Disneyland Spring 2012 Trip Report Pt 2
The store had some cool Studios items and a selection of other things. Sarah got a shirt and then we left for lunch, since we were starving.
The commissary/cafeteria on the lot is called the Buena Vista Café, and it was really amazing. Not only is the food all sustainable, healthy, and authentic, but it’s also incredibly reasonably priced. These are most definitely not Disney prices! I had a sandwich and Sarah had a flatbread, and both were absolutely amazing. We ate out on the patio, which didn’t necessarily offer great views, but allowed us views of the lot, which were cool to us. If you ever have the opportunity to visit The Walt Disney Studios, make sure to stop here for a meal. In fact, you might want to stop twice, as the food is great and I doubt you’ll get this much bang for your buck anywhere else in Burbank. Yet another reason to want to work there…
After we finished eating, it was time to make a quick stop at Legends Plaza to spend a bit of time there before leaving to beat rush hour traffic. This was another area I had read about (or the controversy surrounding this area) in DisneyWar, so I was pleased to see it, the Michael Eisner Building, and the Frank G. Wells Building.
As you can see, I went wild with the camera. I found out that we’d actually have to make another stop right around rush hour shortly after we arrived in Legends Plaza, so it turned out that I had plenty of time. This was fine by me, as the place was rife with photo ops!
Exploring Legends Plaza and reading all of the plaques was really great. I could have spent hours doing that. The real treat as a photographer was being able to get so close to Partners. As you probably know, I’m a big fan of the Partners statue at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom and in Disneyland, and I take a lot of photos of it. In the parks, the statue is raised and separated from guests by large flower beds. Most of the time, I like this as the flower beds make a great compositional elements.
That said, being able to get really close to it in Legends Plaza opened a lot of creative doors and allowed me to achieve photos I simply couldn’t in the parks, so I spent a lot of time going under over and around the statue. I’m sure some executives looking out their office windows wondered why some lunatic was lying on the ground taking a photo of the statue. But it was fun for me!
We ended up spending a couple hours just in Legends Plaza, and I could have spent even more time there! At some point, I definitely want to head back to the Studios to do some more exploring. After we were done, we got in the car, headed down the road a bit for another stop, and then got back on the road. Of course, we didn’t get back on the road for good until the height of rush hour, and we saw exactly how bad SoCal traffic can be. I think it took us nearly 3 hours to get back to Downtown Disney.
And the fun wasn’t over, we still had a beautiful night to enjoy in Disneyland!
There are four pages in this Disneyland trip report installment. Navigate to the next page below!
Even though its 3+ years later, I cried a little bit when Sarah’s Matterhorn Macaroon hit the ground.
What a sad day for THE BEST dessert ever.
I’m going to go light a candle…
Random and probably useless trivia but it looks like the chocolate frosting is ganache. Basically ganache is chocolate and cream in different ratios. Depending on the ratio you use it can be soft and used to fill cupcakes, candies, etc or it can be firm and used to top cakes and such. It’s delicious.
I love the photos which show both Partners & Sharing the Magic. I know people have different views on what Walt and Mickey are talking about but when I went on the Keys to the Kingdom tour, we were told the version that Walt is pointing towards the statue of Roy & Minnie and telling Mickey that whilst he won’t be around much longer, Mickey will always have family there. And I think that story seems even stronger when you see the two statues in such close proximity.
Isn’t Burbank, CA beautiful? The mountains are spectacular to look at and I love the neighborhoods and the beautiful homes. I live in Los Angeles and while I love it, I’d move to Burbank in a heartbeat. The Studios are beautiful and amazing. I love my visits there.
We went to Disneyland for the first time this year (and stayed with a friend about an hour away to the north both before and after) and we were definitely worried about the traffic. We did avoid rush hour for the most part (it wasn’t entirely possible with everything we wanted to do), but traffic was not the absolute nightmare I’d feared–it seemed about the same as DC to me (I’ve never been to Chicago so I can’t compare)–and much less stressful than NYC. The Studios sound great!
I’m so jealous of your Disney Studios tour. Whenever I think about relocating back to California, I can’t muster the will to picture living anywhere farther south than Lake Tahoe, but I would totally move to Glendale if I could get a job archiving for the ARL or something. I can deal with the LA traffic for that. (By the way, I think Chicago’s traffic is obscene compared to LA’s. So are all the tolls!)