Two Sisters finally get to go to WDW together! - TR has started!

I loved reading about your trip to Disneyland. One of these days I want to get out to California to see it, and then head to San Diego for a few days.

That's too bad about the Jambo pool, but at least it will be open for the last few days of your trip. When I stayed at the AKL in 2003 I never even made it out to the pool. We were only there for 5 days and had no time. :sad1:
 
What an awesome video - I love it!!! :love:

Remy is adorable! He made a visit to our table in June! :goodvibes

I have watched this video a few times now and still love it!! :goodvibes

Jen & I LOVED our lunch with Remy. It was so awesome. The food is great too.

I love your Disneyland memories. The pictures are great.

Thanks for the the comment on Remy, I think I remember reading about it in your TR... :thumbsup2

I have to agree with you on the Disneyland Hotel-I was sort of underwhelmed by it...but I had already seen many of the DWD hotels in Florida...so I guess I was a bit spoiled...(The Grand Californian of the other hand...I think is gorgeous...:cloud9:)

I would have loved to see a photo of you and nodnol in the matching shirts...:)...Isn't it fun when you look back at photos to see what was fashionable at different times?

Sorry about the refurbishments while you're there...I know you love Splash...:confused3...the pool issue though gives you an opportunity to check out Kidani if you decide to swim...:thumbsup2

Hmm...Remy...first let me say that I love Ratatouille and thought it was a great premise and really cute film...the night we went to Chefs de France...Emily and I went to the ladies room and I had forgotten he was there-and basically I saw a "rat" out of the corner of my eye and nearly jumped out of my skin...:lmao:

Saying that-once you expect him-he is kind of cute although I thought that film Remy had more charisma...;) If you were already planning on eating at Chefs-he is a fun added bonus...but he does come and go quickly...

Sorry, no matching shirts picture - it just doesn't exist! At least not with these shirts... :rolleyes1

I agree with your opinion on the GC, isn't it amazing? I just can't see myself spending so much money on a hotel room... :confused3

It'S so funny about you being scared by Remy. But I guess it is one those things one is trained to react badly to: rodents in restaurants (unless they are as tall as humans and wear cloths). I think that's one of the appeals of the Remy audioanimatronic, he looks so life like! :goodvibes

I love your trip report from 1992! The first time I went to Disneyland was in 1979 or so. Somewhere there is a picture of me in bell bottoms at DL. If I can find it, I'll scan it. My mother is wearing a positively terrifying polyester pantsuit, if I recall correctly. Back then, you bought tickets based on the rides you wanted to go on - Space Mountain had just opened and my nose bled afterwards - it was several years before I was willing to go on it again.

I think the refurb of Space Mountain is supposed to be done in November, but I could be wrong about that. I thought the Uzima pool refurb might mess with your plans. The hot tubs should be in fine working order, though. :)

Space Mountain I am counting on being open again, it's Splash that is going to be closed! ;)

1979 is really a long time ago!! One of the things I really enjoy about the Disney parks today is that you don't have to pay for every attraction, so I am really glad that they changed the ticket system! But I think it is amazing how Disneyland tickets supposedly created a new term: E-ticket! :thumbsup2

Hi Floss - Finally all caught up here. I love the mini TR from Disneyland. I'm trying to figure out how to squeeze in just a short trip there next year (yes, I know I'd have to be on a plane for 4 hours! :scared1:)

And I think even with the pool being closed for a couple of days you made the right decision with your view. We walked the halls a couple of times and if you have a Savannah view and are waaaaaaaaay out in one of the wings, it can be very tiresome. With the PV, you know you'll be close to everything.

Here's hoping you get all your ADR's tomorrow! pixiedust:

Well, you could drive to DL, couldn't you? :goodvibes Actually I would love to drive across the US on the old route 66 (I know it does not exist anymore, but there still are roads you can follow). On the Cars DVD there is a documentary about route 66 and this got my interested. But then it would not be a short trip by any means! :lmao:

And thanks for the thumbs up on the PV! I always thought that this was one of the greatest perks of PV: you already have secured a great location. We actually did not put in any room request (but might still add one asking for a room above first floor).

I loved reading about your trip to Disneyland. One of these days I want to get out to California to see it, and then head to San Diego for a few days.

That's too bad about the Jambo pool, but at least it will be open for the last few days of your trip. When I stayed at the AKL in 2003 I never even made it out to the pool. We were only there for 5 days and had no time. :sad1:

More about Disneyland still to come! I have never been to San Diego, but have seen most other bits and pieces of California and I think it is extremely beautiful there. I also very muched enjoyed the atmosphere there!

I am quite a water person, so a dip in the pool is really an important part of a WDW vacation for me. But I am not someone who spends ages loungeing at the pool. But I am sure that I will manage to jump into the water at some point during the trip!!:thumbsup2
 
Part of the package my aunt had gotten for us was one entry for “Magic Morning”. Which was the same as morning EMH, but included breakfast as you can see here:

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(You can also see nodnol, our aunt and me with Eyore. Even though characters were free roaming, it was very often possible to get pictures with them without other people in the picture because people just waited for another person to be done before they stepped up. I was very impressed with that!)

I have no idea what we had and wether we liked it (most likely not, we did not really approve of cooked breakfasts then, we just wanted bread and cheese or jam for breakfast), so no dining review here. :confused3

I think we must have gone on Space Mountain that morning because the Magic Morning took place in Tomorrowland. But I don't have a lot of memory of that ride. :confused: I think we did not enjoy the ride too much, we might have been a bit scared by it, I really wasn't a roller coaster person at that time. I was 20, but really scared of any fast rides. :scared1:

After the breakfast my aunt made a point that we had to get to Critter Country early on in order to ride Splash Mountain without standing in line for too long. Splash was still fairly new then and my aunt told us that it was the best ride ever invented. She really hyped it. Nodnol and I were not sure at all about that drop!! We had never been on a flume ride before and did not know what to expect. We might have been there early, but I think we still had to stand in line for 60 minutes or so. :eek: Considering that the line was 120 minutes for the rest of the day that was still pretty good. But for us it felt just way too long!! :scared1::scared1:

Here is a picture of us in the Splash Mountain overflow line:

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I guess you are suspecting what happened: Nodnol and I hated the ride!! We did not see any point at all in singing critters, we were constantly scared that the big drop was just around the corner and were soo relieved when we got off the ride!

Overall Critter Country was not a huge success with us. We thought the Country Bear Jamboree was more strange than anything else (and I can tell you, my opinion on this has not improved, I saw it this January and am not planning to return there any time soon!:sad2:). We also had a meal at a fast food eatery in Critter Country. While it was a lovely setting, I remember getting a very bad burger there.

But we really fell in love with the theming of the place and took quite a few pictures of things that we thought were just pretty. So here are a few random pages:

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On that last page you can see nodnol, our aunt and me.

nodnol and I were rather thorough in our touring and tried to cover every attraction. I have no idea in which order we did them, but I will write a bit about our impressions of the different lands. But I will do that in the next update...
 


I think we must have gone on Space Mountain that morning because the Magic Morning took place in Tomorrowland. But I don't have a lot of memory of that ride. :confused: I think we did not enjoy the ride too much, we might have been a bit scared by it, I really wasn't a roller coaster person at that time. I was 20, but really scared of any fast rides. :scared1:



I'm quite sure, we loved Space Mountain! I have to admit I don't remember much about the trip. But I know that it was my first roller coaster ride in the dark, I think we were quite fascinated with it. But of course, there was another ride we liked a lot, especially for the costumes. But I guess it will be up soon in the pictures ;)
 


I'm quite sure, we loved Space Mountain! I have to admit I don't remember much about the trip. But I know that it was my first roller coaster ride in the dark, I think we were quite fascinated with it. But of course, there was another ride we liked a lot, especially for the costumes. But I guess it will be up soon in the pictures ;)

Yes!! I am going to write about that ride soon! :love: And, dear readers, it is not "It's a small world", which we classified as the worst thing ever invented! :laughing: However, this did not keep us from going on IASW every time we were at DLP... :rolleyes1

I remember a few things very well, but not Space Mountain. I think you might have liked it much better than me since you were the dare devil then. But I guess you are right that we still enjoyed the roller coaster in the dark concept...
 
More great pictures from the past. I just love them! They really really make me want to go to Disneyland. Marc & I have been thinking of making a trip out there but it's so hard to "give" up Walt Disney World in order to get out to California.
 


Great update. I like hearing about your impressions of the rides and attractions. I love Splash Mountain, but one of the scariest flume rides I've ever been on was in an amusement park in Austria. There was no water in the downward track and my friend and I went flying on the hill down. Scariest thing ever! After that I was convinced that they didn't have the same safety laws for Austrian amusement parks as the US and had no desire to ride anything else.:laughing:
 
I love reading about your 1979 DL trip! What a nice way to pass the time before your 2010 trip to WDW! :goodvibes
 
A really nice addition for Disney news is the Disney Parks blog, they have really cute videos on there as well! http://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/ My favourite is this entry: http://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2009/10/making-of-magic-kingdom-park-tilt-shift-video/

I remember seeing that video a while back-it's amazing! Thank you for the link again, I just subscribed to the blog using my RSS reader. Now I can stay up to date! (or at least somewhat better :laughing:)

On the Cars DVD there is a documentary about route 66 and this got my interested.

Despite having watched the movie approximately 3822 times, I didn't realize there was a documentary on it! I gotta watch that - I love documentaries!


"Healthier Egg Breakfast"

Hmm. What could that mean? Just eggs and the juice/coffee?! :laughing:

You like Splash mountain now, right?

I will admit, I've only been on it once - and because it's a water ride, I didn't really like it.

I like all the other stuff-minus the whole getting soaked thing!
 
Will reply to everyone tonight, just had to say that I am sitting at work thinking about today being our big ADR day! I am really relieved that our TA is doing the work, especially since online ADR did not roll over at 3 am EST!

When I hear from our TA I will let you all know how successful we were.

Oh, and despite my ticker claiming otherwise, today is our three months mark!
 
Another lovely "update" from the past!

I am glad you are enjoying it! :thumbsup2

More great pictures from the past. I just love them! They really really make me want to go to Disneyland. Marc & I have been thinking of making a trip out there but it's so hard to "give" up Walt Disney World in order to get out to California.

Disneyland is great and I liked California Adventure, too, when we were there in 2005. It will be even better soon! California actually is a wonderful destination and if you are so inclined, you can do history there, too: San Francisco and the gold rush come to mind! :thumbsup2

Great update. I like hearing about your impressions of the rides and attractions. I love Splash Mountain, but one of the scariest flume rides I've ever been on was in an amusement park in Austria. There was no water in the downward track and my friend and I went flying on the hill down. Scariest thing ever! After that I was convinced that they didn't have the same safety laws for Austrian amusement parks as the US and had no desire to ride anything else.:laughing:

If you ever visit an Austrian amusement park again, I can assure you that they have very strict safety laws there as well! :lmao: But that ride sounds really scary!! :scared1:

I love reading about your 1979 DL trip! What a nice way to pass the time before your 2010 trip to WDW! :goodvibes

Hi Elin, great to hear that you are enjoying it! But it was Tarak who was in DL in 1979, we were there in 1992... Still so many years ago!! :eek:

Despite having watched the movie approximately 3822 times, I didn't realize there was a documentary on it! I gotta watch that - I love documentaries!

Well, it is on my German Cars DVD. But I would be very surprised if they did not put it on the American DVD as well! :confused3 It is kind of a making of, about what inspired the film and how the animators went on a research trip on route 66...

"Healthier Egg Breakfast"

Hmm. What could that mean? Just eggs and the juice/coffee?! :laughing:

I was wondering about that, too! :laughing: Perhaps it is an all whites omlette? Or those "egg beaters"? Both things I have never eaten, only heard about in American movies or seen on menus. :confused3 I am pretty sure that this was not what we had...

You like Splash mountain now, right?

I will admit, I've only been on it once - and because it's a water ride, I didn't really like it.

I like all the other stuff-minus the whole getting soaked thing!

I love Splash - but I think WDW's Splash is much better than DL's. I normally don't mind getting wet, I love water. But not when it is cold. So I am really a chicken and put on a ponch when going on Splash. Same for Kali River Rapids. I already have a stack of 10 or so ponchos for nodnol and me to go on water rides (and of course in case of rain... which reminds me that nodnol and I really need to post about our Heide Park adventure in August...)

No news on ADRs yet. I am very confident that my TA was busy booking millions of her clients today, so I am expecting an email someday soon, but not necessarily today. She is not the fastest in getting back to me, but so far she never let me down with any request I made, so I am pretty sure things will work out fine. Our January 2009 ADRs were booked at the beginning of December and we were able to get anything we wanted. We don't want anything really difficult... :thumbsup2

Further on the planning side: February hours are out and it appears to be just as we expected from last years hours... So no big surprise there. They only added Spectro on 2/3, nodnol's birthday, so we will figure out wether we should avoid MK on that day.
 
If you ever visit an Austrian amusement park again, I can assure you that they have very strict safety laws there as well! :lmao: But that ride sounds really scary!! :scared1:

Our friends who were watching said that we actually took flight. I was fine on the giant ferris wheel, but that flume scared me!
 
We got everything we wanted, but a few reservations are a bit off time wise. Still nothing more away from our preferred time than 30 minutes. So we are fine!

This is our list:

1/28 10:20 am Tusker House Breakfast
1/29 7:15 pm California Grill Dinner
1/30 5:35 pm Flying Fish Dinner
1/31 5:00 pm Whispering Canyon Café Dinner
2/1 7:10 pm Boma Dinner
2/2 12:00 pm Sci Fi Dine-In Lunch
2/2 7:00 pm Artist Point Dinner
2/3 2:00 pm Garden View Tea Room Lunch/Tea (nodnol' birthday!)
2/3 7:30 pm Narcoossee’s Dinner (nodnol's birthday!)
2/4 7:15 pm Jiko Dinner
2/5 9:05 am Boma Breakfast

I kind of like how we start and end our vacation with breakfasts! :thumbsup2

We are also booked on the Wild by Design Tour on 1/29! :woohoo:

As nodnol just wrote to me on Skype: now it's time to start questioning our plans and redoing them... :rolleyes1 :laughing:

To a certain extent we might - I need to check Tourguide Mike's recommendations based on the now released park hours as well as any updates on touringplans. I have the feeling that we will just have to settle on touring the MK on a not perfect touring day... :confused3 But then I have always planned on this trip not focusing on the MK.
 
Hurray!...:woohoo:

Those are all excellent choices...I think you will be really pleased with everything you got...:thumbsup2


Changes? What Changes...?

Oh I see...you have been reading LL's trip report...hmmm...

so how many versions are you going to have...?:lmao:

(BTW-I do it too...especially when you read TGM...his recommendations sometimes come out later and make you want to changes things around...)
 

As nodnol just wrote to me on Skype: now it's time to start questioning our plans and redoing them... :rolleyes1 :laughing:

:lmao: Typical DISer fashion. :goodvibes

Congratulations on getting all your ADRs! I've heard a few nightmarish stories about the big ADR day, so it's great seeing your TA was able to get them ALL! :thumbsup2
 

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