in Anaheim before moving up to Hollywood to see the sights up in LA. I then spent my last night at Venice Beach. Usually when I travel solo, I stay in hostels, but there aren’t any in Anaheim! So I opted to stay in a cheap motel there, before moving to hostels up in LA.

22nd - 27th Sept: Motel 6 Anaheim Maingate - £335.06
27th Sept - 1st Oct: USA Hostels Hollywood - £156.64
1st - 2nd Oct: Samesun Venice Beach - £37.11

Will keep the day to day activity plan secret, to be revealed through the trip report!

Travel Day - Sunday 22nd September

Living in London makes it quite an easy proposition to get to any of its airports, and though travelling on a Sunday morning isn’t always the most ideal time, that has improved with the introduction of the night tube. I woke at 5:30am, checked I had everything sorted and left home at 6:20am. Luckily the tubes were running fine, and had no troubles with a quick Victoria Line train to Green Park, where I changed to the Piccadilly Line all the way down to Heathrow Terminal 3. From the timestamp of the photo, I arrived here at 7:36am.



Was quickly through security, not needing to check in any bags, and also being well prepared to go through the scanners with my little plastic bag of toiletries ready and no laptop or iPad to remove (on a sidenote, how are some people so bad at removing what needs to be removed? Surely you should know by now you can’t have liquids in your bag?)

Through to the other side, I went for some breakfast. I’m horribly indecisive so this took a while, but in the end decided on a little pot of granola and greek yoghurt from Pret and a bottle of water. Was sat at the gate by 8:30am, and boarding for first class started at 8:40. I was boarding group 8.

By 9am, it was my time to board, and after a short bus ride to the aircraft I was on the plane and in my seat. Due to booking Basic Economy, I didn’t have a choice in my seat, but when travelling solo that’s not too much of a bother. I do like to get an aisle seat, so you can get up without bothering anyone, but I don’t tend to get up much anyway I was the middle of three seats on the left side of this Boeing 777.



We pulled away on time at 9:30, and I was happy I was finally going on my first holiday of the year! I was also happy I could watch the Rugby World Cup live on the flight!



Drinks were served an hour into the flight, served with pretzels. I went for a white wine. Dinner came an hour later, I went for the meatballs and mash, with which I had another wine.




Through the flight I watched Avengers Endgame, Aladdin, Rocket Man and John Wick 3. At some point in the middle of the flight, ice cream was served. 90 mins before landing the second meal was served, which was a pasty. Sadly, I forgot to take a picture of either of these!

Flying into Phoenix was pretty cool, as you came down over the Grand Canyon. We actually landed an hour earlier than scheduled, at 11:40am. So early, in fact, we had to wait on the plane until midday as immigration/customs wasn’t open until then!



By 12:20 I had cleared immigration, and I just needed to get to the gate for the second flight, with another 95 minutes until that was due to depart. I was back through security at 12:45, so had plenty of time to sit and wait for the final leg of my journey.

I boarded at 1:40pm, and departed on time for the short hop over to LAX. We landed at 3:10, and as I had cleared immigration in Phoenix, and wasn’t travelling with checked in luggage, made a swift exit from the airport! I had booked a shared SuperShuttle down to Anaheim ($22.42 including tip), and after checking in with them from my phone on landing, was on my way by 3:36.

Just over 30 minutes later, we had made it to Anaheim, and as luck would have it, my hotel was the first stop! After quickly checking in and dropping my bag in my room, there was only one thing on my mind despite it being past midnight back home in the UK - time to go to Disneyland



(Not my pics - I forgot to take any!)

As I’m a cast member, I didn’t need to worry about the cost of just going for part of a day, and would have probably just rested up this first evening. But it was free for me to get in, so why not go? Also, they only have fireworks at the weekend due to it being in a more built-up area than other parks, so tonight would be my only opportunity to see them.



My hotel was just a short 15 minute walk from the park gates, so it was a no-brainer to take a stroll down, although buses regularly pick up from all the resorts in the area. By 5pm, I was at the gates, flashed my Cast ID, and was presented a one-day park hopper ticket. I was in!





After absorbing the atmosphere of Main Street USA and admiring all of the Halloween decorations, I made my way into Frontierland. The park felt quite busy, but despite this, Big Thunder Mountain only had a 10 minute queue, so I made this my first ride! A classic, of course, but I would say that the Disneyland Paris version blows this one out of the water.

From here, I took a walk around New Orleans Square, getting my bearings of where everything was in this park that was new to me. Haunted Mansion had a long wait, and no fastpasses available, and was obviously a very popular attraction having its Holiday overlay on.



I continued around and picked up a FastPass for Splash Mountain, to use a couple of hours later between 7:25 and 8:25pm. I then headed around to Adventureland and rode Jungle Cruise after about a 10 minute wait. Blimey, the jokes on this are terrible, aren’t they :P Part of its charm though.




From here it was back round to New Orleans Square where I jumped in the queue for Pirates of the Caribbean. This was a 15 minute wait. A great version of the ride, and this was the first time I’ve been on the refurbished version with Captain Jack in - the last time I went to Paris was when it was closed for renovation there to add him.

Now, I’d put it off long enough. I couldn’t wait any longer. It was time to go to Galaxy’s Edge. AKA heaven for a Star Wars fan.




After a brief wander around, I got in the single rider line for Smuggler’s Run. After a wait of less than 10 minutes, I was in the Millennium Falcon cockpit as an engineer! Some may say the engineer isn’t as good as the other roles, but I thoroughly enjoyed it, you still have plenty to do even though you’re not steering the ship!




After more exploration of Galaxy’s Edge, I moved into Fantasyland. Time for a Disney classic. It’s A Small World. Has got to be done. It was a walk-on, and it was fantastic to ride the original version, though I don’t know if it’s just because it’s the one I’ve ridden the most, but I think the Paris one is slightly better!



It was now time to go and use my Splash Mountain FastPass. I have never gone on this ride before in my three trips to Florida - I was absolutely terrified of log flumes, and to be honest, they still scare me! But I was being brave, I'm grown up now, so had to man up and go on it! It’s a brilliant ride, but sitting at the back of the boat, I got soaked! My bum and my shoes were dripping wet. Everyone else was wearing a poncho!

By now it was 8pm, so time for some dinner. After a while looking on the Disneyland App trying to decide what to have, I ended up at Refreshment Corner (known as Casey’s Corner in other parks) where I had a Mac and Cheese Dog with chips (crisps!) and a cup of water and ice. It was busy and I couldn’t find a seat, so ate it on top of a bin! As a Disney CM, I get a 20% discount off food, so this came to $7.75 (£6.24).


(photo from Disney Food Blog - I was too hungry to take a pic of my own )


Stomach filled, it was time to pay Tomorrowland a visit. First, I went on Star Tours: The Adventures Continue. Like POTC, I haven’t been on this updated version of the ride - my last visit to Disneyland Paris in February 2017 was when it was receiving its update. What can I say? It’s Star Tours, with new video variations. I do have to say I did kind of miss the original version, and R3X the pilot! From there, it was a quick hop over to Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters. Both of these were walk-ons.



It was now gone 9pm, so time to get in place for the fireworks at 9:30pm. As it was Halloween season, the show was Halloween Screams, featuring Jack Skellington, Zero, Oogie Boogie, various other Disney villains and music from Nightmare Before Christmas and Grim Grinning Ghosts (Haunted Mansion). This show was on every night, but as mentioned earlier, only had fireworks at the weekend. Unfortunately, some of my view was blocked off by trees around the castle, so I would advise trying to get directly in front or a bit further back, as some effects couldn’t be seen from my position.




Time to go home? Surely after such a long day? Not yet! Fantasmic, the show that’s also at Hollywood Studios in Florida, was another thing that was only on at the weekend, so had to be seen. This had a couple of showings per night, and there was one left, at 10:30pm. You can get Fastpasses for this, but they were long gone by the time I got to the park. This is done on the Rivers of America over in New Orleans Square/Frontierland, so I walked over here from the castle to scope out a viewing spot. Near the Haunted Mansion, I found a queue where they said they would be letting us into the Fastpass area once those with Fastpasses had the opportunity to arrive and take their place. Everyone in this viewing area sits on the floor, and it was all very civilised. I love the music from this show, and it was cool how they used the Mark Twain riverboat and Columbia pirate ship (that you can ride on during the day) as part of the show.





All done at 11pm, it was time to leave the park! My mum messaged me astounded that I was still up as it was now 7am the next morning back home. I walked home via Walgreens, where I picked up some shampoo/shower gel, which I had not brought due to being hand luggage only. I finally got to sleep at around midnight - only 26 hours since I woke up

Steps today: 23,340
Attractions/Activities: 10
Tomorrow: First time at DCA, Oga’s Cantina and more Disneyland!

Edited at 02:33 PM.
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Old 10 Nov 19, 07:26 PM  
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Bad Pink Tink
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waving hi from a fellow solo traveller from Ireland. I have been going to Disneyland every year since 2010. I also stay at Motel 6 Maingate.

Loving your trip report and seeing the park at a different time of year. Fantasmic is my favourite show, I usually do a Blue Bayou dining package for it.
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Old 10 Nov 19, 07:45 PM  
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mr-paul
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Originally Posted by Bad Pink Tink View Post
waving hi from a fellow solo traveller from Ireland. I have been going to Disneyland every year since 2010. I also stay at Motel 6 Maingate.

Loving your trip report and seeing the park at a different time of year. Fantasmic is my favourite show, I usually do a Blue Bayou dining package for it.
Hello fellow solo traveller, thanks for reading!

I've always wanted to dine inside Pirates of the Caribbean at DLP, so was definitely tempted here too with Blue Bayou! I didn't do any table service meals in the end, though.

Fantasmic is fantastic! It was a shame it was only on the one night I was there, otherwise I would have definitely watched again!
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Old 11 Nov 19, 07:56 AM  
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Fantastic start to your trip report, looking forward to more!
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Old 11 Nov 19, 09:25 AM  
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Great start and boy do I admire your stamina !

Looking forward to next instalment
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Old 11 Nov 19, 11:38 PM  
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KayLouise
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Great start, and lovely pics! Looking forward to reading more 😊
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Old 21 Nov 19, 02:34 PM  
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mr-paul
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Originally Posted by ziggyzag View Post
Fantastic start to your trip report, looking forward to more!
Originally Posted by megaflyer View Post
Great start and boy do I admire your stamina !

Looking forward to next instalment
Originally Posted by KayLouise View Post
Great start, and lovely pics! Looking forward to reading more 😊
Thanks all for reading

I honestly don't know where I found the stamina!

Day two is up now!
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Old 21 Nov 19, 03:02 PM  
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Great start but such a long day. Glad you managed to get so much done.
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Old 18 Jan 20, 09:38 PM  
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What a travel day! How did you manage it? We're normally all done for by 9pm! Great start!
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Old 21 Jan 20, 06:56 PM  
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Originally Posted by NewtoOrlando View Post
What a travel day! How did you manage it? We're normally all done for by 9pm! Great start!
I honestly am not sure! Adrenaline and excitement
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