Last week after 4th of July I visited the disneyland resort for the first time ever. We stayed at the hilton Anaheim resort and went to the parks for two days utilising the park hopper on our tickets. I have done disneyworld and disneyland paris quite a lot so it was nice to have a change.
So, some overall thoughts: I was shocked by how good these two parks were, I had done a lot of research on the rides and parks to get a rough idea of where I was going, but I found the two parks (especially california adventure to be extremely impressive. Also I was surprised at how quiet the two parks were in comparison to how I thought they were going to be.
Disneyland was a very good park, however it was a lot smaller than the magic kingdom. Another problem with this park is the layout. I say this because it felt very busy in some places and not so much in others. The two places I found to be the bussiest were the entrance to tommorowland and the pathway going past jungle cruise and indiana jones adventure in adventureland. However allthough it seemed packed, the queues were not to bad, the jungle cruise kept around 30 mins all day and we only queued about 40 mins for indiana jones. By the way indiana jones is a really good ride, far superior to dinosaur, especially with the themeing. Big thunder and splash mountain were pretty similar to the ones in magic kingdom, with big thunder having some more effects which worked really well. Hyperspace mountain is an amazing ride especially with the projections. And overall a better roller coaster than the one in florida.
Disneys california adventure was by far my favourite park of the two mainly because it had more thrilling rides. The grizzly peak airfield area was really impressive. Grizzly river run is a lot better than kali river rapids. Soarin around the world was really good, a nice new addition to the park. I'm a bit disappointed that they didn't use different areas in this one as it is an exact copy of shanghai except from the ending. What was quite funny was that some of the cast members were still calling it soarin over california on the overhead speaker but then realised and corrected themselves. Cars land was amazing, and radiator springs was a really good ride, the land was especially impressive at night. Paradise pier was good though I think it just lacks something. They could do with another ride along the broad walk when u walk round from toy story mania to goofy's sky school. We didn't go in bugs land as such, but it looked like a nice area, having its tough to be a bug is nice as it is always a fun show. The biggest problem in this park is the hollywood land (why not call it hollywood lane or street?). I say this because it just felt a bit out of place compared to the rest of the park. Tower of terror is good, frozen live was impressive and the actual Main Street so to say was cool. But that was about it. It is missing something, mike and sulleys ride was alright but just felt a bit dated compared to the other rides in the park. This is definitely the land that should be improved next in the park, maybe by putting the muppets vision 3d back in and putting in a new ride or philharmagic. The backlot area didn't have much there and could definitely be turned into an area for marvel.
Downtown disney district was also a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be with a good selection of shops. However it could do with a couple more restaurants.
Overall I was amazed by the disneyland resort and it had some really good rides and shows. I think that the california adventure park is better than epcot and hollywood studios and that the disneyland park is as good as the magic kingdom park.
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Thanks for the report and welcome to Disneyland! The guest flow in DL right now is messed up due to the Star Wars Land construction forcing the closure of the Big Thunder trail pathway from Fantasyland to Frontierland. (Imagine if Liberty Square were closed at the MK and both lands dead-ended on either side to get an idea, if you're only familiar with WDW.)
I agree with DTD needing a couple of extra restaurants - especially quick service ones. But there is so much delightful stuff at this resort.