2021 Green Family Disneyland Ride Stats

 It's time once again for my family's ride stats from our most recent visit to Disneyland. We only went for 3 days this year and didn't do Park Hopper tickets due to all the restrictions from Covid. So we did 2 days at Disneyland and 1 at California Adventure. There were 6 of us that went this year, Liz and I and our kids ranging in age from 7 to 15. I give each of them a ride chart and have them mark down every attraction they go on. Here's a look at our stats:

Attraction Stats: (the number of times we rode each attraction).

And the winner for the 4th year in a row...SPLASH MOUNTAIN! We absolutely love this attraction, mostly for the happy-go-lucky feel and the catchy songs. We are all so sad that Disney is going to be re-theming this ride into something else. 

Typically I also keep stats on which park - Disneyland or California Adventure - we spend more time in. But this year since we decided not to get park hopper passes, I'll skip that since we spent 2 full days at Disneyland and 1 at California Adventure. Here's a breakdown of what "Lands" inside each park we spent the most time in (based on number of times we went on attractions in those lands).

25% of all the attractions we went on were located in Fantasyland!

It is fun to see what everyone's favorite attraction is. Each year, I have each member of our family list their top 10 attractions. I assign 10 points to their favorite attraction, 9 to the second favorite, all the way down to 1 point for their 10th favorite.  Our family this year consisted of 6 people - Liz and myself, and our kids, ages 15, 14, 12, and 7. Here are the results:

Rise of the Resistance just edged out Splash Mountain for the Win!

Obtaining a Boarding Group for Rise of the Resistance

 I thought I would share my experience for obtaining a boarding group for Rise of the Resistance to, first, help people that might be wondering what the process intails and, second, to help preserve history since, I'm sure, boarding groups won't always be required. 

Our first time attemting to make a reservation for a boarding group was actually at Hollywood Studios in Walt Disney World, Florida on June 22, 2021. The fact that we weren't guaranteed a spot on the attraction left my family of 7 all feeling a little on edge and nervous - not something I really wanted to be feeling on a vacation that we had been planning for 2 years. But that was the reality of it so we did our research and when the time came to make the attempt, we were ready.

Both my wife, Liz, and I downloaded the Walt Disney World App on our phones because we knew we needed it to make the reservation among other things, such as mobile orders, checking out wait times thoughout the park, and having our tickets and park reservations all in one place.

I should also briefly mention that at this time (in June of 2021) you also needed to make a seperate reservation to go to the Disney World Park you wanted to go to for the day in addition to having a ticket. For example, on this day, the 22nd, we were going to Hollywood studios so, in addition to our 6 day parks ticket, I also had to make a seperate reservation to go to Hollywood Studios. The day before we had done the same thing at Epcot. According to Disney it was done to help establish attendence limits during the Coronavirus craze but the cynic in me wonders if it was really more of a way for Disney to just plan for things like staffing, ordering, etc. I guess we'll see as things return back to normal if Disney keeps the reservation system anyway...

Anyway, back to our experience... we were able to attempt to make a reservation for a boarding group for Rise of the Resistance at 7:00am the day of our entrance into Hollywood Studios. Since Hollywood Studios didn't open until 9:00am that morning, it meant that we would be waking up early to make the attempt from our hotel. 

At 6:50am, I woke my Liz up. She had the official world time up on her phone and I had the Disney World App up, clicked on "Virtual Queues" and then waited to click "Join Virtual Queue" until just the right time. (I had already linked all of our families tickets by scanning the barcodes on the back of the tickets into my phone). 

First I clicked on "Virtual Queues" second from the top on the left.

And at 6:59 and 59 seconds, I clicked on "Join Virtual Queue"

I had Liz count me down from 6:59:50 (six fifty nine and 50 seconds) to 6:59:59. And at 6:59 and 59 seconds, I clicked "Join Virtual Queue." I was then directed to another page to conform my party (the seven of us were already in there because, as I stated earlier, I had already linked our tickets) and clicked to join the queue. We received boarding group number 47 (If I remember correctly) which is extremely early. Disney typically is able to get through around 240 boarding groups a day, on a day with no major attraction downtime.

When we tried this process again the next month at Disneyland, we were met with much different results. We tried 2 different days and both times, using the same method we used described above, we were not given a boarding group - rather we received a message informing us that all boarding groups were full and to try again at 12:00pm (noon). Again, not a way I want to spend my vacation - worrying about rather or not we're going to be able to get on an attraction and dropping everything we're doing at noon to try to secure another boarding group. 

But when noon came, we made another attempt. The first day we were given a "back-up boarding group" (we were about boarding group 263 or so) and we were able to make it on around 8:30pm at night. The second day we tried at noon we got boarding group 174 and made it on around 2:30pm or so. When our boarding group was called, I received a notification on my phone like this:

You have a 1 hour window to return in. 

My Take:

Making the boarding group reservation was pretty easy as far as the technology aspect of it goes. I say that because I'm definately not a technology genius. But the reason I didn't like the process is the convenience factor. I like to plan out my vacations so when I'm there I can relax. I don't want to feel "up in the air" about whether or not I am going to be able to get on an attraction during my vacation. I would rather see a 2 hour line and then decide if it's worth it to me or not to stand in line to get on the attraction. 

Pin Trading at Walt Disney World, Florida During Covid

My kids have really gotten into pin trading over the last 10 years and, consequently, so have I. Although we normally visit Disneyland every year, with the uncertainty surrounding Covid restrictions in the area, we decided to book our trip to Walt Disney World this summer. I was excited because in January of 2020, just before Covid became a phenomenom, I was in Orlando for a business trip and would take side trips everynight to Disney Springs and even spent a day at Epcot. I was amazed at the number of cast members with lanyards on and pins to trade - particularly in the World of Disney Store in Disney Springs. It was a pin traders dream! I knew things would be different this trip with cast members not yet allowed to trade pins, but I was still excited for my kids to have the Walt Disney World Pin Trading experience. 

 Because there is no trading directly with cast members as of yet, pin boards with pins on them are placed generally in each "Land" of each park. Here are a couple of examples of the pin boards:

Rules

I won't spend a lot of time on the rules on pin trading here, assuming that if you are reading this, you have probably traded pins before.

Rule 1 - when you get to the board, each guest is allowed to trade a maximum of 2 pins. This is an important rule because sometimes long lines can form and it is important to be mindful of guests aiting behind you. Rule 2 is that you can't trade a pin that is already on the board, thus creating a duplicate on the pin board. Having a variety of pins makes pin trading more fun anyway. 

Locations

We went to Animal Kingdom our first day and Epcot our second day and unfortunately, I didn't create any sort of a list of places that the pin boards were at these places. I do remmeber there being a pin board at the Canada Pavillion at the World Showcase because we checked it before and after seeing the Canada Far and Wide film and the cast member slightly repremanded us for returning to trade pins at that location so soon. There is also a pin board once through the entrance just infront of the shop on the right hand side.

I got a little smarter at Hollywood Studios and took this picture, detailing where the pin trading locations are:

And again at the Magic Kingdom, I took these pictures:

And I obtained this pre-marked park map with pin locations from a cast member as well:

So as of July 2021, these were the pin trading locations at Walt Disney World. Hope this helps you find all the pins you're looking for! 

Abby's Annaheimer Inn

 

My wife, daughter, and I travelled to Anaheim to visit the Disneyland Resort one last time before California Adventure was closed to shopping due to A Touch of Disney coming to the park. I searched the internet to try to find a motel that was in walking distance and inexpensive. We typically stay on Harbor Blvd when visiting Disneyland, but this time I found a motel on the entire other (West) side of the property, located on the corner of Katella and Walnut Streets, Abby's Anaheimer Inn. 

When we pulled in the parking lot, I immediately wasn't impressed. The asphalt was run down and it looked more like an apartment complex than a motel. My wife was sincerely concerned for our safety and tried to convince me to just go somewhere else to stay. I considered it but thought I'd give it a try.

The person who checked us in was friendly and informed me that there were a few people who had been living there for 3 or 4 months but assured me they wouldn't bother me. We got to our room and noticed that it didn't have a shower curtain so I went back down stairs and informed the man who had checked us in. After spending a few hours at Downtown Disney, we came back to our room to notice that our shower curtain still hadn't been replaced. 

We decided to drive somewhere to get dinner and when we got back, we noticed someone going into and leaving our room. We hoped that it was the people replacing our shower curtain and when we got to our room, we were relieved to discover that our shower curtain had been replaced. 

One other thing I'll mention is that when I checked in I was told that if we needed anything there would be someone in the office 24x7 but out of the 3 times I checked downstairs, only once was someone there. 

In the defense of Abby's Annaheimer Inn, I imagine that with Disneyland being forced to be closed much longer than they should have been, the owners of the motel had to do something to pay the bills, including opening it up to people looking for cheap housing. I imagine (and hope) that once Disneyland is allowed to open to out-of-town guests, this motel will be a much more inviting place to stay.

The walk to Downtown Disney took us about 15 minutes. We took the route up Walnut, over Magic Way, down Disneyland Drive, though the Paradise Pier parking lot, and then back north again to the security check point on the west side of Downtown Disney. 

As far as the condition of the room, the walls had received a new coat of paint which looked very nice. The carpet was extremely dirty, and as was mentioned above, originally we had no shower curtain. Here are some pictures of the room:

Here's a look at the motel and parking lot. The biggest potholes in the parking lot were closest to the office, near the right side of the building in this picture.

Here's a look at the outside of our room on the second floor. 

This is the inside of the room when you first enter.

I generally like hard beds better than soft beds but these beds were extremely hard - even a bit hard for me!

There was a small tv and dresser opposite the beds along with a desk and chair.

Here's a look at the bathroom sink area. There was a small refrigerator, a few hangers, and a nice marble sink. 

And this is the bathroom.

I'd like to say that I'll give this another try after things get back to normal in California after the Coronavirus, but I think this is a "one and done" experience for me.

: 

Motel 6 Anaheim Maingate

 With the Disneyland Resort still closed due to the Coronavirus, we decided to take a trip to Anaheim to enjoy the atmosphere of Downtown Disney and portions of California Adventure that have been opened for shopping and dining. I was surprised that most of the normal Harbor Blvd hotels that we stay in were still so expensive even with the park closures. I decided to look a little further away to see if I could find something slightly less expensive and I was pleased to find the Motel 6.

The Motel 6 Anaheim Main gate is located on Disney Way, just about a mile walk from Disneyland. The walk is actually very pleasant and takes you by the Anaheim Garden Walk on the south side of Disney Way and the employee cast member parking lot on the North side. For those of you unfamiliar with Disney Way, it is located to the East of Disneyland and intersects Harbor Blvd right at the Guardians of the Galaxy Attraction in California Adventure. It took my wife, daughter (who is 7 years old), and I 17 minutes to walk to the security checkpoint from our room. 

The rooms were perfect for our family. The only odd thing about them was the layout - the bathroom area was separated from the main sleeping area by two swinging doors that only gave limited privacy. But the front desk staff was incredibly friendly and we were pleased to see that they had a pin board for trading pins despite all the overly-stringent restrictions on the Disney property. 

Below are some pictures of the Motel 6 and our room:

Here's a look from the sidewalk on Disney Way right by the driveway into the hotel.

This is the backside of the hotel where we parked.

Our room was on the second floor. There were three floors total.

We stayed in a 2 queen room. The two swinging doors you see are the only things separating the sleeping area from the bathroom. (There is no door separating the sink area from the shower/toilet area).

This was a pretty cool sitting area.

Here's a look from the bathroom towards the entrance door.

The tv and the only dresser in the room.

This is the sink area. There is a ironing board, hangars, and shelf to the left, and the tub and toilet area is to the right.

Here's a look at the area to the left of the sink.

Here's a look to the right, including the tub/shower.

This was the only shampoo supplied by the hotel. One packet was barely enough for me, a short haired male. So you might want to consider bringing your own shampoo to ensure you have enough.

The Sounds of Disneyland: Mickey Mouse March from the Disneyland Resort Esplanade Area Loop.

 I love the music played in the Disneyland Resort Area from the Esplanade to the various loops in each Land. While enjoying a walk around Downtown Disney and California Adventure (while the parks were closed), I was able to record the Mickey Mouse March from the Esplanade Area Loop. Enjoy!

Disneyland True Short Stories: "I'm Going to Disneyland!"

 If you're as old as I am, you'll remember the famous sports stars of the moment exclaiming, "I'm going to Disneyland!" after winning the Super Bowl or World Series. That ingenious marketing idea was started in 1987 by then Disney CEO, Michael Eisner. But did you ever wonder where that idea came from? Ok, probably not, but it's a fun story. 

After completing the first ever flight around the world without stopping or refueling, Jeannie Yeager and Burt Rutan had dinner with Michael and Jane Eisner, his wife. 

At the dinner, Michael asked the aviators "What are you doing next?" To which they replied, "We're going to Disneyland." And with that, Jane turned to Michael and said, "Michael, you've got to use that."

And so it was that the next year (1987) Eisner started that marketing campaign.