I'm NEVER staying home for March Break again! FINISHED 07/17 Just in time!

[DisneyFreak06]

Last year I didn't go anywhere during March break, and I hated it. The four previous breaks I'd been to Washington DC, a little trip within the Maritimes and Walt Disney World Twice. I had known that I was heading to Edmonton and Regina as well as to Spain in the summer, so it was the right choice, but it was very boring. Hearing all the other teachers talk about their trips... eugh!

The trip report:

March 16, 2012
The night before

March 17, 2012 Day of Departure
Part 1: All the travel delays you could ask for!
Part 2: We're FINALLY in the air again!
Part 3: MAJOR accident on the plane!
Part 4: I lost my passport!
Part 5: Howard Johnson by Disneyland Park
Part 6: Downtown Disney!

March 18, 2012 Day 1 (First Full Day!)
Part 1: Off to Neverland (um...Disneyland)
Part 2: Plaza Inn
Part 3: More Plaza Inn
Part 4: Still the Plaza Inn!
Part 5: Window Shopping!
[URL="http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=44700277&postcount=92"]Part 6: More window shopping[/URL]
Part 7: Waiting some more
Part 8: A Walk in Walt's Footsteps Tour (part of of many!
Part 9: A few more steps in Walt's Footsteps, and my first ride!
Part 10: Still taking steps with Walt!
Part 11: Walk a mile in Walt's Shoes
Part 12: We've walked more than a mile in Walt's Shoes
Part 13: The end of a great day!
Part 13b: The part where I need to add the last 2 pictures for the day!

Monday, March 19, 2012 (Second Full Day)
Part 1: Tour of Hollywood - and I find a Disney fix!
Part 2: On the Road again (Still on the Hollywood Tour)
Part 3: Lunch and the Santa Monica Pier (and the end of the tour)

Tuesday, March 20,2012 (Third Full Day)
Part 1: Walking down the middle of Main Street, USA
Part 2: Fantasyland!
Part 3: Trying to thaw out!
Part 4: Almost done of Fantasyland
Part 5: Storybookland Canal Boats
Part 6: It's a Small World
Part 7: Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage
Part 8: Tomorrowland
Part 9: A Practically Private Pirate Experience
Part 10: Haunted Mansion
Part 11: Browsing more shops!
Part 12: First visit to DCA!!!
Part 13: The Little Mermaid!
Part 14: An evening at DCA
Part 15: Last part of the day!
Part 16: The very last part of the day! (Finally!)

Wednesday, March 21, 2012 (fourth full day)
Part 1: Getting to the parks again
Part 2: Main Street, Space Mountain and starting the Tree House! Edited July 11, to add the missing pictures!
Part 3: Tarzan's Treehouse
Part 4: Tarzan's Treehouse part deux
Part 5: Splash Mountain?
Part 6: Winnie the Pooh
Part 7: The part with all the pictures I forgot to put in from earlier in the morning!
Part 8: IMPORTANT news and Pirates of the Caribbean
Part 9: Golden Horseshoe
Part 10: Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
Part 11: The signs of DCA
Part 12: Tower of Terror!
Part 13: The part with pictures from in between (and the 2nd) Tower of Terror rides!
Part 14: Pixar Pal's and A Bug's Land
Part 15: Mickey's Fun Wheel
Part 16: The Rest of the Mickey's Fun Wheel pictures and a funny story
Part 17: Redwood Creek Challenge
Part 18: Fireworks!

Thursday, March 22, 2012 (fifth full day)
Part 1: Oh no!
Part 2: Indiana Jones
Part 3: Following the herd to Toy Story
Part 4: Toy Story Midway Mania
Part 5: Shopping and Soarin' Over California
Part 6: DCA
Part 7: Solo again
Part 8: Still solo


Friday, March 23, 2012
Part 1: The start of our last full day
Part 2: The start of the parade
Part 3: The middle of the parade
Part 4: The end of the parade
Part 5: After the parade
Part 6: It's a Small World
Part 7: All Aboard!
Part 8: Another ride
Part 9: One more ride!
Part 10: Finally! Fantasmic!
Part 11: Fantasmic! Part zwei
Part 12: The end of my last full day at Disneyland!

March 24, 2012 (The last day!!!)
Part 1: Goofy's Kitchen
Part 2: Checking out of HoJo
Part 3: California Adventure time
Part 4: Aladdin
Part 5: More Aladdin
Part 6: Goodbye California Adventure
Part 7: Sleeping Beauty Castle Walkthrough and Goodbye Disneyland!
The last of my Disneyland visit. Goodbye Disneyland!



Daily purchase summaries: (for the shoppers among us!)
March 18, 2012
March 19, 2012
March 20, 2012
March 21, 2012
March 22, 2012
March 23, 2012
March 24, 2012

 

[DisneyFreak06]

So my friend (who has been to WDW with me twice, one shopping no parks trip and one park trip - see my TR) and I decided we could go somewhere together.

I am a teacher . Currently I teach French Immersion kindergarten, but I've taught almost every grade out there between my pre-service teaching and my contracts.

My friend, who we'll call Blanche for this TR, is a pediatric nurse.

We talked and debated doing WDW, DL, Disneyland Paris or a Disney cruise. We hmmmed and hawed and discussed and e-mailed for weeks. One day we had completely decided on DLP and I was so excited, having never been to France. The next day we changed our minds and picked DL. That evening, our hotel was booked.

We leave on Saturday March 17th arriving around noon. We leave the next Saturday around 10pm! We'll have an extra day!

We're staying in a Disney view room at the Hojo.

 

[Happy 2 B Me]

You will really like the DL view rooms at HOJO. Make sure you ask for a high room to get full view. When I stayed there the room was very clean, front desk staff very friendly, and housekeeping staff was friendly along with being very efficient with room needs. I will be taking a spring break trip via your report-- I am looking forward to haing lots of fun



Patty

 

[DisneyFreak06]

You will really like the DL view rooms at HOJO. Make sure you ask for a high room to get full view. When I stayed there the room was very clean, front desk staff very friendly, and housekeeping staff was friendly along with being very efficient with room needs. I will be taking a spring break trip via your report-- I am looking forward to haing lots of fun



Patty

Thanks! I am really excited to be staying at the Hojo in a Disney view room. We won't be in the rooms much, but when we are, we'll be looking out that balcony or sleeping!

 

[DisneyFreak06]

Our main focus will be Disneyland, but we have some other ideas too.

We are thinking of doing one or maybe two character meals. I was thinking maybe Goofy's Kitchen on the day we leave, and probably Minnie and Friends at the Plaza Inn. We like to do breakfast buffets. Has anyone eaten there? Do you enjoy them? We both love breakfast foods, and we know that buffets are not the greatest, but we haven't had any complaints with food at the buffets at WDW.

We are planning to shop at Downtown Disney on arrival day, and probably later in the week. We like to shop. We'll also take some time to go shopping at the Orangefair Marketplace because they have a Disney's Character Warehouse.

We keep going back and fourth between taking a day to go to Universal Studios. If I had more time, for sure, but our main reason for this trip is DL, not other things....

We will be taking a tour of Hollywood. We're not interested in the ones that do the celebrity homes, but more like the tours that do the city. We haven't decided completely on which tour yet, but we're researching. Does anyone have any experience with this?

We're thinking about doing a TV show recording while we're there. If possible one of these: Dancing with the Stars, America's Funniest Home Videos, Mike and Molly or the Price is Right.

We'll be doing both Disney parks and I love to take pictures, so there will be many on here for my TR. We'll be doing World of Color, Fantasmic and anything else! We are not sure if or when we'll ever get back to DL, so we want to experience as much as possible. I'm a little worried though, because before we left on our last trip, Blanche had gotten injured, and couldn't walk much or ride anything that jerked her around much. This was very upsetting for her as she loves the thrill rides, but had to sit them out while I rode. She is still not better, but she insists that she will be doing everything on this trip. Hopefully she will be able to! If not, we'll plan around that and take more breaks.

Feel free to make suggestions for us, give us tips and things not to miss. We are DL newbies after all!!!

 

[DisneyFreak06]

Blanche is coming over to plan today! I am getting more and more excited about this trip. Don't tell her, but I'm going to try to convince her to change hotels for one that is closer to the gates. If you read my 2010 TR, you'll see that there are times when she just can't walk at all. She physically cannot move. I'm thinking it will be a little easier if we're just outside the gates. It is not fun because we both really wanted to stay at the HOJO and we were very excited about it and the Disney view room. We'll see!

I may have some more information for you today, if we make any decisions at all!

 

[DisneyFreak06]

We decided to stay with the Hojo. I found out last night that my aunt and uncle stayed there a few years ago and they loved it. We've also read some comparisons here on the Disboards to the distance at WDW and it doesn't seem so bad. We love the look of it, so we're going to stay with what we had already decided.

We basically have our first day planned.

Fly out of local airport at 6am and land at LAX before noon. We'll take the Disneyland Express bus to Hojo.

We're going to leave our luggage and then head to DTD where we'll get some food (possibly La Brea Bakery or La Brea Bakery Express) and shop at the World of Disney Store until we can get in to our room. It's going to be really weird not shipping our things back to our room! We always do that at WDW.

We're then going to take the bus to the Orangefair mall to the Character Outlet store for some shopping, and probably take a taxi back.... we might have a few bags.

We will probably be tired so we'll eat at Mimi's and get some morning snacks in the store. We'll get to bed early but probably watch the fireworks from our balcony before bed!

Here are some other things we're looking into:

Walk in Walt's Footsteps tour (anyone do this? Opinions?)
Welcome to Disneyland tour (any opinions?)
Hollywood tour with Grayline
Minnie and Friends character breakfast at the Plaza Inn.
A Taping of the Ellen Show (although I still think DWTS would be awesome... we're just short on time.)

 

[DisneyFreak06]

I just (after two+ hours) got our park tickets ordered. I ordered through a Canadian company. We decided to go with 8 day hoppers, so we'll be able to go to the parks whenever we want. We know that most people say that 3 days is enough, but we love the rides, the shows, the atmosphere of Disney parks. We will not feel like it's too much. We also got a really great rate, less for the 8 days than the sale price Disney has for a six day hopper. And ours is in Canadian dollars, so we save even more!

 

[Mommy2PrincessAbby]

Your trip sounds great! Good call on the Ellen show--maybe you'll luck out and she'll be giving prizes the day you are there! And good call on the 8 day hoppers--with your dates during spring breaks, the parks will be busy and having every one of your days available will make it so much easier to relax even when it is crowded!

 

[DisneyFreak06]

Your trip sounds great! Good call on the Ellen show--maybe you'll luck out and she'll be giving prizes the day you are there! And good call on the 8 day hoppers--with your dates during spring breaks, the parks will be busy and having every one of your days available will make it so much easier to relax even when it is crowded!

We're so excited. We met today to discuss food again, but we just get off track talking about how much fun it's going to be! We think the 8 days is great as well, it will give us time to just relax in the parks if we feel like it. I really hope we can get Ellen tickets. I'll have to check as soon as possible on Monday morning as there are no tickets left for the week before already. They seem to disappear really quickly.

 

[IndayMichelle]

Walk in Walt's Footsteps tour (anyone do this? Opinions?)
Welcome to Disneyland tour (any opinions?)
Hollywood tour with Grayline
Minnie and Friends character breakfast at the Plaza Inn.
A Taping of the Ellen Show (although I still think DWTS would be awesome... we're just short on time.)

Subscribing! I usually just lurk when it comes to PTRs and TRs but I can't help it. You're from PEI and that's on my list of places to visit. My cousins and I are big Anne of Green Gables fans and hope to take a girls' trip there sometime.

The only DLR tours I've done are the holiday ones. But I did do a celebrity homes tour out of Hollywood. I loved it! We had a really wonderful driver/guide. I love to read Hollywood gossip and it was fun to see all of the locations and homes of the people you read about!

I've done the Plaza Inn character breakfast a few times now. The food isn't amazing, but there are so many characters! I've never seen as many characters at a character meal in WDW. In one breakfast we saw Minnie, Goofy, Chip, Dale, Eeyore, Captain Hook, Rafiki, and the Fairy Godmother! AND they have Mickey waffles, which is all one needs for morning sustenance IMO anyway

 

[DisneyFreak06]

Subscribing! I usually just lurk when it comes to PTRs and TRs but I can't help it. You're from PEI and that's on my list of places to visit. My cousins and I are big Anne of Green Gables fans and hope to take a girls' trip there sometime.

The only DLR tours I've done are the holiday ones. But I did do a celebrity homes tour out of Hollywood. I loved it! We had a really wonderful driver/guide. I love to read Hollywood gossip and it was fun to see all of the locations and homes of the people you read about!

I've done the Plaza Inn character breakfast a few times now. The food isn't amazing, but there are so many characters! I've never seen as many characters at a character meal in WDW. In one breakfast we saw Minnie, Goofy, Chip, Dale, Eeyore, Captain Hook, Rafiki, and the Fairy Godmother! AND they have Mickey waffles, which is all one needs for morning sustenance IMO anyway

Welcome! I'm glad you decided to come out of "lurkdom" and join in! I read all of the Anne books, so I understand why you'd love her. If you do come up, let me know and I'll try to help out with the planning. The Island is actually bigger than it seems, for starters, it's about a 5 hour drive from tip to tip. We have great beaches and lots of entertainment, especially in the summer. If you came in the winter, you might end up seeing this.

We thought about the celebrity home tour, but we decided on the one where it's a tour of Hollywood itself. We'll see the Chinese theater, the Farmer's Market, and much more. I think it's called the Hollywood/LA Experience. We found a link to it directly on the Hojo sight. I would love to do a holiday tour, but I guess, since it won't be the holidays, that will have to wait!

I can't wait to do the Plaza in breakfast! We like to see the characters and take pictures with them, but usually only during character meals. The food, we're okay with it, we usually like it! And we LOVE Mickey waffles.

 

[DisneyFreak06]

IndayMichelle, these are especially for you. In November, a friend of mine's father passed away, so I went to the wake during the afternoon. After the wake, I went to the beach I used to go as a child. I took my camera with me and snapped some shots of the beach. It was cold, and I didn't go in the water, but I did take some fun shots... You can see our red dirt in these.

Besides the first one, they're really straight from the camera. I probably should have touched them up some.... oops. Sorry!


Beach 3 by disneyfreak0306, on Flickr


Beach 1 by disneyfreak0306, on Flickr


Beach 2 by disneyfreak0306, on Flickr


Beach 4 by disneyfreak0306, on Flickr


Beach 5 by disneyfreak0306, on Flickr


Beach 6 by disneyfreak0306, on Flickr


Beach 7 by disneyfreak0306, on Flickr


Beach 8 by disneyfreak0306, on Flickr


Beach 9 by disneyfreak0306, on Flickr


Beach 10 by disneyfreak0306, on Flickr

 

[IndayMichelle]

IndayMichelle, these are especially for you.

I love! I can picture Anne Shirley holding hands with Gilbert Blythe on the top pf the bluff...

 

[I love Florida]

Hi Dorothy! (aka DisneyFreak06)
This is Blanche your traveling buddy! Love to read your "stories"! You do such a great job with the reports there is really nothing I can add to make them better! Can you believe we will be at Disneyland in less then 2 months! So exciting. And this trip better have me and a healthier hip/leg. We are going to walk in Walt's footsteps. We really did decide in a quick change of mind, but I know I can't wait to go on this trip...but we will miss our third "Golden Girl" Rose. We promised her a special treat. hee hee hee

 

[DisneyFreak06]

I love! I can picture Anne Shirley holding hands with Gilbert Blythe on the top pf the bluff...

Now that you've pointed that out, I can too! My friend put the Anne books on her Kobo (I think you can download them for free!) and I might be borrowing them during the trip. It's been a LONG time since I've read them.

 

[DisneyFreak06]

Hi Dorothy! (aka DisneyFreak06)
This is Blanche your traveling buddy! Love to read your "stories"! You do such a great job with the reports there is really nothing I can add to make them better! Can you believe we will be at Disneyland in less then 2 months! So exciting. And this trip better have me and a healthier hip/leg. We are going to walk in Walt's footsteps. We really did decide in a quick change of mind, but I know I can't wait to go on this trip...but we will miss our third "Golden Girl" Rose. We promised her a special treat. hee hee hee

OOPS! I guess it's been a while since I've been on here!

Hi Blanche! I can't wait. One month from today and we'll be doing the Walk in Walt's Footsteps tour! We will miss Rose, but we'll have fun! And we have SO much time!!! I can't wait!!!

 

[DisneyFreak06]

Hi everyone! (If anyone is still there! )

We didn't get any Ellen tickets.

We have changed a few things around. The day we arrive, we are going to check in, and assuming that our room is not ready, we will head leave our luggage at the hotel and head to DTD for food. Either La Breagh Bakery or maybe Rainforest Cafe. We've never eaten there before and it looks like fun.

We will have to get our tickets too, our 8 day park hoppers are all good.

We'll do some shopping (and picture taking) and then head back to the hotel to put our things in our room. I can take my camera to DTD but I don't feel like taking it to the Outlet.

We'll head to the Disney Character Warehouse next to do some shopping there. Not at the other stores, just the Disney outlet. (Have you noticed anything yet?)

We may or may not (depending on how tired we are) head in to DL for a little bit. Otherwise, it will be supper at Mimi's and then bed... and fireworks from the balcony if we can manage to stay up.

On Sunday we have the Walk in Walt's footsteps tour. We will probably head back to the room to rest, because we're planning to hit DL for Fantasmic and some rides, trying to last as long as we can. It is a four hour time difference, so it might be hard to last until midnight.

As of today, the plan is to do the Tour of Hollywood on Monday, some other shopping at the Citadel Outlets (Any opinions?) on Friday morning, and to focus on the parks, DTD and the Disney hotels through the rest of the week.

We will do lots of rides, see as many shows as possible, and do tons of shopping. When we did a 3 day shopping trip to WDW (no parks, just shopping at an outlet mall, DTD and Disney hotels) I spent about $100. That was July 2009, and then in Aug 2009, I went to WDW to do the parks, and spent another $1000. My visa was a little worn in after that!!!

I plan on being pickier this trip, but still shopping!

And as far as taking pictures, I have a DSLR and I love to take pictures. I'm not the best, but I take TONS. Since I've gone digital, I have taken over 9000 pictures in Disney, and I've only been digital on my last three trips. I have a feeling I'll take more than 9000 pictures on this trip alone. I hope you all like pictures!

 

[DisneyFreak06]

Here is our latest plans:

Saturday, March 17

Land at LAX, take Disneyland Express Bus to HOJO. (booked and pre-paid!)
Check in to HOJO, leave bags there (assuming room is not ready) and take camera, heading to DTD. Pick up park tickets. Maybe check to see if we can buy the coupon booklet thingy. Lunch at either Rainforest Cafe or La Breagh Bakery. Shop & pictures at DTD.

Head back to hotel, take things to room. Take ART to the Character Wharehouse store, either ART or taxi back depending on what we buy!

Supper at Mimi's (probably) and if we have energy we'll head to DL for a little visit. We probably won't because of the 4 hour time difference, so we'll watch fireworks and drink hot chocolate on the balcony before bed.

Sunday:

7:10 breakfast at Minnie and Friends! (booked)
9:30 Walk in Walt's Footsteps tour (booked)

We'll probably head back to rest after the tour, but we'll see. We hope to be in the park for the second showing of Fantasmic. I have ridemax, so we'll decide which area of the park we'll want to ride some rides in and plan it then. We've decided that since we have so much time, we'll visit the parks by sections. (And it helps Blanche since she has the whole hip/leg thing going on)

Monday:

Hollywood/LA bus tour. (booked)

Probably head to DL for fireworks

Tuesday:

Morning Madness - we'll focus on Fantasyland, because we do like to ride almost everything.

Stay in the park a while longer. Maybe head back to hotel for a break. We would love to see WOC Tuesday night, so I'll have to head over to get our fastpasses.

We may or may not head back to DL after WOC.

Wednesday:

We would like to eat breakfast at La Breagh Bakery and then head to DCA for a bit.

Thursday:

Plaza Inn for lunch at some point.

Friday:

Citadel outlets for the morning. We have a list of stores we want to hit and we're trying to keep it short. Without the third Golden Girl, we won't feel the shopping as much.

We will be in the parks in the evening for sure.

Saturday:

9:00 breakfast at Goofy and Friends

We'll visit the parks, see shows we haven't seen or want to see again, ride the attractions we want to re-ride etc.

Our flight home leaves at around 9:30 or 10:00pm so we'll see what time the Disneyland Express bus picks us up.

That's all for now. We do want to ride as many things as we can and see as many shows as we can, eat as much lovely snacks and food as we can and shop as much as we can.... and I'll take as many pictures as I can too!!!

Less than three weeks!!!

 

[tksbaskets]

I'm in! I'm looking forward to hearing all about your adventures, especially the Walk with Walt tour!

Sounds like a fun agenda!
TK