Trip Report 5-7th February
Hey all,
We booked 2 nights in a Golden Forest room with a lake view in Sequoia Lodge. We arrived at the hotel at around 11am, but unfortunately our room wasn't ready :( they gave us our hotel fast passes etc, though!
It was snowing and we went into the park super excited – after all, we had just seen how magical Disneyland Tokyo looked in the snow! We were freezing, but got some awesome pictures! We went straight onto Pirates (our little tradition is Phantom Manor first, but it was closed!) and then made our way around Discovery Land before going back to the hotel for 3 to check in!
The cast member told us we had been upgraded to a suite on the 7th floor! According to the fire escape maps, it was the largest suite on the floor. When we got in, there was complimentary bottles of water with a lovely personal note welcoming us and it had my other half's name written in sweets and chocolates on the bed with balloons. The room was so big, it was about the size of my flat and had 2 bathrooms, even! It gave us an AMAZING view, we could see both the castle and TOT, this was our view on the morning before we left (too foggy to see castle): https://twitter.com/Coggit/status/961175316164218880
Staying there was amazing – especially the free drinks, which we would have had anyway as we were staying in a GF room. All I can say is, choose a GF room if you can! In the end, it's going to be worth it if you make use of the drinks. We didn't go for afternoon snacks, as we're vegan so there was nothing we could eat, but what was available looked great.
We went back to the parks and went to the studios to ride TOT repeatedly (just in case it is rehemed before our planned return for Run Disney), then onto Ratatouille and Crush's before going to Auchen for food and more clothes – seems the snow was a little unplanned. The weather app on my phone said it was going to be around 7-9 degrees, so we didn't pack for the snow and the ice cold! Literally -4 in the mornings.
It snowed literally the whole time we were there (literally non-stop). It was both beautiful and freezing. It was one of those experiences that sounds so, so magically but it really wasn't – just cold and wet, haha. Unfortunately, they weren't gritting anywhere so everything became a death trap (the things you read on Twitter about staff members doing a great job to clear the snow was, unfortunately, untrue. The effort was completely minimal – I think this may be because grit and snow obviously goes an awful browny colour, which doesn't look great and we all know Disney really care about image!). Sequoia Lodge was particularly awful to get around. Unfortunately, I ended up stumbling when making my way down the stairs outside of the Disneyland hotel and hurt my foot pretty badly – I literally couldn't walk and even now 2 days later I'm having trouble walking properly. On the last day, I was considering going to see if I could hire a chair or something as I really struggled to walk. My toe is still numb 48 hours after the event. I think I may need to go to the doctors, but it feels a little better today. I'm glad I got to experience how beautiful everything looked (especially TOT, the castle and Big Thunder) in the snow. Genuinely mind blowingly gorgeous.
I got to meet Jafar, which I was super excited about as he is my favourite Disney character (I know he's there often, but never seems to be there when I am). We also met Mickie and Captain Jack (characters aren't really my thing, I always love the thought of it but for some reason always get nervous at the thought!).
We ate at Chez Remy and Captain Jack's. I have to say, I hated Chez Remy. The food wasn't great and portions tiny. The theming is literally amazing though. The napkins were also fantastic (haha). Captain Jack's was my favourite by far! Unfortunately, I had a bit of an issue with a waiter there as he refused to ask the chef about allergens, but I managed to convince him after pointing out in the menu it says ask a cast member.
Captain Jack was doing the rounds at the table. He picked up my mobile, put it in his pocket and then picked up my other half's phone, took loads of selfies, gave it back and walked away. After 10-15 minutes, he didn't come back with my phone and I saw a cast member had come to get him (presumably to take him away), so I decided that I needed to go and ask for my phone back! He passed me someone elses and continually called it a 'magic box'. It was brilliant, but also annoying as I was busy taking photos of my food, haha.
All in all, it was brilliant. The hotel was sublime and the parks were amazing. Especially the super short queues for rides due to low attendance as a result of the weather. I can't lie, though. I couldn't wait to get home. If they had gritted and made a proper effort to remove the snow from pathways, I think it would have been fine, but it was literally freezing and wet. We also got Star Tours in English twice! One time I asked and the other just randomly. I did ask for English TOT on one ride, but they wouldn't do it (which was annoying, as there was an English school there also so most of us were English, but oh well). Perhaps a randomised system of language would be better for these rides.
Unfortunately, next planned trip isn't until Run Disney ☹ I also forgot to run into the annual pass office to update my details, as I don't receive the newsletters and I'm worried about not getting the renewal notifications... Oh well!
Totally agree about the gritting, we were in SLGF last week from Mon-Fri and it was really heavy going. Especially for our character breakfast on Weds morning, we were just lost with the lack of signage thanks to the diversion away from lake disney. They seemed to chuck a couple of signs up on Thursday at least.
It all looked nice, but if I never see snow again it will be too soon!