Our room at the hotel
View from room - see the Hollywood sign?
Early morning – up at 6 and on the road by 7 to make sure we got the car back to the LAX rental place by 9:30. We did better with traffic than we thought & got the vehicle dropped off about quarter til 9 and were back at the airport by 9am. I’d gotten conflicting info about where to meet Adventures by Disney & unfortunately, picked the wrong one. We were supposed to meet them at baggage claim at Terminal 7at noon; instead we were hanging out at the Northwest Terminal (2) until 12:30. I contacted AbD and after a couple of calls back & forth (and a shuttle bus to the correct terminal) we met Diana, one of our tour guides and were getting a towncar sent over to take us to the Hollywood Renaissance hotel about 1:20.
Our driver – Dennis, I think – was quite chatty, telling us about some of the celebrities he’d driven for over the past 5 years or so: John Travolta, Paris Hilton and Dennis Haysbert (the president from the first season of 24 & the AllState Insurance commercial guy). Considering the time of day, we did pretty well with traffic and were at the hotel a little after 2. Bell services took our luggage and we met Quinn (our other tour guide) and Jim (AbD tour operations manager) as well as Andrew, another Adventures by Disney manager, if I recall correctly. We chatted with them a bit, then Quinn gave us our keys & sent us up to our room. We also met Brad, who I’d been chatting with online prior to the trip.
Our room was on the 11 th floor (1136) – we were on the Highland street side of the hotel with a view of the Hollywood sign – we found out from our fellow tourgoers that most of them were on the same side of the building – nice touch! We had made sure to note on our tour reservation that we were celebrating our anniversary, so in addition to all the AbD goodies (a duffel bag, a collapsible nylon sack, hand-held fans, pens & such), we received a lovely fruit basket about 5 min after arriving in our room – how sweet! We hadn’t gotten lunch yet & were very hungry, so we headed across the street to the Disney Soda Shoppe for a quick bite. We ordered grilled cheeses & phosphates – I had lime, Scott had cherry. Service was quick, thanks to our server, James. We did a bit of looking around at the shop itself, as well.
|
Our room at the hotel |
View from room - see the Hollywood sign? |
The tour reception was at 4, so we got back to the room, freshened up & changed clothes, and rested just a bit before heading down to the Twist restaurant, where the hotel staff had set up a room for us. They set out a lovely selection of cheeses, crackers and veggies, as well as water & soda – there were about a dozen tables set up as well, with guest lists and a quick getting-to-know-you activity. The sales manager of the hotel and a couple of other staff members welcomed us & said they were looking forward to partnering with Adventures by Disney on this new tour. Nice touch.
We were joined at our table by Ray and Lucille, a retired couple from the Orlando area. They were annual passholders at WDW, but this was their first time out to California. Quinn and Diana, Jim and Andrew introduced themselves & talked a bit about their backgrounds, then asked each family to introduce themselves and say what they were looking forward to most. We had a fairly diverse mix of families – one family with an 8 year old and a pre-teen; another family with 2 teens and grandmother, a couple of moms & their young adult children, and several couples – 34 people total, I think. Everyone had at least been to WDW, and about 2/3 had also visited Disneyland previously; there were several California “locals”, but we also had folks from Atlanta, New York, Washington, Massachusetts and even New Hampshire! Needless to say, we were all big Disney fans and absolutely thrilled to be on the inaugural Backstage Magic tour.
Before heading over to dinner – each family got a photo in front of a sculpture in the lobby with a clapboard – the guides wrote in our last name & the date – very cute! We then walked up & over to the Travestere restaurant about 5, where we had a private banquet room overlooking an enclosed porch area – they day had warmed up to the lower 70’s, but there was a bit of a breeze & they eventually pulled the glass doors shut as the sun set. The meal started with buffet style starters – salad, bruchetta and the like. We sat with Alex and Haydee, and Ginny at one of the longer tables. Since it was Earth Day, each setting had a selection of favors collected from previous Disney observations of Earth day – a Jiminy Cricket-shaped pad of recycled paper, a Mickey Head pencil made of shredded dollar bills, stuff like that – very cute!
While we waited for our entrees (Scott had penne pasta and I tried the salmon), we had a Disney Quiz Show – they actually brought in a “contestant’s row” with microphones, buzzers and lights for 4 contestants at a time; Matt was our MC and was a great showman! Nate – (the 8 yr old) & his older sister Danyelle were one of the contestants in round one; Matt combined trivia questions with easy stuff “ Are you having a good time?” "Yes" "That's correct - here's 10 points!" to keep the scores pretty even throughout. Scott participated in Round 2 and won the round with a rendition of the “Mickey Mouse Club” theme song. He won an AbD hat that he wore throughout the rest of the tour.
We were on our own after dinner, so Scott and I walked around the complex a bit – the hotel, the Kodak Theater and a collection of stores & restaurants are all in basically the same building. It was getting a little chilly, so we called it an evening about 8. We did get a message from the front desk asking for a credit card; apparently 2 minibar charges were showing up… hmm... we hadn’t touched anything! Since there was also a personal message left on the phone when we arrived (for “Scatman”) we suspect that the room account hadn’t been totally cleared before we got checked in. We let Quinn know about it & they made sure it was cleared off our account.
Mileage: 5810 steps = only 2.92 miles. As we’d spent most of the day either in the airport, on the towncar or at the hotel/restaurant, I didn’t expect a very large number – it was kind of nice to not be on our feet the whole day!