Bec & Chris' Big Trip! Completed!!

[BecBennett]

Ok, So I'm thinking of starting to post my TR... I'm nervous about doing this because I'm notorious for starting things and not finishing them. So what I was going to do was finish writing it before I even post it... But so far it's 9 pages long, with lots of photos, so I figure I could start posting it, slowly, and finish it before I've finished posting what I've already done... Make sense??

So that's what I'm doing...

Here is a disclaimer/warning first however:
What follows is not funny, not really informative either. It's really just a bunch of random sentences, strung together, to basically tell you what happened on my trip... Plus it's going to be really long...

So here goes!

 

[BecBennett]

Saturday 1st of March. – We’ve Arrived!!

After 11 freezing cold days in New York.

Full of head colds, conjunctivitis and partial blindness, we finally touch down in L.A. We grab our bags and head out to the big green sign to catch our Disneyland bus! It was one of those things that I always wanted to get a photo of, but of course, when I actually see it I’m too excited to get the camera out and I quickly scramble on the bus.

My boyfriend Chris decides that he wants to sit in the window seat, even though I’m clearly more excited then he is, but I let him, simply for the fact that I’m clearly more excited then him, and maybe letting him sit by the seat will get him a little excited too.

The bus ride was pretty uneventful, except at one stage while listening to the radio I hear someone calling from McKay Australia! I know, nothing really special, but I thought it was funny that I fly half way around the World, and hear an Australian calling the radio station that I happen to be listening to…

Finally we start seeing signs that I’ve seen pictures of! First we pull into the onsite hotels and I declare to Chris “We’re on Disney property!” he doesn’t seem too fussed, because he can’t see the park, but as previously stated – I’m excited!

We’re one of the last to get off the bus, but I don’t care, because we’re at the Parkvue Inn and right out the front of the entrance to Disneyland!

Quick description of the Parkvue Inn: We had 1 king sized bed, two bedside tables, a large side table with the TV on it, a fridge and microwave and the sink was in the bathroom. A great size for us, I didn’t feel cluttered the whole time we were there. The rooms were clean and well stocked.

The front of Parkvue Inn, with Space Mountain in the distance.

The outside breakfast area - there's an indoor area too.

Space Mountain - zoomed.

The Matterhorn - zoomed.

Unzoomed view towards the park from the hotel.
They provide a welcome basket on arrival, which included 2 water bottles, some fruit and a bottle of wine. We were going to head out and find a grocery store that afternoon, but the bottles of water and fruit were great, so we decided that we’d head over to DTD instead.

The Parkvue Inn is literally across from the entrance to DLR. So it wasn’t long before the music was all around us. I started pointing and giggling about everything! Everything deserved a point and a giggle.

We headed into DTD and our first stop was at the UVA bar. We had a few drinks – gotta love that most soft drinks have free re-fills at Disneyland! So we sat at the UVA bar and soaked in the atmosphere. I must have taken so many photos of nothing, because everything looked so photogenic.

We then decided that we were hungry and we should find somewhere to eat. We had a quick look around before deciding on Ralph Brennan’s Jazz Kitchen. This would have been one of our favourite meals of the trip. I had the Roast Chicken Rosemary and the bubble gum soda. When my meal came out my first thought – and Chris’ – was “There’s no way that I’m going to finish all of that!” but hey, what do you know?!? I ate all of it! It was so yummy, and I was so hungry!

After dinner we strolled DTD. It was lovely! The buskers were great!

We also noticed what we believed to be art students or something similar. They would be in the middle of doing something and then just freeze. They would stay frozen for at least 10 minutes before moving again. There were probably at least 50 of them all doing different things. 1 group of three asked me to take their photo, now not knowing that these three were part of that group at the time I happy took their photo. Then of course, they didn’t move after I had taken it. So, I slung her camera around her wrist and ran away… I also tried to take a photo of Sorcerer Mickey’s Hat…

Now as mentioned at the very beginning. I had a cold, and also due to conjunctivitis, I wasn’t allowed to wear any contacts. So I was getting tired, and everything was slightly fuzzy. So we strolled back through the esplanade and headed back to our hotel. We flicked on the Disney channel – of course – and snuggled up into bed. Yay! Our first day at Disneyland would be here soon!


Next - First day in the parks!!! Yay!

 

[kylieh]

Hey thanks Bec for posting your trip report. I've been looking forward to hearing about it. Sorry to hear that you won't well to start the DL portion of the trip. But hey, look at that snow in NY!!! Wow. I don't think I've even seen that much snow in the Snowy Mountains!!!

 

[BecBennett]

Hey,
Yeah it was an incredible amount of snow! We had about 10inches during one day. Neither of us had seen snow before, so we were like little kids!

 

[disneyfanatic4]

Yay!!! I am here at the beginning of a trip report. Usually I start reading in the middle or at the end. Sorry to hear about your cold. Looking forward to hearing about your 1st day.

 

[PirateFish989]

It's really just a bunch of random sentences, strung together, to basically tell you what happened on my trip... Plus it's going to be really long...

I think that is what all trip reports are! But, I'm excited to read about it!

Everything deserved a point and a giggle.

Exactly.

 

[Jennifer03]

Subscribing

 

[momto2nenas]

Waiting for more! Hoping for lots of pics!

 

[BecBennett]

Yay! There are people reading! I will be honest and let you know that I didn't expect that!

Next post will be up soon!

 

[BecBennett]

Sunday 2nd of March. – 1st Day!!!

Now, I know what the advice is – Get there before the park opens and go straight to Fantasyland – so long as it’s not a MM, and get those rides out of the way first. However, Chris is not a Disney fanatic like I am, so I wanted to take it slowly our first day. Immerse him in the Disney experience without overwhelming him. Plus, he’s a bit of a scaredy cat when it comes to rides, so I figured that we would take our time getting ready and stroll around and make our first ride something like Pirates of the Caribbean or the Haunted Mansion first.

So everything was going to plan, we got up when we woke up, we got ready, went and had breakfast – pretty good selection at the Parkvue, fruit, cereal, waffles, yoghurt, coffee, tea, milk, juice, toast, hot chocolate and some other stuff. Then we headed over to the park.

We headed straight for the partners statue for photos and a lovely Canadian family took our photo and we took theirs. My eyes are shut, but I suppose I can’t blame them for that…

Instead of heading through the castle into Fantasyland we went to the left instead into Frontier land. We head around behind BTMRR snapping photos the whole way, and Chris asked me what it was that we were walking around. I told him BTMRR and explained that it was a roller coaster, but a pretty tame one – no upside downs or big drops. There was no line up so we made this our first ride. This was very surprising for me, because like I said, he’s a scaredy cat! He did sook a little as we wound through the line, but once we were on it he was ok, and off we went!

He loved it…

Next we headed over to POC. Still less then a 5 minute wait for this ride. I think Chris really understood what I meant when I told him that Disneyland is just better then other amusement parks with this ride. Especially the area where you’re going in between Barbosa on the ship and Tortuga and you can see “the sky” and there are clouds moving around. It’s excellent, and he thought so too!
Next was HM. Straight into the elevator! Chris sooked a little bit again at this, because no matter what I said, he was convinced that it was going to be really scary… Of course we all know it’s not, it’s just a great ride with great effects.

We then spent some time wandering around NOS and I was happy to finally get this photo. – It’s not as hidden as I expected. It took me longer to find The Jewel Of New Orleans, which is a lovely little jewelry shop, which sells one of a kind items.

We then headed over to the other side of the park into tomorrow land, according to my pictures we road Space Tours. This was ok, but not as good as I expected. By then the lines were getting long – this may have been because it was a MM so lots of people were already in Fantasyland.

We lined up for the Matterhorn, I remember it as not being that special from when I was at DL as an 11 year old, but it looks cool, so Chris wanted to ride it, and my memory of our last trip is pretty sketchy anyway. So we rode it. We both weren’t that impressed. But it’s a fun ride.

We headed over to Toon town, which I love because everything’s so cute! Chris got his photo with Goofy

– Characters scare the begeezers out of me, but I was ok with taking photos of them. However, we did accidentally make it the full way through Mickey’s house, imagine my surprise when I found myself standing next to the Mouse himself and smiling for a photo... Eeep.

I wanted to spend more time in toon town because there’s so much you can play around with here, but Chris was hungry and stupidly we paid lots of money for a tiny little hot dog – Chris was getting a bit grumpy now, what with paying lots for crappy food, and the crowds were getting much bigger. – Not that big, but big compared to what we’d seen that morning.

So we jumped on the train and headed back to Main Street.

We grabbed ice creams – which were MASSIVE!

And headed over into CA.


Up next - part 2 of day 1!

 

[disney-inspired]

Nice pictures!

 

[kitsch]

We also noticed what we believed to be art students or something similar. They would be in the middle of doing something and then just freeze. They would stay frozen for at least 10 minutes before moving again. There were probably at least 50 of them all doing different things. 1 group of three asked me to take their photo, now not knowing that these three were part of that group at the time I happy took their photo. Then of course, they didn’t move after I had taken it. So, I slung her camera around her wrist and ran away… I also tried to take a photo of Sorcerer Mickey’s Hat…

Yeah, it's something that's been happening all around the world. Basically, some one puts out a message on the internet inviting people to a certain place during a certain time and they freeze for 3-5 min. Kinda neat to watch.

Found this on youtube. It's the freeze at downtown disney...you might even see yourself in it
http://youtube.com/watch?v=NqMgA7dvKPI

 

[davidsprincess]

Keep it coming!

 

[prettyprincessbelle]

Yeah, it's something that's been happening all around the world. Basically, some one puts out a message on the internet inviting people to a certain place during a certain time and they freeze for 3-5 min. Kinda neat to watch.

Found this on youtube. It's the freeze at downtown disney...you might even see yourself in it
http://youtube.com/watch?v=NqMgA7dvKPI

lol. That's so weird. If I was there I would have been wth!?!? lol MOVE!!!!

Great TR! Keep it up! I'm enjoying the pics!

 

[BecBennett]

Yeah, it's something that's been happening all around the world. Basically, some one puts out a message on the internet inviting people to a certain place during a certain time and they freeze for 3-5 min. Kinda neat to watch.

Found this on youtube. It's the freeze at downtown disney...you might even see yourself in it
http://youtube.com/watch?v=NqMgA7dvKPI

How cool! The people that I was talking about it are in that vid! I don't think I'm there any where, but it's pretty dark. I'm going to pretend that I'm on there...

 

[BecBennett]

Next post coming up in a second!

 

[BecBennett]

Now this being Chris’ first time out of Australia, and my first time out of Australia since 1995, neither of us had experienced DCA yet. I’d heard about how it was a good place to skip the crowds of the middle of the day, so I thought it was a good time to be heading over.

We first went and saw Muppets 3D, as a fan of the Muppets I thought this show was great, I also enjoyed the room where the preshow is, I took lots of photos of random stuff. This is a really great show, and I’m a bit disappointed that they’re planning on getting rid of it...

We spent a little time wandering around the Hollywood back lot. I knew that there was a cheerleading thing the following weekend, so I was a bit worried when I saw several large groups of them walking around. I sort of hoped that perhaps I’d gotten the wrong information and the cheerleading weekend was this weekend and not the following one, because it was bound to be busy enough as it was... Stupid Spring Break...

The cheerleaders were making the place pretty busy though... So we headed over to the other side of DCA. There we waited in line for Screamin'. This was hard work for Chris. He gets so worked up about this sort of stuff. We decided it was best to get this big scary ride out of the way earlier in the trip, so that way we would be able to go on it several times if he did like it... Eventually we got to the front of the line and jumped on. Let's just say we rode it several times this trip...

Yes, he loved it. I knew he would. I knew he'd love every ride there though... However that knowledge turned out to be wrong... But more on that later!

We then headed over to the redwood creek area – not the challenge, just the general area… We took photos with the water falls,

and of Grizzly peak and stuff

and then we ran into Push!!

Push is great! We couldn’t talk to him because he was swamped with kids, but we fell in love with him! Chris was hoping that he’d be there all of the time, but I had to explain to him that it was a special thing!

I don't think we did too much more over at DCA at this time... My photos aren't helping me remember much either... So let's say that we headed back over to DL.

We stopped in at the town hall to get a first timer badge for Chris - because I'd forgotten about it earlier. Unfortunately they were out of first timer badges. They did however have plenty of Honorary Citizen ones, and they gave us each one of those. I think I was happier with this!

We noticed that some people were sitting down waiting for the 3:30 parade already, and we didn't know what else to do at that time, so we sat down too. I'm not sure what time it was when we sat down, but we weren't too worried.

Now while we were waiting a lovely couple approached us. They explained that they come to Disneyland all the time and love it, and asked if we'd been before, now I have, but it was 13 years ago, so when people ask me this, most of the time I say no, because I knew how much it had changed since I was there last. And as mentioned before, Chris hadn't ever been before. So we told them no, it was our first time. They then brought out a little Disney bag and inside it was a Dream! They had been dreamed earlier in the day for PS to the Billy Hill & The Hillbillies show. They had to leave early that day though and wouldn't be able to make it to the show. So they were giving it to us, to pass on the Disney magic!!

I was going to ask them if they were from the Dis, but I didn’t really get the time while I was talking to them. So if you gave your Billy Hill seating up to an Australian couple on the 2nd of March 2008 at around 3pm… Thank you!!

So we watched the parade and I took lots of pictures.

I tried to take several photos of the rhino, but every time I snapped a photo a cat managed to get in the way...

After the parade we headed over to Indiana Jones and rode it. We'd gotten a fast pass for it earlier - this was our first FP usage, and it was great to walk straight past everyone! I love this ride, it was one of my favourites from my last visit – it was the Finding Nemo ride of that time, it was brand new and a long wait! This time around it was either a walk on or a walk on with FP...

More of day 1 still to come!

 

[disneyfanatic4]

Love your report so far. Looking forward to hearing more.

 

[PirateFish989]

Having done it myself plenty of times, I know the feeling of working yourself up while waiting in line. My last trip to DCA (almost a whole year ago ) I decided to be brave and go on Screamin'. I waited in line with one of the people in our group (a 10 year old girl) and she know I was totally panicked so the entire time in line she was trying to calm me down. Love that girl! Anyway, all the fretting was pointless as Screamin' is now my favorite ride there!

Can't wait to read more!

 

[BecBennett]

Next we headed over to the Golden Horseshoe to watch the Hillbillies, the only problem was once we got there, we had no idea where to go or what to do. We asked several cast members where we go with our PS, no one could tell us. We even asked a few random people to see if by any chance they knew. Eventually someone was able to tell us just to take any seat down the front with the tablecloths.

While waiting for the show, from our great vantage point, we even managed to spot a Hidden Mickey!

This was a great show! I’m so glad we saw it, I did want to see it, but I always sort of thought that we’d see it only if we got time. I’m just disappointed now that I didn’t buy their CD! Thanks Disney-Inspired for hooking me up later!

They were just such good entertainers; I loved the Elvis part, which was pre-teeth,

and I loved the Devil Went Down To Georgia part – which was post-teeth. I laughed so much at these teeth! I know, I know, simple things amuse simple people...

Next we headed back over to DCA for our PS at Wine Country Trattoria. We had to wait for a fair while for our table to come available, which started to annoy us because there were people who did walk ups that were seated before us, despite the fact that we’d already checked in and were waiting to be called…

We were eventually seated though, and the service was good. I got the Lasagne Rustica and it was yummy!

It was dark by the time we finished dinner. I love DCA by night! It’s so photogenic. So I took lots of photos.

We wandered around the park a bit looking at everything. We tried to find “It’s Tough To Be A Bug” but managed to walk right past it and then couldn’t find it at all…

We then went through the sour dough tour. This was ok, a little interesting, but mainly boring…

We then sat down to watch the Electrical Parade. I loved these little things, they were so cool and I couldn’t stop laughing at the sounds they made!

After the parade it was pretty cold and the fireworks had been cancelled due to wind, so we headed back to the hotel for the night. Once again, fell asleep watching The Disney Channel!

Next - We're going to L.A, or are we??