Halloween at the Grand Californian Day 4 Part 2
We had a 3 p.m. appointment at Mandara Spa for the “Foot Ritual,” complete with pedicure and, while it felt wonderful, it wasn’t the best we’ve ever had. No champagne, no strawberries, just tea or water. 
The facilities are quite small, and we wouldn’t use them again. Instead of sitting side-by-side, which is the whole point for us, to have a treatment that we can enjoy together, we were sitting across from one another, pretty much preventing us from talking to one another. Instead, the technicians did all the talking. Still, it was great to have our feet pampered – and they looked really good, too.
After our pedicures, we wandered back to the room to chat out on the balcony and have more of our Rice Krispies Treats while we people-watched in the park and made plans for dinner. While we were tempted to return to the Napa Rose Lounge, we decided we’d try Ralph Brennan’s Jazz Kitchen. Upon arriving, we were seated at a table outside and the waitress gave us her recommendations, which I followed. Being allergic to shellfish, Rich has to be more selective. We had:
Starters:
Kathy: Barbecue Gulf Shrimp – “New Orleans” barbecue sauce, French bread croutons
Rich: Gumbo Ya-Ya – Chicken and andouille, smothered in dark roux and Creole seasonings, served with rice.
I loved,loved,loved the Barbecue Gulf Shrimp and Rich loved,loved,loved the Gumbo Ya-Ya. What more can we say except bring it on again.
Entrees:
Rich: Grilled New York Strip – Creole spices, mushroom bread pudding, green beans, horseradish-port wine demiglace
Kathy: Blackened Salmon & Blue Crab Almandine – with popcorn rice pilaf, green beans, toasted almond-lemon butter sauce
I’ve recently discovered Blue Crab and love it. But when I tasted Rich’s steak and that mushroom bread pudding, my salmon paled in comparison. The steak was delicious and I could have eaten a whole plateful of that mushroom bread pudding. Rich enjoyed it, too.
Wines:
Rich: Ravenswood Zinfandel
Kathy: Greg Norman Pinot Noir
Dessert:
We skipped dessert, as we often do when we have a starter.
We then went back to the room, packed, and got ready to check out the next morning. We were so tired, and this trip was a night longer than we usually stay. We were anxious to get home.
The next morning we ordered the same American breakfast from room service, and it was okay – the potatoes seemed a bit spicy for breakfast and they keep ordering the piece of broccoli with the breakfast, which we could definitely live without. But it was nice having a choice of pastry instead of toast, and both times we shared one breakfast and a full pot of coffee.
Final Thoughts: We’ve come to love DCA and the GC gives you such great access to it. We’ve also learned that, for us, we must have the park view since part of our fun is sitting on the balcony and watching the park activity. But on both stays, we noticed how tight the area around the GC feels. Disneyland does not have the expansiveness of WDW, obviously, and we do notice that. On our next stay, we may book the Disneyland Hotel, again, just for the space, but who knows? When it comes right down to it, we do love the GC.
We had a fabulous vintner’s dinner at Napa Rose last year, but we enjoyed the Napa Rose Lounge just as much – if not more because of the more pesonalized service. The outdoor patio and firepit was a great discovery. We also really love the vibe of Downtown Disney and the musicians who play there – we discovered a new one on this trip, David Wayne, and enjoyed playing his CDs last night sitting outside on our patio with firepit. It was like bringing a bit of Downtown Disney with us back home.
We were so happy to catch all of the DCA attractions, snacks stops, and restaurants we had missed before. We didn’t get to revisit a few of our favorite things, but having made 6 trips to Disneyland over the past 16 months, we really feel like we’re all caught up. We don’t know what’s next for us, but we’re ready for something different.
Halloween at the Grand Californian Day 4 Part 1
We previously picked up some “Candy Corn” and a package of 4 Rice Krispies Treats at the candy store in DCA (plus Minnie & Mickey Halloween bean bags) – our favorite candy store in all of Disneyland. So this morning’s breakfast was Rice Krispies Treat and coffee we made in the room and enjoyed sitting out on the balcony overlooking the park. We realized we must always book a park view room at the GC – it makes such a big difference to us. The carpet maintenance on the floor of our previous room actually worked out for our good because we were upgraded to a park view room while paying standard view prices.
By the way, the GC rooms do provide robes, which we wore several times during our stay. So after showering, we headed to the GC entrance to DCA and were so happy to see our CM friend, Chappy from Brooklyn, back on duty. After he scans in our APs, he greets us by name, “Good morning, Richard” and “Good morning, Kathy” (at least he didn’t call me Katherine). Anyway, we look forward to seeing Chappy when we enter DCA from the GC – another reason to stay on-site.
It was 9:30 and that meant that “Soarin” was open so we marched straight over that and directly onto the ride – we love this. Soarin at DCA is so fabulous because it was built especially for this area of the park called “Condor Flats.” Unfortunately, Soarin’ was retrofitted into Epcot and that whole inside line up the escalator, jamming that space is so claustrophobic to us – wish they had created an outside entrance. Anyway, if you love Soarin (and who doesn’t), you must make a trip to Disneyland just to experience it this way.
View into the Grizzly Peak area from Condor Flats with monorail track overhead and GC rooms in the background (love the play on words)
The entrance to Soarin Over California
This time we were on the far right top – still a very nice position to be in. We also noticed when we were in the center row that the left and right rows were actually ahead of us just a bit, situated closer to the screen.
Afterwards, we stopped in at Bakers’ Field Bakery – have been trying to fit this into our schedule from the first trip – and shared a cinnamon twist and each had a cappuccino.
Recreation of the California Zephyr – glory days of train travel out West
We love this spot in DCA – this is where we had the strawberry sundae at Burrrbank Ice Cream and this morning’s cinnamon twist at Baker’s Field Bakery. We love the play on names – I sometimes wonder how many WDW visitors recognize “Toluca Legs” at Studios.
But Bakersfield and I go way back – this was the breakfast stop halfway between my childhood home near Disneyland and my step dad’s hometown in the Central Valley, which we visited a couple of times a year and were greeted with hugs and served good old-fashioned farm fresh southern breakfasts during our stay. I even wrote a novel called “Breakfast in Bakersfield.” It hasn’t gone anywhere, but I’m stealing some of those scenes for my current work in progress.
Anyway, back to the report. We wandered around and took more pics of the Halloween decorations. Goofy gave Rich a high-5 (Pluto does that for him at WDW), they posed, and then I snapped the photo.
Rich and Goofy
Then we exited the park and popped into World of Disney where we picked up some outdoor Mickey dinner plates. We really wanted some matching wine glasses, but there weren’t any. We so miss the cute little store next to Earl of Sandwich at WDW’s Downtown Disney – can’t remember the name of it but are wondering if it’s still there with all of the changes.
We dropped off our purchases in our room, went back to the GC entrance to DCA – said hello to Chappy – and had some lunch. We were so excited to eat at Cocina Cucamonga’s new location with waterside dining. There wasn’t much of a crowd and the Latin CMs at the cash register located in an island area were discussing how they made homemade tamales making our mouths water, so we shared a plate of chicken tamales (they definitely tasted homemade) and each had a Dos XXs Amber – a great pairing!
Dining alfresco in the Pacific Wharf area – one of our favorite spots
After lunch, we stopped off at Rushin River Outfitters and picked up a Tiger Pillow for the kitties (although they’re pretty much ignoring it). We love this store, and always walk in and browse to see if we must buy something but this is the first time we did.
Makes you feel like you’re actually at the Russian River – as seen in “Soarin Over California”
We then went back to our home to rest up for our afternoon “Foot Ritual” appointment at the Spa.
Halloween at the Grand Californian Day 3 Part 2
We were loving the new room – it was in the exact location I’d pictured when we booked our park view room on a previous trip. Instead of a king bed, it had two queens but we kinda like that when we’re at Disney – nice to have an extra bed to put all your purchases.
We were overlooking the Grizzly Peak area of DCA and directly below was an outdoor patio with firepit just off Napa Rose Lounge. We’d seen chefs hanging out there on a previous trip and wondered about it. But this time we read about cigars under the stars on the patio and were excited to give it a try.
Earlier in our stay we had dropped in on Napa Rose and read the regular menu and then asked for the Chef’s weekly menu, but both seemed similar to the menu we had last year so we decided to order appetizers in the Napa Rose Lounge, a lovely place indeed. In fact, so lovely I could definitely live there. I’ve dreamed of living inside a Disney park before or even a Disney resort, but this is the first time I’ve wanted to live in a restaurant.
No pictures do it justice and, yes, we forgot to take pictures, but Napa Rose doesn’t seem like the kind of place where you take pictures. Unlike Disney World, it’s full of locals and the after-work crowd on week day nights. Okay, so maybe we were just too caught up in the joy of it all to snap some pics.
We were comfortably seated in two craftsman-style living room type chairs with a low bistro table – just right for a couple. We’re thinking we need a set like this for our dining room at home. And, believe me, the service was just as good – if not better – in the lounge rather than the restaurant. The same servers we had in the restaurant served us in the lounge and gave us the full treatment with description of each item. The reason I say the service may even be better in the lounge is that it was more personal and, lucky for us, it was a weeknight so it wasn’t that busy.
We shared these two appetizers:
Wood Fired Pizetta of the Season: Spicy Lamb Shank, Capers, and Olives
Hand Made “Silk Handkerchiefs” – with Basil Pesto, Sauteed Porcini Mushrooms, Sweet 100 Tomatoes, Arugula in a Duck Broth
They were both delicious and filling for us.
Rich had a glass of MacMurray Ranch Pinot Noir and I had the Francis Ford Coppola Syrah.
While we’ve had these wines before, I was so freshly impressed with mine. As soon as my nose hit it, I was in love.
The food was fabulous, the wine was amazing, and the service was awesome. Can we just move in here? And to make it all better, we asked about the patio and, just like that first time at Artist Point, we were served cigars and dessert out on the patio with the outdoor (gas) fire pit. It was a chilly this night, which made it just perfect!
For dessert, now this was incredible, we had:
Tahitian Vanilla Creme Brulee Tart – with marinated raspberries
Yum, yum, yum! It’s an amazing take on Creme Brulee – you bite into the tart and the creme brulee explodes in your mouth.
Rich was having a 12-year Macallan Scotch with his cigar, and I was going to have a late harvest wine, but they were out, so I had an Amaretto instead. And the way she balanced it on a container of hot water to keep it warm. Wonderful, wonderful, with just incredible service.
Later, we were serenaded by fireworks, and at one point, a large group travelling together from all over California joined us and we chatted for awhile. One fellow lived practically down the street from where we used to live in the San Francisco Bay Area.
We were happy that things had worked out the way they had – this was so much better than the baseball game and we thoroughly enjoyed sitting in the Lounge and the outside patio with firepit – the service was just incredible.
Our drink server who organized this whole adventure was the best. She came by after that crowd of people had joined us and was worried that they had ruined our evening. But we reassured her we were enjoying ourselves.
It was just one of those perfect evenings!
Halloween at the Grand Californian Day 3 Part 1
We woke up really tired and, I must admit, I was feeling rather cranky and I couldn’t shake it. One aggravation led to another, and we were both a bit annoyed with the GC. But we achieved resolution by mid-afternoon, leading to a wonderful evening.
To begin the day, we decided to order room service breakfast again – after yesterday’s success. But it was a bad sign when the phone rang and rang and nobody answered. So we hung up, and thought we’d try White Water Snacks for breakfast – especially since we had seen a picture of a yummy-looking biscuit thing from Deb of Allears’ visit to the GC.
White Water Snacks area at the GC
Breakfast at White Water Snacks
Breakfast was just as good as it looked and quite filling. We ate most of it, and then headed for Disneyland Park. We were anxious to take some pictures of the Halloween decorations during the day and to ride Haunted Mansion – Holiday version. BTW, we rode this for the first time last year and loved it even more this year. Too bad WDW doesn’t have this – it’s just so darn much fun!
Disneyland Entrance all Decked Out for Halloween
Main Street at Disneyland
Haunted Mansion Hearse All Halloweenized
Haunted Mansion Decked out for Halloween
After riding the Haunted Mansion, our next scheduled stop was Peter Pan – our two musts for today. Then we wandered back toward Main Street, via the Ariel area and ran into my CM step cousin once removed (grin), hugged and chatted for a few minutes. We then found our way to Main Street where we peeked into the Emporium but didn’t find anything that World of Disney didn’t have. With WoD just around the corner, we find we don’t shop at the Emporium as we once did since we get an AP discount at WoD.
We had tickets for the baseball game that night and we were hoping to relax the rest of the afternoon – by the pool and in the room. We did have a quick lunch out by the pool (shared a tuna sandwich and a bag of chips), but to make a long story short, relaxation was not meant to be today due to maintenance going on at the pool and in our wing of the resort. Eventually, we (and our neighbors) were moved to rooms where they were not ripping up the carpet. For us, it was a park view room just off the elevator – the best room we’d ever had at the GC. Woo hoo!
But by this time we were even more exhausted, so we skipped the baseball game even though we had already paid for our tickets, but, instead, had an amazing night at the Napa Rose Lounge and outdoor fire pit. Details in the next installment.
Halloween at the Grand Californian Day 2 Part 2
The first showing of Aladdin was at 12:10 – we kept missing this show on previous trips and were so hoping to see it on this trip. So after riding Monsters Inc we decided we’d kill some time at Toy Story. The 40-minute wait should be just about right. For the first time, I reached a decent score – at one time I was ahead of Rich (for the first time), but he passed me by. But I finally learned to shoot like crazy and even though my overall accuracy dropped, my overall score was higher. Woo hoo! Sore fingers and thumbs afterwards, though.
On a previous trip, we picked up Jessie, and this time, per Jessie’s request, we stopped off in the gift shop to get Woody. The same sweet, older gentleman was the CM who waited on us – love that guy!
We still had some time to kill so we stopped off at Burrrrbank Ice Cream in the California Zephyr “train” – another thing we’d wanted to do since the beginning but never had time before – and shared a Strawberry Sundae – YUM, YUM!
By the time we arrived at the Hyperion Theatre, the line was all the way around the side, and just as we got in line, they opened up the Mezzanine seating. We saw the Mezzanine people were allowed into the building first. We were wondering if we should get out our line in the hot sun, and enter the Mezzanine. But we didn’t and it worked out nicely for us. Although we were almost last in the building, the CMs found us seats in the 3rd row, center aisle – woo hoo!
This was a FABULOUS show – Broadway calibre – great cast and interesting CMs chatting with us before the show. The genie was hilarious and made little comments about twitter and iPhone – LOL!
The show was an hour long and so worth waiting for.
We had the best morning ever at DCA, and afterwards we decided to catch some lunch back at the GC and ended up back at Hearthstone Lounge – a favorite spot we discovered on our last trip. We ordered the “Robusto” Flatbread – Topped with Coriza de Bilbao, Roasted Fingerling Potatoes, Burrata Cheese and Romesco Sauce – and 2 Sangrias. The nice CM took our order but came back to report that no Sangria was available anywhere. No problem – the menu had several enticing FABs to choose from. Rich ordered some form of a Long Island Iced Tea and I couldn’t resist the Habanero Margarita - YUM, YUM, YUM! So yummy, we ordered another Habanero Margarita and shared it – and then went back to the room for a nap before going to Disneyland Park for the night.
We strategically planned our time of arrival – right after the parade ended – and we walked down Main Street, admiring the Halloween decorations. We were so excited to see some signs of fall.
We took our usual left turn at Adventureland, moseying into New Orleans Square and saw that Pirates (POTC) was a walk-on so we rode that. Later, we discovered this was our only chance to ride it, so we were glad we grabbed the opportunity when it came.
After POTC, the crowds were lining up for Fantasmic (showing twice) and we were saying how we must do Fantasmic at WDW because at least you have real seating and it’s not blocking the path.
The line to the Haunted Mansion (Holiday version) was huge and we knew we could do that another time when it wasn’t that busy, and by this time we were hungry for dinner so we stopped in at our favorite – Rancho del Zocalo – and we had:
Rich: Carne Asada & Red Chile Enchilada Platter – Succulent Beef cooked to perfection served with two Cheese Enchiladas.
Kathy: Soft Tacos Monterrey – “Fajita Style” Beef, Chicken, or Vegetables, topped with Cheese and served in Flour Tortillas.
We found our favorite table next to Big Thunder Mountain and enjoyed listening to the cheers, screams, and laughter while we ate.
We then strolled the back way past Big Thunder BBQ, through Fantasyland, and on to Toon Town to ride Roger Rabbit. I hadn’t ridden this ride since it first opened when I was there with my niece, and Rich had never ridden it. Roger Rabbit was a walk-on, and Toon Town was practically deserted. Toon Town closed right after we were finished walking around. On the way out, we checked out Minnie and Mickey’s houses but didn’t see any decorations, so we headed for the train.
The train took us back to the Main Gate, allowing us to avoid the crowds and give our feet a break. We thought about sitting on a park bench to watch the fireworks, but after living so close to WDW that we saw nightly fireworks and growing up hearing Disneyland fireworks every summer night, we decided to pass, and headed back to the hotel. We couldn’t avoid the fireworks, though, because we heard the big booms outside our room. Talk about deja vu.
