DAY 0: Sunday May 13th
As a little precursor to our trip, we celebrated Mother's Day with my family in the New Orleans area. This served 2 purposes, the first of course being to celebrate Mother's Day, and the second to be closer to the New Orleans airport where we'd be flying out from the next morning. I started off the day with some Mickey shaped eggs and a biscuit from my wonderful DH.
We finished packing up our last minute things and got all of our bags into the car.
Luggage wise, we had one large and one medium suitcase to check, one carry-on suitcase, two backpacks, a camera bag, an overnight bag of stuff to use that night at my mom's house, plus our stroller, DS's carseat, our cat in her carrier, and flowers for our moms for mother's day. All squeezed into our little Honda Civic along with the three of us for the two hour drive to my parents' house! It was quite a smushed ride, but we made it.
DS had fun playing with my cousins, which was wonderful because it got him thoroughly tired out for that night in preparation for a VERY early morning!
We got him to bed a little later than normal, around 9 pm, in hopes that between that and getting up early, he'd sleep for most of the flight. DH and I went to bed not long after and definitely did not get a good night's sleep! Unfortunately, this is pretty typical at my parents' house for me, so I was not surprised. I don't know what it is about their house, but I cannot sleep well there! At 11 pm I was getting up to disable their two automatic fragrance dispensers because the little puffing noises every 9 minutes were driving me crazy. I think I fell asleep somewhere around midnight. And just in time, because our alarms were set for 4:30 am!
DAY 1: Monday May 14th
Our alarms went off not-so-bright & early Monday morning, and we immediately jumped into action. DH and I quickly got dressed and brushed our teeth before waking up DS. We got him dressed and made him a cup of milk and a piece of toast to take in the car, and we left for the airport by 5 am. My dad drove us in our car, so I was squished in the backseat next to DS in his carseat. It was a little uncomfortable, but it made it easier to give him the toast without making a mess!
We arrived at the airport at 5:30 am and it was a total mess! The line to check bags was stretching way out of the switchbacks and the nearby security line looked outrageous. I didn't think there was any way we'd make it on our flight! But we printed our boarding passes, checked our bags, and actually found out we needed a different terminal than the one with the insane security line. When we went over to the other terminal, the security line was MUCH more manageable! We made it to our gate with about 5 minutes to spare before family boarding started at 6:35 am. Just enough time to get a gate check tag for the stroller and fill Paxton's sippy cup with water from the fountain.
The three of us got onto the plane with family boarding and DH quickly got DS's carseat strapped into the window seat of our row.
Just as the plane started to take off, our hopes and dreams came true, and DS conked out! I was still pretty tired from running off just 4 hours of sleep, so I closed my eyes and tried to nap too. It was all going according to plan until about 30 minutes into the flight when the guy in the seat behind DS got up by pulling on DS's seat and woke him up.
Then he was awake for the rest of the flight, which was a total of 4 hours and 15 minutes. Luckily I had a backpack absolutely busting with stuff for him to do!
We worked our way through a couple of the toys, and he watched some Sesame Street on the iPad. After a little bit I had to switch seats with DH so that he could entertain DS and I could get more sleep because I was quickly running out of gas and I wanted to be able to enjoy our first day in Disneyland.
He got a little cranky on descent and absolutely refused to drink from his sippy cup, so that was a little frustrating, but we finally landed a little after 9 am California time. We took our time getting off the plane, and let most of the other people get off first since we had to unbuckle the carseat and get all of our bags. When we got off the plane, the three of us took a bathroom break since I had figured taking DS out of his carseat during the flight would be a bad idea unless absolutely necessary. By the time we made it down to baggage claim, the carousel had stopped running and our bags were nowhere in sight!
After a bit of a panic attack, we finally found an airline attendant off to the back who had pulled them off the carousel and was holding them there. Relieved, we gathered up our bags and headed out to wait for the shuttle to our rental car counter. Just as we were starting to think one was NEVER coming (meanwhile about a dozen buses for Hertz, Avis, National, etc had come and gone), an Advantage shuttle finally arrived and we were on our way...only to stand in ANOTHER long line to get the rental car! So long in fact, I had time to feed DS his lunch and he fell asleep in the stroller while waiting for DH to get through the line and finish the transaction.
We got out to the parking lot to find our car, a Nissan Altima.
At this point, the stress of trying to get all of the luggage and stroller to fit in the car was starting to get to DH. And unfortunately, I forgot to remind him to grab the directions to the resort from his backpack, and he had to practically take everything out of the trunk that he had just figured out how to get in to get them from his backpack. Oops.
But he was able to get everything to fit, and we were on our way to our resort.
It was about a 40 minute drive out to Anaheim, and DS slept for the last half. We actually passed Disneyland on the way to the resort, and it was so strange to see Tower of Terror and other attractions from the street! So different than WDW.
We arrived at Dolphin's Cove, and since DS was still sleeping, I stayed in the car with him while DH went inside to check-in and find out if our room was ready. Luckily, it was!! We drove around to our building and found our room on the second floor. DS was a little cranky to wake up, but he perked up as soon as we set him down inside and let him have run of the place!
The master bedroom
Living room
Living room, dining room, and small kitchen
It was not a huge unit by any means, but enough space for the three of us and our stuff, and it had everything we needed (except a dish sponge! One of these days I will remember to pack my own because so few Wyndham resorts have them!).
After unpacking our clothes and toiletries, we made a quick run to Target for groceries and stopped at Jack in the Box for lunch for myself & DH on the way back to the room to drop off the food. We repacked my backpack with stuff for the parks, and it was time to head out for our first look at Disneyland!
UP NEXT: A spooky start to the vacation