Our FREE trip!! (well, sorta free...) Edited to add pics to some installments :)

[Keli]

Installment 1
Whoo Hoo! We’ve just got home from a fun, wonderful, and exciting trip to Disneyland. :cool1:
Wow, living in KY I never expected to go to Disneyland. Disney World, yes, we’ve been on a couple of trips to the world and thoroughly enjoyed them both.

But Disneyland is across the country and that would add substantially to the travel costs. Seemed silly to spend the extra money when the bigger and better version was less than half as far away. :upsidedow Right? Nope, now that I have experienced Disneyland I cannot agree (arguing with myself, is that a symptom of anything?…).

This trip was out of my hands from the very beginning. Not a comfortable feeling for a trip-planning control freak like myself. :eek: I don’t feel the need to control everything in life but when it comes to our vacations, especially our Disney ones, well, I go commando. I have every minute planned out, I have a plan to cover every possible eventuality, every special moment is carefully constructed, and everything must be perfect, and more importantly, everything must be planned.

But this trip just appeared before us at practically the last minute, lol. In a minute I’ll explained how that happened but first let me introduce you to the cast of this trip report:
Me, 40-something lover of disney :lovestruc
Dh, 40-something lover of fun and vacation food wherever it is found pirate:
Dd, Ashli, 23yrs old, big fan of Disney :hippie:
Matt, long time boyfriend to our dd, 26 yrs old, never been to Disney :cool2:
Aunt D, 30’s, a CA transplant who misses home (KY) :surfweb:
Uncle K, 30’s a CA transplant who misses home but loves his job in CA :)
Ella-Bella, dn, 3 yrs old, fearless (mostly) and beautiful (totally!) princess:

Our story begins with an urgent call from my mother…
“Honey, I think Ashli won a trip to Disneyworld but I think I blew it for her!” Mom sounded urgent and a little upset on the phone that morning.

I had no idea what she was talking about but it turns out that a local radio station held a drawing for a trip to Disneyland (mom got that part wrong, lol) and Ashli called in and entered herself. Then she had her boyfriend Matt call in and enter. And then she called back in and entered her Grandmother.

The radio station called my mom (Ashli’s Grandma) because she had won! But Ashli neglected to tell my mom anything about this contest. Nothing new here, Ashli wins contests constantly and she enters them all the time. She sporadically remembers to tell her Grandma about various contests. Usually only when she wins something and wants to let her Grandma know that when the cd, or book, or poster, coffee mug or whatever comes in the mail it’s actually for Ashli.

Lest you believe something nefarious is going on here, Ashli also enters in her own name but most contests limit you to one entry per household so Grandma is second best since she’s in a different household but she’ll give whatever prize is won to her beloved Granddaughter.

But mom thought this call was from some ner’do-well folks out to bilk a poor, unfortunate old lady out of her money. So they hadn’t finished congratulating her when she cuts to the chase. “So how much is this ‘prize’ gonna cost me?”

Mom said the woman on the phone seemed taken aback and explained it was a real prize and it wouldn’t cost her anything. Right about then mom realizes this is something that Ashli has done and so she gives the station Ashli’s cell phone number and they promise to call her.

While mom is explaining to me what happened I hear Ashli talking on her phone in her bedroom in an excited, happy voice. Clearly the radio station had called and I am sure they felt gratified by the excitement Ashli displayed at learning she’d won. It was certainly much more ‘radio worthy’. Although I heard Ashli’s excited “I’m going to Disneyland!” on the radio more than once, they never did play my mom’s “So how much is this ‘prize’ gonna cost me?”. Go figure.

So that is the start of our trip…A free trip to Disneyland for four people, it consisted of 4 plane tickets, two nights at DLH, and 4 three day hopper passes for Disneyland and California Adventure.

Of course two nights wasn’t enough time so we added a couple of days to the trip (here's where the free ends, lol) but I tell you more about that….in installment 2!

[spokanemom]

Wow! How cool to have won a prize like that, Disneyland no less! I anxiously await your next installment!popcorn::

[Boston Tea Party]

How exciting! I can't wait to hear more! :goodvibes

[disneyfanatic4]

That is so exciting. I wish I was that lucky. Looking forward to hearing about your trip.

[mt mommy]

WOW, lucky you!! Can't wait to hear more!

[klj27]

I am from Ohio and planning our first trip all the way to DL too!

[Keli]

Ok, I totally lied at the end of installment 1. I thought I’d get to adding to the length of our trip in this installment but after reading it I realized I don’t get there until installment 3. Opps! :confused3

I was just a little afraid that dd would pick someone besides her Disney lovin’ Mama to go with her on this trip. I was holding my breath until I heard her tell the radio station “Oh I already know who I’m taking, My mom LOVES Disney so I have to take her”. Whew! :goodvibes

Ashli wanted to take this trip ASAP. She was dying to see Mickey again and Disneyland for the first time. The sponsor’s paperwork said the trip needed to be planned 45 days out.
That was perfect because 45 days would put us there in a slow period before spring breaks started for everyone. :woohoo:
But there was one flaw to the plan and that was how were we all going to get time off work (and school for Matt and Ashli) with that short a notice? Our HR departments must be filled with secret Disney fans because I couldn’t believe it but it worked out for all of us.

Since I work for a financial company that owns a lot of tax preparer franchises it was shocking that I managed to get a week off of work during peak in tax season. :scared1:
Dh usually gets whatever vacation time he wants as long as he asks for it a YEAR in advance (he has seniority so when the calendar comes around for vacation he’s one of the first to get it).
To be able to take time off with a little over a month’s notice didn’t seem very likely. And yet, his employer said yes! :yay: Not so many folks want to take the first week of February off apparently and they could spare him. Matt and Ashli were both able to work things out and we had a green light! :cool1:

In my blue haze of happiness :) I didn’t even consider the fact that I would be covered up and I do mean covered up with work in the weeks before the vacation. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem because I would have had all the details worked out months prior to the vacation anyway.
I usually spend the last few weeks wearing out my planner while I obsessively read it and sit and dream about all we are going to do. And make decisions like which color bucket will I pick on the dumbo ride. If I’m up to par I’ll also know what day and what time of day (give or take 5 minutes or so) I will be in the said bucket, lol.

Ok, I’m probably not as bad as that but my family tells it like I am so much that I’m starting to believe their lies and propaganda. :lmao: They say all that stuff to our friends just to gain sympathy because they both think that laying beside the pool on a sunny afternoon WHILE you have tickets to the parks burning in your pocket is perfectly acceptable. Even if the park is closing early because it’s a weekday. :confused3
Even if you only spent three hours there that morning because everyone slept past Mickey’s phone call encouraging us to get up and at ‘em. You guys see what I’m up against? :lmao:

But this trip shaped up much differently. Two factors going on here and they are interrelated. First we didn’t have much time to plan anything. Second, in the last year I’ve started feeling bad. Really, really bad. :sick:
All my hair started falling out :scared1: , couldn’t seem to function at nearly the level I was used to moving. Not that I ever was particularly energetic, except during vacations, lol, but now it was unbelievably bad. Turns out it was a thyroid problem. Apparently my thyroid decided not to work properly and gave me no notification. :rolleyes:

I’ve been on meds for several weeks now but they are still increasing the dose each time my thyroid function is checked. I don’t feel like myself yet but my hair has started coming back and staying a while and overall I am doing much better.
Which is good. Ashli really doesn’t need TWO bald parents. Might be hard to explain to her friends. :rotfl:

So I didn’t research this trip like normal. None of us had ever been to Disneyland and yet I had not memorized the park layouts, created fool-proof touring schedules, or even made PS’s except one for Goofy’s Kitchen.

I did do some research but honestly, it was pitiful. And yet, we managed to have a fantastic time. And because it was a slow time frame, had some rainy weather and whatnot, we really didn’t suffer from the lack of planning at all.

Hang in there...I've got a lot more to tell!

[TiggerandTink]

hanging on for more ;)

[jlmarr]

Of course two nights wasn’t enough time so we added a couple of days to the trip (here's where the free ends, lol) ... Sorry to break it to you, but you'll need to pay taxes on your contest prize winnings. Been there, done that. But even after taxes it's still a "deep discount". ;)

[Keli]

Sorry to break it to you, but you'll need to pay taxes on your contest prize winnings. Been there, done that. But even after taxes it's still a "deep discount". ;)

Oh yes, I haven't forgotten the taxes. We will definitely owe a little more to uncle sam at the end of the year.

[Keli]

Installment 3

Ashli and I both felt that flying all the way to CA to see Mickey merited more than two nights. ::yes:: So we talked with our Disney travel agent (Cheryl, a wonderful person, she was incredibly helpful, as was Gaylen, the agent who helped us out when Cheryl wasn’t at her desk).
We were staying at the Disneyland Hotel but unfortunately they couldn’t offer us the additional time we wanted because they were full :sad1: (Google had a company thing going that weekend and filled it up!) so we decided to stay offsite two more nights.
I chose the Desert Inn because of things I had read about it on this board. ::yes:: I liked the walking distance best because we wouldn’t have any transportation while we were down there.

We left for the trip early, early on a Saturday morning. At 3:00am our alarm went off. Dh had went to bed at about 10:00pm, I hit the hay at about midnight but I know for certain that our dd wasn’t in bed before 2:00am.

That kid kills me! She must have the unspoken rule of trying to not sleep at any point during the night on a vacation (although she’s fine with mornings! Lol) and that includes the night before we leave.
I watched her select the clothes for the trip on Tuesday, I watched her wash and dry anything dirty on Thursday. All she needed to do was throw them in a suitcase with a few toiletries and she’d be good.
And yet, it’s Friday night and past 10:00pm when she first decided to put something in a suitcase. And then we discover a problem.
I have only one set of luggage. I’ve had it for years. Ashli is fully aware of this fact. But when she comes in on Friday to pack the first thing she says to me is “Where is your pullman?”. It just so happens that my Pullman is currently full of clothes for our trip. My clothes. Dh’s clothes. No room for Ashli’s clothes.
As a matter of fact, my large suitcase is also full of my clothes, dh’s clothes, and no room for Ashli’s clothes. When I inform Ashli of this she says “But I always take your suitcase when I go on trips”.
I had to love this logic. Yes, she does always use my luggage when she goes on trips. That’s because we haven’t been on a vacation together in a couple of YEARS. We aren’t using them at the same time. But this time we are together, therefore I need my luggage.
Ashli called Matt and he had an extra bag that she could use. It was a large bag, big enough for everything she wanted to take minus the carryon she was bringing. BUT it didn’t have wheels.
Someone was going to have to heft that thing through the airports more than once. Her heavy carryon didn’t have wheels either. Someone was going to have to heft that through the airports and also cram it in the overheads. I vowed to make certain that someone wasn’t me, lol.

So the alarm goes off at 3:00am. You’d think we’d be slow moving since we were all so tired but we were just too excited about Disneyland. We were up, suitcases crammed in the trunk, and on the road by 3:27am (I looked at the time, the first of many obsessive time checks until we got there).
We stopped by Matt’s place and picked him up. Since my car is a little Nissan and the trunk was already full he had to hold his luggage on his lap and put his backpack between him and Ashli on the seat. They looked pretty cramped back there but Ashli was so excited I doubt she minded. And Matt was so nervous that I doubt he noticed.

About Matt, well there’s a whole side story there. Matthew is my dd’s long time boyfriend. They’ve been dating nearly four years. With two small breaks when they ‘broke up’ but still acted like they were dating until they made it official and were back dating again, lol. Ah, the trauma of romance!

Anyway, Matt had come and spoke to dh and I in November and told us he intended to ask Ashli to marry him. Since we like him very much and feel like he will be a good husband to our dd we were pleased.
He said he intended to ask her a couple weeks before Christmas. But then the trip came up and he decided that would be the perfect place to propose (He was very right IMHO).

Matt knows how Ashli has always loved Disney. He’s heard about our trips there and about how Ashli thought she looked just like sleeping beauty in her pink satin dress when she was 5-6yrs old. She even made us call her Aurora before she would answer for a little while, lol.

Anyway he started communicating with our Disney travel agent, Cheryl, about making this special. Because this was such a last minute trip it was very hard to bring it all together. Disney has a lot of rules on what is, and what isn’t allowed, even when marriage proposals are involved. Honestly, we understood those rules.
One of the things Matt wanted to do was dress as Prince Phillip and propose to Ashli in front of the castle. That got a big no. And I could see why. Ashli would have been pretty upset herself at 5 or 6 yrs old if she had seen Prince Phillip proposing to anyone besides sleeping beauty.
There was a lot of calling back and forth, lots of suggestions from both sides, consultations with the Disney ‘dream team’ (truly a dream team, very nice folks!).

Because of this Matt didn’t have a final ok on anything yet the morning that we were leaving. So he was very nervous. And, truthfully, I think he would have been very nervous anyway. Matt doesn’t make decisions fast, he thinks about them long and hard (dd is his counterpart, she decides fast and lives much more ‘in the moment’). Maybe he was only worried about the logistics of pulling off the perfect proposal, I couldn’t tell for sure...

More in installment 4!

[JohnsPrincess]

Oh my gosh! You can't stop there!! MoreMoreMore!!!!! :surfweb:

[kellymom]

I am waiting as well!!! Can't wait to hear the rest.

[tinkermell]

Are you kidding?? :confused:











You left us hanging!:sad2:











More please!!! :cool1:

[actionvaughn]

Me too! I'm loving the start already!

[Keli]

Installment 4

After picking Matt up we head over to my dh’s parent’s home. MIL and FIL were not only going to drive us to the airport and then also come pick us up after our trip but they were also going to dog-sit our two golden retrievers. :lovestruc
We owe them super big-time when their vacation rolls around this summer, lol! :scared1:

By the time we left for the airport my excitement was waning enough that I was beginning to have trouble staying awake. I nodded off several times in-between chats with my MIL. I pretty sure she realized this since I woke myself up snoring three times. ;) She graciously acted as if nothing had happened although I could hear smothered laughter coming from the backseat where Ashli and Matt were sitting.

At the airport we only needed to check our luggage since I had already printed our boarding passes at home.
We’re standing there together, we’ve already tagged some of the bags when Matt steps to my side and whispers “I’ve got Ashli’s ring in my bag, do you think it will be ok?” He was referring to the suitcase he was getting ready to check! :scared1:
I whispered back that someone would steal it and he needed to keep it in his backpack. So Matt unlocks his suitcase and fishes around for the velvet box.
During the first part of this exchange Ashli is busy with luggage and didn’t notice anything but after a minute she turns to Matt and says “What are you doing honey?”
I have to laugh at Ashli’s version of events at this point. Apparently this is when Ashli first gets a clue that something is up with this trip. According to Ashli, I jumped in between her and Matt from a few feet away, threw my arms out wide to hide Matt and his suitcase, and said a fierce “Matthew has to get something out of his suitcase, go help your dad!”. :rotfl:
I’d like to think I was a lot more suave with the whole thing but I have to admit there is an element of truth to her version. I was caught off guard and I couldn’t think of any thing to say except “Go help your dad”. (Dh was standing right next to her and had no obvious need of help but it was the best I could come up with! :confused3 ) However, I would like it known here and now that I did NOT jump in and throw my arms wide, that is pure embellishment on Ashli’s part. More or less.

After adverting that near disaster we head over to security and I had another little scare. :lmao: In my efforts to distract Ashli while Matt was getting the ring I didn’t notice where he put it. I kept worrying that he had slipped it into his pocket instead of his backpack because he really did move fast.

I got even more worried when Ashli goes through security with no problem, dh goes through with no problem, I have no problems, but Matt is causing the metal detector to go off to beat the band. :eek:

I tell dh to distract Ashli because I can see they are going to have Matt empty his pockets. Of course Matt didn’t slip the ring in his pocket and I was worried for nothing but dh did manage to make Ashli think he was having an issue with his laptop going through the scanner.

A minute later she tells me “Mom, I’ve never seen Dad freak out over nothing like that before, he must be nervous about the flight”. :lmao: It’s just too funny because my dh doesn’t get nervous about stuff like that and he couldn’t have been more relaxed. He’s just a better actor than I am by a long stretch, lol.
http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd156/dkamiller/100_2327.jpg
Ashli and Matt waiting around for our time to board
http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd156/dkamiller/100_2341.jpg
Ashli and dh
Thankfully at this point we are sitting around the boarding area for our flight and the most I have to worry about is finding something to eat since I’d taken my thyroid medication.

Here’s where I have my encounter with a caffeine-crazed-business-traveler-man. I found a place that sold breakfast stuff and I got in line. The guy in front of me was just way too wired or something.

He looked like your average business traveler but he went all crazy when the counter-server person starting making his food. He said he wanted a breakfast burrito with egg, cheese and a little sausage. She flips open a tortilla, puts in some egg, cheese, and starts to put in the sausage when he yells “NO, I said I wanted a little sausage!” She’d only put a small amount on there and she looked pretty startled. Then the guy throws up his hands, twirls around and stomps off in an angry cloud.
I looked at the clerk and shrugged “He said he wanted a little sausage”.

We were allowed to board our flight on time. Which was good. Except my dh was no where to be found because he’s still exploring the airport. But then before I can get worried he is there and we are soon in our seats near the tail of the plane (that’s what you get when you book a busy flight so close to the trip, lol!).

We had a layover at DFW. That’s nice airport, IMHO. Stuff to look at and do and yet not hard to navigate.

Then we arrived at John Wayne airport on time. And since we gained two hours by moving westward it’s only 1:30pm. Whoo Hoo! :cool1: We are almost there. Our excitement is building. We get our luggage. About this time I realize that Matthew is trying to sneak in a call to Cheryl, our Disney travel agent to see what has been worked out.
We search out a bathroom and Matt calls while Ashli is in there. No progress yet but she says she will call him back that evening from home.

More to come….

[ChicagoMommy2Two]

I'm hooked!!!

[MotoXPrincess99]

I can't wait to read more.

[LauraAnn630]

Waiting for next installment!:)

[MomBoyd]

:surfweb: popcorn::

[lexmas]

Subbing, how exciting! DH proposed to me in Disneyworld, so I'm going to be a sucker for your story! Love it so far!

[Disney owl]

looking forward to reading more

[Pooh_Friend#1]

I can't stand the wait, I want to know more!!!!

[PrincessTrisha]

Very interesting...can't wait to hear more....:goodvibes

[MAGICFOR2]

I'm subbing - I love a good romance story!:love:

[wendy darling]

I am enjoying your TP!!! Please post soon, I can't wait to see what happens :)

[Keli]

Installment 5

I checked my purse (um, I mean my backpack, which is what I called it at all times so that I could talk my dh into carrying it when I got too tired, lol :lmao: ) for our vouchers for the shuttle to the Disneyland Hotel. There they were, safe and sound, so we marched out of the airport and right over to the Disney shuttle service.
The woman at the little kiosk was reading something as I walked up. It was so odd because she never looked at me. I finally just volunteered that we had vouchers for the shuttle and asked her if she could she tell me when it would arrive next. “Fifteen minutes, wait by the sign” was her reply.
So we did. And we were the only ones that were doing that. We all took heart that had to be a sign that the parks were going to be empty too! Whoo Hoo! Our excitement was building. :yay:
But secretly I was just so excited to be in CA for the first time. It made me want to stomp my feet a time or two just to make my imprint there! Such a beautiful area, and the weather was wonderful!
Our shuttle pulled up and I walked up to talk to the driver. He said he would wait to board the shuttle for fifteen minutes in case someone else showed up. He seemed surprised when I said “Ok, sounds good” and smiled. I got the feeling that the shuttle crew has to put up with a lot of crabby travelers.

But our crew was anything but crabby, we were all jazzed about the trip in general (Matt seemed to have shaken off his case of the nerves) and talking about all the fun we were going to be having in the next few days.

My dh called his brother, K, who lives in CA to let him know we were at the airport. K and his wife D and their precious, beautiful, smart, sweet, little girl, Ella-Bella (ok, actually her name is Ellesyn) moved to CA a year ago and we hate it. But they are reasonably happy (they’d be very happy except they miss family) and K loves his job. D, seems to like her job pretty well too so I’m afraid that you CA folks will be blessed with their presence a lot longer that I would like. You lucky dogs!
K and D live about two hours from Anaheim so they’ve decided to drive up there and for the weekend and meet us and spend some time at Disney (a first for Ella! princess: ).

Our shuttle driver signals he’s ready so we walk over with our stuff and he loads it in the cargo area and we board the bus. We were the only passengers so we all sat in the front seats (more foot room there). They had screens up so I hoped we’d get to see something about Disney but the driver didn’t turn it on. He chatted with us most of the way to the hotel though and it was a pleasant ride. I took a few pics because I was just too excited not to, lol.
http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd156/dkamiller/100_2349.jpg
And then we turned into the Disneyland Hotel Drive. The hotel is beautiful. Very impressive. And I loved the giant Mickey statue. I snapped a pic of it right then but a few days later we posed in front of it for a couple more shots.
http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd156/dkamiller/100_2599.jpg
Yes, they thought they were hilarious...
Our arrival day was set to be a day of travel and then relaxing around the hotel and visiting downtown Disney and finally eating at Goofy’s Kitchen. We wouldn’t be visiting any parks until the next morning.

Check-in was a breeze. I had told our travel agent that our arrival day was dh’s birthday. They had signed pic of Mickey and gang and a birthday pin for him. And they had first time visitor pins for all of us! (Our travel agent must have told them that part)
Our room was ready. We were on the eighth floor of the Dream tower, overlooking the pool. It was a great room! Everything was just so perfect. And the view of the pool was amazing. The theme for the pool is Peter Pan and although it was too cold for us to swim while we were there (but not some of the other guests! They were swimming in the pool too, not just enjoying the Jacuzzi) we enjoyed walking around it and looking at it from our room.
http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd156/dkamiller/100_2363.jpg
Doesn't the pool just look too cool?
We were all hungry by the time we got to our room since no one had eaten since early in the morning at the airport. So we put all our stuff in the room and decided to take stroll through the hotel and find some food. We’d found a menu for the different restaurants laying on the desk and dh had already decided he wanted some nachos before we’d walked out the door, lol.

This is when I first realized that a birthday pin will generate a lot of comments from cast members. My dh balked at first when I asked him if he wanted to wear it but then relented. I think he felt just a little silly but at the same time he wanted to get into a fun and relaxed vacation mode because as soon as dd said “Come on dad, it’s your birthday!” He smiled and put it on. Then the rest of us put on our first visit pins too. Properly attired we were ready to dive into the Disneyland experience.

And I think every single cast member we passed called out a cheerful “Happy Birthday David!” Dh must have grinned and said ‘thank you’ 5 or 6 times in response before we even walked out of the dreams tower.

Ashli and Matt were like little puppies in their excitement. They were running a head of us and calling back comments about how neat this was or that. They both said they’d give the pool a whirl (although Matt looked a little doubtful before Ashli convinced him it would be great). I did notice that they were always going to swim ‘later’ and I’m pretty sure Matt was thankful that Ashli didn’t try to drag him into the water. :rolleyes1 Although a lot warmer than home it was still cool to be in an unheated outdoor pool.

We walked around a bit and then ordered our nachos from Crocs Bits 'n' Bites. We sat at a nearby table to wait. There wasn’t anyone sitting at any of the tables so we had our pick. A waitress from The Lost Bar walked up and started to talk to us and that’s when we realized we were sitting at an outdoor table that belonged to The Lost Bar rather than to Crocs Bits 'n' Bites. Opps! The waitress was very nice and told us to stay even though we weren’t ordering anything from the bar. But as soon as our nachos were ready we went ahead and headed back to our room to eat them because no one had grabbed jackets and it was a little too cool to sit in the shade without them.

Ash and Matt decided to go out to explore the Hotel and Downtown Disney while I set up the laptop and did some research for the next day. Dh laid down to rest but I kept talking to him about all the exciting stuff we were going to see and do and I’m not sure he even closed his eyes, lol.
Dh called his brother K and talked to him for a few minutes. K and family were at Disneyland right then and having a blast. Ella loved every character, even those that weren’t a beloved princess.

Normally I would never need to do research while on vacation. I would have had everything so fully researched that I wouldn’t have felt the need to check out anything while actually on the trip. BUT I had researched nothing, the only thing I had was a plan for early morning entry that I’d put together from reading threads on the DIS.
The only PS we had was for that evening at Goofy’s Kitchen with K, D, and Ella. Otherwise we were going to wing it. Just the thought of it left me feeling a little shaky, lol.

K, D, and Ella bounced into our room along with Ashli and Matt (they ran into each other in Downtown Disney). Well, everyone else walked Ella definitely bounced into our room. :tigger: Full of smiles, giggles, and hugs.

She told us all about Disneyland and the princess’ in-between all of the talking and hugging the adults were doing.
We spent a little while catching up with each other and then got ready for dinner at Goofy’s kitchen and walked over. Our PS was for 7:20pm.

Goofy’s kitchen was a blast! Even though it wasn’t a busy time of the year Goofy’s kitchen was still pretty full. We were on time for our PS but we waited about 15-20 minutes for a table because they were so busy. I can’t remember how long they said we would have at our table (2 hours?) but it did surprise me that they have a time limit. I do know that however long it was I thought to myself that we’d never need anywhere near that long to eat and visit with the characters.
http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd156/dkamiller/100_2388.jpg
Ashli and Matt with Goofy
http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd156/dkamiller/100_2387.jpg
Ella and Goofy having a good time
http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd156/dkamiller/100_2392.jpg
Ashli and Ella with Aladdin
http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd156/dkamiller/100_2417.jpg
I have no idea what Ashli was doing but Chip (or is that Dale?) got down on the floor
first and kept motioning for Ashli to join him so she did, Gotta wonder about that kid...
Well I surprised myself, lol and I now understand having a time limit. :rotfl: We probably took every minute they gave us (although no one ever mentioned anything after we were seated). The food was good and we all enjoyed it, we probably made a dozen trips to the bar that evening. (Ok, not a dozen but quite a few!)

We were all talking and laughing and Ella was so excited about all the characters. We saw Goofy (of course!), Pluto, Minnie, Chip, Dale, Alice, Aladdin. Ella liked them all but she cracked me up when Pluto was signing her autograph book because he lifts it very high, over his nose, to sign it. Ella was staring up at him and then she reached up and touched his tongue. pluto: You could see she was amazed at it’s hard surface because she looked around and then reached up and touched it again. :lmao:

After dinner we walked towards downtown Disney and stopped to watch the fireworks coming from Disneyland. They were beautiful and seemed to last a long time. We started to walk through downtown Disney but we realized everything was closing or closed so we turned back towards the hotel. Uncle David (dh) put Ella on his shoulders and they walked all through the Peter Pan pool area. Ella wanted to jump right in, clothes and all. She kept saying "Uncle David take me over there!" until they had explored every nook and cranny.

I was pretty beat by this time and I think everyone else felt the same way. So we all headed to our rooms. It wasn’t too much later and the lights were out and everyone was sleeping. I set up a wake up call for 7:00am but I was pretty sure I’d have a hard time getting everyone up and at ‘em that early, lol. :eek:

[klj27]

Great update! I can't wait to see some of your pics.

[Boston Tea Party]

More more more! :goodvibes

[kjh73]

Great trip report....I recently won trip to Disney as well, from Minute Maid, we were able to pick WDW or DL, we picked WDW, since my dad had just taken my family to DL. Can't wait to hear more!

[MAGICFOR2]

Fun update! I am so excited to hear about DLH and GK, 'cuz that's what we are doing the end of June! I would love to see some pics....PLZ?

[Ferry Joy]

OMG I am really enjoying your trip report. There is so much going on!
Will there be pictures??????pixiedust:

[TiggerandTink]

What a great trip report! I can't wait for more. Sounds like your whole crew is excited and having fun!

[lexmas]

Sounds like you had a good time at Goofy's Kitchen, we're thinking about doing it ourselves when we go this year. I was surprised about the time limit when we did Minnie and Friends in November too! But like you, they never said anything to us once we sat down.

I'm with everyone else, hoping for pictures!

Can't wait to hear more, I'm loving it!

[Pooh_Friend#1]

Goofy's kitchen sounded like a lot of fun.

[mindylovesmickey]

I can't wait for the next installment!! But, I'm surprised no one told you that the Neverland Pool is heated. Dh and dd were down there last week on one of the cold, rainy days and it's definitely not as hot as the jacuzzi, but it is heated.

[Boston Tea Party]

I came back hoping to find more. :(

Maybe soon? :goodvibes

[Pooh_Friend#1]

I came back hoping to find more. :(

Maybe soon? :goodvibes
Me too!!!! :goodvibes

[Keli]

I am so sorry it's taken me so long to write this trip report. I've been working a lot and I also caught the flu which wiped me out for a bit. But I'm up and running now and not working too much so I should finish it up a lot faster.
Thanks for hanging in there!

[Keli]

Installment 6--Sunday Morning, First Day in the Parks for us!:dance3:

The next morning I woke up with the wake up call. But it didn’t appear that anyone else could hear the fairly loud ringing. Even though I let it ring twice, lol. So Mickey’s cheerful greeting was for my ears alone. I got up and got my shower and came out and turned the tv on. By then my dh was stirring and he hit the shower right after I did.
And the magic of Disney must have been working because, lo and behold, Miss Ashli was soon up and going. :hippie: Wow! I didn’t really have to prompt her much and it became obvious there was a direct correlation between her state of wakefulness and her excitement level. Because she and Matt were moving faster than just walking, a little skip in their step, before we even reached the elevator. I could tell it was going to be a fun day. And I was right.

Matt, dh and I had a little discussion when Ashli was in the shower. All along, Sunday night was the time Matt had in mind to propose. But he still hadn’t received final approval from the dream team for any of his proposal ideas. Our travel agent was supposed to contact him on Sat. but she had not and she wasn’t answering his calls on the work-cell number she’d given him either.
He was debating whether to keep trying to coordinate anything with the dream team or to just find a special place himself and propose. I could tell he really wanted to do something different so I asked him if there was something special about Sunday night or would Monday night do just as well.
He said no but mentioned that Ashli’s Aunt D and Uncle D wouldn’t be with us on Monday. Although he did want them to be there (because he felt Ashli would like that) he decided to wait until Monday and see what he could work out.

D, K, and Ella weren’t going to meet up with us until about 10:30 or 11:00am because they figured the day before had probably wiped little Ella out and they wanted to make sure she had plenty of rest before tackling another Disney park.
We walked through downtown Disney looking for a good place to eat breakfast. We stopped at La Brea Bakery Café to eat breakfast. I tried to warn Matt about the prices of everything before we left.
One of the things Dh and I like best about Matt is that he is careful with his money. He always lives within his means. As a poor college student putting himself through school his current means are pretty slender. He saved everything he could for this trip and set himself a budget. (This trip was also much more expensive for him since he purchased a beautiful engagement ring right before we left, lol)
I told dh that there was no way I could eat a big breakfast that early, especially since I planned on leaving lots of room for snacks throughout the day. We decided to share one.
Ashli said something like “Me too” and looked at Matt and asked him if he wanted to share one too.
I wanted to laugh so bad when he gave Ashli a casual ‘sure’. His eyes were giving him away, you could tell he thought the prices were too high. And knowing Matt he was probably trying to mentally calculate whether he’d budgeted enough money for food for the rest of the week.:rotfl:
After breakfast we walked over to CA Adventure at opening. We had let D and K decide which park we would visit the night before since it was their last day. We could have run over to Disneyland for a couple of hours before D & K came and then go to CA Adventure and meet them but we decided to just make it a CA Adventure day.

It was cloudy and damp with a misty rain as we entered the park. And it seemed like we were the only ones entering the park because what few people that were around the entrances seemed to be headed to Disneyland. I bet there wasn’t more than two hundred people standing in the area between the two parks when we walked through security. Considering how large that area is it felt almost empty.

I made everyone pick up three or four maps because I lose them constantly. And the only place you can get one (that I know of, anyway) is at the park entrance. I hate that.

We turned right and came right up on Soarin’. I was nervous about this ride because I tend to get motion sickness pretty easily. Especially on rides with a big screen. I got SO sick from riding Back to the Future years ago. I had to keep stopping to find places to, um, empty my stomach, that whole day. It was incredibly miserable. I was not eager to repeat that experience. But I had asked about Soarin’ on the DIS and everyone’s replies made me feel like I could probably handle it and even if I did get sick it wouldn’t be a repeat of BTTF.

So when we saw that there was NO ONE in line we headed in. We walked straight to the doors you enter to get on the ride. We waited there for about 3-4 minutes and then the door opened and we went in and found seats on the second row, middle of the row. Great seats, great ride. I mean really great ride. I loved it! So did Ashli and Matt. But dh got slightly sick to his stomach! I had to laugh, the man can handle everything in the world but that ride did get to him a little.

We walked off the ride and shopped in the gift shop a little while and then headed to our right. We passed the kiddie play area. The only way I kept Ashli and Matt from going in and wasting our precious ‘empty park’ time was to promise them we’d come back when Ella was with us. You’d have thought those two were three years old themselves, lol.

We just started riding every ride we came to that we thought we’d like. For Ashli and Matt that was every ride we came to, lol. I was a little more selective since I get sick on some rides. We all rode Mulholland Madness and then dh, Ashli and Matt rode Maliboomer while I took pics,
http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd156/dkamiller/100_2433.jpg
See? I took Pics!
then we all rode the Sun Wheel. That was a mistake. A huge mistake! I can usually handle ferris wheels, they don’t bother me so I eagerly hopped on. And when they picked one of the cars that roll back and forth I didn’t think anything about it. I was shocked at how sick I got on that ride. It was everything I could do not to throw up right there and then. Poor Matt got plenty nervous for a few minutes because he sat directly across from me. He took one look and yelled “Quick, Ashli, trade seats with me!” LOL. Ashli and dh were torn between feeling bad for me and laughing hysterically at Matt.
When we got off the ride dh called K and asked him if they could buy me some Dramamine before they came to the park. Turns out they were walking in the entrance right then so they stopped by first aid which directed them to a shop that sold it. The last time I took Dramamine it knocked me out for the whole day. I would have probably not have risked it this time but I felt so nauseated. I don’t know if they’ve changed the formula or what but it worked wonderfully. My nausea subsided within a few minutes and I wasn’t tired.
As you can imagine, it was no hardship for me to wait in front of the sun dial with Ella while everyone else rode it the second time (first for D and K). By the time they got off (no wait in line, literally walk up to the ride and board) I felt good and Ella and I had spent most of the time taking their pictures and waving to everyone.
We headed back the way we’d come since that park of the park was blocked off for the new toy story stuff they are building.
Ashli and Matt rode the Golden Zephyr with D, and then some rode Maliboomer again (can’t remember who rode that time). Then Ashli and D rode the Orange Stinger together while Matt took Ella to play on the SS Rustworthy ship that’s directly across from the Orange Stinger. I’m pretty sure that Matt volunteered more for his sake than Ella’s, lol. He loves stuff like that and he and Ella had a good time.
Then we headed over to the area with all the kids rides for Ella. The first thing we did was watch It’s tough to be a bug. I thought it might scare Ella. She’s only three. But she was a trouper. She laughed at all the right spots even if she did clutch Ashli’s arm with a vise grip throughout the presentation.
I love to look at the rides in this area of the park. They are all so creative and cute. We rode: Flik’s Fliers, Francis' Ladybug Boogie,
http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd156/dkamiller/P1030647.jpg
Ella with her Mama
Tuck and Roll's Drive'Em Buggies,
http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd156/dkamiller/100_2459.jpg
Ella and Ashli...Hope Ella doesn't take any driving tips from Ashli, she drives like a bat outta Hell!
and Heimlich's Chew Chew Train.

More to come in installment 7!

[Boston Tea Party]

Yay you're back! Sorry to hear that you were under the weather. :)

Can't wait to hear more... :thumbsup2

[MAGICFOR2]

I am so sorry it's taken me so long to write this trip report. I've been working a lot and I also caught the flu which wiped me out for a bit. But I'm up and running now and not working too much so I should finish it up a lot faster.
Thanks for hanging in there!


Sorry you were sick - hope you're feelin' better!

Thanks for the fun update! I can't wait to be riding Soarin':banana: :banana: :banana: Sounds like your daughter found a keeper!

[Pooh_Friend#1]

Yay another installment. Sorry you are feeling under the weather, hope you feel better soon.

[trodrigue]

Enjoying your trip report. Can't wait for the proposal!

By the way, at least at Disneyland (for some reason, I never get a map at California adventure) you can get the maps from the maintenance folks. You know, the guys with the brooms and emptying the trash bins. The have a pouch attached to them just for that purpose. They are the only CM's that carry them in the park, but they are readily accessible almost all of the time.

[TiggerandTink]

Thanks for the update. I can't wait to hear how this proposal goes!

[zandjmom]

Keep em coming. I love your trip report!

[jas_mom1]

Just found your TR and I'm hooked! Waiting to hear about the proposal!

Dianne:cool1:

[Ferry Joy]

Thanks foe the great update. But I don't know if we can keep handling the stress of your on-going popcorn:: cliff hanger!

[Keli]

Installment 7
After taking little Ella through the kiddie area everyone was hungry. I had read about the Pacific Warf’s bread-bowl soups and I wanted to try one so we all headed that way to eat. I got there and decided to eat the chicken salad in a bowl (actually they called it an apple salad? It did have a lot of cut up apples in it and other fruit also) instead of the soup and I liked it very much :love: Dh and I shared it and it was enough to satisfy both of us. Since we both love bread we ate a good portion of the bowl itself. Ashli got the same thing but Matt picked up something else nearby. For the life of me I cannot remember what he got though. D, K, and Ella got food from the counter-service Cocina Cucamonga Mexican Grill and we all sat together under the Pacific Warf’s terrace.

This was the only time I remember feeling downright cold during the day. It had gotten dark and cloudy and the wind had picked up.
When we were done eating we were looking for shelter so we went into the Mission factory. The tour was interesting. Dh and I make corn tortillas at home now and again and so I was looking forward to seeing how the flour ones are mass produced. I found it interesting. And at the end of the tour one of the machine operators noticed my dh’s birthday badge and handed him a package of 10 flour tortillas and told him happy birthday. (We put them in Ella’s stroller and forgot to get them out. I hope D, K, and Ella like tortillas, lol)

Then we ran over to the bread factory where they make the bread that you eat in the CA Adventure restaurants (specifically the Pacific Warf but I believe in other ones as well). One of the cast members handed Ella a loaf shaped like Mickey Mouse when she spied her first visit pin. Ella was so excited about that bread, lol. She kept saying she was going to eat it for breakfast.

We headed over to Hollywood Pictures Backlot area. There were some characters out along this area so Ashli, Matt, and Ella all had pictures taken with several. I believe it was Snow White, Dopey, Mickey Mouse, Mr. Incredible, and Mrs. Incredible.
http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd156/dkamiller/100_2468.jpg
Matt and Ashli
Most of them were walking and would only stop for a moment for a shot or two and you could see they didn’t want a line to form. We missed several that we couldn’t catch up with, I’m pretty sure they were all headed somewhere in particular but I have no idea where.

We wanted to see Crush and Aladdin. But we had a little wait before the next Crush showing. Ella was getting tired by this time (according to her mom and dad, she was acting like an angel IMHO, lol). D held Ella in her arms and told her to close her eyes.
Ella didn’t really want to (close your eyes when you are at Disney? Are they crazy? LOL) and K looked down at her and spoke sternly to Ella. Ella closed her eyes and literally within 30 seconds you could see her body relax and within two minutes she was asleep. They said that is how Ella falls asleep every time. They put Ella back in her stroller and she napped while we waited for Crush to start.
http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd156/dkamiller/100_2469.jpg
Ashli and Matt just had to pose with this, it probably had more meaning for Matt than Ashli at this point, lol!
After Crush (which was a cute show), we headed over to the tower of terror. D elected to wait outside with Ella instead of doing a baby swap thing. Ella must have still been tired because she fell asleep again. I got the feeling D didn’t really want to ride but maybe she was just wanting Ella to finish her nap. The line only took about 15 minutes.
Had a great time, especially since the guys were all hamming it up and screaming like girls in high pitched voices. Ashli tried to float a penny but Matt accidentally hit it and it went flying.

We then went to the Aladdin show. Ella was asleep in her stroller and the cast members told D and K that they would need to leave her stroller in the marked area before getting into line.
They were really nice about it though, you could see they hated the fact they would be making them wake Ella up from her nap early (the show wasn’t going to start for another 30 minutes or so).
They suggested that K wait outside the line with Ella until the show was about to start then they would help him get into the line where we were so that we could all sit together and Ella could still get part of her nap in so that’s what K did. I thought it was really nice of the cast members to be concerned about one of their little guests getting enough rest.
It worked out really well too because K and Ella were able to join us in line right before they opened the doors.
But then Ashli and Matt somehow ended up getting lost in the crowd a bit at the stairs and they sat several rows ahead of us! :lmao: The irony was just too funny. But it certainly wasn’t disney’s fault and besides, Ashli and Matt didn’t care if they were with us, only Ella was a little upset because she absolutely adores her cousin Ashli. :love:

Aladdin, Wow, that’s a great show! Really enjoyed it. It’s a full-blown production. We all had to laugh though when they incorporated the fact the Patriots were ahead by 7 pts into the show (It was super bowl Sunday).
It was the first score we’d heard on the super bowl and my football loving BIL was excited to hear his team was ahead. I think getting the final score later was a real let-down for him.

After Aladdin we walked over to the Candy store. My dh loves candy. All candy. He’s like seriously addicted to the stuff. He’ll eat the picked over Easter and Halloween candy people have sitting around months after those holidays have past.
So we had to stop there and spend a long time picking out the stuff he wanted (can’t remember what he got but I bought a chocolate/cashew/caramel thing on a stick and it was super good!).
After dropping about half a week’s take home pay (not really but that place is expensive :scared1: ) we strolled out.

We had gotten fast passes for Soarin’ earlier in the day while on our way to the Hollywood backlot since D and K hadn’t got to ride it yet and now there was a line.
Dh and I waited outside with Ella while D, K, Ashli and Matt rode.
Ella was so funny. She had her Uncle (dh) hopping on each of the blue landing lights that are in the walkway in this area.
Ella had a ton of energy so we were letting her burn it off. Finally she got tired and sat on dh’s lap to rest. She asked where her parents were and dh told her they were on the ride and suggested she call them real loud and see if they would come.

Dh was just joking around with Ella because he wanted to hear her yelling (getting kids to do silly stuff like that is right up dh’s alley, never leave him alone with your kids!). :laughing:
Ella grinned and started calling “Mommy! Daddy!”
And right then, right at that moment, I knew he’d made and error in judgment. Because out of nowhere came a maintenance cast member.

I should explain something here, Ella is adopted and she is biracial. Dh and I look nothing like her. And she was sitting on dh’s lap calling for her parents. It did look fishy.
And that cast member (an elderly man) wasn’t going to just keep on walking. He was very nice but dh and both knew he was looking us over very closely and his questions had a bit more inquiry than the usual “Where are you folks from?” That you usually get from cast members.

He talked to us a while and we explained that Ella was our niece and her parents were on Soarin’. It was obvious that Ella was comfortable with us and she called us by our names a few times.
Finally he gave us a map that showed all the kid-friendly rides in the park (and also in Disneyland) and bid us goodbye walked off. Dh and looked at each other and laughed a little. I think we both felt relieved we weren’t going in for more serious questioning, lol. :cool1:

D and K emerged from the ride and took Ella while we went to ride it. Dh got a little sick again but he said it wasn’t too bad and refused my offers of Dramamine.
It still surprises me since he rode the sun dial twice without a problem, but Soarin’ did get to him a bit while I was perfectly fine after Soarin’ and in serious jeopardy of losing my breakfast on Sun Dial.
Dh and I headed back to the hotel at this point while Ashli, Matt, D, K, and Ella stayed to ride more rides.
The wind had picked up and it was dark now and I thought it was cold. Everyone else seemed fine so maybe I was bushed and ready to give it up faster.

When we got to the hotel I laid down on the bed and then I got sleepy. I guess the Dramamine is fine while you’re moving but if you stop it does make you tired.
There was a knock at the door and a cast member delivered a congratulatory basket for Ashli and Matt from our Disney travel agent. And then another knock and they delivered a sparkling wine and chocolate covered strawberries!

Dh and I were laughing and searching desperately for a good hiding spot. :lmao: Although Ashli had to be wondering about all the different stuff going on, secret conversations that stopped when she walked up, phone calls that immediately ended at her arrival, stuff like that, these deliveries would give it away for sure.

We ended up putting them under the bed because there was nowhere else we could find on such short notice. A few minutes later Matt, Ashli, D, K and Ella walked in. Whew! Barely got that hid! :scared1:

The laptop was laying on the desk and Dh had a dvd out that he had been watching. K mentioned that he’d never seen that movie and dh told him to take it, he’d get another one. K thanked him and picked it up and immediately dropped it. You know exactly where that stupid thing rolled, don’t you? Yep, under one of the beds. :rotfl:

Ashli was standing closer to the bed than K when it stopped rolling and she said “I’ll get it Uncle K.” and started to bend over. She’s never mentioned it since but I know she had to be thinking “What in the world?” when I quickly said “No Ashli, let your Uncle K get it”. But she didn’t argue and K bent over retrieved it.

K’s face was impassive when he got up and I never did have time to ask him what he thought about all the stuff hidden under there. Surely he noticed it? I am certain Ashli would have!:lmao:

We hugged and kissed Ella, D, and K :hug: and then they headed back to their rooms. We knew we probably wouldn’t get to hook up in the morning since we would be changing hotels, K and Ella were dropping D off at the airport (D was flying to Las Vegas for a work convention) and then driving home.

We all fell asleep pretty quickly. See I told you it was a fun day!
(And tomorrow will be better!):woohoo:

[MAGICFOR2]

Wow you packed alot of fun into your day! I'm still waiting for the big moment! :surfweb:

[tinkermell]

The suspense is too much!! :cool1:

[Pooh_Friend#1]

OH no, still no proposal....I am at the edge of my seat!

[lexmas]

Yay pictures! I am loving your trip report! How lucky that your DD wasn't there when the baskets got delivered...I don't know what kind of lie you could have come up with for that one! Can't wait for more.

[Ferry Joy]

Still enjoying your report. I love the addition of the pictures! Your niece is so cute! I love that age.

[mommy2kande]

I can't wait to read the rest! You're a great storyteller with a great story to tell!

[Keli]

Installment 8
The wake up call wasn’t really necessary on Monday because I was up a couple of hours before it went off anyway. I slept well, those beds are great, but I just woke up early and felt too energetic to sleep anymore.

I was on the internet trying to find an aerial view of the Disneyland hotel, Disneyland, and the Dessert Inn. That’s the bad thing about not having a map or a car, it’s hard to get a good idea of how things are laid out.

I wasn’t sure if we should walk to the Dessert Inn with our stuff or if we should call a taxi. We ended up calling a taxi which was definitely the best idea even though the walk wouldn’t have been all that long. We just had too many pieces of luggage to carry all that way, plus I think we’d have had to take it through Disney security at the end of downtown Disney (not sure though?)

There was a little incident with the cab driver. He was a large man and he was wearing a pair of black pants and a Hawaiian shirt that hung down a little past his fingertips. He looked fine standing upright so what happened next took me completely by surprise.

We carried our luggage to the back of the van and he opened the door and bent over to pick up a suitcase. Ashli and I were standing right behind him. As he bent over his shirt rode up nearly all the way to his waist. His tighty-whitey underwear were waaaay up his crack (I mean it was practically a thong) and then his butt cheeks were completely uncovered while his belt secured his pants somewhere around the top of his legs. :scared1: :scared1: :scared1:

I know that the gracious thing to do when just such an occasion arises is to pretend you haven’t seen anything and keep a straight face. Of course I’m not as gracious as my mother raised me to be, lol. :lmao: I took one look and made a strangled sound while I valiantly fought down my hysterical laughter. :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: I will say, that I was able to keep the volume down to the point that I didn’t alert dh or Matt that anything funny (to those of us with juvenile senses of humor anyway) was happening. They were both beside him helping load the stuff in the back and didn’t see anything.

Ashli, on the other hand, clearly should have been raised better. I obviously completely failed to teach her the proper way to conduct herself (are you surprised?) because I looked over and not only is she also silently laughing (laughing quite hard I might add, her whole body was shaking) but she is also grabbing for her pocket. Later I realized she was trying to get her cell phone out for a picture! How awful is that? My child was going to take a picture of the cab driver’s naked butt. Where did I go wrong? ;) Thankfully her ambitions were thwarted when he stood upright.

The change was amazing. Standing upright you had no idea what that shirt was covering up. I had straightened my face up at this point and I wasn’t laughing but I couldn’t trust myself to speak yet. The taxi driver asked us where to and looked at me. I looked at dh who answered but gave me a strange look.
It cost $10 for the cab ride (about 5 minutes or so since the traffic was very light). The cab driver didn’t have change for a $20 and since it really was a ride and a show :3dglasses a part of me felt like a $10 tip wasn’t unreasonable. But dh and Matt both pulled out money so we only gave him a $5 tip.

The Dessert Inn was just ok. It’s not a bad hotel, I didn’t have any complaints really. But after staying at the Disneyland hotel it certainly wasn’t magical. Had we stayed there first I’m sure I’d have felt differently about it because it was clean, we had enough room, tv’s both worked fine (had a mini suite) and had plenty of hot water. And you can’t beat the location. That was fantastic. I was shocked at how close we were to Disneyland. It seemed as close as the Disneyland hotel, just coming from the opposite direction.
We dropped our stuff off in the storage lockers (our room wasn’t ready yet) and headed to Disneyland.

We had a great time that morning walking around and looking at everything, comparing everything to the magic kingdom. Before the trip I thought that Disneyland would not hold up to the
Magic Kingdom. After all, it’s smaller, doesn’t have as many rides, the castle is even smaller, it just couldn’t be as good.
Turns out I was seriously wrong. It was every bit as good IMHO. Different, yes. But really wonderful. I think I was in love the minute I walked under railroad bridge and spotted main street. It’s just lovely.

And right away, there was Captain Hook posing for pictures. Ashli and Matt got in line and got a pic with him. They were the oldest ‘kids’ by far in the line and you could see neither one of them noticed or cared, lol.

I love sleeping beauty’s castle. It’s lovely during the day and beautiful at night with the colored lights on it.
We turned right and spent some time exploring New Orleans square (rode POTC) and Tom Sawyer’s Island.

Ashli and Matt came across the best photopass photographer there! :thumbsup2 He was awesome. He must have taken no less than 30 shots of them on the island. He walked them all over the whole thing and suggested lots of shots. My favorite is one that he called his ‘signature shot’. Ashli and Matt are in the foreground and the paddle boat is coming up the stream in the background. I don’t know if I am describing it well or not. I just ordered my photopass cd a couple days ago. When it gets here I’ll add one of those pics to this thread if anyone is still reading it by then.

A note about the whole photopass cd thing: I pre-bought the cd on the advice that I read here on the Dis because I thought the idea of adding graphics to our shots would be great. It cost $99.99 vs. $79.00 that a photopass photographer told me it would cost without the graphics option. The graphics are just borders and signatures of some of the characters. I was frustrated because even though our pictures were taken in February at least half the borders said “2007” or variations on Merry Christmas! :rolleyes:

Come on, who is going to want those borders if they went in Feb. of 2008? It just seemed like a rip-off to me because I really only had the choice of about 7 borders/signatures and I felt like all my pics were going to look alike because I was repeating the same borders over and over.
Not worth the extra money unless you go at a time of year when you can utilize all the borders shown. Also they let you upload your own pics and put graphics on them also but it gives you a different, much more generic, IMHO, selection to choose from. Things like a strip across the top or bottom of pic with the word Disneyland in several colors. A couple with pixie dust sprinkles and one that was suitable for princess pictures.

But I would buy the cd and just find my own graphics on the net and add them at home after I got my cd. It’s not the cd that I think isn’t a good value, it’s the additional cost for the graphics (at least if you cannot use a good portion of them).
I had a little mishap on the island. I was walking down some wooden stairs that were built into the side of hill. They were damp and sandy and close to the bottom I lost my footing. My dh was in front of me but he’d already exited the steps and was a little too far away to help.

Another man was facing the steps and saw me falling and attempted to reach me in time but I kind of caught myself and didn’t take a big spill, just did a funny little off balance dance mostly except I wrenched my ankle when I landed at the bottom of the stairs. I know I must have looked hilarious but the man that tried to help me obviously listened to his mother’s training better than I did mine because he didn’t crack a smile (that I could see, lol) :rotfl:

I mostly just shook it off and kept going because it hurt but not so bad that I couldn’t walk on it. As the day progressed though my ankle started to swell and throb some but not to an unbearable level or anything like that. Honestly it didn’t even slow me down.

Matthew was in contact with our travel agent and the Disney dream team today, I know he had to slip off to take at least three calls before the arrangements were finalized. Since he wasn’t familiar with Disneyland we had a couple of whispered consultations before he was convinced he had the perfect arrangements (I thought so too!). :thumbsup2

The only thing Matt failed to tell me was the time that he and Ashli were supposed to ‘accidentally’ run into the dream team member. So a little after three Matt whispers to me that they needed to be at Excalibur at 5:00pm.

I know my eyes got huge because, um, there was a problem. I may be an older member of the female species but I am still a girl at heart. I knew Ashli would NOT want to become engaged in the outfit she’d had on all day running around the parks since it was definitely worse for the wear and her hair, oh no, that was not a pretty picture, lol. :lmao:
We were in line for the haunted mansion. The park had been slowing filling up all day and although it was by no means crowded in the afternoon we were facing our first wait of more than 5-10 minutes for a ride.

It probably took us about 15 minutes in line but each one seemed like million years for me. All I could think of is how long it would take us to get back to the hotel, check in, get showers, Ashli get her hair fixed (yes, that takes awhile if she’s gussyin’ up for the evening, lol), everyone get dressed and walk back to the park and then find out where Excalibur was (turns out we’d passed it all day and I never noticed it, lol).

So as soon as we get out of the ride I announce we have to head back to the hotel, right now, to rest, shower, change clothes and come back to spend the evening there (yeah, right, there was no resting in those plans but Ashli wouldn’t have bought it otherwise, lol)

Here’s were the best laid plan hit it’s first snag. Ashli didn’t want to go back to the hotel. :rolleyes: She helpfully suggested that dh and I go back and ‘rest’ and just meet up with her and Matt when we got back. Um, no, that really wasn’t going to work. And Matt was no help here, I might add. He knew exactly why I was pushing Ashli to go back to the hotel and did he say a word? Nope, and he kinda grinned at me behind Ashli’s back to boot! He didn’t care what Ashli was wearing, what he was wearing, or how her hair looked when he proposed. Men!

I finally managed to convince Ashli to go back with us but I could see she wasn’t happy about it. She was actually pretty mad about it I think. I heard a few furious whispers to Matt behind me as we were walking out and soft answers in response but to be fair, Ashli didn’t say or do anything too much and whatever Matt was saying must have calmed her down because as soon as we got to the hotel she got a change of clothes ready and jumped into the shower.

And just as I’d hoped she picked out something a little nicer than just a t-shirt. I figured she would since it was evening and Ashli tends to dress up a little more when she’s going out at night. Not that she was really dressed up, she wore a jean skirt, black long sleeve t-shirt but she put on a little bordello jacket that I thought was adorable. Although she didn’t spend much time on her hair she did make it look nice.

She was moving pretty fast and it was obvious she had no intention of taking a ‘rest’, lol. All the better since time was running out but Ashli didn’t know that! She seemed surprised when Matt asked dh and I if we were ready to go and dh said ‘sure’ (we’d also changed and stuff but Ashli expected us to take a nap or something before coming back to the park, where’d she get that idea? :lmao: LOL).

http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd156/dkamiller/100_2483.jpg
Ashli and Matt at the Desert Inn
So we all headed back to the park. I’d grabbed another map on the way out and now knew where Excalibur was. Matt was sending/receiving text messages while we were walking back to Disneyland but since that is not unusual I didn’t think anything about it and apparently neither did Ashli. Turns out he was texting with William from the dream team to let him know what they were wearing so that he would approach the correct couple.

We get close to Excalibur and Matt turns to Ashli and says “Let’s see if we can pull it out of the stone!” That’s exactly the sort of thing Ashli and Matt would have been doing anyway so it really took very little acting on Matt’s part. They waited a minute for a couple of kids to finish trying and then I took some pics of them giving it their best shot. A guy kinda walks up to them and starts to talk but dh and I stayed back so I couldn’t hear what he was saying…

More in installment 9….

[Keli]

Installment 9
…Ashli looked up with an excited look on her face and said “Mom, Dad, come here, we’ve won a private tour on the Storybook ride!”. After we start walking towards the ride Ashli drops back to where I am and tells me that this guy is a part of the dream team that we heard about on tv at the hotel and that they pass out surprises to guests at random in the park. We had seen a clip about them on tv and Ashli was buying it hook, line, and sinker. ;) She said she knew we were going to get something the minute he told them he was from the dream team. :rotfl:

We follow William to the exit of the ride and he asks us to wait there. A young cast member joins us and starts to chat. After a few minutes William steps over to us from where he’d been standing talking to a few cast members working the ride.
Another man joins him and he introduces himself as Dave, another member of the dream team. He chats with us for a minute and William explains they are working on getting a few people through the ride before they start our private tour.

Within 5-10 minutes a woman named Pat walks up, introduces herself and says she will be our tour guide. I have to say here that both William and Pat were very, very sweet. :thumbsup2 I really enjoyed talking to them the whole time we were together.

We walked to the boat they had selected for us and dh and I sat on one side while Ashli and Matt sat on the other. William whispered in my ear and asked me if I wanted him to take pics during the ride with my camera. I said yes and handed it to him. He did an excellent job and all the pics you will see in this part of the trip report were taken by him.

We started the ride and Pat (who is an excellent tour guide!) started telling us about all the miniatures that were on either side of the canal. They were both interesting and charming.

We went through the ‘Cave of Wonder’ and Pat told each of us to make a wish on Aladdin’s lamp. As we came out of the cave Pat said “I think someone just wished very hard that her prince would come” and stopped the boat.

Matthew's no dummy, he knew his cue when he saw it, lol, :lmao: and the next thing I know he is on one knee in front of Ashli with a jewelry box in his hand.
I was tearing up here a little and I couldn’t tell if I heard everything Matt said because he was speaking somewhat softly but intensely to Ashli. But I definitely heard him say “Will you marry me?” and I teared up a little more. :love:
I looked around and no one else is crying or about to cry. And no one appeared to have looked at me. I took a couple of careful swipes across my face to wipe away the tears unobserved and gave a little sigh. I am the emotional one in our family and I take lots of teasing about it. So a few tears skating past everyone’s attention was good news for me! :cool1:

Ashli’s face was so bright when she said “Yes”. I tease her a lot though because by the time William snapped the picture Ashli had shifted her gaze from Matt to the ring in his hands. I keep teasing her, saying she was saying “Yes!” about the ring.

Matt searched a long time trying to find the perfect ring for Ashli. He even called me one day and asked me to meet him at the jewler’s so that he could get my opinion. I thought the one he picked out would fit Ashli to a T.

William handed Ashli and Matt a bundle of gifts in congratulations to their engagement. He had bride and groom Mickey ears, Just Engaged pins (that had originally said Just Married and the word Married was crossed out and Engaged was written in, lol), bubbles, and a tiny Cinderella slipper for Ashli.

They loved it all and immediately put on the ears and the buttons. When we got off the ride William had us walk around the castle and he took some pictures of Ashli and Matt. He did a great job and those pictures turned out great. He had Matt reenact the proposal in front of the castle for pictures too.
http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd156/dkamiller/100_2512.jpg
Ashli and Matt holding up the pennies they will wish on
http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd156/dkamiller/100_2516.jpg
Making a Wish!
And then he whisked us over to Snow White’s wishing well and took some pictures there as well. He was just so kind. Then he asked us if we had any plans for the rest of the evening and we said no. He and Pat grinned at each other so we knew something was up.

Pat produced a large bell, it reminded me of the sort of thing a school teach would have at the first part of this century to draw her students back into the classroom.
She asked Ash and Matt what rides we had ridden so far. They told her and as it turns out we hadn’t ridden much in fantasy land since we were planning on covering that the next morning at early entry.

Pat said “Would you like to ride some rides?” Of course we all said yes and started off. Pat walked out front and rang her bell over and over, all the while announcing in a LOUD voice “Newly engaged couple, everyone congratulate Ashli and Matt!”
http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd156/dkamiller/100_2499.jpg
Pat ringing her bell in front of Ashli and Matt

Ashli later said that she was just a bit embarrassed but honestly, she did not look embarrassed at all. She looked thrilled. She was grinning from ear to ear (as was Matt) and they were yelling back “Thank You” to all the congratulations.

And when people would say “Let’s see the ring!” Ashli was quick to throw her hand up, lol. Ashli and Matt both looked like they incredibly excited.

Pat took us to the exit of Peter Pan Ride, Snow White’s Scary Adventures, Mr. Toad, Dumbo, and Pinocchio (at least that's all of them that I remember).
http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd156/dkamiller/100_2522.jpg
On Dumbo
http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd156/dkamiller/100_2529.jpg
On the Matterhorn

William had to leave after the first ride so Matt and Ashli thanked him repeatedly (so did dh and I) and said goodbye.
We all hated to see him go.
http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd156/dkamiller/100_2519.jpg
Matt, Pat, William, and Ashli

We finished it up by riding the Matterhorn and then Pat had to go. She gave them two fast passes for any ride except Nemo for up to five people and saw us on the ride.
We didn’t realize she was actually leaving before the ride ended and Ashli and I were disappointed that we didn’t get to give her a hug goodbye and thank her for everything.
She was so nice and she really made things special for Matt and Ashli. I just wish we could have thanked her properly.

After we finished the Matterhorn we walked around a rode a few rides. I cannot remember which ones specifically but I do remember riding Buzz Lightyear.
As expected, Matt and dh both did much better than Ashli or I. To be fair to Ashli she was far above my terrible score also, just not nearly as high as the guys.
We all liked emailing our pictures from the ride to people too. Mine was hilarious, I looked ferocious! :scared1: Ashli and Matt's was pretty funny too since they still had on their bride/groom ears.

After leaving Disneyland we grabbed something to eat and then crashed at the hotel room.
Oh, and I wasn't quite as slick as I had thought. After we got back to the room Matt said "Hey Ashli, your mom cried when I proposed". Oh yeah, I was busted!

It had been a long day and by the end my ankle was killing me. I knew I'd walked on it too much since hurting it that morning. I took some aspirin so that it wouldn't keep me from falling asleep.
I have no idea how long it took everyone else to fall asleep because I was out like a light, lol.

[Ferry Joy]

Okay, I was tearing up as I read it! It was amazing. A truely Disney story. I was so jealous! (and I am old!). That was worth waiting for!!:dance3:
More! More! More!:cheer2:

[Boston Tea Party]

Finally the big day!!! :goodvibes What a fantastic story! You get to cry as mother of the bride, but a stranger on the internet is truly sappy when she's got tears rolling down her face after your report! :thumbsup2

[kylieh]

What a beautiful proposal. I have tears, too, running down my eyes.

[wendy darling]

What a lovely proposal!! Thanks for sharing your story!!! I would have teared up as well...

[California Screamin]

What did you do with the stuff hiding under your bed? Did you use it before the move? Did you take it with you?

[lexmas]

Aww, that's such a beautiful way to propose! I cried too, and you can bet if I was there I would have cried harder, so you're certainly not alone! How exciting that you got to go on all the rides too. And the bell...lol...I would have found that mortifying haha, but it's pretty awesome. How exciting, congrats to all of you!

[Keli]

What did you do with the stuff hiding under your bed? Did you use it before the move? Did you take it with you?

LOL, dh and I would have had to use the stuff ourselves if we did it before the move since they weren't engaged yet when we changed hotels. I have a feeling dd wouldn't have been happy with us if we had done that! :rotfl: :rotfl:

We were able to take most of it with us, hidden in one of my bags. The only loss was the chocolate covered strawberries which was a shame because they were the largest, most beautiful ones I'd ever seen. We were able to keep them in the fridge at the disneyland hotel but since our room wasn't ready at the desert inn they had to sit in storage for several hours so they did ruin. :guilty:

We gave everything to Ashli and Matt when we got back to the hotel after the engagement. One basket had another set of bride/groom ears in it so they actually now have two sets. I think at least one set will make a lovely display at the reception.

[mommy2kande]

Oh, what a perfect, perfect story! Congrats to your very lucky daughter! :bride:

[Keli]

Aww, that's such a beautiful way to propose! I cried too, and you can bet if I was there I would have cried harder, so you're certainly not alone! How exciting that you got to go on all the rides too. And the bell...lol...I would have found that mortifying haha, but it's pretty awesome. How exciting, congrats to all of you!

LOL, I found the bell mortifying also. Dh and I managed to walk about 20ft behind the others all through the park!
I would have been glad to have let dd and Matt do all of this on their own but dd made it very plain that she wanted dh and I to be there and share in this with them. Actually Matt seemed to want us there too. Made me feel good and as you can see Ashli and Matt ended up with pictures on the rides and walking around the park. I think they really liked that.

[Blueeyes101817]

what a sweet story ! congrats to Ashli and Matt!

[crzyred]

Sounds like you guys had an amazing time! Congrats to your daughter and her DF!!! And congratulations to you, enjoy your time being the Mother of the Bride!:goodvibes


* I love the picture of your Ashli and Matt on Mickey, right above the sign that says "do not climb on mickey":rotfl:

*I was laughing so hard through your comment about the cab driver!!! I would have done exactly what you daughter did, although I would have gotten the picture!:rotfl2:

[Briarmom]

Pass the tissue!

Great trip report. I miss Disneyland so much!!!!

[tamijoy514]

now you and Ashli can plan a Disney Fairy Tale Wedding!! :goodvibes

[momto2nenas]

Oh what a wonderful trip report! How magical for your DD! You need to change your title of the post, this definately deserves more reads! Hope there is more to come! :)

[Pooh_Friend#1]

What a great proposal!!! Loved it!! I would have been mortified by the bell too!!

[DisneyJenn18]

what a great story, thanks for sharing! I was laughing so hard at the taxi cab driver...You and Ashley sound like my mom and I, ...I would have been dying laughing out loud for everyone to hear...too funny! :rotfl2:



Keep us posted on the big wedding!! Will it be a disney wedding??!???!???!??

[Disneygrl36]

What a cute proposal story.
I am enjoying your trip report.
Keep it coming.

[LuvEeyore]

Loving the trip report also. glad Matt was able to work out the 'dream' proposal.

[ballarinamom]

There is a couple of ways to thank Pat. I wish I could remember the numbers or e-mail adresses but maybe guest services could help. But we wanted to thank a CM so Dh e-mailed Disney about our wonderful experience. If you don't mind researching (I think their is a board on here as well) you could give her your thanks!

LOVE the entire story! Congrats on the trip AND the new son-in-law!!

[julezdisney]

I've just spent my morning reading your report installations and they are awesome! Congratulations to your family and your daughter! That's SO AWESOME! Leave it to Disney....

[MTCruiser]

good report...thanks